The Bossticks - The Holistic Psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera On Moving Past Trauma, Resolving Conflict, & Repairing Dysfunctional Relationships

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

#517: On today's episode our guest is The Holistic Psychologist, Dr. Nicole LePera. Dr. Nicole LePera was trained in clinical psychology at Cornell University and The New School for Social Research and also studied at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis. Dr. Nicole joins the show today to discuss how we can move past trauma, how to resolve conflict in relationships, and how we can work to repair dysfuntional relationships.  To connect with Dr. Nicole LePera click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. Introducing the Canopy x TSC Oil DIffuser. The Canopy X TSC Diffuser is waterless, and mistless making aromatherapy, elevating your space, and diffusing aromas clean and easy. Use code SKINNYVIBES at checkout for 10% off of all Canopy products at www.getcanopy.co This episode is brought to you by Just Thrive Just Thrive products have more clinical research than just about anyone else in the industry. Enter Just Calm–The breakthrough new stress and mood support formula from Just Thrive. Get 15% off at Justthrivehealth.com with code SKINNY. This episode is brought to you by Lexus The Lexus RX is the best-selling luxury crossover of all time and the best-selling luxury vehicle every year since it was first introduced. Never lose your edge with the all-new Lexus RX. Experience Amazing at your Lexus dealer. This episode is brought to you by BFB Hair BFB launched 7 new, dimensional shades earlier this year. Now, more than ever, there's the perfect shade for you. Use code SKINNY15 at checkout for 15% off all hair products at BFBhair.com. This episode is brought to you by Beekeepers Naturals Beekeepers Naturals is female-founded and the products are clean and effective, third-party tested for all pesticides, and the brand is dedicated to sustainable beekeeping and helping save the bees. They are giving our listeners exclusive early access to their Black Friday sale. Get 30% off sitewide at beekeepersnaturals.com/SKINNY or use code SKINNY at checkout. This episode is brought to you by CLEARSTEM CLEARSTEM has made a clean, clinical skincare line that is equally effective against acne AND aging. Go to clearstemskincare.com and use code SKINNY2 at for 20% off your first purchase. Produced by Dear Media

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Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. We all do have choice. The question is, do we feel like we have choice? Are we embodying that choice? Are we showing up in that part of our brain that allows us to have choice? And the reality most of us don't. We feel disempower.

We feel reactive because we are so reliant on outside validation that if that were to go away, we would feel like we're going to disintegrate into that endless abyss of who are we? You know, that kind of existential feeling that is so overwhelming. We have Dr. Nicole LaPerla on the skinny confidential, him and her podcast today. She is a clinical psychologist. We ask her all different kinds of questions in this episode when it comes to mental, physical, and spiritual health. And I just wanted this episode to provide tons of takeaways, as always, but also give anyone who's listening tools. I think that this is a subject that I've seen a lot of you guys want, tools that can help heal yourself. So in this episode, we talk to her a lot about past traumas.

We talk about people who are struggling with their mental health, some tools that they can use, and just grind culture. There's a lot of grind culture going on. I know that I have personally been someone who can get caught up in grind culture, like just working my face off. And so this episode was really refreshing. On Instagram, she teaches you how to heal. Her Instagram is the holistic psychologist and it has 5.7 million followers. She also wrote the number one New York Times bestselling book, How to Do the Work. And her latest workbook, How to Meet Yourself, launches on December 6. On that note, Dr. Nicole, welcome to the podcast. This is the skinny confidential, him and her.

All right. What is grind culture? Really, really good question. I think it's become such a normal aspect of what most of us call culture and society these days. What I really define it as is so many of us being stuck in survival mode, constantly going, usually for distraction purposes or self-validation purposes, often coming out of the habits that many of us learned in our childhood. So it becomes so normalized. And I think culturally there's a lot of messages about, you know, overpassing our limits, what it means to be successful, how little the body is to be tended to in our day and age. Even with, I think, a more recent turn toward conversations around health.

Again, I even see some conversations in that field being, you know, really kind of hustle-based, not learning how to stop pause, really care for the body. And I think all of this goes down to the habits and patterns that have been passed down. from generations of our childhood now being translated into our culture. Someone told me that you actually take on the trauma, and you would be the perfect person to ask this, of not only your parents, but your grandparents, and you just mentioned generational trauma. Can you speak on that? Because I totally am someone who pushes myself, pushes myself, pushes myself, pushes myself. And I wonder, like, what the trauma is that I'm trying to overcompensate for. Yeah. I mean, we now know trauma is past beyond, passed on through,

generations beyond just what is modeled to us in terms of our habits. I'll go into a little bit about how that translates to hustle culture in a second. But we now know actually scientifically, we are impacted by our environments, by the people in our environments that are literally biologically wired into us in terms of nervous system dysregulation, our ability to tolerate stress and really everything in between. And we now have a new science that we call epigenetics, which really emphasizes environment in addition to genetics. So this is, I think, why so many of us see such a similarities in the things we struggle with, the symptoms that we experience and the habits and patterns in these lineages. Because not only are we repeating the same things that we see and

experience, but it actually is down wired into us in terms of our DNA. So what happens ultimately map this on to hustle culture really quickly is in childhood, if we don't feel safe, if we don't have someone consistently showing up to meet our needs, I mean, there was even generations where parents were actually explicitly taught that there was no emotional needs for children. It's just keep the child living, breathing, and you've done enough. So when we don't have the space to express ourselves emotionally, we will always adapt. We will find a way to stay as safely connected as possible. And for some of us, that means overperformance. And I absolutely resonate with that as well. Being a perfectionist and overperformer, I mean, even having my PhD, always going, looking for that

outside validation and absence of feeling secure, connected to myself and confident with who I am. So if you have a great grandma or a grandma that maybe had an eating disorder or depression or suicidal or whatever, even if it's your great grandma that you never met, that could transpire into generations is what you're saying. Yeah. So if you have a great grandma who's struggling with eating, right? Chances are, I mean, I map most of addictive behaviors, whether it's eating, working, substance using as our best attempt at self-regulation. So what I'm imagining this grandma to be is someone who's struggling. to regulate has developed an eating disorder and is now not only emotionally unavailable to help their child who needs that co-regulation, that safety of a separate nervous system to bring us back into regulation. But what's being modeled now are all beliefs around the self, around self-image, around eating. And as the adage goes, you know, we always like to say, do as I say, not as I do, though the reality of it is for children. They're so much more impacted by what is not only seen,

but how they have to now show up in experience with this hypothetical great-grandmother to stay connected to this being. And then that is imprinted in our neurobiology quite literally. Then you have another generation of adults creating other children, modeling these behaviors, possibly with the similar inability to regulate their emotions and passing on those same distracting habits or distancing habits or whatever. Explosive, maybe some of us. We have the explosive parent who can't tolerate emotions and always screaming and yelling. again all originating in childhood usually generations before we're even born there's this thing on TikTok right now that's trending have you heard of an almond mom an almond mom an almond mom that's trending no and i'm gonna i'm gonna probably flub the definition but basically it's a mom that would

shame you for eating so like she'd be like here's an almond cut it in half and eat that and this is trending and and people are starting i feel like to call out behavior that they saw in childhood from maybe their mom that was, you know, maybe pushing sort of their eating disorder on their child. So the generational trauma is really interesting to me. Yeah. As I get older, though, and as I hear you talk and becoming a parent myself, like, you start, I have a whole different appreciation and empathy for previous generations and parents, because, like, everybody's just trying their best.

And they're also coming from previous generations that maybe had issues or baggage as well. And I don't think, I mean, listen, there's some sick people out there that maybe are, in a different category, but I think the majority of people are just going through life, doing their best and what they think is best for their children. While I understand why that kind of like calling out could happen, I think that there's a lack of maturity they're recognizing that like, you know, no parent or a sane parent goes out and tries to intentionally harm their children. These are just the tools that they have. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I would go as far to say that I don't believe any of us, you know, have an intent, ill intent at all. I believe that we are all

imperfect humans quite literally doing the best that we can. And I think one of the bypropos, of healing and seeing how we're carrying all these habits and patterns that aren't serving us that might actually be hurting ourselves, the loved ones around us. I think a byproduct of that can be that extension of compassion then for our parents had even heard us and just kind of going off what you shared, Lauren, and having very similar experience with my mom that I think illustrates this very well-intentioned nature. So in absence of having her own ability, my mom, that is, to regulate her emotions because she had completely cold, distant parents herself, having undergone a lot of trauma, she wasn't emotionally available for me. However, the one way she knew

how to love me was through, you guess it, food. I come from a big Italian family. She was always food, eat more, what's on your plate, finish it. And on the other hand, she was very, because she didn't feel comfortable in her own body. She was very insecure around weight, very much worrying about what others thought. So as much as she was trying to very well-intentioned love me with food, I would then get an onslaught of messages around, you know, if I was looking bigger, if my if my clothes were fitting a little too tight, she would very, you know, well in a gesture or kind of joking type way, call my sister thunder thighs, like really negative, right, sounding conflictual. I'm describing this because I just want to illustrate the conflict. I think that

happens in a lot of parents. My mom wasn't intending to harm my sister and I with all this negative feedback around our weight in eating. She was really conflicted herself. She was really wanting to be loving and what was being evidenced in those moments of criticism was her own internal voice. So as parents now, if someone's listening in their apparent, how do they stop this cycle of the generational trauma for their children? Yes. The first step I will always talk about when we're talking about changing anything, breaking habits, is becoming conscious to them, actually taking the time to see all the different habitual ways that we go about our day. We are incredibly habitual creatures. We actually are wired to be because according to our evolution, always driven to survive, literally,

the familiar is preferable to the unfamiliar because in the unfamiliar there could be the possible threat. Even if the familiar is chaotic or... Even if it has a lineage, right, decades of chaos, it is that which is preferable. So, I mean, we have habits from the moment we open our eyes. You know, you might be listening and say, well, I don't have a morning routine. You do. There's something you typically do probably more often day in, day out than you.

you don't do each and every morning. We also are very routine in terms of the thoughts that we think. We're endlessly narrating our day. As you begin to turn that spotlight of attention or become aware to the thoughts that are constantly going through your mind, you'll see very repeated narratives. We tend to tell ourselves the same story, make the same meanings out of our events. You go a bit deeper, similarly emotions. We tend to cycle through the same emotional spirals day in and day out. So the first way to simply break patterns is to become conscious, though I want to emphasize here doing so without judgment, right? Doing so where we're not judging or shaming ourselves or judging or shaming the parents or the families maybe that have taught us these patterns, learning how

to just see things and allows us to take the next step of change, which is make new choices in those moments. I love this. I love what you're saying. I love the vibe because it reminds me of Louise Hay. You can heal your life. And it's so it's so right. Just becoming aware and whether that's like sitting with yourself in silence and figuring out what that is. or journaling, whatever it is, the awareness is such a key element. I do think journaling's helpful. But in 2015, 16, I started kind of like doing it pretty consistently. And then I stop really.

Then I got back into it. Now I'm back into it again. But what I recognized back then when I started doing it consistently was how consistent the same kind of ideas were on the pages. Like if you go back and look, you know, like, oh, that's weird. That's a common theme and whatever issue I'm working through. And I bet if people did that they would start and mapped it for a month or so, they would start to see that like, you're kind of writing.

about a lot of the same things over and over and over, and that's an indicator on, you know, either you lean further into that or maybe start to lean away from some of those thought patterns. Yeah, absolutely. You'll see the patterns, you know, whether you're journaling your thoughts, you're just kind of observing your thoughts to speak to the point of why consciousness is so incredibly important. It's actually, we're in a different area of our brain. I often like to talk about our physiology or our neuroscience, and I do so really simplifying it. But when we're in that habitant mode, you know, oftentimes around our emotions, we're emotionally reactive, our nervous system is dysregulated, we're in the emotional limbic system part of our brain. When we're accessing

the state of consciousness, we're actually in a different part of our brain entirely and we're able to access something that's called the prefrontal cortex, which is where we can imagine, dream of a future that's different. When we're locked and loaded in that emotional brain, the reason we become so reiterative, we keep going down the same, trying to solve the problem in the same way or like kind of use the same solution, is because we can't actually access that foresight, that insight, that future site. So it's so powerful and it actually can lead us into any future direction we want. And again, the reason why we can't when we're locked and loaded and having that emotional reaction, which is really shameful. We end up on the other side of it wondering why, oh my God, I read all

these books about these things to say and do and break these terrible habits. And yet I'm still doing the same thing. And it's quite literally because we have to teach our body how to enter that different state of consciousness, which also usually involves building a foundation of safety in our nervous system, which is one of the big reasons why I shift it the way I was traditionally working, being trained as a clinical psychologist, doing much more of a talk-based therapy and to work in a much more holistic way that I do now, because the body, in my opinion, is integral to heal. How can we not bring the chaos of our childhood into our relationships? I think a lot of people, I can like think of it.

Yes, please speak on that. Listen, I'm self-aware. And I had a great childhood. But, but, you know, you know, there's chaos that you bring into your relationship. So how do we avoid doing that? Well, you're not going to is, I think, the first thing that plays I want to start here. So to relieve anyone the expectation that they're somehow subhuman is impossible. We are all imprinted. The way we learn how to show up in our earliest relationships becomes then the format that we use when we become peer age, you know, enter school, start dating. We're the helper in childhood. We're likely going to become the helper, the caretaker in our current relationship.

So again, very reiterative. The answer is beginning consciousness, really get radically honest with how you're showing up in your relationships, with how your needs are being met, with how safe you feel, with how expressive you are in these particular context. And then looking for the role that we play. Because something that I think becomes clear to us is, at least speaking from my own lived experience, I spent a lot of time pointing the fingers at the wrong partner I was picking, who just couldn't meet me emotionally, where I wanted to be and I was feeling just all.

always disconnected and unfulfilled, only to find out after I did some deep exploration and really understood my childhood. Part of the reason I felt so disconnected from everyone around me was how disconnected I was from me. I didn't know myself. I wasn't expressing myself. I definitely wasn't sharing my wants and my needs. So how could I emotionally connect with someone? Yet until I looked at how I almost said, come close and held my hand at a distance and didn't let the person come close to me, I was pointing the finger, imagining I was just picking the wrong person, yet I could never seem to find the right person. So I understood the reason why was ultimately I was playing a role. I wasn't expressing myself. I didn't know my needs. And for me, all of that tracked back to this

childhood where I didn't feel safe, not having the emotional attunement. I did the best thing that most of us can do, which is I started to disconnect for safety. You announced that you were in a trouble. I don't know if you still are in a trouble relationship. But first of all, holy fuck, how do you manage more than one? If there was another one of Michael, I literally, I couldn't do it. That's a lot of multitasking. Yes. One is enough for me.

But I'm actually very intrigued by you announcing that and putting it on Instagram. It's vulnerable. I feel like you're breaking taboos. You're normalizing things. First of all, tell us how you did it. Like, give us some tips on a multitask. And second of all, how did it end up now? Because I know you announced it, I think, in 2021.

Yes. I'm still currently in a Thruple, very happy and very committed relationship. Same Trouble. Same one. Same two humans. Drouple. Thruple. Thruple.

Did I say her own? There's all different names for it. I mean, I didn't even know the name of it. When I entered it, this was all new experience. And very interestingly, it really maps onto the work that I do. So I was current, I had been married. I've been married to my wife, Wally, for probably about four or five years now. began working really closely with Jenna, our now current partner as well.

She kind of began building all that the simplistic psychologist is with us from the beginning, working, living together very closely. And at first there was like nothing, just friends. Just friends. Just really good close friends business. We really work together in a very, you know, our synergy, business synergy is really amazing. We were living in the same in Venice Beach. We were living in California, so very close to each other. So just naturally spending a lot of time together day in and day out. And a couple months in, everything was going seemingly really great smoothly. And then there started to be some interesting, like just underlying tension and conflict that none of us really, you know, knew what to make of it. And just were kind of watching it and making sure that we definitely wanted to, you know, make sure that we could continue to work together. And ultimately one morning, Jenna sat us down after doing some soul searching and had the bravest conversation that I could ever imagine having with someone.

And she was like, listen, I really need to be honest. I think part of the reason and why things have been a bit tumultuous and conflictual between us is because I'm not being, she's very much a heart-guided person, one of the things I absolutely love and inspired by her. She's like, I'm not being fully honest. You know, things are coming up for me. I'm having feelings. I actually love both the two of you, you and Lolly.

I don't know what to make of this. I don't know any idea of what you're making of this right now. I just need to be true to myself and want to get it out on the table and just kind of have it out there. and then ultimately, you know, if this is not going to be something that any, either of you are interested in, like, completely fine. I'm going to have to, you know, figure out a way to separate myself personally. So long story short, I think her giving language to what was happening for her really helped then Lolly and I give language to similar feelings that we were

having. And we kind of very open-mindedly went in to kind of just explore. None of us having ever experienced with any sort of polyamorous relationship before, none of us even having an idea of what it could look like, and I think to speak to the point of why we made then the decision to come out is beginning to see a little bit of information online, other people talking about the different versions of open relationships, ethical non-monogamy,

that they could be in, and us not really seeing too much of it, not having a model for it. And ultimately, Jenna is also my podcast host. So the way we frame the self-hiller soundboard podcast, it's really an open conversation with our community where we share a lot about our own self and our own journeys. And it was starting to feel very misaligned again where we almost,

there was like an elephant in the room. Every time we would go to share something, I had to monitor what partner I was sharing. And it was starting to feel inauthentic. So the reason to then go more public was twofold. It was like, if we can be a model that this is our reality, I mean, you know, becoming visible even out publicly, I just didn't want to live a lie.

I didn't want to live in a hidden way. So coming out publicly, though, really was eye-opening. So many appreciative humans who were either curious or experimenting or feeling shameful because this is how they were living in little nucks of the world. And it really is highlighting to me the need to continue to talk about what I think is just another version of relationships that can be really happy and healthy. And so ultimately, how do I do it? It's navigating relationships with two separate humans, with separate conflicts with each,

with separate connections with each, interest with each. It's really a rich experience. I have a few questions. Yes. Some of them may be ignorant. Some of them may be a little mature. But how do you resolve conflict if there's a three-way conflict? Does somebody play referee or is it like we take sides?

Like I imagine that would get a little match because you know, Lord and I get in something. Maybe I do want to try this out. That's actually not about, I didn't think about the referee thing. Because I think about like if you're, say there's a conflict between you and Lolly, who, you know. We try very hard to, especially because if we're being honest, the thing that maybe Jen is picking issues with Lally about I feel the same way about. So we try very hard and are very intentional to stay out of it when it's not. I mean, granted, there are. What happens if there's two on, ganging up on one on the, you know what I mean?

We try, we try not to do that, right? Because typically the issue originated between one of them and then I could jump in and be like, yeah, me too. I try not to be that, yeah, me too. I mean, granted, there may be our moments where the three of us are in conflict, but typically it's, you know, there's an issue between the two of them or between me and one of them. And then the intention is, obviously, we don't always do it in practice, is not to just

side because it really can be very easy. There's usually something that one or the two of us are feeling about the other person. However, there are the moments, you know, trying to be a conscious coupling where, you know, if this continues to be a recurrent problem and two people are continuing experience the one partner in a specific way, then we have a really hard, honest conversation. I've been on the receiving end of them telling me how they are both experiencing me in a way that could help grow me. And I've been on the other side of, you know, approaching one or each of them. They're also lucky that they have a doctor. you.

I don't know. I would be like, no, I don't want the doctor on me because then it's too, it's unfair. Who decides to sit

in the front seat? Well, oddly enough, I'm the only one with an active driver's license. I'm driving. That's what you're going to ask. Someone's question.

Or if you, if Lauren and I were going to dinner, we've got to go to dinner all three of you. Well, I'm going to tell you, the world is very interesting thing that's coming to my attention

is not, is set up for very much two people. There have been moments and instances where there's not a third seat for us. I was going to ask you, Would you have to get a personal bed made? Let me tell you how my...

Let me tell you how my brain works. You're right. The world is set up for either two or four. And so I go immediately into scenarios. Like, I imagine my life. I'm with you or friends. We're all going to dinner. There's five of us now.

How do you ride on a Disneyland ride? Yeah. You tell you get business class seats. Who sits where? I think these are... I tell some of these are going to be stupid questions. But I think about this. Because it's stuff that you probably have to deal with.

She has a custom bed. She just said. I see. I love a custom bed. But when traveling, this comes up. I mean, you know, hopefully we will be attentive now because we've gotten, you know, the hotel room or the Airbnb wherever we're staying and it's only had a queen bed. And then it's like, no one wants to sleep alone. You know, who's going to- I would be honest with you, I would be like, go sleep alone. Leave me alone. Let me sit in my own seat. It sounds kind of nice. Sometimes you get a break. Life is challenging, but I imagine that's challenging

because you do that. And they're like, who's the one that's sleeping alone? Is it a draw, straw situation? Or is it like we're all cramming in? Usually we all start together and then whoever gets hot is the one who then leaves themselves. But speak to the point too. I mean, interestingly enough, I think that there are versions of relationships where two maybe monogamous partners do sleep in separate bedrooms, do live in separate homes. I think we're going to start to see a much more flexible relationship style where there are humans who really don't like that close physical contact all of the time. And there could be very successful fulfilling relationships to move in a separate bedroom or to move in a separate house and have a different version of connection. I'm just,

I'm open to it. And I think humans are so much more flexible than we've been pushing ourselves into boxes around. And now with the dawn of social media for all that it is and it isn't. I mean, one of the, I believe, benefits and byproducts is so many different other types of humans telling the story of how they're living that can, I think, normalize choices that some people are making and feeling shameful about. No, anyways, joking aside, I think what you're doing is interesting. And we've had different people that have come on the show and discuss polyanery. But a lot of times it's men in relationships that are like kind of pushing a woman that may not be so comfortable in it. And it sounds like, at least in your marriage, this was a collective decision, right? You know, I'm talking about like, some of these, sometimes these guys are like pushing people to do it.

And they could tell the partners not so excited about it. And all of a sudden they're in it and it's not ended so well for them. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so important that you spoke out about it. You put it on your Instagram. I think that's so cool because there are probably people that are listening or that aren't listening that feel like they want to do this. But they don't even know how to go about it.

So it's like normalizing it. Yeah, absolutely. If someone wants to do this, what do you recommend? What are your tips? He's learning very curious. I think the first thing is being honest. I mean, I commend Jenna to no end, and I'm inspired by her ability to have tuned in and to spoken first to herself.

I mean, you know, to come to, in her instance, the conclusion that she loved a, you know, already committed couple. I mean, that was a reckoning. I'm sure that she had to have internally before she even then very bravely and vulnerably spoke it to us, the married couple. And no matter what iteration you are, what partner or person you are, whatever dynamic it is, I mean, to have that honest conversation with yourself, I think part of the reason we were in such conflict was because that was the honest truth for all of us and none of us were willing to speak it,

to ourselves even, not even having a moment of like, oh, I think I'm kind of am interested in this person. So I think the first suggestion I give and commend anyone who's able to just sit with themselves. So if there is a curiosity or a stirring to explore it and to, you know, begin to feel comfortable to find those safe others, if it's not your current partner, to maybe even just explore these, concepts with or these ideas with. I think safe communities and safe relationships, especially as we're beginning to think and get curious around new ideas or ways of being, can be really, really helpful. I am traveling. And one thing I always travel with is my probiotic. I have been taking the same probiotic since before I was pregnant was Zaza. So for years. And that is just

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explain why without stumbling and maybe this would be fluid. But when I hear things like hustle culture or this culture, my gut reaction is, and maybe this is from my childhood, I feel like I can exit any kind of culture at any period mentally, meaning like if I don't like something that is part going on in society, like I can choose to exit stage left. Or if I don't like, you know, a narrative or something, I can exit stage left, right? And I guess my question here is there's a part of me that understands why people could get up in this raw, raw or get caught up in rah-rah hustle culture and feel like they need to participate because maybe everybody else is doing it and pushing it. But there's the other part of me that's like, well, if you really don't like this, like you don't have to partake. And in addition to that, I also feel like a lot of the reasons we're doing these kind of things is because we've put such a strong emphasis on what other.

people think about us, right? And if, if, and what we champion a lot on this show is like, do you, do yourself, stop worrying about what everyone else is thinking. And so I guess what I'm saying is like, when I hear people complain about hustle culture, I'm like, you always have the option to not partake or to not worry about what other people are doing. And that sounds like a very simple answer, obviously harder to get to in life. But I wanted to talk about it a little bit because I think so many people feel like they're just caught up in this thing. And my thing is like, you don't have to be. Yes. I think the basis of my work, this is really beautiful, Michael, is to, live in that empowered choice because you are right when it really comes down to it simple simplifying it

it objectifying it we all do have choice the question is do we feel like we have choice are we embodying that choice are we showing up in that part of our brain that allows us to have choice and the reality most of us don't we feel disempower we feel reactive because we are so reliant on outside validation that if that were to go away we would feel like we're going to disintegrate into that endless abyss of who are we you know that kind of existential feeling that is so overwhelming. So to simplify, absolutely, we all have choice. The basis of the work that I'm inspired for all of us to do as a collective is to learn how to live in choice, to be that conscious being that's like, yeah, this is what a lot of people are doing. This is what society is maybe validating. But I feel confident that I'm going to go this way and I'm going to

confidently continue and safely continue to go this way and feel still great or good enough about myself going this way. That is the choice moment. And so many people and absent, of that validation really feel empty inside. Yeah, and I know, again, like, and I get in trouble for this sometimes is like, it, the way it is, like, to me, it's like, it's simple, make a choice, but it's all, there's so many complexities when it comes to actually making that choice and feeling empowered enough to do it. And I also think that, you know, with the rise of a lot of the platforms where many of us

spend our time now, we've also maybe created this value of things that we actually don't really care about and maybe you're working towards things you don't really want, right? like what's that saying again? It's like we do things and buy things to impress people we don't actually even care about or want validation from. Right. And I feel like that's what a lot of hustle culture is like, I got to do this so I can get the fancy car, the fancy house, the fancy trip to this and that. It's like, do you really even want to do that or you just doing it to get validation? Right. So the complexity happens when to make, to create that space for choice, we have to do the work of embodying that space, which means regulating ourselves. When you're even

talking about what do you want, how do we know what we want? In my opinion, we know what we want by dropping into our heart space, by asking those non-verbal messages or by looking to those non-verbal messages at our internal guidance. That assumes a couple things, say that I'm connected enough to my body, that I'm safe enough in my body, to spend that quiet moment and self-reflection to ask my heart, to be able then to interpret that, yes, you know what? This easeful, excited feeling when I think about this new relationship or this new business opportunity means that's the way for me to go right now or no, I'm thinking about this and I'm starting to feel clenched inside and not good about this. This is indicating.

All of that has to happen, though, there's a lot of steps to get there, right? I have to be safe, be grounded, be safe in, safe in stillness, which a lot of us aren't. When we are wired in chaos, when our nervous system is dysregulate, stopping, stillness, quiet. All these words that I said are necessary to reconnect with our heart space. That doesn't feel safe enough. So the simple answer, obviously, is grounded with all of this complexity of the process to get to that space to even tune into. So to know what I want, you know, and I don't want these. accolades and this big fancy car assumes that I have those moments of connection to ask my heart

what it wants and then to listen. I want to talk with you about mental health because you're a psychologist and I feel like there's a lot of people listening that maybe feel really depressed right now or really anxious. What are some little tools that they can do to start getting out of that depression or getting out of that anxiety? So I can talk about each together and someone. it separately, viewing kind of the framework that I'm going to go into this conversation or this answer with is really viewing and understanding our nervous system. And when we have a basis of understanding our nervous system, we can see how the symptoms of anxiety and depression map onto that. Because ultimately, there are then somatic or body-based tools that we can use. The one I always

like to reference is breath work. We can carry it with us. We can do it any time to help us regulate those states. So just really quickly, when we feel threatened, the initial thing that happens is our body mobilizes for energy. Our heart rate starts to quicken. Our breath starts to quicken. Our muscles start to tense. We're getting ready to, listeners probably heard of the fight or flight response cited before. Simply, we're getting ready to fight the threat or to flee it to keep ourselves safe. That racing blood, that pumping heart, that quickened breath, that tense muscles, all are the symptoms of anxiety. So typically, and I've had anxiety for as long as I can remember, since I was born, I was very much an anxious human with OCD tendencies. So that, those symptoms that we're feeling and

calling anxiety very much are real. They're coloring our experience, though in my opinion, they're a function of a nervous system that's stuck in fight or flight that can't ever calm down or bring itself back to safety. Depression, on the other hand, what happens when the threat is too big, it's unescapable, it's too consistent, it's completely overwhelmed, me, the final thing that my nervous system will do to keep me safe is like an animal, I'll play dead. My breath will become barely perceptible. Those muscles that were tense and ready to run will become limp as if I'm literally dead. My heart rate might shift and change. So this is the state for me, living in fight or flight, being completely overwhelmed, not having that safe point of connection.

I called it my spaceship. I detached and I went away on my spaceship. I was so numb. I was so disconnected. I was so unfulfilled. And a lot of times it feels like a depression. We don't have the energy. We're listless. We literally can't get out of bed and we're hopeless. So what to do then is, I mean, first, you know, I think a lot of us might carry shame when we're experiencing depression or anxiety.

We feel like we're broken. So I think the first thing I want to offer people is a message of empowerment that your nervous system likely if you're having those symptoms is doing exactly what it needed to do at one time to keep yourself safe. If it's adapted, it maybe has become your constant way of being. And obviously there's probably problematic outcomes, many of which I know myself, having lived with anxiety for a very long time, though there's something we can do. And I think that's an empowered shift.

And the thing we can then do is learn how to regulate our body. And so really against simplifying breathwork, if I'm anxious and my breath is too quick and it's coming from maybe really shallow in my chest, I can learn how to breathe calmly, slowly and deeply from my belly. Doing that will activate my parasympathetic nervous system, calming my fight or flight response down. Again, really simplifying it. If I'm identifying with the depressed, I have no energy, breath what breath. I'm always holding my breath. I'm barely breathing. Then I can do stimulating breath work. I actually began because I was so shut down with Wim Hof's method, but any sort of vigorous activity, even jumping jack, shaking our arms if we, you know,

are laying in bed will stimulate our nervous system, helping bring us back. up from that shutdown state. And then obviously there's many more somatic tools that we could talk about, but I think those are really foundational because we're always breathing and because our breath will always reflect the state of our nervous system. So dropping in attuning to how am I breathing and can I shift my breathing intentionally to help regulate my body? This is so interesting when you're talking because I had postpartum depression. And when you're talking, I'm realizing I had what you called it disassociation. What, like, what is that exactly?

Disconnection. Like, detachment. Detachment. You're numb. You feel nothing. That's exactly how I felt. Like, you're almost dissociating from what's in front of you. Yes.

You're dis-yes. And I also had intrusive thoughts. This pregnancy that I just had my recent baby, I have not had postpartum anxiety or depression. But one of the things that I'm doing is breathwork. The other thing I'm doing is cold plunging. And that works. on your parasympathetic.

Is that how you say it? Yes. That makes so much sense because when I cold plunge, I was telling Michael, immediately I feel better. Like I literally get in that cold plunge for two minutes. I get out and it does something where it just balances me. So is it because of the postpartum? It's sort of balancing that.

Or is it because you're shocking your nervous system. What is that? I mean, it just balance. It works on my parents. It does something. Yes. Cold therapy of any sort, whether it's a plunge,

turning your shower to cold, standing outside in the winter, if you live in a cold climate all the time, it stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. So that's the calm in the body. It also, so the thing that is I find very helpful about any sort of cold therapy is the first thing that happens to me, I've learned very much to resist or remove myself from any sort of discomfort, whether it's discomfort in my mind by just dissociating, distracting, disconnecting, or discomfort in my body. The second, my muscles tweaked in a way I didn't like. I stopped that stretch. So cold therapy for me, the discomfort in my body, not only is the immediate cold activating my parasympathetic nervous

system as the first thing that happens for me is the thoughts. Get out of the cold. Why are you in here? How long is it? I start to count. You know, how many minutes? One, two, three, four, is it almost done. Gives me a moment now to empower my choice beyond listening to my mind. It's like mental toughness. It's working on a muscle. You're learning how to now tolerate because our body, the thing is, is while I really treat it my body with delicate gloves, oh, it can't do anything. These are signs that, you know, intuitively my body can't move that way. Our bodies are actually very incredible. They can do so much. It's our minds often that are dictating the choices that we're making for our body. So for me, cold therapy is two-fold it. It helps me increase my body's ability to tolerate the actual

physical discomfort of cold activating my parasympathetic and also to tolerate the mental discomfort of the running narratives telling me to get the hell out of there, learning how to center myself and calm myself in those moments. I really think that's why that I have not gotten postpartum depression is bad by putting myself in this ice bath. So we do so many of these shows and you have like these full circle moments. Wimhoff's been on this show and we talked to him and one, you know, and his experience with cold out of his words is, you know, he lost his wife to suicide and he had like so much depression and so much sadness and he found the cold.

And now you're explaining like the what happens with the parismpathetic and the nervous system. And it's like he said that he was so drawn to it because it was the only thing that could like take him out of that depression. Yeah. And get his mind to only focus on like, what was right in front of them. And so it's interesting, like, hearing you say this now because... And I just picked up a tip from Dr. Nicole. I'm going to go stand outside, but naked when it's

freezing cold. I'm sure the neighbors will love it. You know I would do that if it was like really, if it was snowing. That's a good tip. Just go outside. It's a little bit awesome. You might not get the benefit here. It's been hot as hell. One time it snowed. Yeah, one. So you mentioned that you have OCD tendencies. Number one, what is the difference between OCD and OCD tendencies? And number two, what are the tendencies that you do and how can you sort of recognize that you have tendencies? So, I mean, the difference in the technicality in terms of tendencies versus, you know, the diagnosis is, if I'm being perfectly honest, I never went in and was fully honest with the doctor about my OCD like tendencies. So I never got the official diagnosis. So for me, it was a lot of organizing and checking type

behaviors. I started to notice it. My family actually started to notice it. My family actually probably started to notice at first. And it became a running gym. where one of the first very early on things I would do. And all of this goes is really mapped on to my overachievement, perfectionistic, my mom and this focus on appearance. So the first way I would kind of manage my anxiety is anytime and I would look down and scan my clothes, usually my shirt for stains, and then I would do a little wet my thumb with my tongue and do a little spot clean. It became a running joke where I was like, oh, that little spot, Nicole, clean your shirt. And then that translated into, and I would just take this very lightheartedly. I'm like, you know, it didn't

necessarily offend me and rearranging things. My friends in high school, they think it was so funny when I would go to the bathroom and I would come back in and my dresser would be rearranged or skew in a different way and everyone would have a little bit of a laugh about that. So a lot of organizational type. For me, the way I now understand what this was was anxiety that I was overwhelmed with. I was under-supported with. I mean, even how this conversation I think maps on to hustle culture. I believe largely us as adults, very few of us can manage our emotions can tolerate stress. We all have the habitual way that we do it, but I wouldn't necessarily call it adaptive. I think it comes with a lot of dysfunctional habits. So for me, the way I...

So meaning like you think that we manage our stress by these dysfunctional habits that we implement in place of whatever that stressful activity is. We manage our stress or our negative emotions because very few of us have learned to have emotional resilience, which is simply the ability to feel an emotion and express it in a safe way and then return back to safe. So instead of being like, I'm stress and I've got to go through this you start doing a behavior in place of that to kind of escape that feeling. So you don't actually address the core issue. Exactly. Exactly. So for me, how that evidence. So I wouldn't have used this language around OCD. I just thought, oh, I had that chip for OCD. Like, I just have this thing. It's not as full blown where I have to go back home and close my door five times.

So I'm not that bad. But as I know some people are, though I wouldn't have used the language that I'm using now. So now what I understand is my nervous system was so dysregulated in absence of having the ability to bring myself back to safety, not having a parent to help me bring myself to safety, I started developing all of these little outlets such as looking, scanning, right, expending my energy to what I think was managing, you know, my appearance, but really what I was trying to manage and I was not doing a good job of it was this underlying accumulation of really deep rooted feelings, hurt, sadness, all around abandonment, not having that person available to me and my needs.

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What is that? Is that my nervous system's telling me that I need to dissociate from it? So I need to focus on something else. It could be. and it could be you expending energy. And not all of the time is what I call this necessarily a bad or a dysfunctional. No, Michael loves that the house clean. I still do that myself.

There's still ways that, you know, I consciously, when I feel that internal agitation, instead of ticking around the house or just not having an outlet for it, I might tidy, rearrange. I've now learned to, instead of complaining about how I have to tidy and rearrange in those moments, I have just learned to harness it. That is an outlet, I think, for energy and not all the time is, or regulation, just a maper on this cover. Not all the time, what I call it, a necessarily bad or dysfunctional habit.

Sometimes there's a great byproduct, like a clean house. What does it mean, though? So, like, I think it's a little bit more. I mean, she gets into this stuff. I mean, that's a 30-200 the bus, but sometimes she'll get so into. You can throw me into the bus. It's like a tornado. It's like the house, like, it'll be like kind of getting messy, messy. And then all of a sudden, like, we got to clean everything right now. And then what happens is, like, certain things,

like, she'll take like my wallet, for example. And she'll move it to a place that, I don't even think she realizes is she's moving it to? And then I will come to her and say, hey, where is that thing? And she'll get frustrated that to ask her because she actually literally doesn't remember.

Because he does this thing about, it's called Where's My's My? That's the series. It's the where's my this? We're going to get into a couple's therapy right now. It's so fucking annoying. Here's the Where's My. I am a person that I know where,

like I set my stuff and there's a place for the wallet. Hold on. Let me finish. I asked where's my because she is the culprit that will move things that I know where it was set and then move it. But she won't remember where she moved. moved it to. So it's a constant where's my because she doesn't know and I don't know where she put it. And then she gets frustrated because she doesn't remember actually moving the stuff. That is,

I feel like a little bit more than just like I'm cleaning the house. Oh, I'm not saying that I don't OCD tendencies. So the frustration for me is I'm saying where's my because she, because I don't know where she moved it. I like the labels out. I like the house. Wait, hold on. You're getting nervous now. You're getting called. No, I like everything completely organized and everything in its place because I do feel like life is so chaotic and like to have everything in my house organized the way I like it feels good to me. But what I'm saying is you don't know where you're organizing the stuff. It'd be like if you just pick this.

Yeah, because I meant like a disassociation. See, like social clean, but she doesn't know where she put it. And so then I have no idea where she puts it. And she doesn't remember even doing it. And so I'm like, hey, where, where's my? Should we get another guy to come in the relationship to balance us out? Yes. We're going to hear that.

So do you think that is a disassociation of some kind if you, if she has no recollection When we lack memory for anything, and this very much is emblematic of my entire childhood, I have very limited memory. Typically, it's because if we really just want to simplify it, we're not paying attention to put the memory in at the moment. I actually live with a where's my too. Lolly is very much a where's my. And she has, call me. We're going to talk about this. She has, she for a very long time, you know, was, I don't know if she was officially diagnosed, but has, you know, ADHD, ADHD, ADD type tendencies, more of the ADD than ADHD. And a byproduct of that is where's my all of the time? And I tend to have a more of a photographic, oh, I can picture,

especially when it's somewhere bizarre that it ended up, like, oh, why is that drink on top of the fridge? Like, she might want that later. And then she's like, where's my drink? I'm like, oh, it's randomly on top of the fridge because I kind of noted that. But again, just mapping this on. So, Lolly, not fully paying attention at the moment when she put the drink on top of the fridge because she was lost in thought. She was, you know, exploring her curious idea, which is where her focus, hyperfocus goes. Again, attention, not paying attention to dropping this. drink on top of the fridge. What I guess I'm trying to get from you right now is I know that I'm maybe not the most sane individual. But what I'm trying to do is win a point in this particular

argument because I will set my wallet next to my bed in a place that is visible and out. I understand it's not exactly where she wants it. But then she will move it to a place that she doesn't remember and that I don't know. And so I will say where's my more so than often because nobody knows where went. Is that ADD tendencies of me? And it consistently happens because she does this a lot with a lot of different things. Ultimately, when we're living with another human, I think what's underlying this is, you know, negotiating different lifestyle choices, organizational habits. And I think in any relationship, it is a negotiation of a workable solution for both people. And oftentimes I think there are very common conversations where one partner has a very different living habit or has particular places for certain things. and another partner wants it a different way

or like how does the cupboard or cabin naked organ? And I do think that oftentimes we have different preferences. I'm starting to get good at understanding where her disassociative mind moves things though. Now I'm like, oh, I bet it's in this one strange drawer that doesn't make any sense, but it's there and then I find it.

You should just be a static that there's no beard clippings and pubic hair clippings in your drawers. You should see the way he lived before me. Everything's organized and clean. Now you used to have all this shit crunched in your drawers. Everything was bucked up. Now you have your peel pads organized, your colostrum serum, your tongue scraper. Listen, I'm not complaining.

Yeah, just, just you should see. It's ever, all his shit is so organized. When you first met me, there was hair and all this crap everywhere. Whenever I have a doctor on the show, I always try to win points. Every time. So when you're on Instagram, you have a big account. What are you noticing that people are talking about the most? What's a common denominator theme that you're seeing a lot?

I'm going to just say really quick, I think that a lot. I think that a lot of people are becoming phone addicts or they already are phone addicts. And I think that that is making people feel a lot of things. That's something I see. But I would love to know what you see. Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of the phone, like anything I think about the phone, social media is, you know, another tool or aspect of our lives that, again, just this entire conversation really kind of centers around. How are we using it? Are we in a conscious relationship? Am I aware of my intention when I pick up my phone? How much time? What I'm doing on my phone? How much time? What I'm doing on my phone? it's impacting me when I'm on my phone.

And I'm speaking from the experience of being someone who, because one of my resting states is a chaotic, stressful childhood, I love to use the phone to stress me out. When I'm in a stressed out mood, I love to pick up my phone, find, I know exactly where to go to stress myself out, not the good things, not the empowering messages, go to the dark places. The darkest of darks and just spend some time there. So again, I'm speaking from someone who oftentimes, you know, does engage with the phone in a way that isn't helpful. Though ultimately I think, you know, there are people and using and creating a conscious

habit with anything that we're using in our life and we'll become an increasing conversation into the future because the phone isn't going anywhere. Social media, in my opinion, isn't going anywhere. Our lives are just continuing going to get more virtual. So then the question is, how are we going to adapt? And can we create a conscious relationship for us with these things that I believe are going to be a part of our future? Also, it's content overload.

If you're sitting on your phone and you follow 3,000 people, 1,000 people, 500 people, whatever, and you're watching half of those people's Instagram stories all day long, the content that you're consuming becomes such a cluster fuck in your head that I think you're so right. And it loops it back to the conversation in the beginning, being aware what you're doing so you can stop it. Being actually purposeful with the content that you're consuming. Is it enhancing your life? Yes. Is it providing value?

And if it's not, cut it out. that's my opinion. Right. And I think too there's a continued conversation around empowering ourselves to be discretionary, to understand what information does apply to us and to understand how to sift through the information that doesn't apply to us. Because to speak to your point, there's so much out there. There's so many different people's opinions, stories, you know, advices, really and everything in between. So really learning how to be an informed consumer, a consciously informed consumer that can figure their way through discretionarily, what does apply to them and what does it. And again, that's going to be a continued, I think, negotiation for all of us with technology being here to stay. I imagine only

the information is going to continue to pile on. And the byproduct of that, at least for me, was all of the information that I am now exposed to and integrate it into my teaching. So there's the value, I think, of it too, these conversations that don't no longer have to just go through an institutionalized context where they're much more limited. There's so much much. conversation and sifting through. I mean, for me, it really exposed me to a groundbreaking, you know, ways to transform my life and now begin to share this with other people. So there's great value and information and change that can happen with all that's available to us. And there's also, you know, learning how to sift ourselves or separate ourselves when it doesn't become

valuable for us. This is my last question, a million dollar question. And then Lord might have of them. But going back again to what's familiar in the root cause of a lot of these things, it sounds like our past determines so much of our future upbringing. And, you know, I have a friend who just was in a relationship and he was really struggling because the person was constantly talking about their pre-bit, their life trauma, their past trauma. And I have another friend who's living constantly in the past trauma. It's like they can't move past this. And I know you don't have the exact answer because it's different for everyone and there's different levels of trauma. But if someone was starting, like, okay, I'm ready to move past my past trauma, where

do they begin? Because I feel like so many people live in that past place. Yeah, we begin in the present moment by really refocusing because the reality of it is we are, we are the living memory of all that has happened to now we know generations, right, even before us. It lives in our mind and it lives in our body. That's different from acknowledging that, yes, I'm carrying trauma. Maybe the trauma's impacting or filtering the experience I'm having and impacting the reaction I'm having. That's different from hyper-analizing or, you know, over-analyzing. And I think that's often the byproduct or what happens in these moments where we're stuck in it. We're just retelling ourselves the story, ruminating about it, thinking about the past and therefore just keeping it alive for us in the

president. It's like the whole reason why you can't do something or date someone or take that next step or get that great job. It's because like this thing happened. And now like that thing means that all these other things are not possible. Right. And that's so much energy then that we're expending when we're ruminating, when we're locking ourselves and limiting ourselves because of what happened, all of our focus now is on the past. There's no energy. So when I say kind of become present in the moment, you still are going to carry all of the history with you. Look how it's impacting us here and now. And then from that conscious space, we can create change. That means first shifting out of all of the stories, all of the, you know, ideas that were stuck and just look at how we're. And just look at how we

We are stuck right now. And then what tools can we do to maybe regulate my body so that I feel safer making this new choice moving forward. But again, I think a lot of times and this happens as a byproduct sometimes to a therapy, right? When we're just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking about what happened, we're never going to be able to shift into our body into doing something differently. And that's, again, why I speak about embodying change means becoming present, seeing how that past is impacting me in real time with maybe an elevated heart rate and using those

somatic tools to calm ourselves down. That's the only way we're going to be. I'll refocus that attention and use it to heal what's happening in this moment so that I can then turn to a future and create one that's different or else I'll just continue to repeat the past experiences in my current life. I do this thing wherever I start to think about a past experience. I associate it with switching my brain to thinking about creating the future. So like if I'm meditating and I notice I'm thinking about something that already happened, I'll automatically switch. it to something I want to create in the future, it's like almost, it's turned into like a habit because I've said, okay, every time I think about the past, I'm going to shift it to the future.

So even again, like what you said in the beginning, being aware of those thoughts. Yes. Before you go, can you leave our audience with some tips on how to stop a habit that's not serving them? Smoking cigarettes, biting your nails, scrolling on Instagram, drinking too much, maybe like something that you think that just really works that you've seen. Yes. I'm going to just piggyback this answer on actually what you just shared.

I love that tip of shifting from a past thought-based thought to a future one because I do want to emphasize that our experiences have value. They have information. The past does contain information. That thing that didn't work and keeps giving you the same negative outcome is something to objectively see, oh, okay, well, that's not what I want to do the next time. This happens. So I don't want to diminish the value of these mistakes or choice.

or the past that we've lived because. Yeah, yeah, same. And I wasn't trying to say like people don't have real valuable trauma that's impacting them. I just think that whenever I get approached with these things, I'm like, yes, it happened, it was terrible, but now what? Right? Because if we keep saying it happened, it's terrible and I can't do anything because of that. It's like, well, like, what's, what kind of life is that?

Like, you got to at some point you've got to kind of do what you're saying, like acknowledge that that happened, but put more thought into what's going to happen in the future. Yeah. And then to build on even just what you said then, Lauren, then the question be. What do I want to do differently the next time? What do I want to see happen differently? Right? That can be that exact shift that you're both describing. So anyway, to start a new habit then, and this could apply to anything, whether it's, you know, stopping something or starting something that we think could benefit us, the biggest suggestion I like to give everyone is to create what I call a habit of a small daily

promise. Because ultimately, again, tying this all full circle, we don't want to change. We love our habits. they're familiar for a lot of us, they define who we are. So the second we go to think, do say something different or new, what's going to happen is it's going to register to our subconscious mind as unfamiliar, possibly threatening, and we'll meet what I call resistance. And that can look like all of the thoughts in our mind about why we shouldn't be spending our time doing this, how it's not working anyway, whatever the thoughts say to convince us to stop. Or sometimes again, it might drop into our bodies. We feel new when we do something new. We feel different than we're used to feeling. So the more new we try to do it once, and it's very common when we're suffering,

we do want to change our life from top the bottom starting tomorrow so that I can feel better quicker. It's very natural, though we then do ourselves a disservice. Because the second we then overwhelm ourselves with too much new before we know we're going to, we are going to be right back into those old habits. So whatever habit you're thinking about breaking or creating for yourself, set that intention for that one first step that's going to get you. It's not going to be the whole future outcome that you want, what's the first thing that you could do? So maybe it's limiting. If you're a smoker, especially if you're going to, you want to decrease something that you're doing very heavily, right? Chances are maybe some people do, you know, stop cold turkey, but maybe

it's limiting is the first choice. And then get some confidence, working through the resistance of how difficult it will be to limit something you've done so much of. Or again, if we're starting to create a new habit, setting that first small step that's going to get you. So say you want to, you know, do something for 30 minutes eventually. maybe don't start at 30 minutes. Maybe start doing that thing, whatever it is, breathwork, you know, meditation for five minutes, two minutes, and then build your way there.

Because the resistance will be there. You're going to challenge your mind and body, just like in that cold blind, it's not going to want to do this new thing. And really what the empowerment happens when we show that alignment, when we set an intention for ourselves and keep that new intention more consistently than not.

Because then what happens is we start to feel confident. Now not only am I confident that I can continue to create and maintain this new habit or break this old habit, now really I can create any habit because I've started to teach myself how to tolerate the discomfort of the unfamiliar, how to show myself that it's not going to be a terrible outcome that I imagine it to be, that I'm actually quite safe doing new things, and then I can build on that. I have a little tip for quitting cigarettes, sunflower seeds. mine's not holistic psychologist

Oh you've never been a smoker No but sunflower seeds Chilling them are completely different Mine's a completely different Energy than yours Yours is the good doctor tip But my tip is because of the hand to mouth Listen I used to be a smoker

Sunflower seeds weren't going to do it Just hear me out This is my theory The hand to mouth Right with a cigarette The sunflower seeds are hand to mouth And you have to crack them open And it's difficult

And it makes your brain focus on something else other than putting the cigarette in your mouth. Maybe if they were coated in nicotine. You know what, though? That's a great idea. Nicorette gum should make sunflower seeds. It's funny when you first said that I had my sunflower seeds that came into my mind were shellless.

No, they're not shellless. So that's a big difference. I'm like, what do you mean? Just pop and them in? They're not the comfortable sunflower seeds. They're ones that are going to make you mentally tough. Okay, you've got a lot going on. Where can everyone find your Instagram account?

Your books coming out. Tell us how they can book with you, your practice, all the things. Yes, all the things. So where it all began is on the Instagram account, the dot holistic dot psychologist. We've now spread across all platforms, have a TikTok account, a YouTube account, a new, well, it's actually been quite a year old now. The podcast, The Self-Healer Soundboard, which is on all of the major podcast platforms. A website, TheHolicicpsychologist.com, you can check out if you want any information about what's new

and also to join my global membership community, the Self-Healer Circle. and super excited because my new workbook, which was a seed planted when I was writing my first book, how to do the work of the need that I felt to give a really comprehensive roadmap of how to return to meet our authentic self. So my new workbook, How to Meet Yourself is coming out on December 6th. And that will be, again, across all major retailers. And you can find all information on my website, the holistic psychologist.com. Amazing. Well, thank you. This was fun. Thank you so much. Thank you both. This was a great conversation. I appreciate it. point I don't. I'm a therapist. I work with couples a lot. I'm not going to be baited into that.

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