Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Nicole LePera on How to Be the Love You Seek EP 378

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

In this insightful episode of the Passion Struck podcast, host John R. Miles is joined by Dr. Nicole LePera, a #1 New York Times bestselling author and pioneer in holistic psychology. Dr. LePera’s insights from her book, "How to Be the Love You Seek," serve as a guide for listeners to develop self-awareness, emotional resilience, and heart coherence, ultimately leading to more compassionate and mutually respectful relationships. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/dr-nicole-lepera-on-how-to-be-the-love-you-seek/  Passion Struck is Now Available for Pre-Order Want to learn the 12 philosophies that the most successful people use to create a limitless life? Get over $300 in free gifts when you pre-order John R. Miles’s new book, Passion Struck, which will be released on February 6, 2024. Sponsors Brought to you by OneSkin. Get 15% off your order using code Passionstruck at https://www.oneskin.co/#oneskinpod. Brought to you by Indeed: Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed dot com slash PASSIONSTRUCK. Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/ Inner Healing for Outer Connections: Dr. Nicole LePera’s Revolutionary Approach Dr. LePera, renowned for her holistic approach to psychology, explores how our early relationships shape our current interactions and internal states. She emphasizes the importance of addressing our own emotional needs and healing from within to foster healthy, fulfilling relationships. The conversation covers the paradox of how our protective mechanisms from past traumas can hinder our ability to form deep connections. Catch More of Passion Struck My solo episode on Why We All Crave To Matter: Exploring The Power Of Mattering: https://passionstruck.com/exploring-the-power-of-mattering/ Listen to my interview with Amy Morin On How You Become A Mentally Strong Couple: https://passionstruck.com/amy-morin-how-to-become-a-mentally-strong-couple/ Catch my interview with Arthur Brooks On The 4 Ways To Build The Life You Want: https://passionstruck.com/arthur-brooks-4-ways-to-build-the-life-you-want/ My solo episode on The 6 Key Steps To Bold Risk-Taking For Personal Growth: https://passionstruck.com/6-key-steps-to-bold-risk-taking/ Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How to Connect with John Connect with Johnon Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to uncover your profound sense of Mattering? I provide my master class on five simple steps to achieving it. Want to hear my best interviews? Check out my starter packs on intentional behavior change, women at the top of their game, longevity, and well-being, and overcoming adversity. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

coming up next on passion strike. I think sometimes there's a bit of misinterpretation in terms of what is meant by self love. Self-love is grounded in the ability to be present to all of ourself. Inside and outside of those more positive feelings or positive moments or positive loving gestures. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armeyles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets,

tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews interviews the rest of the week

with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 378 of PassionStruck. Ranked by Apple is the number one alternative health podcast. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly. But listen and learn, it had a better, better, and impact the world. I am so excited to announce that my new book, Passion Struck, is now available for pre-order,

and you can find it at Amazon Barnes & Noble or wherever you purchase books. It is also featured prominently on the Passion Struck website. Starting in December, I will be using my solo episodes to discuss different aspects of the book, leading up to its launch, and in January, I'm going to have different guests while I feature in the book on the program as well. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for joining us, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans, favorite episodes that we organize in the convenient topics.

I give any new listener right way to get acclimated everything we do here on the show. Either go to spotifyrapassionstruck.com, slash starder packs to get started. In case you missed it, last week I had three great interviews. The first was with Amy Moran, who's a psychotherapist, international bestselling author, five books on mental strength,

and an acclaimed keynote speaker who gave one of the most popular TED talks of all time on the secret to becoming mentally strong. In our interview, we discuss how to be mentally strong as couples. We also talk about how to avoid unhealthy habits that can hold a spank in life. I also interview Drew Plotkin, author of Under My Skin.

Drew discusses the rollercoaster ride that has been his life and the painful secrets of this past, along with his own techniques and tools for continuously navigating life's never-ending thrill of valleys and peaks. And lastly, I had on Matthew Wine, Trevor Heeler, Psychedelic activist, scholar and entrepreneur. Matthew presents his groundbreaking book, The Psychedelic Origin of Religion. In this interview we explore the profound ties that bind psychedelics and shamanism to the tapestry of all world religions. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews and if you love today's episode or any of those other three. We were to appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see the comments and our listeners and those ratings and reviews

go such a long way and bring more people into the passion of our community. In today's episode, we explore the essence of our connections and their profound impact on our lives. I am so honored to have Dr. Nicole LaPera, a number one New York Times bestselling author and illuminate in holistic psychology. Today, our journey begins with a fundamental truth. Human survival is deeply intertwined with relationships.

Our bodies and minds are innately designed to seek connection. However, these essential bonds, while nurturing, can also be the source of our deepest anguish. Dr. LaPera unravels how our nervous systems imprinted with astramas and disappointments. Paradoxically, prepare us for threat and negativity, while our hearts yearn for compassionate connections. For years, relationship advice has hinged on the idea of compromise, altering our authentic selves to fit the needs of others. While seemingly logical,

Dr. LaPera argues that this conventional wisdom is a direct path to lifelong resentment, and her groundbreaking book, How to Be the Love You Seek, she proposes an alternate path. Healing our relationships by first addressing the relationship we have with ourselves. This episode promises to be a transformative experience as Dr. LaPera guides us through her holistic approach. She illuminates how unmet needs from our earliest relationships shape for current dysfunctional patterns,

often leaving us in a state of internal threat, even with those we hold dear. How to be the love you seek is not just a book, it's a beacon of hope for anyone struggling with relationships. Whether it's challenges with a spouse partner, family member, friend, or colleague, Dr. Laparra's insights offer a healing roadmap. Listeners will discover how to create safety within themselves, recognize unmet needs, develop emotional resilience, and cultivate deep meaningful connections through heart coherence.

In our interview, we delve into these transformative concepts, replete with practical tools, stories, exercises, and journal prompts offering a conference of guide for all seeking to break cycles of pain and embrace a life of peace and healing. Join us as we embark on this lightning journey with Dr. Nicole LaPera as she teaches us to tap into our hearts and hate capacity for love. Becoming the very essence of the love we seek. Thank you for choosing passion, start and choosing me to be your host and guy on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely stoked today and honored to have the one and only Dr. Nicole LaPara on passion

struck. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me, John. I'm honored to be here. You told me before you got on the show that you did a little bit of recon on me. And I did a little bit of recon on you. I found out that we're both from Pennsylvania. You grew up in Philadelphia and I grew up outside of Philly in York slash Lancaster. And I have to ask, are you an Eagles fan? Of course, I am. Of course, actually would travel out to Lancaster to get some farm fresh meat and all of the things

when I was more recently had moved back to Philadelphia. But yes, of all the sports football would be the one that I say most closely connected to and absolutely Eagles. I moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, about 11, almost 12 years ago now. And about nine years ago, I happened to be out and ran into five or six other Eagles fans. And we created something that's called Birds of Burg here. And it started out with six to eight of us within three or four years. It was up to 50 or 60.

It now has 1,400 members. And our games are so crowded that I can't even go to them anymore because you can't get a seat. That is so incredible. I love when I see people walking around in any of the really filled up your team gear. I always make it a point to shout out my agreement. Well, go birds. So, well, Nicole, I thought we would start out today. A lot of people understand traditional psychology, but could you explain what holistic psychology means and how it's different?

Holistic psychology, I think for those of us who are familiar with the more traditional sense of the word for me, that was really an over emphasis on the mind, with the gold standard being in the traditional world, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is really built around this idea that we changed the way we think about certain things. Ultimately, we were able to change the way we feel and then what it is that we do. And after having practiced in that kind of somewhat of a traditional sense, overemphas emphasizing the power of insight and awareness, having created my own practice living in Philadelphia at the time and several

years in where I had the opportunity to work with the same clients a week after a week, year after year at that point. And I started to feel really disempowered and the work that I was doing professionally. I'm also disempowered in my personal life because I continued to see myself and all the clients that I was working with struggle to what I say is build that bridge from insight into action to take the things that we were talking about week after a week and to begin to create change and whatever it is, the area that they were looking to create change, right?

Minimize the symptoms, shift their dynamics and relationships and feeling really disempowered, seeing myself continue to experience frequent anxiety, to struggle feeling disconnected in my relationships. I think I did is the lifelong learner in me typically does, I went online, and I was like, what is going on here? Why are we all so stuck? Why can I help people create the change that I want to be able to help them? Ultimately, that is when I was met with a whole new range for me of information that began to include conversations about the body, about our nervous system in particular,

about our physiology. Instead of just emphasizing the conscious mind or those logical and insightful moments, I really began to look at the deeper subconscious mind and all of those Increate habits and patterns that are keeping us stuck and that's when I really began to define what I was doing by using that label holistic because what that means to me is, of course, we're still honoring the powerful mind that we each have access to, though we're entrowing the body as part of our conversation, understanding how to care for the body. And really, I think that model gives us the opportunity to understand on a deeper level why it is that we're stuck. And it gives us then access to more tools in terms of being able to create the change that we're looking for. Well, thank you for that background. And today, we're going to be going into a deep dive of your brand new book. For those who are watching this on YouTube, you'll see it right behind

Nicole's shoulders, but it's called How to Be the Love You Seek. Break Cycles, Find Peace, and heal your relationships. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I'm super. And again, I just want to thank everyone listening. It really is the community who's interested in these conversations that gives me the opportunity to put out pieces of work in the form of a book and for me so much of my work I hope can help and impact other people and create change in their own lives. For those listeners who might be familiar with your other two how-to books, can you explain how this book complements the other two in this three book series? I think again, like I was saying this book, for me was just an intuitive next step. I have the idea that many of us were on a journey of self-awareness or exploration

and my first book, How to Do the Work, really talked about that, really becoming present to all of these unconscious habits and patterns that are defining this very habitual way of being and of course my hope is to empowering many of us to begin to make new choices and begin to create change. I saw in myself and again, and the clients that I was working with, I did a lot of work with couples, a lot of work with families, really observing and trying to help empower changes in

dynamics between people. And I think that ultimately relationships becomes our point of focus, where many of us have created incredible change in our own individual experiences, yet we continue to struggle as even the subtitle that you read aloud, right, to break the cycles that many of us have seen and lived within our families. And many of us continue to have many dysfunctional patterns within our relationships.

So my own journey really reflected that, continuing to see myself struggle subconsciously with moments of reactivity or disconnection in my relationships, continuing to feel not really connected, not really emotionally fulfilled in my relationships. Wanted to, of course, understand why and seeing the same in the clients that I was working with. No amount of conversation in the sessions was really helping the couples that I was seeing create change. So for me, it's again, the next extension

that many I think readers were looking for. Now that I'm still struggling in my relationships, what can I ultimately do about it? Though I do wanna say, cause I get asked quite often in the context of a version of this question, well, do you have to read them all or sequentially? And ultimately, the answer is no. I've created all of the different works to be really stand alone. So anyone out there who's struggling in any relationship or who is struggling alone in relationship

with themselves or struggling to find and maintain a relationship, I think that within the book are a lot of helpful insights and awarenesses of why you might be struggling in those ways, and then, of course, many resources to begin to create change. Thank you for that. And I'm going to start with chapter one. In it, you discuss the concept of unconscious choices that we make in our relationships.

And you highlight how we often fall in love or surround ourselves with people based on how to acknowledge needs or as you were just talking about familiar patterns from our earliest experiences. How can a listener today be more aware of their own subconscious decision-making process and their relationships? I think becoming even just aware of what you're kind of wisdom that you're really sharing here, which is that there are patterns that are driving us in our relationships. That awareness, I think, is key because many of us, we feel

disinpower, right? We feel very reactive. We feel like the world others are happening to us, what they're doing, what they're not doing. And we don't have a sense of the role we're playing, what they're not doing, and we don't have a sense of the role we're playing, the role more specifically, those subconscious habits and patterns are playing. And in our earliest relationships and our earliest environment, we do become very habituated to whatever needs we're being tended to consistently or not. And we as very adaptive creatures have learned ways to show up within those environments to maintain to whatever extent they were available, the connections that we were physically dependent on in childhood and emotionally dependent on because again,

our nervous systems in that kind of body-based part of the conversation are developing well throughout our 20s even. So we're driven, all of us are driven, our nervous systems in particular are driven to prefer the familiar. So really simply the way that we show up in our day-to-day life, from everything from how we care for our own physical bodies, our nervous systems, how we learn how to soothe or turn to the support of others to help us navigate our stressful or upsetting emotions, and really just how we learn to be ourselves when in connection with other people really is based on the imprint of what it is that we had to do and more often the not for most of us how it is that we had to adapt in our early childhood. So once we have that understanding, and we begin to become conscious and present to ourselves in our day to day life, beginning to observe how it is that I'm caring

for my physical body. Am I even connected to the fact that I'm in a physical body to be in care of it? What about in terms of my emotional world? What do I do with my emotions? Do I suppress them and ignore them? Like they're not happening or do I erupt from them and become reactive?

Or am I able to be grounded and to share them with another and to receive support from another person? Am I able to be who I am when I'm in connection or in relationship for others? And imagining many of you listening might not be safe and grounded and connected to your body and in control or at least responsive to your emotions and being who you are, you're probably like the large majority of us. We're not tending to our physical needs.

We're shoving our emotions, right, under the table or trying to ignore them or as I talk about in the book, we're not showing up as who we are, we're showing up more based on our, what I call a conditioned self. Right. We might be the caretaker taking identity of this way of caring for others around us. For me, I know I became really achievement focused. I wasn't necessarily expressing who I was. I was expressing an aspect of my personality. And again, all of that came back to how I learned to feel safe and secure in my earliest environment. So as I'll always do, I'll break the stage of change.

How do I change or transform what it is that I'm doing, my dynamics and relationships. And the first step will always be become conscious. What are the habits and patterns that are coloring your current life? And then that creates the opportunity to begin to make some new choices. For many of us those new choices mean reconnecting with my body, making sure that I'm tending to its physical needs. It's needs for nutrients, it's needs for movement, it's needs for rest, it needs for calming, grounding breath that helps us to be responsive in those moments.

So then care for my emotional needs, attuning to what's actually happening for me emotionally, not ignoring it, pretending it's not there, learning how to express those emotions to the world around us, and ultimately how to be who it is that we are, not the conditioning that we learned we had to be to keep ourself connected to those around us. I have my own book coming out here in a few months,

and in it, I go through my personal experience, and I'm gonna get into yours here in a few moments, but I discuss this concept that so many of us today are hiding behind a mask of pretense. We're pretending to be someone that we're not, and I found myself similar to the way that you're describing doing just that. I was absorbed in this achievement culture because I guess I never felt safe from the time that I was a kid

of being authentically myself. And so I thought the way to prove that to myself was through constant achievement. And I remember reaching the pinnacle of at that point, what I aspired to be, which was a sea level at a Fortune 50 company. And I had achieved this yet felt this profound sense of emptiness inside and numbness and just disconnection to who I am. And I think so many of the listeners today probably feel that same

stuckness. And it wasn't until I went to a career coach who happened to also be a therapist that he really brought forth this analogy to me that I had been living my life on a stool that had one pillar underneath it, and that was this constant pursuit of success. But I was ignoring other pillars that needed to be there as you were describing, such as your emotions and your physical health and your mental health and your spiritual health and your relationship well-being. Do you find this same scenario often comes up in people that you are helping? Congratulations John on your upcoming book and thank you for

gifting myself and your listeners with your own journey and I'm sure as you did within the book as well I think it's so helpful when we begin to pull our own mask off especially in such a public way as I know, it's equally as difficult. And ultimately, I'm in gratitude to you, because I don't know if you had the same experience I know I did similarly coming to the end of this list of achievements, achieving the greatest degree possible in my field, getting the PhD, having this successful practice, having the committed relationship, being living near my family, which was very important to me at the time,

I felt a lot of shame when I didn't feel, as I imagined the world felt, I ought to feel, which is good about myself, right? When I felt that same sense of emptiness and even disconnection from the life that I had spent so many years indebted to creating, I shamed myself for a bit of time. And I'm saying that to say,

because I think especially when we are achievement driven in a society, not bringing in the larger context that I believe I call it urgency culture because I think that there's a lot that is celebrated in society that is in opposition to our natural way of being, our natural emotional needs, our natural physical needs, though it's celebrated to some extent. So saying that to say and simply answer your question, I think a lot of us, when I've worked with, individually with a lot of people, and now in my community membership, self-healer circle, there are a lot of people that are feeling that same sense of emptiness that might be shaming themselves, right,

because they're looking at the world around them or even what they've created for themselves in their own individual lives, and they're not feeling that sense of connection or a fulfillment or joy or creativity, right? They're feeling that sense of emptiness that both you and I are. And I just wanted to mention the society piece because a lot that celebrate it in our daily societies out there, the long hours that we were, the keeping our self endlessly busy, like this idea that we're always needing to be driven toward output and not ever taking moments to rest, to recharge, to replenish,

to plant the seeds, if you will, to use a metaphor, right? Let alone to grow and produce the seeds at some later time, which is our natural and human existence, is to be much more on a creativity cycle, moments of rest, not just being driven by the hour the day, because that's how that's what I'm doing at work, or the amount of hours that some of us are required to work, or the amount of obligations that many of us have to tend to outside of the community support in which are ancestors, inherently living in groups much more had access to support, not always needing to be the single sole physical caretaker, financial caretaker, and everything in between. Again, saying that to say, I think a lot of us are being driven by condition patterns that have been either have valued us within our individual families or even have valued

us within our more societal families, so to speak, that are very much at odds. And I think for many of us, like I said, creating a lot of shame when we don't feel as we imagine we ought to feel when we're living in alignment with those values. I'm going to jump into your own personal story. And this again is right up in chapter one. You talk about your shifting perspective on romantic relationships and you start out with your first relationship in high school and then you go through a series of them culminating into you marrying Vivian at the same time you were undergoing

intense psychoanalytical training and during this time you realized the emotional disconnect in your marriage and you started opening up strangers about deep feelings and relationship dynamics. How did this really profound and I would have to guess at the time, very emotional experience for you, like open up your understanding of your own emotional connection and relationships and what advice from that experience would you give to others who find themselves in a similar situation? from that experience, would you give to others who find themselves in a similar situation? So since that that first relationship that you're citing, which for me was in high school, I think I was one what we traditionally now call a serial monogamous, meaning I was more or less,

always in a relationship, like there would be several months between a relationship ending and you'll be finding another partner and then into the next committed relationship I would go. Ultimately, in all of the relationships, up until my more recent one, which was post-Vivian, my number one experience, and ultimately complaint, that would often lead to the end of the relationship that I would have for all of my partners beginning with that first one is, I don't feel emotionally connected to you.

I don't have this step that I felt like I was looking for and wanting. And I think what I was trying to say, meaning was a deep emotional authentic connection with you. And for decades, before this moment in time, where I was married to Vivian, an undergoing in my own, I'm not only training to be a psychoanalyst in my own psychoanalytics, so laying on the couch with my own analyst being in a group environment with other training analysts around me exploring my own dynamics with others, which is when I began to share more of myself emotionally, I was complaining that I was disconnected from my partners and ultimately putting the blame on them. I must be picking the wrong person who can't connect with me the way that I'm looking for off I would go to trying to find a more perfect partner where I wouldn't

feel that way inevitably sometime down the road. I would end up feeling that way again. And it wasn't until this kind of moments because it's still an ongoing process for me where I began to look at the role I was playing. Right, instead of saying, well, it's the wrong person I'm picking, which I think is really natural. As I kind of intro in the book, I think a lot of us, right, are looking for this more perfect or ideal partner where we won't feel or where our needs will be met in a different way. And I wasn't necessarily looking at the role I might be playing, more specifically, my subconscious and habits and patterns might be playing

in why I so consistently feel emotionally disconnected. And when I started to become aware of, because I think is all thing, it's not, at least for me, it's not a light bulb moment of, oh, all this awareness, and I just knew everything I was doing or not doing, it was a gradual kind of shifting into, okay, what is this role I'm playing? And I came to realize that if I really want to simplify it,

the reason why I didn't feel emotionally connected with any of my partners beginning with that first partner was actually something that first partner told me near the end of our relationship. And he had said to me that he felt me to be emotionally unavailable. Now at this time, I was blown away because I didn't feel emotionally unavailable.

I thought he was inaccurate in that assessment. And it can't be me. It must be you, I'm only emotionally unavailable because you're not able to give me what I need emotionally. And it took me up until I heard something similar in that group analysis that I was in. So again, we would sit around a room,

we would explore and share our experiences of the other analysts in the room. And one of the colleagues that I very much respected at that time, one of the sessions describes me as cold and aloof. Again, shook me to my core. I didn't feel cold. I didn't feel aloof.

I had a lot of feelings, overwhelming feelings at the time, though I had the possibility now where I started to try on for size, the reality that maybe there was something in both of those assessments. And the reality that I continued to create, which began in my first relationship with my mother, who wasn't able to be emotionally attuned to me to create the safe and secure relationship where I could be curious and explore my own feelings. And she wasn't able to attune to me in those moments where I was having big emotions. The reality that I continued to recreate was,

I was emotionally unavailable. I wasn't emotionally available to myself because I was so overwhelmed in my body and ill-equipped, physiologically, to deal with all of the upsetting emotions, I began to do what naturally all of our nervous systems will do if you're overwhelmed with stress consistently enough over time, which is you'll begin to disconnect or to dissociate. I call it in my first book how to do the work I call it living on my spaceship. So much like I was being told in my romantic relationships, I wasn't emotionally connected to myself. Yet I was holding all of my partners responsible

for the very real lack of emotional connection that I was feeling, not seeing all of the moments I was suppressing my emotions or disconnecting from my emotions, or not sharing what I really felt because I was so focused on pleasing you keeping the relationship not being needy as I or a burden as my language in my mind Just again, I felt in childhood when my mom of no fault of her own was unable to be emotionally present to me So that was again a groundbreaking shift of awareness to be emotionally present to me. So that was again, a groundbreaking shift of awareness that the role I was playing in terms of my emotional disconnection was being emotionally

disconnected, feeling unsafe expressing myself emotionally, feeling unable to receive the support that was maybe available around me. And so as I began to come to that awareness and began to have those conversations, I was able to, of course, have very many difficult conversations in my marriage at that time and ultimately make the choice to end that relationship and continue on my journey of reconnecting with myself emotionally so that if and when, as I did enter into new romantic relationships, I was actually someone who was available for emotional connection. As I was reading your book, I happened to be reading

Gabby Bernstein's most recent book at the same time. And I found there to be a lot of parallels between them. I'm not sure if you've read her most recent book. One of the topics she both get into is worthiness. I will just talk about hers for a second because you were talking about how we often start finding ourselves living this life that's not our own. And so because of that, when we get disconnected, like you and I felt and Gabby felt herself, you end up starting to do things to self-comfort. That could be excessive work,

it could be excessive eating, it could be drinking, it could be drug use, it could be whatever. But I think the point there is that we don't feel that self-love, we don't feel worthy of it. I think an important thing that you brought up is that you're not going to have this emotional availability until you love yourself because that self-love allows you to open up and expose

yourself and all that you are to someone else. I'm not sure how you think about that, but that's how I have felt it, and I know that's how Gabby expresses it in her book. When I think about or when I hear about a read about a concept of self love, it can be quite a popular conversation. I think sometimes there's a bit of misinterpretation in terms of what is meant by self love. I think naturally when we think of self love, we think of all the positive feelings that we could have about ourselves, liking ourselves, being in celebration of ourselves, doing nice things for ourselves. Though what

I've come to learn is that self love is much more than that. Self love is grounded in the ability to be present to all of ourself. Inside and outside of those more positive feelings or positive moments or positive loving gestures, if you will. I'm intentionally beginning there and just going to tie this into to worthiness in childhood when we're completely dependent on someone else to physically care for us to keep us physically alive and our nervous systems who are still in that state of development are dependent on another nervous system to help us what's called co-regulate or really simply to go from stress or in distress where when an infant is crying when needs to be soothed

maybe because there's a physical need they're hungry they're thirsty they're tired they're no need to be changed or whether there's emotional need they're feeling stressed they're upset no toddler for whatever reason. So in that state of development, when we need someone else to show up to meet our physical needs, to help our body down, regulator calm down, when it's upset or in distress, our nervous system and our brain in particular, which is still developing,

our nervous system's developing actually upwards until our 20s. Mentally, we're in a developmental stage as called egocentric stage, from birth until around age seven or age eight. And when we're in that state, which is a much more immature state of development, we really want to simplify what egocentric means, it means the world revolves around us. As our mind will always do, seeking to understand the world around us,

make meaning of the world around us, make meaning of the world around us. Right. When a caregiver is not able to be physically or emotionally consistently present. Now, any parents out there, this isn't the one off where you're sick and you're not able to be physically present because you're in your room getting better or where emotionally there's a few couple days where you're under stress from work or for whatever and you're not able to be fully emotionally attuned to your kids. This is when more consistently than not, you're not able to be present to physically or emotionally meet the child's needs. The way their immature brain will make sense of it, they can't like you and I can do right now, genre, from a mature perspective zoom out and understand that, oh, the parent is sick. This has nothing to do with me in the moment or the parent is working for the family or maybe something's going on in their parents life

emotionally. And their lack of availability is nothing to do with me. Right. We gain that ability as we mature in that childhood, the world revolves around me state. We assign a self-focused meaning, meaning again, I'm going to simplify this. When my parents not able to be consistently present to meet my needs physically or emotionally, it must be something inherently wrong with me or beautifully brought up, I must not be worthy of having those needs met, I must not be lovable. one who is available or needing or can receive the love and the support and the connection, right? There must be something wrong with me. And then because we're dependent on getting our needs met and being in relation with these individuals, that's when we start to modify who it is that we are, how it is that we're showing up, right? In this level of attunement, assuming that there's something wrong with me, I'll get really perceptive and aware of what I imagine cause mom or dad to be,

or whoever the caregiver might be, to be unavailable to me. I will continue to assume there's something wrong with me and continue then to modify myself and my relationships to make sure that I'm someone who's worthy of love and worthy of connection. Even though at my core, I don't feel that way today. And again, all of this belief, all of this habitual way of being gets wired into our subconscious,

becomes familiar, that familiar zone as we age and we do have that awareness to zoom out. Our mind still assumes or assigns those same filters. Our body still feels most comfortable in certain emotions and certain habitual behaviors. And we continue to repeat these patterns. Some of us taking them on as our identity. Right. I'm a caretaker who's always in care of others. This is the only way I know my identity. Right. I'm a pleaser. I'm always just here to service the world, right? Or I'm an overachiever, or maybe I'm on other side of it. I'm an underachiever.

I'm someone who's meant to be in the background of all of my relationships and not be a burden, right? Not need anything. And then that becomes how we identify and how we know ourselves, which wrapping this conversation full circle, is why we're so stuck. Because some of us aren't even aware of those very early adaptations, what we had to do. The

beliefs now that we have about ourselves, most of us of adults, somewhere down the line or kind of if you dive into or dig into our beliefs, do believe that we're on worthy unless we show up in a certain way, or unless we don't show a certain aspect of ourself and then driven by those beliefs driven by our nervous systems desire to be in those familiar neurobiological patterns before we know what we are stuck, even if we gain insight and awareness and desire to create change. Hearing you just talk about that brought up to me two other concepts that you bring up in the book that you alluded to in your answer. One is the ego story and the other is empowerment consciousness. I wanted to ask you about both.

So how does that ego story from childhood influence our adult relationships if you could expand upon that? And then what is this empowerment consciousness and how can it help reshape our self-worth? I appreciate this question, John, because these two concepts are quite connected. So I believe at our core, when I cite it that I'm unworthy, I think most of us have that as our core ego story. There's a sense of unworthiness. There's usually maybe something that comes after that. As we begin to become more conscious or simply pay attention to the way that we're narrating our life or the meanings that our subconscious mind is assigning to our daily events or our happenings or our roles in our relationship. We'll begin to get a sense based on how repetitively we do tell

ourselves the same stories or we tend to assign the same meanings to the events or the happenings in our life, a sense of kind of what might come after that, right? I'm unworthy if I'm not achieving. I think I don't know if you can relate to that one. I know that was a big one of my own. For me, another similar ego story. And again, I just noticed this. What was coming up in my mind as things were happening around me, particularly things that I was becoming upset by. And in my relationships, I started to pay attention to the meaning that I was assigning when partners, right, would do or not do whatever it was that was happening or not happening in our day to day life. My mind,

because our mind is always just like in childhood, trying to make sense of the world around us. The repetitive language that I would hear in my mind is, I'm not considered. And I would say that and assign that meaning, right? My partner did this to me, well, they did this because they're not considering me and my needs in this moment, what they didn't do, whatever it was, they didn't do. They didn't do this because they're not considering me and my needs in this moment, or they didn't do whatever it was they didn't do. They didn't do this because they're not considering me and my needs in the moment. And so our mind again, the ego story is really based in those earliest interpretations.

So from what I've shared of my story right now, right? Having this emotionally unavailable mother, who was only able to see me that the moments my mom was most present was when she was in celebration of my achievements, whether it was academic or athletic. So they came that version of the core belief, right? I'm only worthy when I'm doing something that is being celebrated, that is being seen and celebrated by someone else, coupled with the next common narrative, equally as common, I should say, I'm not being consider why because while my mom was very physically able, present and able to care for my physical existence emotionally, she just like I developed the habit

to be was a million miles away on her own spaceship in her state of disconnection. She was not able to consider my emotional needs or again, my more full self expression outside of these moments of achievement, almost confirming what I believe to be true in that very early immature developmental stage, I continued to put that filter even in the moment where it wasn't the case that whatever was done or wasn't done was not a reflection of my partner's lack of consideration for me. It might have had nothing to do with me in those moments similar to as it had nothing to do with me in childhood. Yet I was still assigning that filter. And what that causes segwaying this into empowerment consciousness. So just sticking

with ego story. Our mind continues to make sense. We're often not continues to apply this filter over our daily happenings. And then if we continue to assign as I did, I'm not considered then usually what happens is to contrast it with empowerment consciousness, which I'll get into in just a second. We become reactive, emotional, upset in a state of what I call ego consciousness. All of those habitual reactions are things that I did just to continue with my example. Every time I felt not considered, which could look like either screaming and yelling, I call this a ruptured mood, right? When my nervous system dysregulated or went into fight response, when I became upset outwardly,

yelling that I'm not being considered saying things I don't mean to the people around me. I would do that or I would disconnect myself emotionally going into distract or what I call the detachur mode, either distracting myself by the thing that I have to do next. So I'm not emotionally, right, present to the upset, the hurt of someone not being available or caring for me or considering me in that moment, or I would just shut down entirely detached, right? Be physically present and act like whatever it was happening that didn't bother me at all. In those reactive states, often as a connected to these deep beliefs of unworthiness, how our nervous system then goes into these kind of survival driven modes

where it can absolutely as I just described impact our relationships and where again, we're so very habitual. Right, those things happen. I say or do things that I don't mean. I feel shameful after the fact, even though I know I don't want to be saying or doing those things. Right, I want to be open for a connection even though I'm not. I'm really driven in that state by my ego, by those beliefs. So now shifting, as I become aware of all of the different messages my body is sending me to let me know

that it's becoming activator, that my nervous system, right, my heart rate beginning to elevate. My palms beginning to sweat, my jaw beginning to clench, my breath beginning to get really quick or me holding my breath. Those are all now physiological signals that I'm dropping down to that survival mode. I'm not in that more empowered state of conscious awareness and ultimately choice. Then I can see, as I was describing earlier, the more I paid attention to my thoughts or created a bit of separation so I could observe them, I began to see the filters that I was applying to my real life circumstances, which was then causing and creating

that stuck cycle, right? I'm physiologically activated because I don't feel safe. I feel like what's happening to me is just what happened to me in childhood. Someone's not available or considering me. The filter that I'm applying is exactly that. And then before I know it, my body has no choice but to react in that survival driven way. So as I become conscious and it's very much a process, right? It doesn't happen in a immediate moment in time. But when I become conscious, I become more empowered. Because it's not to say that all of that wiring goes away or the instinct or the compulsion to act in these ways goes away because it doesn't. But what happens now is I have a more empowered state in that empowerment consciousness to say, okay, is it possible that I can now physiologically

regulate my body in a new way. Can I calm my breath? Can I release the tension in my muscles? Can I calm my heart rate down so that now my body is sending signals that it's safer in this moment than it once was when it was in that state of reactivity? Can I create more space between these subconsciously or unconsciously driven perceptions of what's happening? between these subconsciously or unconsciously driven perceptions of what's happening and make the possibility for myself that I can show up in choice, in conversation, right? Maybe it's possible that this person isn't not considering me in this moment.

Maybe I can expand my awareness and have a more grounded conversation about what's happening and explore for myself a new way to get my emotional need met. So that's what I am defining as empowerment consciousness. The more present we are to the habits and patterns, the more that we're aware that many of them live in our body and are dropping us back into that survival driven habitual reactive state where we won't have control. The more I access that more grounded space of empowerment, different part of my brain entirely, now I can be a more active participant in my relationships. I don't just have to let those familiar patterns,

those familiar identities drive the future of my relationships. I can show up in a more grounded presence and begin to make new choices, which for me meant being more emotionally vulnerable, opening myself up for a more emotional connection could impact our relationships and our own self-love and what to do about it. The first is something I heard you talk about on an episode with Danica Patrick. And this is what happens if you grow up in a household that is preentified, meaning you become the parent of your parent. I was hoping you could explore that one a little bit. Absolutely. That in childhood, I think happens out of a lot of different circumstances,

more often than not out of necessity. Having a parent who's emotionally incapacitated for whatever reason, having a parent who is unable to show up in more kind of physical or practical care. A lot of times it happens in families where there's multiple children where one of the children will need to show up almost in the role of parenting rest of the family. There's siblings for whatever reason because the parent is emotionally or physically unavailable for whatever reason. And again, out of that state of adaptation,

maybe even sometimes connection, right? Having the parent who needs your constant emotional support when developmentally you're a child, but yet you're treated like a peer, right? Things are shared with you emotionally, maybe even about your other parent, or maybe about your parent's own personal life that are too much for you

to emotionally handle. Yet in those moments, you have access to your parents' physical presence, to emotional presence. They're relying on you for their own sense of support, soothing, or comfort. I just want to continue to emphasize that all of these different kind of habitate, habitual ways of being are born out of necessity, right? As the child who was identified, there was some circumstances that were happening or that weren't happening in your relationships or in the environment or that your family was living in that required or necessitated you to take on that preentified role. And then when that happens in childhood, you tend to keep playing that role, which

in added foundation, it's really a stage multiple years of self exploration, curiosity of having the time and space through the consistent availability and presence of apparent meeting or needs, where you learn to be curious about your needs, identify your needs, and then ultimately learn how to show up in service of meeting your own needs. And when that doesn't happen because you're putting your parents or your family's needs because you had to in childhood before your own, then we become an adult who's unable to tend to their own needs, who doesn't know what they think, what they feel, what they want, what they need, and who's always habitually driven

to show up in that same version of service for the whole world around us. And a lot of times we become, I think what a lot of traditionally have heard of being a people pleaser. I call a yes person, one of the conditioned selves, which is no matter who needs what of me, I'm always saying yes, right, showing up.

Because in childhood, I need to be that or on the caretaker because I very much was in care, physical or emotional care of my parent, maybe of my siblings. So now I'm that role in all of my relationships in adulthood, born out of necessity, continuing out of familiarity, ultimately though problematically, which I think some of us have even learned to define that way of being, that outward sense of service as being selfless. Right, well, I'm just showing up in service of other people,

though when we truly understand how our body works, how our nervous system works, the fact that we do a physical needs that need to be met again, bringing up kind of the example of, I'm sure many of us, those of us who have flown, right, the put your oxygen mask on first. I've learned in my own life, we can't be of true service to other people unless there is space for our own needs to be consistently met. And what's born out of necessity and childhood, would might even be validated as this idea that I'm just being selfless, right? And care of everyone around me, because that's what I had to do in childhood,

the reality of it is I'm not actually able to be in full service, because I'm not actually able to identify or meet the needs that I need to be meeting to be in that state of service. I'm now going to jump to something completely different because I don't think I can do this interview and not touch on this. I recently released a podcast with Brain Expert Jim Quick where we talked a lot about neuroplasticity, and this is something you will so cover in the book. Dr. Daniel Seagal's research, someone you talk about in the book, on interpersonal neurobiology. How does this neurobiology profoundly impact the social nature of our nervous system, both in our relationships that are

platonic or romantic? And what does this have to do with our well-being and physical safety? In today's individualistic culture that we find ourselves in? Even just starting with this list, this concept, while I do think a lot of society was driven to celebrate the individual, a lot of our society is structurally set up to separate us from other individuals. The reality that began in our early existence when we're born and will continue throughout our entire existence here of being a human, which is that we need connections to other people. And I think a lot about our ancestors and how not only was their physical safety that was gained

when there was groups joining together, there was emotional safety and emotional support. And that really highlights Dr. Dan Seagal's work and every all of those that came before that really spoke about the nervous system, which is those points of co-regulation and the natural interconnectedness that exists between us always. And what I mean when I say that is our nervous system is sending out and is assessing the electromagnetic signals, vibrational energies that is in the environments and of course the relationships of those around us. So we are always in a state of connection to other individuals and are always impacting the connections that we have and the nervous system states of those individuals around

us. As I've shared in the beginning of our conversation, beginning in childhood, when we need those points of co-regulation, when we're beginning to define who we are in relationship based in the safety and security or lack thereof in our earliest relationships, it is this social brain driven by our nervous system that is at the core. When I get an F-safe in secure relationships, chances are I don't feel worthy. Right, I've adapted by creating these habitual ways, oftentimes, the roles that we're playing to maintain these connections that which I need. And as we continue to then go about life, if our nervous system is always in one of those nervous system responses that I went very quickly over earlier, or

is sending out messages of stress or a threat than the dominoes, I think of it like dominoes, the impact I'm having on those around me is I'm cranking up, I'm turning up the volume of the stress in my relationships and in my communities who's across the room for you right now if I'm in a stress mode, I don't have to say anything and I think many of us have had this experience or you walk in a room and you can feel the vibe.

You maybe know when there's just an argument, even if there's quiet at this point, you just feel and what you're feeling is the state of stress and tension and threat in the nervous systems of those around you. Because in childhood, we had that co-regulation, the calm ground of peaceful nervous system with which to co-regulate, with which to discover ourselves so that we can feel safe right just being who it is that we are Now we're reversing those signals. So anyone I interact with instead of feeling the tension that I'm carrying the stress Ultimately feeling threatened by physiological being without me even saying anything threatening Now the signal that they're going to receive

is one of calm, grounded presence. And I don't know, maybe some listeners have even heard people comment, oh my gosh, I just feel calm and grounded and at peace around you. So, I just like to illustrate that kind of state of that social brain driven by our nervous system. And it's impact to the entirety of our being. Right, we're not safe to express ourselves as we were talking about earlier, I'm only worthy when I'm achieving, right, it's going to impact how I am in the world, when I'm not feeling an or being truly who I am, or up in that state of reactivity, because I'm upset personally,

because someone's not considering me. Now I'm not only impacting myself because I don't feel safe to be who I am to express my real wants and needs to share myself, vulnerably. Now I'm impacting all of my relationships and all of the world around me and the empowerment, I think, and I hope that people take away from this conversation from my book or any of my work is going back to this two concepts of change, two steps of change, when I become aware of how I'm wired, what signals I'm sending to myself and to those around

me, the more conscious I become, the more I can begin to make intentional choices to create that reconnection with my body, that calm ground at presence, the ability to be who I am, so that when I am interacting with other people, they feel safer to authentically express themselves, to emotionally connect, and really to join together in interdependent relationships, which is really simply, I'm me with all my different perspectives, once desires, interest, talents, and you're you, with all of your different perspectives, desires, interest, and talents. And together, when we both feel safe and secure to be who we are in connection,

we don't feel fearful that if we show or express some side of ourself, the person's going to leave us, then the signals we begin to send not only within that relationship, but to all of those that we will be in connection with over our life spans will be those signals of safety and that security. So podcast is about intentional choice and you just nailed that answer. And I think something you talk about in the book, I refer to it as we live a pinball life, you call it, we live on autopilot. And to me, when you can learn how to use intentional choices, something that I call deliberate action. That is really the key to breaking these mindset and behavior cycles that people find themselves

in. I know listeners are going to get a ton of value from this. If they want to learn more about you and the work that you're doing, where is the best place for them to go? Absolutely. I do hope they gain value for this conversation, though. I also do hope they come find me on whatever social media it is that is their preference to consume content so much of my priority and my focus is making sure that these conversations

are happening free, accessible, not only conversations, tools and resources. So across all the social media platforms at this point, there's some version of the handle, the holistic psychologist, where you can find this information, these conversations, this community, even just ending on this idea of connection and how important it is to begin to hear from other people who are thinking about the same things, able to relate in the same ways. It's honestly John the reason why I created the social media account was too full for me to begin to be more Authentically who I was sharing myself unfiltered with the world around me so that then I could feel more emotionally and authentically Connected to the world around me. So I really want to emphasize again the free accessible content that I'm driven to continue to create and to put out there

Any information that you want about the books where to buy them. I have a website up how to be the love you see calm. I have a personal website the holistic psychologist calm. That has information about my self healer circle my global membership as well as an email list. I have a free resource out that's available right now. I use pop your email in and you'll get a journaling practice that's geared toward relationships. So again, even just tying this into deliberate choice and intentional action, this is a daily way, a daily habit, takes about five minutes, you can build in to your day to day where it helps you become aware of some of these

unconscious patterns within your relationships. And then allows you to, of course, there's instructions and prompts and things like that you can follow begin to create this deliberate actions or those conscious choices so that you can create change and talking about all this amazing advice that you have. It's really going to impact the listeners. I appreciate that, John. Thank you for your presence, your curiosity, your interest in having a conversation with me. And same goes to all of you out there listening, so inspired by communities, like yours that are interested in these conversations about creating conscious choice delivered action, really reconnecting with our passion with our purpose. I believe it not only changes individual lives, I truly believe it helps change the lives of those around us. So thank you all for

the work that you're doing day in and day out. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Nicole LaPara. And I wanted to thank Nicole and Harper Collins for the honor and privilege of having her appear today on today's show. Links to all things Nicole will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Avertise or deals or discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. YouTube videos are at both John Armiles and our other station at PassionStruck Clips. Please check both them out and subscribe. You can sign up for my work-related newsletter,

work intentionally, on LinkedIn. You can find me on all the socials at John Armiles, where you can sign up for my personal development newsletter, Live Intentionally, off of PassionStruck.com. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStark podcast interview that I did with Lee Benson, a value creation expert who has over 30 years experience across the business world. He is the CEO of Execute to Win, a firm that helps organizations of all sizes to accelerate the value that they create.

In our interview, we discuss Lee's brand new book, Value Creation Kid, which offers a roadmap for parents, helping them to equip their children with the superpower of turning every life experience into a valuable lesson. All these little choices we make throughout the day, if we have, and most people don't have an intentional set of values or an intentional purpose for their lives, but let's say you set a list of core values that are important to you. Nobody's perfect.

So all these micro choices and the big goals that we have, it's a journey. And I think too many beat themselves up when they make a few small wrong choices, instead of continuing to cultivate, to lead a life that creates more and more value in the world, and learn from those mistakes. The fee for the show is that you share it with family or friends

when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who could use the words and advise that Nicole gave on today's episode, then please share it with them. The greatest compliment that you can give our show is to share it with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.

Until next time, go out there and become Passion Struck. you