The School of Greatness - Brain Experts: THIS Causes Trauma Bonding! Use These Strategies To Heal!

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

SUMMIT OF GREATNESS IS LESS THAN 1 MONTH AWAY! Have you gotten your tickets yet? Get them before they sell out at https://www.lewishowes.com/tickets Welcome back to The School of Greatness! In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the transformative journey of healing from trauma. I've curated insightful moments from conversations with leading experts like Dr. Nicole LePera, Dr. Mariel Buqué, Dr. Rahul Jandial, and music icon Jeezy. Together, we explore groundbreaking strategies for breaking free from inherited trauma, rewiring our brains, and finding inner peace. Whether you're facing personal challenges or seeking to understand the impact of generational pain, this episode offers invaluable wisdom to help you on your path to emotional freedom and resilience. Get ready to unlock your potential and embrace a life of abundance and healing.In this episode you will learnHow to shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset around trauma and healing.The crucial steps to maximize your emotional potential and create inner freedom.The power of neuroplasticity in overcoming traumatic experiences.Practical techniques for processing and integrating past traumas.How to redefine success by prioritizing inner peace over external achievements.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1657For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Eckhart Tolle – https://link.chtbl.com/1463-podRhonda Byrne – https://link.chtbl.com/1525-podJohn Maxwell – https://link.chtbl.com/1501-pod

If you are looking to find inner peace, break free, and heal trauma without medication, then this is for you. Welcome to the School of Greatness. I'm Lewis Howes, and today we're diving deep into the transformational power of healing. In this special episode, we'll explore how to navigate the path to breaking free from trauma and embracing a life of resilience and empowerment. And we've curated four insightful moments with some of your favorite guests, each offering invaluable wisdom on healing from trauma. These conversations have personally resonated with me

and I'm excited to share these profound insights with you. And together, we're gonna uncover actionable steps to start your healing journey and live your best life. It's been so amazing. Last year was just a transformative, life-changing event. Team Greatness is great. My name is Lewis Howes. Thanks so much for being here.

And before we dive into this special video today, I want to remind you about the Summit of Greatness, our annual conference happening this September in Los Angeles. With David Goggins, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and many more incredible speakers and performers, there will be so many live attendees there that you can meet with, you can network with, and you can help transform your life. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your tickets, and I can't wait to see you at the Summit of Greatness here in Los Angeles. Let's dive into this first moment with Dr. Nicole Lepera, who talks about the powerful strategies that have the potential to revolutionize your life. We're going to explore the depths of trauma bonding, dysfunctional patterns, and the keys to unlocking emotional freedom. And as you

listen and watch, make sure to ask yourself, how can you incorporate daily check-ins and attention management techniques into your routine to deepen your self-connection and foster emotional growth. I'm so excited for you to enjoy this moment and this entire episode. So let's dive into this enlightening conversation first with Dr. Nicole Lepera. When two people have traumatic nervous systems or who haven't healed their heart or their nervous system and they are in a relationship and neither of them know how to regulate their emotions, what tends to happen in that relationship if they don't know how to heal their hearts? We tend to, I think, engage in cycles of endless

conflict, of endless disconnection, of endless coping strategies that we've learned. We rely on the things that we do, whether it's using substances or distracting ourself by scrolling endlessly online. We are then the living byproduct. Sometimes it's in these explosive cycles of conflict. I call this patterning that I think is pretty common in most relationships. I know Lolly and I,

when we began our relationship now near a decade ago, we were very much in a dysfunctional patterning of what I call trauma bonding. Really? Absolutely. What is trauma bonding? So trauma bonding, again, I like to provide a more expansive definition than I think some could define it online. But it's all of those dysfunctional habits and patterns that, again, once kept us safe in childhood that we continue to recreate, whether it's these cycles of explosive conflict, maybe that some of us are even defining as right, love and intensity and

passion and all of the things we're looking for in chemistry or the just dysfunctional habits and selves that we're playing, where we're just, one of the partners is always the caretaker of the other partner who's always in need of the care. And no matter what relationship you're in, you see yourself kind of engaging within that same dynamic. Or for me, the most prominent one is cycles of emotional disconnection. No matter who I was with, and I was always in a relationship, I was somewhat of a serial monogamous since I started dating when I was 16 years old. I was more or less always in a romantic partnership, definitely had friendships and social engagements and things to do. But I was really the living embodiment or the feeling embodiment of alone in a crowded room. Really? And the number one complaint that would usually end to the demise of the relationship because I would be so frustrated or resentful or so

passive aggressively acting out that before I knew what the relationship would end was, I don't feel emotionally connected. Your partners would say that. I would say that. You would say that. I would complain about not feeling emotionally connected, though I can share a story. My first boyfriend ever in high school, to this day, it sticks with me. When we broke up, we were nearing graduation. We were going to separate colleges very far away. And so we broke up on logistics of, you know, it's college. He also lodged a statement, complaint, if you away. And so we broke up on logistics of, you know, it's college. He also lodged a statement, complaint, if you will. And he labeled me as being emotionally unavailable. And I was really struck by that because I was like, me, emotionally unavailable?

What do you mean? I feel so loving. I fell in love with him. I was kind of devastated when he broke up with me. So I was like, that's unusual to hear. I think he's obviously wrong. Flash forward a couple of years, I discovered I was attracted to women. So now I was like, oh, well, it's because I'm interested in women that I'm emotionally available. Of course I am. Flash forward even more a couple years, I was in a psychoanalytic training program in Philadelphia right before I was licensed. And one of the aspects of the training was to sit in group therapy around a room of other analysts where essentially for an hour and a half, we just analyzed each other and our experiences with each other and our perceptions and how we feel interacting. This was part of your training. This was part of my training to get my license. It was, I selected to go into that style of training because I thought it would be beneficial. And it was, though very difficult. And one of the things that I heard from a colleague there one time in the group, she decides to share her experience of me and described me as cold and aloof. And I'm like, okay, what? That is so interesting. Like now you're reflecting back, right? This idea of me being

distanced, but I didn't have any language to understand. I still thought that she was a little bit inaccurate. Though now looking back, I'm like, oh, this is making complete sense. The reason why I was so emotionally disconnected, that was real for me in my relationships. It was because I was emotionally disconnected from myself. So I wasn't attuned to how I was thinking or feeling. I wasn't sharing that. So of course, I was creating a cycle of disconnection in my relationships. So as much as I wanted to not agree with those two assessments, I mean, a lot of ways they were quite accurate. When did you get to a point where you said, okay, this, even though I don't think I'm

emotionally disconnected, the pattern is showing up that I am. Others are letting me know I'm in breakdown, relations don't work, you know, whatever disconnection I have from people, the pattern is following me. So, okay, I'm going to take a look at this seriously. What did you do to break that cycle? You know, in your book, How to Be the Love You Seek, you talk about breaking cycles. How did you break that cycle? How did you know you had something to break and that you needed to find solutions or tools to improve that emotional connection as opposed to disconnection? I started to look for myself because yes, other people's feedback can be absolutely helpful, but I never would suggest that you just defer to what someone else assesses you to be or says of you. So I finally started to take it in. I started to say, okay,

if I continue to hear this and feel this way from that conscious perspective, I will always kind of acknowledge consciousness or learning how to observe ourself in the context of this conversation within our relationships to be that first point of action. So I started to look. I started to pay attention and to assess really simplistically, Nicole, how connected are you? How present are you in any given moment? And as I began to check in with myself throughout the day, whether or not you want to set an alarm on your phone to do it, or put some post-it notes on wherever you know, wherever you walk by regularly, or maybe even set a designated time during the day, you know, over morning coffee or when I'm reading the newspaper, this is going to be my moment to check in. And the more regularly I checked in with where my

attention is, the more I noticed that it was a million miles away. I could be in conversation with someone and while like I'm here and I'm being talked at, right, I'm thinking about maybe what I'm going to respond to next or I'm just somewhere else entirely. And the more I checked in and noticed that disconnection, the more than I built on that consciousness step and began to because there's always two steps to change me becoming aware that I'm disconnected was only half the journey. aware that I'm disconnected, it was only half the journey, then I had to begin to make that choice to reconnect with myself. Wow. To shift that focus of attention time and time again from the thoughts that they were consumed in or even just worrying about someone else. Am I more attuned to the person across from me than to how I feel being across from the person?

And the more I kind of flex that muscle, the more than I was able to reconnect with what my body was doing in any given moment. How long do you think it took for you then to practice that? Because it was probably most of your life where you had this type of emotional disconnection, what it sounds like as a safety mechanism to create safety from childhood, whatever may have been that you were being safe from. So how long did it take for you to feel like, okay, I'm not having to think about this. It's more automatic. I am emotionally connected.

You know, did it take months, years, or is it still something you have to focus on? It's still a daily intention, commitment conversation. What has become automatic is the awareness of the importance of checking in with myself consciously, though there are still moments as my stress level goes up, as I become busy with endless obligations, that overachiever conditioned self in me likes to prioritize all of the things that I have to do to show up in service of someone else. And that begins first thing in the morning when I know I have emails to answer. I know I have a whole membership that I can tend to. I know I have a book to edit or whatever it is that I'm working on. morning to attune to my physical body, to how it feels at any given moment, to giving it what it needs, whether it's movement or stretching or rest or, you know, just a conscious moment to be with

me. And there are moments when I'm not doing that, when I don't prioritize what I know I consciously, you know, and benefit it to prioritize that I do find myself being much more detached, much more dissociated, it becomes still easy for me to travel down that older pathway. I would love to hear your biggest takeaway in the comments below from what you heard with Dr. Nicole O'Para. For me, I've gotten to connect with Nicole

over the years personally and professionally. We've had her on multiple times, but I've heard the backstories about how she had to really create boundaries and separate from certain family members at different times and how to really pay attention to the behaviors, the patterns that might be feeling like something's blocking you, something's holding you back. And to be aware of those patterns that are blocking you and try to create boundaries and start to heal from those patterns.

For me, that's the biggest takeaway. And it's not always easy, especially when it comes with family or friends or people that you care about, to notice those patterns and to break some certain unhealthy patterns. And you might be involved in that pattern and be responsible for some of those patterns as well.

So it's like, it could be this codependent, messy thing sometimes, and it's not always easy to break away from that. But I think creating that awareness and then making sure to create that safe space within yourself so that you can do that, that was my big takeaway. I'd love to hear your takeaway below. Moving along into this next moment, this is a powerful individual, Dr. Marielle Bouquet sheds light on the profound impact of intergenerational pain that resides within us. This has been hard for me to understand and how to really learn over the years about how your parents, their parents, and their

parents, if they didn't heal their traumas, how those generations could pass on trauma to you. And it's crazy to think that people you've never met in your ancestors, you've never met some of them, they might have been passing something down that now we get to take responsibility for and have these powerful awareness moments to kind of break free of those patterns. So get ready to uncover powerful strategies, again, to break free in your life from inherited trauma. I hope you enjoyed this moment. So let's explore these

insights from Dr. Mariel Bouquet. What's the difference between the traumas that happen to us and the generational trauma that happened to our ancestors? So the major difference is placed in biology. So there's a genetic component to intergenerational trauma. And so intergenerational trauma has this way in which there is a genetic transmission that happens from parent to child. And so it creates a predisposition to vulnerability to stress. Give me an example. What's a common example you see in your practice that is a generational story? that is a generational story? Well, I mean, you know, there are people that will come in and say,

you know, ever since I was a child, it was like difficult to soothe. And I was, you know, I had like this hyperactivity. There's a lot of trauma survivors that also like believe that their symptoms are coincide with ADHD because there's a lot of overlap in the experience and in the symptomatology. So there's a lot of that. There's like people that, you know, reflect back to their childhood and they say like, I've always had like this experience that felt like I was always anxious. When we dig into the layers and we dig deep, we start noticing, okay, especially because I do a lot of like family tree work and like really going down the lineage to know like, well, what are some of the trauma responses or what are some of the responses around? Also like inflammatory responses like depression or anxiety or other kind of like mental illness, you know, kind of experiences that were held in the family. family and when we start going down the family line and we start exploring not only their childhood and how they responded in their childhood what their attachment patterns were in their

childhood but also how perhaps like their mother had an inner child wound and the mother's mother had an inner child and they never healed it never healed it expressed it as a trauma response yelled and screamed in the home you know had like emotional outbursts what did that do that actually created a disruption in the attachment that you could have had like in your childhood it created an insecure attachment you then went out into the world and experienced bullying a pandemic like all kinds of things and then that trauma that trauma um you know propensity or or vulnerability got triggered out and And so now you are continuing the cycle of intergenerational trauma because it was modeled to you genetically,

it was passed down and then, you know. Now, is it, is it genetic or is it, let's say the mother breaks a cycle before she heals her trauma the generational trauma before she has her child she can and and she creates an environment of peace you know yeah is it the environment or is it the biology the genetic code that is passed down because it's like these environments are kind of passed down you witness your parents doing it you just follow the pattern and you follow the environment pattern. Yeah. Is that genetic? Is that environment?

What is both? It's both. It's like, you know, for as long as psychology has existed, we've had like theories on nature nurture. Darwinism also kind of just started that way back when. So nature being like the biological aspects of our back when so nature being like the biological aspects of our experiences and then nurture being like the social aspects of our experiences and intergenerational trauma is really the only trauma that is situated at the intersection of

both so we have the nature side yeah so you know on the nature side the genetic expression like we're we're getting a lot of information from like the field of epigenetics, which helps us understand how behavior like impacts genes. And so basically what happens is that let's say a mother, a mother has stress and depression in her life. Let's say that this mother is actually pregnant at five months gestation. So she's pregnant. She has a baby in utero. And because she's at five months gestation, that baby also has all the precursors sex cells that they're going to have for their lifetime, regardless of the whether it's male or female. They already have those. So the mother, she experienced chronic trauma her entire life. And so because that became the status quo, her genes re-expressed. And so because that became the status quo, her genes re-expressed. So her genes said, okay, this is the way that things are.

We are a stressed body. And so because her genes are now saying we are predisposed to stress, that's being handed down to the baby in utero, actually at conception. Wow. So the baby is conceived into genes that are predisposed to stress. to genes that are predisposed to stress. And because she is already still stressed while she's having this baby, all those stress hormones, namely cortisol, those are being passed down to the baby in utero. And what's happening to the precursor cells, those are also ingesting a lot of that stress environment. So you have three generations in one body, genetically being passed down the stress vulnerability, but also the social piece, the mother stress, you know, like she has all her things going on. She's predisposed to trauma. She's got all these things going while she's, you know, still pregnant.

Her environment is still stressful. Yeah. Yeah. And so everybody in that lineage of three generations in one body is experiencing stress. Is it just three generations or is it like every generation that's had it? Well, you know, like, I mean, I'm, I think it's, it's a little bit of a chicken and egg kind of phenomenon when it comes into generational trauma, right? Like it's like, where did, who, who started it? Right. But I think I illustrate that because it's, I think a little bit easier to see like, oh, well maybe it started with mom. Maybe she was, you know, the person that. Maybe she had an extreme trauma and there was a reaction response. Exactly, right? And so now we at least get to see where the genetic line started from the trauma perspective.

When you think about it that way, you're like, man, I'm carrying the weight of, you know, multiple generations of trauma in my genes. Like physical weight, actual weight. That could get a little dark and heavy if you really put the emphasis on that. So how do we actually break that cycle once and for all where none of that trauma stays with us and we don't pass it down to our kids? It definitely has to be a very whole system overhaul for most folks. It has to be you know an integration of holistic practices in our day-to-day lives every single day like a daily practice every day can't

waver on it because we got to think about what we're undoing we're not just undoing the decades of trauma that you experience yeah you're doing you're undoing all the, you really need to have a rebirth. It's like a spiritual, psychological, emotional nervous system rebirth. In my opinion, I feel like I've had a couple of them in the last decade. Um, 10 years ago, kind of opening up about my sexual abuse trauma. And then in the last few years, just dealing with all relationships in general, like all intimate relationships that I've had had i've never really faced them until a couple years ago and i feel like i had to re i had to emotionally spiritually die in a sense psychologically i guess absolutely yeah allow it to burn and then and then build from the ashes kind of psychologically and it's a process I'm not saying I've

finished it or whatever but it's like a constant journey of going back to the different stages of childhood healing each stage and integrating that age with my current self so there's full integration and healing of every different memory from my life that was a traumatic response. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been a beautiful journey that has allowed me to have peace and harmony on the inside, which I never had that until really 10 years ago. I didn't start feeling it, but until a couple of years ago when I started feeling more and more peace on the inside. And it allows me to, again, see the world differently. I'm not

saying I'm like not triggered by things, but it allows me to see it and say, okay, this sucks. How can I consciously communicate what I want to change? Not from a reactive, overwhelmed, stressed, traumatic state, which I feel like you can't really get much done from that state. No, I mean, you can, you know, you can push things down and numb and still operate, you know, fairly well, but all of that will come back because you're in survival mode still, because numbing is still survival mode. But you're not thriving. You're not creating an abundant life for yourself when you're in a traumatic response, are we? No, not at all i

mean i think you know abundance comes from being able to get into the depths of your soul right so i love that you're talking about the more like psycho-spiritual angle because that is definitely i operate from a holistic angle and so like a lot of the work that i do is very mind body spirit and the spiritual piece is really essential because it's not just your connection to higher power. It's really just also your connection to yourself. When you're like really disconnected from your true authentic self, you're not living abundantly. Yes. And if we want generational abundance, then we have to get into the depths of everything that's there, into the mud, if you may.

Yeah, and I think if you're triggered or have a nervous system response to a lot of things, you're constantly in a survival mode, right? Yeah. And it's hard to create an abundant, it's hard to dream from a place of survival. It's hard to create something beautiful from that place. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, even like, you know, from a biological perspective, like when we're in a nervous system response and that's, you know, survival mode, you're in a chronic nervous system overhaul, right? So our nervous system is designed to actually make it so that whenever we are in a fight, flight, freeze or fawn, any non-essential functions, any non-essential like organ functions, bodily functions, our brain even even like the cortical region of our

brain all of that is mildly shut down so if you're talking about like alchemizing and creativity and like all these things those things require a lot of cortical you know structure like manifestation of like you know all the things that you want like really requires for you to get into your creative mind and if your cortical brain is not fully functioning in the ways that it, because it's in survival mode, then you're not really going to get into that actualization. One of the craziest things that I learned from this moment was that it could be up to seven or some recent studies are saying even 14 generations could live in your body. The traumas, the pains, the things that held them back could be living in your body.

And you can go to the show notes below to watch the full episode to see the exact tools that you can do to really start breaking free of those generational traumas. But one of the things that she talked about is humming. It's kind of getting into your body, noticing it. Humming will allow you to calm yourself. Something quick that you can do, just hum and calm your own nervous system. Because a lot of this is going to take time. It's not going to happen overnight, but those are some self-soothing tools that you can learn from. Humming is one of them. You can check out the full interview as well in the description

below for more. But I want to hear your thoughts. What was your biggest takeaway from that moment? Share it in the comments below. And in this next segment, neurosurgeon Dr. Rahul Jandhal shares the secrets to overcoming trauma and conquering negative thoughts. We dive deep into the power of neuroplasticity and the transformational potential of the human brain. And as you listen to this next segment, ask yourself, what's a significant memory that has contributed positively to your life or potentially a memory that has contributed in a negative way to your life as well. Let's take a look. The brain has the ability to heal from traumatic, from trauma, physical and emotional trauma, because I feel like the emotional hidden trauma can be more

painful and harder to recover for some, the psychological emotional trauma than the physical trauma. You can see it and you can treat the physical trauma in a sense, but depending on how intense it is, but the emotional psychological hidden traumas, I feel like are invisible and people don't think they need to treat it because they don't see a broken arm and say, I need to go to the doctor because my, my bone is sticking out. Let me put a splint on it and heal it up. We're not trained that way. There is no easy answer. Yeah. But what I will say is that, um, There is no easy answer. But what I will say is that trauma, these are my concepts, I'm not,

there's therapeutic trauma. And what I mean by that is resetting a bone after it's broken, the pain of a cancer surgery, but then you know that your cancer's been cut out. Like, that's good pain. Right. And we're just talking about physical trauma. Yes. Then there's emotional trauma if people are attacked that's also intimately connected to emotional trauma, right? So the people who don't have memory after certain injuries or operations, they never have PTSD because they don't remember it.

operations, they never have PTSD because they don't remember it. So the emotional context and memories related to trauma, be it emotional, physical, or a combination requires memory. That's cool. I like to think about like, as a concept, I don't have a solution for, I don't, Hey, don't do these three things. You'll be better. Sort of not my approach. Cause when people did that with me, I was like, how do you know what I'm going through, man? You look at me, you think everything's good. Are you sure? Are you sure I wasn't attacked last night? Are you sure I didn't find out

that my patient didn't do well last night? Are you sure I didn't find out that a loved one was diagnosed with something? You know, like I just don't wanna put people in boxes. In fact, I want people to know that they are new every day. I'm not even the same version of myself I was in boxes. In fact, I want people to know that they are new every day. I'm not even the same version of myself I was before the last few years.

How can I be understood as a group of people, a man or a surgeon? I just want people to think of each other as individuals and dynamic. That said, I never judge people's trauma to be better or worse. People are looking or stronger or justified. They're looking at everybody's going to have a traumatic event in their life, whether it's a car crash or hearing.

It's unavoidable. It's partly because we put ourselves out there. It's partly because the way we approach the world is to be completely adaptive, right? If we're rigid, then there's less chances for trauma, but that's a life less well-lived. So when you put yourself out there, traumatic experiences are unavoidable. That said, okay. So that said, yeah, you get a bruise. What I want to hear you say is that if we don't have the memory of the traumatic event, we don't have PTSD. We don't have trauma. We don't have a trauma tale.

Right. So that's the concept that I want people to walk away and say. Memory is important. But memory is the thing that determines whether the event remains traumatic in your heart. Whether it's painful still for you. So let's get into that. So we just need to heal the memory of the trauma. This is exactly where I'm taking it.

Very good. So memories are not files in a cabinet. In the brain. How is memory categorized? Again, there are some regions that we if we remove them you would lose memory but memory is not only there it relies on pulling from memories of smell to new like for example smell is very interesting it's one of the five senses that we can't tamp down with our thinking so the perfume or cologne smell and memory are intimately intertwined. And so you're pulling from all different parts of the brain.

Again, memory is a certain electrical flow in the brain. But it's not, it's malleable. It's moldable. Just because you have a certain memory today doesn't mean that that experience, good or bad, will remain good or bad. Our positive vibe right now can be made negative. Our negative vibe right now can be made positive as we look back at our day to day. Really?

So when you see memory that way, then you say, okay, wait a second. I was attacked or I was hurt or something really traumatized me. And when I think of it, when I smell that smell, when I see that color, I'm, I'm traumatized again. I clench up, I have like stress or fear, anxiety. Yeah. So the emotional, the emotional context to a memory is what you can change. You don't want to, you don't want dementia. You don't want to delete the memory.

Cause that's a different problem. Yeah. You don't want to block it. You don't want dementia. You don't want to delete the memory because that's a different problem. Yeah. You don't want to block it. You don't want, yeah. But what you want to do is change the emotional context attached to that memory. What happens if we, you hear this from people a lot who might have been traumatized as kids where they forget, they kind of block the memory and then they remember. When it resurfaces, it's still raw. It's very raw. Yeah.

But they've stuffed it, they've blocked it, they've numbed it, addicted it, whatever you wanna call it. Driven it to addiction. Yeah, exactly. So what happens when? I don't know. I don't know about the kid stuff as much because that's a different space

and I don't wanna, you know, I wanna stay where I feel real comfortable with what I've been reading and learning. So emotional context and memory for adults in the right setting with the right person through, you know, they have their techniques. You can actually work through the trauma of the memory and the experience by going to certain therapists who help you get better with that. To process the memory. Yeah. Just to take the emotional pain, right? The emotional trauma and dampen that. So you can say, for example, yeah,

I was, you know, I'm just bringing examples from my world. Yeah. I mean, when I was diagnosed with cancer, that's a traumatic event. And then you see my patients, you see them over time through different ways. When they say, they say, I was diagnosed with cancer and I did this. Their face is different describing it later than it was immediately after receiving the diagnosis. So that's a real life example,'m not it doesn't have to be all the stuff uh you know related to violence and all that sure the traumatic experience of a cancer diagnosis and how patients cope with that immediately and then you see them months later years later because i'd be a mess right i'd be like okay this is i wouldn't be able to cope but they surprisingly not some of them, most of them cope.

They get dressed, they come in for their three-month scans, which to me would be a traumatic experience every time. Is this guy going to tell me it's back or it's bigger? I mean, think about, like, getting that thing in your mail or email. I got to go in for this news again. But somehow they cope. And that's where in Life on a Knife's Edge, I learned so much from them that it's possible to cope with traumatic experiences. I'm not saying you as an individual can. I'm not saying I can. And most of them cope, live, move on from very traumatic emotional experiences, as well as physical experience of cancer pain and cancer surgery, right?

That's the lesson I want everybody to go through in their mind when they're dealing with their own challenges. Wow. Again, I'm always fascinated by having different types of experts, people that understand the world in a different way. And specifically when it comes to trauma, if you can meet with someone who's done over a thousand brain surgeries, who's gotten to get inside the brain of a thousand different people, there might be some wisdom there. And here's a brain surgeon and a neuroscientist talking about

how we need to be aware of these patterns. We need to be catching them, being aware of them, and processing these things. We can't just be aware and just keep letting these things hurt us, keep letting the trauma, the emotions, the thoughts continue to affect us in a negative way. We have to be aware of it, and then we have to process these things.

We have to create emotional regulation, which is something that he talks about as well in the full interview that we did, where you can check out in the show notes below. But again, what was your big takeaway from that moment with the neuroscientist and the brain surgeon? Let me know in the comments. And to wrap up this episode, we have a powerful next moment.

And this is none other than Jeezy. Now, Jeezy, if you don't know who he is, his story is a powerful one. And in this segment, he shares how he redefined success as finding inner peace rather than material wealth. And here's an individual who had a very traumatic childhood, lots of different stuff that he was dealing with. And he shares his remarkable story of triumph over adversity. From overcoming traumatic events to collaborating with music legends like Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Rihanna. And as you listen to Jay-Z and his journey of overcoming trauma and finding fulfillment beyond material wealth, I want you to ask yourself, how can you redefine success in your own life to prioritize inner peace and personal growth?

life to prioritize inner peace and personal growth. And again, something to think about also, just because you or someone else is able to create incredible external success, it doesn't mean they have internal freedom. It doesn't mean that they feel emotional peace. It doesn't mean they have love for themselves or that they're not struggling internally. Just because you can accomplish externally doesn't mean you figured it out internally how to find that peace. And I think that's the important thing here is like, I was chasing things my whole life to try to overcome the feeling of not feeling enough and running away from the traumas of the past. Those things, until I addressed them and processed them, kept showing up in my life.

So again, just another example right here. So let's go ahead and take a look. Inner peace, emotional peace, and self-belief and self-confidence. While also knowing that people that you grew up with or, you know, you're losing friends to death or jail or, and still happening today, how do you feel peace, calm, and confident running a business, running your life, traveling with your wife, whatever it might be? How do you feel those things? I feel peace because I know that when it's all said and done, my kids going to know that their father was a great man. I feel peace in knowing that there's no better husband in the world. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm that guy.

You know what I'm saying? Because, because this is something I strive for. Like I wanted these things. I know that when it comes down to my culture, there's nobody that's realer than me because I'm not a rapper. Like I'm not, I'm,

I'm a prophet in my mind. I mean, I'm here to share what I've learned and to share what I know and hoping that it can change lives. Wow. Right, and save lives. Because that's the only thing I can do at this point. You can give me a billion dollars, I'm going to live the same life. Of course, I want it.

Right, right, right. I want more people,, I'm going to live the same life. Of course I want it. Right, right, right. I can get more people, but I'm going to still be the same person. And for me, it's like I get peace in knowing that I got good friends now

and I can build with. You know, I just had my homie lost one of his nephews and the other one lost his cousin. And, but it was a time

where as black men, we couldn't even talk to each other about how we felt. I'm in a circle of people now I can tell them like, man, I'm, man, I don't know how I'm, and we all come together. Right. We talk about this and I ain't judging you. Yeah. It didn't used to be like that.

I used to have to keep all my feelings and everything that I was feeling balled up inside and deal with it myself. You know, which caused me to go outside of my comfort zone to find the answers, which was a great thing. Yeah. Now I can call, you know, one of my brothers or somebody and say, hey, look, man, well, you know, my man, I finally, his nephew died. And the next day, my other man's cousin died. And it's just like, now I got to make these calls every night. But the calls are like, they're intentional.

Hey, bro, if you need to process this this you know if you need to just sit down like you want to smoke a cigar let's just talk you know and that's a different type of piece yeah right

because now I got an outlet and then what gives me peace is I started getting mentors whether it was my cause

I had TD a mentor of yours and Bishop Jakes is one of my mentors John Maxwell. Oh, yeah. I just had John on. He's great.

Robert Green. Oh, Robert's amazing. Tony Robbins. Yeah, man. You name it. You know, this is my circle. It's me now. Wow.

And for me, it's like these are people that I can reach out to, to even help me process stuff I need to process for the people that I love. Wow. I want to help. Right. Because now we all got this. You know what I'm saying? Sure.

It's not just mine. Right. And what brings me peace is knowing that, you know, my decisions can change lives. Right. Because my decisions have took lives. Meaning like I've been a part of things. Wow. You know, but now it's not like I just turned this new leaf and I'm just

in a different space it's like this is who I am this is who I was evolving to be I just had to go through the fire wow right just to understand because I can't look at you with a straight face and go I wouldn't do that I don't think that's good and I never did it I'm be like yo I'm like yo man

like I've been there and that's why when my brothers come to me if if they're going through some whatever, I can sit down and have a intentional conversation about, you know, processing it and understanding where we are. And then we can. And here's that street sense kicks in again. Oh, you ever thought about this? You should sit down down with such and such and y'all figure that out. Sure, sure. And that's how it works. How old were you when you started to be able to open up and have these types of conversations about your emotions, about your feelings, about your thoughts, as opposed to just with yourself?

Because I never spoke about any of my emotions until I was about 10 years ago when I hit 30. So I started to process and heal and be able to talk about these things that I was like, no one could ever know this stuff. I would say when I was 40. Really? Yeah, it's less than five years ago. Wow. That's when you started to be able to say, all right, let me start processing or opening up.

Well, what happened was I was living in Malibu and my music was changing. Louis Farrakhan hit me, Brother Farrakhan. He was like, Jeezy, brother Jeezy, your music is changing. The enemy's coming. I'm just like, my enemy's in my neighborhood. He ain't coming where I'm, I'm in Malibu. He's like, I'm just telling you. Get off the phone with him. Next week I'm on tour with Wiz Khalifa. Um, young man gets killed by my tour bus and they locked me and my crew up. A young man gets killed by my tour bus, and they lock me and my crew up. So now I'm sitting in L.A. County jail, $10 million in bail. Oof. You know what I'm saying? Because there's 10 people on the bus. Oh, I didn't do anything.

First time in my life, I didn't do anything. And I'm sitting there. You're on the bus. Well, actually, I got off the bus. Oh, wow. And went to a hotel room, and then I came. But it was your bus. Got on the bus the next morning. They followed us to the next venue. Oh, man. That went to a hotel room. And then I came. But it was your bus. Got on the bus the next morning.

They followed us to the next venue. Oh, man. That's where they got me at. Holy cow. And now I'm sitting in jail. 10 people in jail, a million dollars apiece, $10 million. And my team came to get me out the first day, right? And I go, I can't leave them in L.A. in jail.

I cannot. You know what I'm saying? So let me figure out how to get everybody out and then we'll get out together. So I got everybody out on bail because we still had to go to court. I had to pay for all that. Wow.

Flying everybody back and forth here to court, whatever. Shout out to my lawyer, Blair. Blair Brad, she killed it. But the thing was that one last time I was depending on the people that was my people to make sure that my family and my people were straight. And when I got home, when I finally got out, nobody did anything.

Really? And I was because I've been the bad for everybody. I don't pay for things that ain't got nothing to do. It ain't even my business. Right. And I was just so devastated because I'm like, yo, what if I, what if this would have been it? What if I would have passed? Like, you're not going to make sure my kids agree. I'm not going to check on my daughter's mother. Y'all not going to do these

things. And it's just like, I've done that for y'all. Right. And I'm not pointing any fingers. I'm just saying like, I know what I would do. Right. And that's when I started to learn. I can't put my expectations on anybody. Right. Right. So now I got to do what's best for me because now I feel like I'm all alone. Wow. So I was it. I cut everything. And then that's when I went on my mission to just start. And, and, and, um, one of my business partners, we used to always just sit down and talk, have a bottle of wine, smoke a cigar. And he like, what do you want to do? I was like, I want to do real estate. And it just went to a real estate. I started doing real estate that did well for me. I want to do spirit. So this is all what we did. So I'm like, I want to do real estate. And it just went to a real estate. I started doing real estate. That did well for me. I want to do spirit.

So this is all what we did. So I'm like, why don't I just do that in life? So I, Robin Green, I call Robin Green. We go to the LA Athletic Club. I have tea. I ask him seven questions. And he started giving me this game. John Maxwell, who came to marry me and my wife.

Wow. You know, in my backyard. That's amazing. Right. And one of my best friends and me and my wife. Wow. You know, in my backyard. That's amazing. And one of my best friends and me and John talking, he gives me this insight and I just started to move

towards the light. You know what I'm saying? Because I just wanted to get a different perspective because I didn't have anybody around me to give me their perspective. And T.D. Jakes, same thing.

And I'm not just saying it because these are established people. These are men that have done well in their lives and their community. And their relationships. And their relationships. They want to share something with me that I didn't have any access to. Wow.

And that's what made me start to open up and start to understand and start to be at peace and start to do all these things because now I know it's okay. Holy cow. So before five years ago, when you would face a challenge or adversity. Let me say this too though. I met my wife on set when I went to do her show, because she works in television, to promote an album I was working on. And I told my publicist, I said, yo, I'm going to marry that woman. But I knew that I had to do some work on myself.

Sure, sure. So this is the five years that I would have got myself together. Then I came back and I was like, yo, you know, I'm actually ready for you. Like, holy cow. Yeah. So you met her right around that time, five years ago or whatever. Yep. Wow.

Yeah. So this is fascinating because did you kind of let go of all those people in your your life around that time that was i mean i want to say let go because it wasn't that easy but i just think we we grew apart yeah and things just started to happen differently they didn't want to go on the same path as you yeah so naturally they're not going to be spending as much time as you yeah and then it just you know it got a little crazy for a while imagine man people don't like watching someone else change and doing things differently especially if you've known for a long time and, man. People don't like watching someone else change and doing things differently, especially if you've known

for a long time and you're used to doing certain things with them. Well, they want you to be the OU because it makes them be uncomfortable. The new you makes people

be uncomfortable. And for me, I just kind of felt like the hardest decision I've ever made in my life, hardest decision I've ever made in my life. And I made some hard decisions.

Was what? Was to walk alone. Hardest decision I've ever made in my life. What? Was to walk alone. Hardest decision I ever made in my life. It was like, I mean, for the first, the way Thug Motivation came, for the first three albums up until my album, The Recession, I had so much survivor's remorse, and I was so, like, in a bad place.

Like, I was drinking like you wouldn't believe really oh my god I was 260 pounds um skin was bad I was just like you know because I thought I was going to prison the whole time I'm just because everybody around me started to get indicted so I'm like just waiting it's coming like if me you hanging out and you get indicted and I'm like they got Louis that's my man. Right. Right. And it was just like the whole thing. So a lot of the music and why I was so, so strong and direct was because I just wanted to be heard in my mind.

I'm just like, like, I'm going to be gone. So this is my only chance. So I focused on the music, put everything in the music because I was just like, I just want to leave this behind if I'm not going to make it out this and I was in such a and this is the thing I didn't have the verbiage for all these things I was going through the language

you didn't have a communicator I didn't know what depression was I didn't know what anxiety was like I didn't know these things I didn't have no well you think I can go to the next room

one of my homeboys be like I'm feeling crazy I think it's anxiety like yo man drink this smoke this hey chill out, bro. You bugger.

And on top of paranoia. On top of paranoia. One of the cops coming in, one of the someone come with a gun. Everybody I would see, I would just think, you know, that the agents did this and that. Really? All these things were going on. I'm trying to make music.

And I was just so depressed. I was just drinking so much. And I was like waiting, waiting to the day. Like I would just go to sleep sometimes and be like okay if it's a day I'm prepared and they mind you the whole time this is going on because I'm I'm built the way that I'm built I'm distancing myself farther away from my family my sisters and you know my cousins my dad my mom at the time before she passed, because I'm preparing. Right. Because if I go, I don't want to be like I can't be a weak link.

Wow. You know, because I miss the outside of my mom, my family. So I'm mentally distancing myself from them because I don't want that to affect me if I got to go to prison. Holy cow. All that's going on. And it was one day I'll never forget I started to work on The Recession and I was dealing with this young lady and we had this breakup. It was public. She was a public person. We had a breakup.

And I just went in the studio the same night and I didn't come out until I worked The Recession. And what I was doing was I was reading books. This is something new for me. What year is this? This is 08.

08. Okay. 07, going to 08, right? Reading books. I was watching the news. I was working out. Now I'm in the gym. I don't know how to work out because I don't like to be told what to do,

so I didn't want to go to training. So now I'm YouTubing videos. You know what I'm saying? YouTube was my best friend and I learned how to eat clean, you know, how to stay hydrated. I wasn't drinking water for like I would go months without water. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was Cristal. Oh my gosh, man.

Cristal and Waffle House. That was it. That was my diet. And I was like that and I lost 60 pounds and I wrote The Recession which was one of the best albums in my opinion that I've ever written in my life because it was dealing with politics, the world, the things were going on. I wrote My President is Black before Barack Obama. Right. This is before he won. This was like six months before he won. And then he won. So that made that song go even crazier. I had put on with Kanye West. This was the first verse that he did

since his mom passed. And now I'm going to do shows. And when I used to do my shows, it used to be like all the gangsters and gang members and the drug dealers in the front row.

Now I'm down. I'm like 190, 185, right? And I'm doing shows and it's all women in the front. Really? Yeah. And I go do my first show on the Recession Tour.

They think they're looking at us, sure. Right, yeah. And I'm doing the show and I come out on stage and all sorts of stuff start flying on the stage. I'm looking at my security guard

like, yo, what you gonna do with this? He said, boss. I said, what's going on? He said, it's bras and stuff. I was like, oh my God. Panties and bras. Right, you know what I mean? And from that standpoint on stuff i was like oh my god panties and bras right you know i mean and from that standpoint on i was like oh i can be better i can look better i

can be better and this is when i came into stardom this is when i get myself yeah this is the first time my third album was the first time in my whole career where i said you are bonafide star you have to go out here and you got to do what you got to do. And you can't worry about your past. You have to be what you become. And that's when I fell into like cheesy. Right. Wow. That was the first time I felt like I was worthy.

Really? Yeah. Because before then, I'm like, I'm thinking it's a fluke. You know, I'm like, you know, I'm selling a a few records but it ain't the type of money i'm used to let's talk about that i don't say it and how long was it really gonna last you know i'm saying and you're not even really an artist so you know you can write a hit album and be talented and can't write another one right a lot of people do that right so now i'm i'm starting the process there because i'm like okay i got one what happens now you know so now I'm starting to process that because I'm like, okay, I got one.

What happens now? You know? So now I'm trying to stay in the studio, but I'm not living the same life that I was when I was writing these records. Right. Because I'm transitioning, so I'm seeing things different. And, you know, nobody wants to hear that. So what are you going to do? Right. to do right how many how many people in in the the music business that you interact with truly believe that they're worthy of love and peace and success i can't really speak because

i know for me i just feel like i just feel like i'm just a grown man. I don't group myself in that. Sure, sure. Not that I have any disrespect for it. Right. But it's just like, you know, it's like if I go to a golf club and everybody there is, you know, well off, I might want to play golf, but I don't want to be in their group. Right. Right. And I think that it's hard to get to know somebody when they don't know themselves. You know what I'm saying?

It's hard, you know, because they're living out who they think they are, who people told them they are. A false identity. Yeah, you know, you can't get to know them because they're going by a name

that they made up and that it's who they are and that's how people perceive them in the world, right? And, you know, not to say that anybody's a bad person, but it's almost like you go to a wrestling match, you got to know the undertaker ain't the undertaker at home.

Right, right, right, right. You know what I'm saying? You got to know that, right? But I think that's the difference because I'm cheesy at home. I'm cheesy every day. Like, it ain't got nothing to do with the music. The music just happened to be a part of what I'm doing. So, I mean, the music, you said this earlier,

you were never trying to be an artist. You were never trying to be a musician, an artist'm doing. So, I mean, the music, you said this earlier, you weren't never, you never trying to be an artist. You were never trying to be a musician or artist or rapper. You weren't trying to. I love the music though. You love that. That was the thing because I learned, and I talk about that a lot in the book. I learned a lot from like Tupac's core because he had morals and values before I knew what they were. He stood for something.

You know, he was a revolutionary. I didn't know that you can even have an opinion about this stuff. You see what I'm were. He stood for something. You know, he was a revolutionary. I didn't know that you can even have an opinion about this stuff. You see what I'm saying? He stood on that. He died for it. He's like, you know, what's the difference between him and anybody else that was assassinated? He died for what he believed in, right? And the

things that he believed in gave people like myself some type of moral compass. Because I knew I couldn't do that. Because Bob said you couldn't do that, right?. Because I knew I couldn't do that. Because Pog said you couldn't do that, right? And then I knew I shouldn't do that because he said somebody did this to him. And that's how I was starting to pull things out of the music. So I loved the music.

So I was listening to like the Pogs and the Master P's and the A-Ball, MJG's. I didn't listen to the music just to hear it and enjoy it. I listened to the music like sermons. Wow. I'm trying to find the word in there. The message. And that's why I love music so much. And it was like... But you weren't trying

to be a musician. No. I was trying to be... Honestly, I was trying to be an entrepreneur before I knew what entrepreneurship was. Because the guys that I saw that was doing it on a major level was the Master P's and the Cash Monies. You know, they were living this crazy life.

And I was hustling, trying to get the stuff that they was getting. Like I bought Lexuses and Rolex watches and all this stuff at that time. Like I was known for that. You know what I mean? Like people know, if you know me, I had the latest car, I had the best watch. And this was before music. Right. But these were the entrepreneurs.

And I'm like, well, I can do this. I just got to go find some talent. So you're trying to be the label. You were trying to find the talent. I was dealing with some guys out of Florida that I was kind of getting some money with in the streets. And they had a record company that they was building. Right. And we went to this Black Spring break in Daytona or something.

They had the Winnebago's and the cars with their stuff on, their t-shirts. And I was just like, I could do that. So I went back to Georgia, bought a studio, went to the neighborhood, got some artists. There weren't artists. It was the homies. You know what I'm saying? Got artists. And put everybody down. My man was'm saying got artists and you know put everybody

down my man was with me as well and we put everybody in the studio and we was trying to make records and we was trying to get our name out there

and it just didn't go that way and then the charges came down people started getting real time so on and so forth and now we stuck with this studio

with no artists and everybody like well look you really lived the life you might as well talk about it wow I was a little reserved because i'm already again good over here the last thing i want to do is go over here look corny right or because i don't really truly have talent like i'm not writing sorrows every day however when I went back to my childhood,

I had to realize, my wife is going to kill me about this, but there was a girl in my class when I went to school in Hawaii, right?

And she was, she was different than this or whatever. And I was just like, wow, you know, because I had never seen, this is my first time

out of the hood. Like, I've never seen this, right? So I'm like, so I started writing her poems. And then the more I wrote her poems, my dad would come in like, what are you right so i'm like so i started writing her poems and then the more i wrote her poems my dad would come in like what are you doing i'm like i'm

writing another poem he's like man come on so i wrote her poems like every day and then she ended up becoming best friends girlfriend with him but i realized that the way i can articulate myself when i write was something special then because you you're feeling what I want you to feel yeah I'm getting the result right I'm with you now right you know I'm saying I can say we're connected right and I just remember interesting and then when I started to understand how to put my life into words it started to be therapeutic for me because now it's like oh I did deal with that oh that is trauma wow i did go through that how did i overcome that and now i'm putting it in my music and that's why my music has

always been about motivation it's been about inspiration it's been about how can i help you with my pain how can i prevent you from feeling what i felt and even if you do how do i make you feel like you're not alone in this right that's where the music came from because from. Because if you go back to Pac, Thug Life was a movement. But if you listen to it, you think it's about killing and robbing. It's not. It's about standing for something. Right? Yeah.

It just made it make sense to us. Sure. Because we all feel like we're living the Thug Life, right? Wow. So I came back and my first album was Thug Motivation because I wanted to set it up like a class. That's cool. This is something you sit down and you, and then my second album was the inspiration, right? And then my third album was the recession. So look at the, you know what I'm saying? And the crazy thing is I got the recession

from being in a room with these guys. I went to this little private dinner. I'm in a room with all these guys that got all this money. And they were so concerned. It was like, you know, the recession is coming. I'm thinking about selling this and doing that. And I got to get rid of this business. And I'm going like, you guys got a lot of money. Like, what are you worried about? And he's like, do you know what a recession is? I'm like, yeah, but I didn't.

So I went back and Googled it and I'm like, huh. So I'm asking questions now. What happens with this? How does that happen? So when I wrote the recession, that was me running back to tell the culture what I just learned. My big takeaway from Jeezy is that

inner peace is the new rich. Again, it's nice to have money. It's nice to be able to have nice things. It's nice to be able to have flexibility with, you know, a nice car or be able to travel a certain way or have a nice home. These are nice things. These are blessings to have. But the real blessing is inner peace. That is the ultimate rich. That is the richness of life is feeling inner peace and feeling free. And again, this is Jeezy talking about this, a man who went after all the fame, the success, the wealth, the material possessions, but didn't have that inner peace and realized on his healing journey how much incredible wealth there is with having that inner peace.

Leave a comment below. Share with me your biggest takeaway from all these different experts on overcoming trauma. And if you found these insights helpful or want to explore more, then I encourage you to check the full conversations below, linked in our description, wherever you're watching or listening to this conversation. And again, reflect on the concepts and questions discussed as you continue your own healing journey.

As my therapist says, healing is not a destination. It is a journey. And I think every day, the more you're aware of the things that have triggered or traumatized you in the past, the more you can process and heal those things, the less those things will affect you in your daily life. They'll just be little disturbances every now and then, but they won't take over your nervous system and make you react at every moment when you feel you're being triggered or traumatized.

Make sure to dive into our resources below. Share a comment below if this has been helpful for you, your biggest takeaway. Subscribe here on YouTube or over on Apple or Spotify. Leave us a review if you're listening over on Apple or Spotify as well, and share your biggest takeaway in the review section. And again, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening,

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