932 Dr. Nicole LePera on Relationships, Boundaries, and Childhood Trauma

“Consciousness is where we are granted choice.”QUESTIONSHow are you growing faster than other therapist brands? (1:28)How do we change a feeling of powerlessness? (7:25)What’s the greatest trauma people face? (17:24)What’s the level a child or the parent traumatizes the other? (19:23)How do we come to a place of worthiness? (29:00)What is the best practice on observing self thoughts? (37:13)What’s your biggest trigger? (39:13)How do we forgive our parents, even if they were doing the best they can? (43:20)How do we say no without apologizing? (49:30)How do you speak to a child that has a chaotic reality and has not observed their own thoughts? (1:01:30)What’s your biggest fear as a therapist? (1:07:32)YOU WILL LEARNThe issue with always thinking about what to do next (5:30)How to develop a consistency in practice in consciousness of action (9:45)The top tools for your healing journey (16:25)Why meditation is key to tuning in to our internal world (24:30)What to do when we get stuck in our familiarized comfort zone (27:50)How the practice of self observation removes focus without judgment (29:30)Why we must change our expectations (41:21)Why we find a way to keep connections with other humans (51:32)Great ways to say no without apologizing or explaining yourself (56:25)The importance of going inward and connecting with ourselves everyday (1:07:10)LINKS MENTIONEDThe Body Keeps the ScoreVirtual Self Healer Circle MembershipBrain on Fire by Susannah CahalanIf you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/932 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 932 with Dr. Nicole LePera.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Brene Brown said, "Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others." And Oscar Wilde said, "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." I am so excited that you're here because I have become obsessed with the content of Dr. Nicole LePera since I discovered her about a year ago, I guess it was. And we had her on about six months ago. And this episode blew up. I mean, it just helped so many people create boundaries and help them heal, it helped them understand relationships, it helped them understand themselves, it helped them

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  understand mental health and all these different things that we struggle with as human beings. And go throughout this world trying to figure out how to be the best human being we can be, and how to interact with other human beings who are on their own journey. And if you don't know who Dr. Nicole LePera is, she's a holistic psychologist from Philadelphia who's now in LA. I'm super pumped that she's closer now. And she believes that mental wellness is for everyone. She evolved her more traditional training from Cornell University and the New School to one that acknowledges the connection between the mind and the body. And Dr. LePera views mental and physical struggles from a whole person perspective

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  and works to identify the underlying physical and emotional causes. Now, she understands that balance is an integral part of wellness and empowers individuals to heal themselves, supporting them on their wellness journey. And she founded the Mindful Healing Center in Center City, Philadelphia, where she worked with individuals, couples, and families, taking gut health, sleep, movement, cellular health, belief, and mindfulness into treatment. And I love all the things she talks about. If you don't follow her on Instagram, she is such an inspiration. And in this interview, we talk about how Nicole gives us an update from her last interview where she set boundaries with her parents

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  and stopped speaking with them completely, and what has come up since that time. She breaks down the pyramid of self-healing. This blew my mind. I loved how she walked through this pyramid, this foundational pyramid, that if we all fall through this, we can really start to heal ourselves. We break down normal things and relationships that we think as also could be problems for us, when a lot of people think that like, hey, this is boring. Is this normal? And we break this down. We talk about how to say no without apologizing for yourself. And she breaks down childhood trauma in ways that are familiar and unfamiliar for most of us. This and so much more. I am so excited. You have the

• 3:18Lewis Howes?

  power and the opportunity to really help and change someone's life today. Share this out with a friend. LewisHowes.com/932 is the link. You can truly make an impact on someone's life. Think about someone that you care about, a friend, a family member, a colleague, someone that you're in a great relationship with, that you want to see improve and really heal from certain things in their life. At any point, share this out when you're listening to this episode. You truly can make a big impact in someone's life when you do. And the link is LewisHowes.com/932. And now I am so excited about this. Let's get into this episode with the one, the only Dr. Nicole LePera.

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back to School Greatness Podcast with Dr. Nicole DePere in the house. Good to see you.

• 4:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Good to see you.

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  Super pumped about this. Second time I, you were on six months ago and people just needed the information so much. They're eating it up. People are struggling in a lot of areas of their life. You are helping them in so many different ways. So we've got you back on and I'm just pumped about this because you were just saying this interview we did last time, so many people resonated with it in a big way from the video, the audio. A lot of people are messaging about it and same for us. So I was like, we gotta do more. We should do like a series. We should do something and you're back here. So I'm excited. And what's it been like in the last year for you? Because I think, what was it, the beginning of last year, you had a very small following, not small, but maybe 100,000 followers,

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  maybe, right? I don't know. Where were you at in January 2019?

• 4:57Dr. Nicole LePera?

  January last year, probably around that. It happened pretty quickly. I can't remember when I hit the million. So I'm now nearing 2 million. It's mind blowing to me.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  But here's the thing, there's a lot of other people that are trying to do what you're doing, but they're not growing as fast. Is there a reason for that, do you think? Like there's a lot of other therapists that are trying to copy your stuff or just trying to like be inspired by it and do their own thing, but they're not really growing the way that you're growing. Why is it what you're doing is taking off, whereas it's not for other people in the same way? What do you think that is?

• 5:29Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Well, without knowing, I think kind of what other people are doing or not doing, I think why I'm taking off and have taken off quite quickly. I mean, numbers started to grow fairly quickly, surprisingly so, upon my entry online. And the way I understand it is just, I think the universality of it. The fact that what I'm talking about is so much resonating, whether or not I'm talking about all of the areas in which I've been stuck, whether I'm sharing my own background and conditioning and experiences, or whether I'm talking about the process of healing and all that comes with that. I think in all, in my whole story, I guess I should say, there's just points that I think is so universally relatable. And when you can see yourself and hear yourself and feel yourself in another

• 6:13Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Human, you become attracted to wanting to hear more, to feeling understood. And then when I shift and I start to talk about the work and the healing I've done. I mean, I feel like that can be an empowering. So I don't know kind of how. Something about my topic is very, it's global. It's a big topic. I think about that often.

• 6:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, mental health, self healing, trauma.

• 6:35Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I'm not like super niche down where I just talk about, you know, maybe.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  Relationships.

• 6:39Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Boundaries and that's it. So day in day I'm talking about boundaries, you know. I think that with my scope, you're gonna find, like I was saying, the part of my story or my journey that resonates. And then you're gonna become likely to connect.

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  And for those who don't know the, the main parts of your story, what are the, what are the parts of your story that really resonate with people you think?

• 6:57Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  And I want people to go listen to the last interview where we talked more about it, but for a recap. What's the main parts of your story that you talk about and you've had to heal? That is a reflection of what a lot of people are going through.

• 7:07Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  What is that?

• 7:08Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Well, the first word that I think we, most of us can relate to is the word stuck. Is being stuck in our lives, watching yourself live patterns, whether or not they're in your daily behaviors or patterns in your thinking mind, or just being stuck in certain specific feelings. Maybe a lot of us, and a lot of us do logically, we're insightful. Maybe a lot of us have been in treatment and therapy and we might know a way out or think we know a way out. Yet we still feel stuck. I felt that my whole life. Having clocked many hours in my individual work before I shifted the way I practice, but with individual patients, clients. Same thing, that word would come up time and time again.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  You felt stuck, or you mean your client?

• 7:49Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Stuck. I feel stuck. I had maybe thought I had the tools to change, thought I had the insight to change, couldn't implement them.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  And you're a therapist.

• 7:56Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And I'm a therapist. Now fast forward, I'm seeing same stories coming in week after week with my clients. Quite literally the same stories. Here's the issue I had with my partner. Okay, we'll explore it insightfully. Maybe we even come up with a game plan of how to choose a new response in this future fight that of course is gonna happen. Flash forward to that next week, same fight, Groundhog's Day, verbatim.

• 8:16Lewis Howes?

  So you would give, because I get this from therapy a lot. It's like, okay, when there's a breakdown or a fight. The therapist will give a tool to try to like diffuse a fight or to say, okay, let's take 10 seconds of breathing together, or let's step out of the room and then come back together.

• 8:32Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Timeout, we love our timeouts.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  Whatever it is, right, there's like different tools you can use in an argument or a fight with a loved one or a friend or anything like that. But why don't they seem to work most of the time? Why is it, why don't they work?

• 8:44Dr. Nicole LePera?

  When we're having that conversation about what to do next, we're in a part of our brain that where consciousness lives. This is where we can be separate from ourself, our thoughts, our feelings, where I do my little like spotlight, where we're like this little observational spotlight of ourself. We have access to logic, to long-term planning, you know, that's the part of our brain that makes us human, this ability to be conscious, to observe ourself, to think about thought. Beautiful, empowering gift that we have.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  But we're not able to do that in a stressful moment?

• 9:14Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Those are the moments that we're having this conversation. So a lot of therapy sessions take place very consciously. We're here, calm, right up the, the ambiance of most therapy rooms is very calming, you know, we're in that nice balanced place and so we get it. But you're right, when we get into the moments where we need to use it, we're now functioning from a lower part of our brain called the subconscious, which is part of our past. I talk a lot about the subconscious as the means in which we literally carry our past, where all of our wounds live and what causes those emotional reactions. So even if I've trouble, if I know what I'm gonna do differently, we're gonna, hey, you're my partner and we love this idea of timeout, so when things get escalated, we're gonna timeout. Chances are when an emotion is touched in one or both of us, we're right, we're shifting

• 9:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  right back down to that emotional lower center of our brain and that's gonna dictate what we do. And we're probably gonna do the same things that we always do when we're upset.

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  React, scream.

• 10:07Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Scream, yell, run away, tantrum, like dissociate, I love that one myself.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Is that what you do?

• 10:12Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Oh, I'm, I used to be the queen, I used to call it my spaceship. I used to go away and I got very good at not appearing away, so I could still continue, but emotionally I was so disconnected from myself, the moment, my feelings.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  So you would be there, you'd be physically there, but not emotionally or mentally, you would just disconnect emotionally?

• 10:29Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Disconnect, so I'd be, you know, very, very calm, talking or in appearance because I was.

• 10:35Lewis Howes?

  I don't care, I don't care.

• 10:36Dr. Nicole LePera?

  But down here, there might have been a whole multitude of feelings bubbling up, but that was too much, too overwhelming.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so these tools can only work to a certain point, it seems like. Based on your experience of working with a lot of people one-on-one and seeing them come back, okay, we tried timeout, we tried this. So it seems like they only work to a certain point of our ability to be conscious of the moment. Right?

• 10:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes.

• 10:58Lewis Howes?

  Is that true?

• 10:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, consciousness is where we are granted choice. Otherwise, that subconscious is gonna run those same patterns. Behavioral, emotional.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  And it's almost like we have no choice.

• 11:08Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We have no choice. We are, we're disempowered. We are, you'll hear me often talk about, we come, we become reactive to the environment. We live a reactive life toward the environment. As in, things happen in our world and I only react in the same way typically. And that's, it makes us feel very powerless, very victimized. We are a victim of circumstance in that way.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  So how do we change that? Powerless feeling that, yeah.

• 11:34Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We have to practice consciousness. We really have to. I mean, change begins when you practice being conscious. Practice showing up. Practice observing yourself. Practice observing all of the patterns.

• 11:45Lewis Howes?

  Not just when it's calm, but when it's chaotic?

• 11:48Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I actually don't suggest you begin to practice when it's chaotic. Practice when it's calm.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 11:52Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So that you can practice when it's chaotic.

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  So give me an example, like when it's calm, how would you be responding in a certain way of love or peace as opposed to hysteria?

• 12:02Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Lewis Howes?

  What would that be like?

• 12:03Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I reframed that because I think it's really important.

• 12:07Lewis Howes?

  If you're not being triggered, then how do you practice?

• 12:09Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Exactly. And a lot of us wait because, oh, I only have an issue when I'm triggered.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:12Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So I'm gonna wait to use this new tool then. So we can't just wait till then. Because we're not going to use something new then. We're going to do the thing that was familiar then. So I really am, I harbor on the point of consistency. And of just developing a consistent practice of what we're talking about now, of consciousness all of the time. So that when you really need to be observational of yourself, to see why, you know, that dish that was left out was so incensive.

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  It's triggering.

• 12:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Right? And to create that space then, so that dish can still be there. I still can feel incensed by it, because that doesn't go away right away. But I might not throw it at my partner or knock it on the floor, you know? I might choose a different response. So it's really a gradual evolution. But it starts by practicing consistently all of the time. Starting in small moments, of course, because I'm the biggest believer in too much change too quickly overwhelms the system. So you're not gonna, your intention isn't gonna be, oh, I'm completely unconscious, so now I'm just gonna start being completely conscious starting tomorrow.

• 13:09Lewis Howes?

  No, it's not gonna happen.

• 13:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You're gonna start to be conscious in one moment in your day for a good, long string of days, and then maybe you're gonna try to do it for two moments in your day, and then three.

• 13:19Lewis Howes?

  I tell you what, I mean, my girlfriend moved in a couple of months ago, and I'm so used to a certain routine every single day of the way I like things, right? And so, when she moved in with our dog, it was like, I had to learn so many new ways of living in my space, in our space now, and I love to make the bed right away, right after I get up. She gets up, I get up early and I go to the gym, and I like to make my bed right away. She likes to sleep in a little longer, and doesn't like to make the bed as quickly. And I had to learn, because we were making the bed quickly, and then it's like, not being made.

• 13:53Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I was picturing you making the bed over top of her while she's sleeping.

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  I know, I want to be, I wanna be, but I had to like, just learn to accept certain changes without reacting, being like, even though I'm used to a certain way all the time, am I okay with not doing this, or it not being done the way I want it to be? Now that I'm in a new relationship. And I've been able to observe and practice without getting upset, or without getting mad, being like, okay, this is how it's gonna be, and if I want it to be done a certain way, I can make a request, I can wait till she wakes up, and then I can do it myself, you know, or whatever it may be. We can create some new type of relationship around it, but I need to be willing to evolve and change as well, where I'm not always gonna get everything that I want all the time in an intimate relationship. Is that, is that true?

• 14:36Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, that's true. You also highlighted something very real, which is that, it doesn't mean that right away, you're right on board.

• 14:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:43Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You know, right away, you might wish that she was up and your bed was made, and that's okay. We shame ourselves as humans, because if we have that old reaction, or assign that old meaning, immediately we become shameful. Oh, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't. It doesn't matter, I mean, we're gonna have those thoughts, they're gonna stick around for a while. We're gonna have those feelings even, they're gonna stick around for a while, but we can start to create new choices.

• 15:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:05Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And we don't have to feel badly, you know, about desiring to live those old, familiar patterns. It's actually part of being human.

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  I have, I feel like I'm so proud of myself the last few months, because my girlfriend moved in, and...

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  It was stressful. The first couple of months was there were so many beautiful days. But then there was like things that would trigger her that then would trigger me.

• 15:28Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Which is typically how it happens in couples.

• 15:30Lewis Howes?

  And she's a passionate Latina and she likes these her way too. So I could have, I remember just thinking to myself like, I could easily go back into a pattern of trauma, resentment, feeling abused, not feeling a sense of fairness, whatever my childhood traumas were. And there were a couple of times where I did argue from that place. And I realized, this is not gonna work. If I come from this place, this relationship will not thrive. And I'm not saying it's okay for her to come from that place. So we're working on things together. But I just realized like, is it better for me to be right? And try to prove my point and argue something? Or is it better to just listen, love, come from a place of peace in that moment?

• 16:13Lewis Howes?

  And then reflect and talk about it later, like the next day? Even though I want answers now. I wanna resolve this right now. Here's why I'm right. I wanna defend my point. But it's been a beautiful shift in my partner since I've been doing that. And just letting my ego go of like needing to be righter of a certain situation. It's amazing. I'm not saying it's easy. But it's amazing the amount of love. And I just, I automatically switch to appreciation. Right when there's a trigger or something, I'm just like, I appreciate you so much. You're right about that. I'm gonna work on this more. Even if she's not a hundred percent right, I'm just like, you're right about this and I can empathize with this. And it's been incredible. It's so hard to do unless you practice.

• 16:59Lewis Howes?

  And so what I do every morning is I just shower with appreciation. When it's calm. And I'm like already in that mode. And I just think that's a game changer. And I'm not, I'm not saying I have it all figured out and I have this like perfect relationship. But I hear so many people in relationships who struggle. And I asked them, I was like, when's the last time you texted what you appreciate about them?

• 17:18Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  Or when's the last time?

• 17:20Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It's a litany of what isn't appreciated.

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 17:22Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Or what could be done differently. Well, you said two really, I think, beautiful pieces in that, which is that, I mean, first and foremost, I want to acknowledge you, Lewis, because you changed.

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:33Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Right? You didn't yet say, "Partner change."

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:35Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You said, "I'm going to experiment with how I can have a new relationship with this experience, so I can do differently." And a lot of us, when there's discomfort or conflict in a relationship, we do very quickly.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  Want the other person to change, right?

• 17:46Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because this is back to that reactive way of living, right? If the environment is affecting me negatively, that we were describing earlier, right? So if you're my partner and you are, the environment is affecting me negatively, please change, so that I can now feel better. But change comes within.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  It does.

• 17:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I mean, so that was very beautiful, that you owned the responsibility. I think there's also something to be said about this concept of right and wrong. I mean, not to go all esoteric, but we can make an argument for days about this concept of right, is there anything right or... And you said something beautiful. It's not necessarily a fight. We can shift from a need to be right or wrong to just an attempt to understand.

• 18:18Lewis Howes?

  That's it. And empathize with where the person's coming from.

• 18:21Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Where they're coming from, why they see that perspective that they are. What about, and something else, I think, that is beautiful, is your realization that somewhere wrapped up in here was that past that was very painful for you, but very much alive in this moment. It doesn't mean that this moment embodied the past.

• 18:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:37Dr. Nicole LePera?

  In an objective way. It just means that it triggered that part of you that remembers that past.

• 18:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:43Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So, very, really beauti... I mean, I love that illustration, because I think that really touches on the work that needs, or that we can all do for ourselves in our practice.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm just practicing, like, I'm doing things I normally wouldn't do, but also the things I normally wouldn't do have never fully worked for me in a relationship. You know, I just, I'm always used to doing things my way, because this is who I am, and don't change me, and don't try to...

• 19:06Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Who I am, yes.

• 19:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly, right? And now I'm just like, okay, even though it may seem a little more time to do this thing, or a little more effort here, or to sacrifice something else in my life to cultivate this over here, if that's what I'm calling a sacrifice, it's just... By doing and experimenting these things, even though I was resistant to them in the first couple of months, I'm like, hmm, do I really need to go do this thing in my life that I did all the time that wasn't really adding value? Or is spending that extra 10 minutes cultivating this relationship more meaningful? And so it's just shifting the awareness in my life about what I thought I wanted to, what's actually more valuable. So, not to go off on this, but I feel like what I wanted to talk about is people practicing when you're not in conflict.

• 19:51Lewis Howes?

  And the reason why tools don't work is because I don't think people are practicing enough when there's not trauma or stressful moments. And is that, is there anything else that could, I guess, make the tools work except for conscious practicing? I guess it's also healing your traumas, but how do we start to heal those traumas?

• 20:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Well, that's it, actually. So, the way I think about a healing journey, I kind of build it into a foundational pyramid. With the bottom layer being our physiological body, our nervous system included. Because to speak to your point that you're very beautifully alluding to, which is that we do, we carry dysregulations, physiological imbalances, nervous system dysregulation.

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  What's the book, The Body Keeps the Score?

• 20:35Dr. Nicole LePera?

  The Body Keeps the Score.

• 20:36Lewis Howes?

  I've never read it, but I hear it's great.

• 20:37Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, it's really, it's really, anyone reading, it's dense scientifically, so I know it can kind of dissuade people away from it because it does, it's an incredibly pivotal, impactful book, and I definitely suggest people give it a shot, but I know that it can be pretty dense.

• 20:50Lewis Howes?

  But the overall premise of it is?

• 20:52Dr. Nicole LePera?

  The overall premise is that trauma is stored in the body. I'm a believer that most of us have some degree of a traumatic experience in our past. I'm a big believer in expanding the definition of trauma beyond that, the big T, the way we typically think about it.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't need to be a physical trauma, it can be emotional, psychological.

• 21:07Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Often times it's emotional, it's interpersonal, it's not feeling seen, not feeling loved, not feeling accepted as the authentic being that we are by typically our earliest relationships, our caregivers, our schools, our things like that.

• 21:18Lewis Howes?

  Our best friends, or whatever.

• 21:19Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, so expanding trauma, I mean, I throw the net quite wide. Like, I really have yet to meet people that don't tick some of the boxes that are, in my opinion, traumatic experiences.

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  What's the greatest trauma most people face, or feel, right now?

• 21:33Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I think not feeling significant, not feeling... Authentic in themselves, which began not feeling seen and authentic as being a separate being in their earliest relationships. I think we all carry a version of that.

• 21:47Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 21:48Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because it's incredibly difficult for a human to show up for another human, an infant, their infant. So because we're modeling things, directly, indirectly. So any conflicts, any struggles, any imbalances, any conditionings that's not so positive that caregivers, that parents, you know, have struggled with, probably is going to be modeled in the exact same way. And this is where intergenerational patterns happen. If you look back in your families, you'll see the same sort of patterns, you know, as you start to become conscious and as you start to observe these.

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  Your parents and their parents, the this to them, and their parents, the this to them.

• 22:25Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And if you really want to go into the physiological layer that we're talking about now, I mean, you were grown, right, as a baby, as an embryo in a body, right? So that human's body that's housing this little developing fetus is in some version of physical regulation or dysregulation, right? So if you really want to go back, you know, these imbalances are affecting you in development. So then you come out and then all your body and how it functions is affected by the food you eat, by the choices you make in terms of how much sleep you get, how do you handle stress, essentially what you do all day is going to affect whether your body is regulated or not.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  Who do you think is more, I don't want to compare traumatic experiences, but who, in your mind, who do you think would have a harder time? The child who feels not seen or taken care of by the parent, or the parent who is giving their heart and life to the child, but doesn't feel seen and acknowledged for their caregiving?

• 23:25Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Lewis Howes?

  Because I can only imagine.

• 23:27Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Both, I can.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  Parents like saying, "I'm giving you my life, I'm sacrificing my dreams," or whatever the conversation might be, "to you," and you're ungrateful, you're not loving, you're angry, you're... What do you think is more traumatic? The parent trauma or the child trauma?

• 23:41Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I think very equally, equally traumatic. And I was actually talking about this this morning with my partner. There's an aspect of it that whatever the story is from the child's side and from the parent's side, that is their truth, right?

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  Their experience.

• 23:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  That's their experience, so that's their truth. Emotionally, that is their truth. It doesn't matter objectively if an observer would say, "Oh, no, I actually think you did give enough to your kid." Or actually do seem to be appreciative right there. It doesn't matter because either of those parties are living in their truth, which can be equally, in my opinion, as traumatizing. And probably chances are that parent, when they were a child, right, probably had some version of that experience, similar or almost complete opposition. Sometimes we kind of go in an overcompensation attempt to that. So, you know, so my argument then being, so now you here have a caregiver who probably is carrying their own trauma from their caregivers.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 24:31Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And now is carrying their own trauma from having, you know, a child. And then this is where a really big snowball gets created. And I think back to why now, why the popularity of the account. I think we're finally at a time in collective evolution where it's very apparent that these old ways, these old conditioning patterns aren't helpful. And now we're starting to have the tools, the internet being one of them, where all this information can come out and be out in the world. And now you see a collective evolution happening.

• 24:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And I didn't want to cut you off, I apologize, but you said the triangle of healing journey, is that the pyramid? The body is at the bottom?

• 25:07Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So the body and the physiological ways we are dysregulated or in balance, and then the nervous system. Because without that balance, and this was my story for quite some time, because I was, I lived my life in fight or flight.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  The whole time.

• 25:17Dr. Nicole LePera?

  My whole life, and that sympathetic and a nervous system response, which means my nervous system, as yours does and as yours, controls our whole body. So when you're in that, it's react, we feel very emotionally reactive. Everything feels like we're waiting for that next straw, right? And next straw. And everything, I mean, my water being empty right now could be a straw if I, you know, if I was like amped up enough. Living in that really prevented me, and this is why I'm so passionate about holistic healing, one of the definitions of holistic being of the body, also of the whole, you know, mind, body, I believe, soul, how all of these parts interact. We need to include the body because for my life, having tools, being in therapy, being on medication, my body was so dysregulated at the nervous system level that it didn't

• 25:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  matter if I very insightfully knew that next time I need to call this time out with you, Lois, I wouldn't because my body was too dysregulated to give me a chance.

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  Too messed up.

• 26:06Dr. Nicole LePera?

  That's why I put that at the bottom.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  So you have to heal the body first, is that what I'm hearing?

• 26:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You have to engage in a process because this is long term. We don't make one change again overnight and our body doesn't.

• 26:15Lewis Howes?

  It could take decades to fully.

• 26:16Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It could take a long time. I mean, I've been on the healing journey for some time and I'm still releasing areas of inflammation that I'm carrying in my body. My digestive, my digestion is still working its way out from a lifetime of digestive issues related to my imbalance.

• 26:30Lewis Howes?

  Tension and stress.

• 26:31Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes, yeah, so, and I'm years in. You know, it got significantly better, you know, along the way, but start by healing the body. And definitely if you're out there and you're listening and you have nervous system dysregulation, if you always feel on edge and in that fight or flight, if you've heard that you have adrenal fatigue, now we have a medical diagnosis for it, you need to be adding some version of whether it's breath work or some version of nervous system regulation in because that's going to give you the balance or some foundation.

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  To then be able to dive in and create deeper change.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so the bottom of the pyramid is the body?

• 27:03Dr. Nicole LePera?

  The body. Look at the choices you're making around your lifestyle, how you care for your body. Is there any things that you can add, change, decrease, and also look at your nervous system and build. I do a daily practice of breath work still and I will always do it.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  I just think it's a no-brainer. I think there's so many apps and programs and experts out there teaching it because it works, it's helping and it's powerful. And people have been doing meditation and breath work for thousands of years because it keeps them grounded, centered, calm and not in a stressful environment.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  I definitely recommend practicing it. So the body's first, and then what's after that?

• 27:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So moving up then to the mind.

• 27:42Lewis Howes?

  The mind.

• 27:42Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Developing consciousness, creating, for a lot of us, it means creating the distance from our thoughts. Based in the reality that none of us are our thoughts. We believe we are. We believe we're our thoughts. We believe we're the story that we've told ourselves about who we are, right? When I went, "Who are?" earlier when you were talking.

• 28:01Lewis Howes?

  Don't change me this way.

• 28:02Dr. Nicole LePera?

  This is my narrative. That's all created. That's all created from our past conditioning. So even the who we think we are is not the who that we are. Those are patterns of thinking in our head. Those are stories that our ego is telling us all day long about who we are compared to who other people are. Who we are is the awareness that sits behind our thoughts. So this is what this kind of tier of thinking, mind work, is, to first create that separation. I suggest doing it in a meditation practice. Our goal is to do it all day long. But when we're sitting, when we're quiet, even if we're meditating for one minute, which is definitely the amount of minutes that I suggest a new meditator to meditate for, because it's a long time. This is difficult. For some of us, it's the first time we're tuning in to our internal world. It's not always comfortable in there.

• 28:46Dr. Nicole LePera?

  A lot of us like to run away from it. A lot of us spend a lot of our day running away from it. So once we learn how to observe our thoughts, so by closing our eyes, by sitting in a quiet room, thoughts are gonna come. That gives you the first experience of being separate, because who's watching them? Your who's watching them. The goal, though, is to build the bridge and to do that all day long. But it doesn't come overnight. Once we become an observer of our thoughts throughout our day, then we get to do the deeper work that I'm always talking about of the ego and the inner child. Because you're gonna start to see the very repetitive patterns in your thinking that are causing you to then have very repetitive, consistent feelings in your body, which are physiological. That's why they're real, too.

• 29:26Dr. Nicole LePera?

  When we're stuck in consistent feelings, you know, it feels very invalidating to have people to say, "Well, just stop feeling like that."

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:34Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I can't.

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  I've been wanting to blame myself for doing that to people in the past, too. It's not, until you really like go through this process, you can start to have empathy and compassion for everyone's journey.

• 29:46Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, quite literally. We get stuck in feelings. Feelings are physiological events in our body. They become familiar. So my story about me in fight or flight, my most frequently visited emotion was stress, was chaos.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Every day.

• 30:01Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It's all I knew.

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  Until how long, until how old?

• 30:04Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Probably until I was in my early 30s, you know what I mean? I'm 37 now, so not very in the distant past. I just lived in chaos. If you would be talking to me, Louis, I would say, all I want in life, I'm a hippie at heart. I just want to throw peace signs, peace and freedom, that's all I want, right? But the second I would find myself what could have been experienced as a moment of peace or freedom, you know, maybe I'm sitting quietly somewhere, that was so uncomfortable.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Stressful for you.

• 30:31Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It was really, it was uncomfortable. My body register is unfamiliar, you're not used to this. So then if no one was around, I would start to worry about the thing yesterday that happened or maybe tomorrow, right? So now I'm creating a change in my body. Because the more I think a stressful thought, the more I release stress hormones, right? And now I'm having, my body's back into that zone of comfort. It loves being stressed, it's what it knows.

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  If a person was around me, this is where it gets really fun and complicated, bringing our relationships into the picture, if a person was around me, watch out, because before I knew it, if I was in that unfamiliar peaceful space, I might agitate the situation. Before you know it, I might be picking a bit of a fight with my partner or whoever's around me.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Why are you doing this? Why did this happen?

• 31:13Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Increase the stress back to my zone of comfort. That's how I'm used to feeling. So that's back to that concept of stuck. We're stuck because we're subconsciously stuck in our familiarized comfort zone, even though that's not the place, or those aren't the behaviors, those aren't the thoughts, those aren't the ways that we're going to feel to get us a life that we want, but that's what's familiar to us. And so the more you practice self-observation, the more you get to see yourself living, also very uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable work.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  And you get to reflect and say, okay, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how traumatic was that feeling all day? Or how stressed out was I? I was an 8 all day. Okay, why were you an 8? What's allowing you to stay at an 8?

• 31:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Why are you still an 8?

• 31:55Lewis Howes?

  Why do you stay there? What's, what's the payoff? Right? What's the price you're paying and what's the payoff you're getting by being at that level? What would it take for you to drop it two points or whatever? This is how I think.

• 32:06Dr. Nicole LePera?

  What do you imagine would happen if you dropped it?

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes. What could you create in your life?

• 32:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes. But also negative.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  How would your relationship be?

• 32:12Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Some of us get caught in a negative feeling, as counterintuitive as this might sound, in fear of what life would be like without.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  Right, in fear of the good things happening.

• 32:24Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes, it's very complicated.

• 32:26Lewis Howes?

  Why are so many people afraid of more good things happening to them? Do they think they're not worthy or deserving of it?

• 32:31Dr. Nicole LePera?

  What did you ask me when we first started, right? What is the trauma, the most prolific trauma? Not being seen?

• 32:38Lewis Howes?

  Or feeling enough.

• 32:39Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Feeling enough as a child. So if we have a deep rooted feeling of not enough or not worthy, those are the two frequent iterations that are here.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  Why should good things come to us?

• 32:46Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Why should they come to us? And it doesn't matter if logically you really want that good thing. If subconsciously you're an unworthy human being, you're not gonna get it.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  That's why when people get it, they'll sabotage it and they'll lose it, right?

• 33:00Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes.

• 33:01Lewis Howes?

  So how do we come to a place of worthiness? Of truly feeling and knowing we are enough and we are deserving of goodness in our life? How do we get to that place?

• 33:13Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I usually do it in a twofold process. Because I think the first layer of the process is observing all of the times you're telling yourself you're not enough all day and stopping that shit. Meaning, you can't stop it. I'm joking when I say that, because you can't stop it.

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  Observe it.

• 33:29Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Observe it. Your subconscious is gonna give you that language, whatever it is. You know, we all have different languaging that we love to diminish ourself around. And so whatever it is, the thing that you're a loser, you're not worthy, whatever your language is.

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  Replace it.

• 33:43Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You can't stop that from happening. Yeah, but you can't stop that. So I wanna just acknowledge that, because this is another moment where you can become very shameful, frustrated, and tell us the work's not working. Why is it still here? I know it's there, turn it off. Nope. So I observe it being there.

• 33:55Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 33:55Dr. Nicole LePera?

  But I don't, you said something important earlier. I don't spend that much time in it.

• 33:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So what most of us do, subconsciously, this is why, I'm gonna state a fact. Feelings have an end. They come and they go. You know, depending on who you read, you know, how many seconds it is, or minutes it is, or you know, they come and they go. We do not allow them to go, because I say we bring them up to our mental world. We need those gymnastics for it. So if you then repeat, so if that thing happens in your environment and your subconscious offers you that the reason that that thing happened is because you're a loser, right? Which it probably still will do. You can still show up consciously and say, "Oh, you know, thank you subconscious, thank you for reminding me of that." But I'm not gonna, that's not how I am. That's not who I am. So I can now remove my attention. Put it anywhere else, what am I doing? Maybe I put my attention on my breath. Just get out of that script.

• 34:45Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Stop repeating it to yourself, to simplify it. Because that's the difference between it going, so using your language of changing the script, or just removing your attention from your thinking mind. Ground yourself in your body. Feel the room you're in. Do those deep belly breaths. Go for a walk and pay attention to your legs walking, as simple as that sounds. Get out of your mind. Because the more time you spend repeating, "I'm a loser, I'm a loser, I'm a loser", now you are gonna carry that feeling home. You might carry it in the next week. Some of us have lived in the past of feelings that have originated decades ago. Because we're repeating it. Because we're telling us that story. And because then, the more we do that, the more we scan our environment for more and more evidence. So if I, something loser happened to me at lunch, I'm probably gonna find the loser thing that happened to me at dinner.

• 35:30Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And right before bed. And again, I could really start a snowball rolling down a mountain in not a helpful way.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  So the first thing is observe it.

• 35:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Observe it.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  What's the next thing?

• 35:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Remove the focus from it.

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  Remove focus. Okay.

• 35:44Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Without judgment. Let me add that part in there.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 35:48Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because this is where we get really judgmental of ourselves.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  Of course, and beat up.

• 35:51Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Now we're a loser because we had a loser thought. You know what I mean?

• 35:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay, was there anything out? The two steps, or?

• 35:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Two steps, and then remove, remove focus without judgment. And then this is where affirmation work can happen. Right, if we wanna start, so the two layers.

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  Replacing with something positive, or?

• 36:09Dr. Nicole LePera?

  First, we wanna diminish the increase, I mean, decrease the amount of time and the fallout of negative thinking that a lot of us have been over-practiced. And then we can become impactful. If you are someone who, I mean, affirmation's what they are, simply, a new thought. So then if you do start to practice telling yourself that "I am worthy", that might have, you might have a chance over time of actually believing that. And then you might have a chance over time of actually seeing instances in your environment of your worthiness.

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:36Dr. Nicole LePera?

  But that doesn't work. And this is why, in my opinion, affirmation works, affirmation work in it of itself. It's kind of called woo-woo, and a lot of people become frustrated, and it doesn't work. And it won't. Because if you do, maybe you have a morning routine where you tell yourself some beautiful affirmations, if for the rest of your day, as a lot of us are, you're back in your subconscious and you're not practicing consciousness, The rest of the day, your subconscious might be reminding you of how not worthy you are.

• 37:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 37:03Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And that's why I don't think affirmations are as successful as they can be. So until you start to remove that focus all day long and just be consciously present to what is happening without judgment, then you can start to give yourself a chance at believing over time that I am worthy, or whatever it is that you would prefer to believe of yourself.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  I love that. You've got the body, the next step to mind, what's after the mind?

• 37:25Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So, once we understand, so, once you've done a significant amount of time observing yourself, now you really can dive into the world. So, like, the deepest tip, if you will, of the work is the whole world of the inner child, of the ego, of the wounds that we're carrying with us that are coloring our experiences in our environment. But you can't do that work, as a lot of us want to do, until you have these other tools in place.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  Really, until you take care of your physical needs, the body, until you help with breath work, meditation, calming the body, relaxing the body, then observing yourself, your thoughts, why you're reactive, why things are stressful for you. You can't heal the inner child or the ego until you do those first two things. Why is that?

• 38:12Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Well, you won't, first and foremost, you won't be able to see it happening.

• 38:15Lewis Howes?

  You're too stressed, you're too...

• 38:16Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because you go, I say, you're unconscious. Back to our examples, right, of our arguments, I'm unconsciously living in my past in that moment. So, you can't really see, to be observational, you need to be there in your, in your conscious. You can't see what's happening. You only see the reality that you're telling me, what you're feeling. You're just feeling in that moment. So, I'm upset that you hurt me, I'm upset that you... What have you mean? Right, you're not actually observing what happened and what the story you told yourself was about the dish, to go back to that example, that led you to be so incensed. The dish did nothing in this, in this example, right? The dish is just a dish on a table. But when you saw that dish, you said something to yourself. You rehearsed, you went through some filter. That then colored how you're feeling and then what happened next.

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  They don't care about me. They're abusing me. They're whatever.

• 39:03Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And until you show up consciously and practice seeing, observing that, you have no idea. You actually think that dish was the problem, right? You're so stuck in it. You're unconscious to it. So it can't be done until you start to develop that distance and that space that I'm talking about. Because even when you're doing the ego work and the inner child work, those reactions are still there alive for you. So if you don't have that space, you're going to continue to choose those old reactions. So as you practice consciousness, that's what gives you that space. So they can be here and be happening in your world, in your subconscious world, and you can still be online and making the choices, not allowing them to make the choices.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  This alone, this part of this interview is just going to transform so many people's lives just by understanding the process. Because I think a lot of us try to just do breath work and think we're going to get healed. Just think about our ego and healing trauma or the inner child work. But you need to do, it's like the process is so much clearer. And I know you're going to be writing about this in your book, which I'm excited about, but this process alone is going to change a lot of lives. So I'm very grateful we're going through this. Is there another step to this pyramid of healing? Or is it the body, mind, and ego in your child?

• 40:09Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Well, then I would ask you to draw a big circle around it and say, "In repeat for life, never ends."

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  Just like a circle just keeps going.

• 40:15Dr. Nicole LePera?

  That's the final, that's the final piece. And that's, I joke when I say that, but I mean that wholeheartedly. Because just as much as I don't know where to start and I want to just work on one thing, a lot of people, myself included, want to hear when the end happens, when we're just done.

• 40:30Lewis Howes?

  It's never done. The healing journey is a lifelong journey until the day you die, probably.

• 40:35Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And just as much, right, if you do all this work and you get to this great place, if you stop making these choices, if you let your body fall into disarray, you're right back into that dysregulated state before you know it, right? If you stop being conscious before you know it, you fall into some others, like maybe it's different narratives or different habits that you're now living, but you're still living in an unconscious state.

• 40:54Lewis Howes?

  What is the practice every day then? Breath work slash meditation, prayer? And then what would the practice be on observing self thoughts in the mind? Is it kind of just an all day practice?

• 41:07Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, so what I do-

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  It's never stopping?

• 41:08Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So what I do is I show up and I do meditation every day.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:11Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Just in a contained way, just to keep, I mean, it's a mental exercise. So that I can carry that then practice throughout my day. So I don't, not everyone has to have a structured meditation practice. I just think it's helpful, you know, to have that-

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  Start the day with calm.

• 41:25Dr. Nicole LePera?

  -constantly every day, right? And to remind myself, okay, this is what you're about, Nicole. You're not those thoughts that are- Some days, my brain is much louder than other days all day long, depending on what's happening. Sometimes I have resources to make new choices, you know, that I want to make. And some days I don't. I fall right by if I'm tired, if I'm hormonal. You know, some days I still react in those old ways. So I keep a consistent daily practice as that mental training, as that I start my day in peace. And then I practice all day long. I try to be as conscious as possible. I've now learned, remember, I am someone who I just said a couple of minutes ago, I spent my whole day dissociated. I was on my spaceship. So this took me a long time to cultivate the ability to be present in my body and in my moments throughout my day. So this did not come overnight.

• 42:08Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And so all day long, then it became a practice of, I learned to distinguish between when I'm not present. I learned how it feels in my body or in my interactions. Like I can tell when I'm like somewhere else now, because everything feels a little fuzzy. I feel a little more distant. I maybe can't feel grounded in my body and I can tell when I'm here. Obviously, then I try to make the decision on more all occasions to bring myself back into that conscious state, back into that presence. So then I do that all day.

• 42:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 42:34Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And then as I'm journeying about my day, I am gifted with teachers of triggers. You know, meaning I, you know, tell myself stories and I can be observational then in those pivotal moments. Okay, why did this thing that this random stranger said or did to me become so upsetting? And then I can start to uncover, oh, this is my ego still, you know, telling me this story about myself. Or, oh, this is my wounded child who really just wants to be seen in this moment.

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 42:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Right, so it's, then it becomes a varied, you know, experience on the daily. But once you're conscious, then you can begin to navigate your daily life in a new way.

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  What's your biggest trigger?

• 43:08Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Not feeling considered by far.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  Considered.

• 43:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Considered. That goes back to that little child who didn't feel considered in the being that I was. I was rewarded historically over the course of my life for my accomplishments, for what I did, not for who I was. So considered, for some reason, that's the word that always...

• 43:27Lewis Howes?

  Considered for being, just being.

• 43:28Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, that's a word that always, for whatever reason, got attached to that lack of, that feeling, that childhood wound that comes up now. And that's what I'll see myself saying, "Oh, my partner didn't consider me in doing this." "Oh, this person didn't consider me when this was happening."

• 43:43Lewis Howes?

  Considerate when they're cutting me off in traffic.

• 43:45Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, actually, on my way here, I should tell you, this morning, my partner tried to have a conversation with me that I did not want to have. And my first thought was, she didn't consider what my day looks like today. Instead of, you know, and that wasn't true. She absolutely knew what my day was like today. You know, she wanted to have a conversation, and I can be flexible, and I can just as much say, "I would like to not have that conversation today because of what my day looks." But my first instinct, and still there...

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Why is she going here? She knows how busy she is.

• 44:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  She's not considering, that's the first thing my subconscious assigned to that. I've done a lot of work on that now, so I now know that's not true. But I share that as an example. After having done a lot of work, it's still there. I didn't scream, I didn't yell, you know, I was able to, you know, I'm inside, I was, yeah. Inside, I was feeling the screaming and the yelling.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  She's not knowing what I'm doing yet. I'm going to school, greatest, don't mess with my morning.

• 44:30Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, you know, and then I was able to remove myself and take a few rests and come back, and we were okay. But it's still there. But that's my core one. That's one of my core, some ones that comes up, and you'd be surprised, or maybe not, I can make everything an example of me not being considered.

• 44:44Lewis Howes?

  Lewis didn't have a bigger glass for me, or he didn't have tissues.

• 44:47Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Don't you not know who I am or what, you know?

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Isn't it crazy, the stories we can tell ourselves of what we're not being seen for, considered for, or enough for?

• 44:56Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah. Well, part of it too, and this is where we can also become flexible in our relationships, is to keep going back to this. When I have such a, I've obviously defined the ways in which I accept consideration, which are probably going to be different. This is back to that love languages. I'm sure a lot of listeners have now heard about love languages. So I've subconsciously come up with the things that work for me to feel considered. That however, might be excluding a lot of the things that my partner does do every day that are considering of me.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  That are considered, but you don't see them or recognize.

• 45:26Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because they're not in my equation of consideration. So that allows a level of flexibility too. If I can open up and maybe explore other ways that she very much more authentically to herself is able to consider me, I can let that in now. So that's another version of flexibility that can happen in a relationship. Because we all lead in a lot of ways with subjectively what works for us. And then we assume the person to be able to meet that need exactly the way it works for us. And that's not realistic and not always healthy. Because now I'm asking you indirectly in some way or implicitly to change who you are.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  And it's not enough of what you're doing for me.

• 46:01Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah. And it could be leaving you feeling minimize and invalidate yourself because you could think you're doing this and you likely are, but I'm not seeing it.

• 46:08Lewis Howes?

  I mean, this is real life for so many people. I always had Esther Perel on last week. And we were talking about like the expectations we have for our partner. It's to be like all things to us at all times. Romantic all the time, sexual, considerate, taking care of all these different needs and responsibilities for what we need, for what I want, for all these things. And she was saying like, we have such high expectations that we're always going to be unhappy unless we start to change the expectation and start to really adapt in the way you're talking about here. I think it's so important.

• 46:44Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We need to think about where it comes from developmentally. A time or a place where as humans, we actually did need someone to be everything for us. I mean, when we're born developmentally, we are not able to care. We are the one species that cannot care for ourself. So that need at an infancy time is real. You are completely dependent, having all your needs met on one or two or whomever caregivers of any sort, whoever that might be. So developmentally though, we have to learn how to internalize that process and meet our own needs. And a lot of us just don't because we didn't have the models to teach us how because our parents weren't doing that either.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  I know. How do you forgive parents? When, I know you publicly have talked about, what's it called, creating boundaries? Is it boundaries, or what's the thing you say?

• 47:33Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Boundaries, yeah.

• 47:34Lewis Howes?

  You've created a boundary where you don't speak differently.

• 47:36Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I have no contact now.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  You have no contact now, it's been, I think, a year, two years, or something.

• 47:39Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Year and a half.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  How do, as kids, how do we forgive our parents? Even if what they did was the best they could do? Or, maybe they didn't do such a good job. How do we forgive them either way? Let me learn to do that process, so that it doesn't keep hurting us.

• 47:57Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I think forgiveness comes when we're able to empathize or understand. Sometimes it does come, it can only come with distance. If we're living in this situation, it can be harder to create the distance to do this. But a lot of times, as we age, as we just develop physically separate families, right? We can look back, and as we gain our own maturity, and our own experience in relationship, that helps inform the ability to empathize. Which just means to understand, you know, from another's perspective, why or what might have been influencing the choices or the reactions that you maybe experienced within the relationship with them. Right, so once we can understand, I think that allows a certain level of forgiveness. I think once we're also able to, in the process of understanding, let me word it this way.

• 48:42Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Often what we find is that it was never really about us. Us, us, right? It was about their own past, their own traumas, their own abilities. Again, as a kid, we're in what is called egocentric mind. We develop brain functioning, put it this way, kind of, it evolves over time. We don't just get all of the abilities that we have now.

• 49:05Lewis Howes?

  Not just self-aware at five years old, yeah.

• 49:07Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes, no, not at all. And we go through a very critical developmental age range, where we cannot empathize. We cannot see a perspective outside of our own. Everything is happening for us, because of us, to us. That is it.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  We're the center of the world.

• 49:21Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We are, quite literally. And we cognitively can't see otherwise. So, that's really problematic. Because when a bad thing is inflicted upon us by our caregivers, we cannot help but assume it's because we're not worthy, not good enough, what have you. Right, we cannot do differently. But once we've developed a maturity and aged out of that and maybe we

• 49:41Lewis Howes?

  See perspective.

• 49:42Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We are the adult, we can see perspective. Now, maybe we can depersonalize it. We can see that, okay, even if it's egregious abuse, right, we might be able to even trace back, you know, what had happened to that caregiver, that result. Doesn't okay it. When I have these conversations a lot, the response I get around boundaries too, right, is, well, this, you're okaying abuse, or you're okaying. No, it's an and situation. I can empathize, I can depersonalize, I can come to the understanding that it's not me, and I still might choose to put a boundary within this relationship. I still might choose to do whatever I want to choose to do. It becomes and. Because I can understand, this is where I used to struggle a lot,

• 50:24Dr. Nicole LePera?

  because I have a, I have a crazy capacity to understand people and to understand why people do what they do. To the extent that I would invalidate my experience of them for so long and then allow them to do what they want to do around me or to me my whole life. Right, so not helpful, so I had to evolve into that and. I can understand.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  And I'm creating a boundary, yeah.

• 50:43Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And this doesn't work for me.

• 50:45Lewis Howes?

  And I'm breaking up with you.

• 50:46Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So my life is going to now be over here, you know, and. So I say that because empathizing, understanding, depersonalizing, still can allow you to create important boundaries. So even if you're able to forgive your parents, or whoever we're talking about here, doesn't mean that you have to accept them as an active relationship in your life. So I feel very forgiving of my family. I've always understood why and how these patterns have been put in place and translated and why I've had the experiences within that family structure that I have. I'm, if you will, forgiving of them.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:20Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Right? And I still am choosing not to have a relationship because for me, for now, and where they're at with what my choice initially was to step away from the relationship. It just isn't happening in this moment. I don't know what the future will be.

• 51:34Lewis Howes?

  Is it because it's too triggering for you when you're around them? Or you just don't feel like you're in a good space?

• 51:39Dr. Nicole LePera?

  In terms of connecting with them again?

• 51:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if you wanted to like hang out with them for the weekend. Is it just too triggering for you?

• 51:44Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So in the beginning, it was. The reason I went full no contact.

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  Because you tried to negotiate.

• 51:50Dr. Nicole LePera?

  A year and a half ago. Because of their, the family structure, the lack of boundaries. Tune into the last episode, I talk all about it. That, you know, being the case and it being triggering. So for me to get that stability in my healing. I have tried to reengage contact with them now on one occasion. And I recently actually just sent them a letter to let them know that I'm living out here.

• 52:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's good.

• 52:11Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And it has been met with, oh, I guess three occasions. Cause I recently sent my nephew a card that was also returned. So little messages trickling my way that they're maybe not interested right now in pursuing that open door.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:22Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So it's not about necessarily, I don't know how I would feel in front of them. That would be interesting for me now if we were able to, you know, find a way back to some sort of person to person interaction with one or all of the family members. I would be really interested to see how.

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Should videotape that and see your reaction.

• 52:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I'm sure I'll be talking all about it if, you know, if at some point there becomes, you know, a reconnection. But I have tried and it just seems like the door is, is closed on their end. I'm sure they're angry.

• 52:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:49Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I can even understand and forgive that.

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:52Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You know, cause I, I know that they don't.

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Our daughter doesn't respect us.

• 52:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  They don't understand.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:55Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And I can't expect them to understand.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay. There is, let's see if I, am I, is there any loose ends here? We've got the healing journey pyramid, trauma stored in the body. That's some of the good stuff right now, but I have how to feel enough. Three steps there, that's great, I think. Cause most people talk about affirmations, but it's not enough until you do the first two steps.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I love this. There's three, I've been doing some research on your Instagram lately. And there's three posts that essentially did, you know, three to four times more engagement and comments and reactions than all the other stuff. And I wanted to kind of dive into three of these things because I think it'd be really powerful since people need this right now. One is how to say no without apologizing. I think as a people pleaser myself from the past and still recovering people pleaser, it's been really hard to say, learn how to say no over the last few years, but I'm getting better and better at it without feeling like I'm letting someone down or someone's gonna be upset with me.

• 54:01Lewis Howes?

  As a kid who never had friends growing up, it's always like, I don't want to ruffle the feathers of the friends that I had. And so I have to learn how to be like, if they're upset and they don't understand, there's nothing I can do and I'm giving them my best. So how do we say no without apologizing?

• 54:17Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, it's hard. This is really grounded, Louis, and a lot of us, I mean, I totally resonate with people pleasing. I've been calling it an epidemic of codependency.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:28Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Back to, right, this childhood where if we're not enough, what we do, we're very adaptive.

• 54:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 54:33Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So what most of us do is similar to what you did, right, with your friends, not having much friends. You know, you became so attuned to-

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  I'll do whatever you want.

• 54:39Dr. Nicole LePera?

  -to the friends that you have to keep those relationships, right? We do that within our caregiving units, our family structures. We find a way to keep the things that we need, which are connections with other humans. Love from another human. We are interpersonal species, that is it. We actually need to be bonded together, like I said earlier, out of developmental necessity and then just generally in life. I mean, think back to evolutionary days and tribes and there's very real research out there now. The stress goes down when we are interconnected with other humans. Aside from division of labor, oh, you can help relieve the stress of my objective life, just the emotions and we actually release oxytocin when we're connected to another human. We need those hormones, so we need to be connected. So we get very adaptive and we find the way.

• 55:24Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So if we've developed in a household, right, where we're not seen as a separate entity and able to develop connections and relationships with other separate entities in our family. Again, I talk a lot about an enmeshed codependent family in our last talk. That's where I've come from.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We get very externally oriented is what I say, right? I start to become so attuned to the outside world so that I can manage how I feel by showing up to- Friendships, or doing the thing, or answering the phone call by not saying no. So, once we come to that realization, and we want, and we understand the impact that always being available has on ourselves and on our relationship.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  Hurts us.

• 56:02Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And it hurts our relationship.

• 56:03Lewis Howes?

  It does. It hurts our relationship with ourself, too.

• 56:05Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yes, and what happens, though, is sadly, over time, if I always say yes to you, and I'm, even if I mean no, before I know it, I don't like you, Lois.

• 56:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:15Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I'm not upset at me.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm like, why are you upset at me for? You didn't say yes.

• 56:17Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, I'm like, not really liking you.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  You're resenting the fact that you're saying yes.

• 56:21Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I'm mad at you, but I'm really upset if I really look down at it. It's, I needed to start saying no. How the hell would you know? I mean, we like to believe that other humans, especially when they're our partners, are mind readers. We love this idea that people see the same reality as us.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  I'm my girlfriend.

• 56:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Right? But what we're talking about, you just don't. You're never gonna have the same reality as another person. So, we like that idea, so we say the yeses, and then we get upset at the person. So, it really is damaging of our relationships. And I know I lived the hard way. I had to learn how to say no. My go-to was not necessarily no with an apology. I liked apologies. I peppered those in. My preference was no with the excuse, with the why.

• 57:02Lewis Howes?

  Here's why I can't do it.

• 57:03Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I needed to validate the reason I was disappointing someone with this belief that it wasn't enough just to not to want to, or to feel like it, or just to be somewhere else in any given moment.

• 57:14Lewis Howes?

  So, how do we say no without an excuse or an apology, then?

• 57:16Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, practice. I mean, it's hard, you know? It's very, very difficult. First and foremost, it's accepting the reality that you're welcome to say no. You're allowed to say no. And that saying no doesn't diminish who you are, or the relationship. Again, this is a deeper, this is an evolution of work. We don't just turn off, you know, the belief that I have to say no to maintain these friendships. We don't just overnight come by a new belief, right? So, we can practice. And I suggest practicing. I say like around the periphery, right? Start to say no. So what this looked like for me, I started to put up boundaries or to say my no's in my professional world where it felt a little easier, right? So some requests that would come in and from people that I maybe didn't really know,

• 57:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  it would feel, and it's virtual, so I can even send the email, throw my phone, which has happened before, and run away and come back later to see what happened.

• 58:05Lewis Howes?

  Hopefully it'll react.

• 58:06Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You know what I mean? So easier for me. So I practiced there before I practiced maybe saying no with my immediate family or with my partner. There's gonna be some, there might be some relationships that are, it might be even easier. Maybe you do have that one friend that is like casual about it. You know, you're gonna find the moments of practice, but the theme for tonight, you have to practice.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:26Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because it's gonna be really hard when you're faced with that saying that no. And what's gonna happen is everything that happens in your mind that prevented you from saying that no for however many years you have not said that no, what's gonna happen in your mind the second you, well, first of all, before you say the no, trying to convince you out of saying the no. So before you know it, you're saying yes again.

• 58:43Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 58:43Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Right, this is where consciously you have to, no, you have to say no, no, period, the end, or no, whatever you wanna deliver the message being. And then on the backside, once it's delivered, your mind is gonna try to convince you out of that no still. Oh, you're terrible, oh, this person is gonna hate you, oh, it's been two hours since they responded, clearly this relationship is over, right? Now the work is still on you. Don't spend time in that thought, just like we were talking about earlier. Get the hell out of there.

• 59:08Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 59:09Dr. Nicole LePera?

  But don't expect it not to be there. I call them the feel-bads. The feel-bads have haunted me around every boundary I've set it, set for quite a long time before they've diminished, and they still are there every now and again. I still find myself feeling bad almost into saying yes. Maybe I'm even feeling bad once I've said the no, but I'm like carrying that. But I get to choose, how long do I wanna live in this feel-bad?

• 59:31Lewis Howes?

  It's not good, yeah.

• 59:32Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And a really cool thing happens as you practice. You start to learn and see, sometimes you do get that feared response. Sometimes exactly what you imagined would happen that's not positive, does. I got that a lot from my family. Not all the time. So if you focus on the moments where the thing that you feared most didn't happen, that relationship didn't end, those friends still were around and asked you to come to the movies next weekend, that's what I urge you to pay attention to. Cause that's gonna help you keep saying the no's and helping you shift out of the pattern.

• 1:00:03Lewis Howes?

  I think if, you know, it's not the end of the world if someone reacts in a negative way to your no. Because if they get so upset that you can't, unless it's like something so like my wedding or whatever and you've told them months in advance or you've given them time like it all depends on the situation, but if it's a friend who's just like gets upset because you're busy one weekend for whatever reason, then is that a great relationship?

• 1:00:25Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, that's information too.

• 1:00:28Lewis Howes?

  A couple of things that you said on how to say no without apologizing, you said a couple of responses would be, "I won't be able to make it and I'm gratefully invited to me." Not apologizing.

• 1:00:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Thank you for the invite and I can't come.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  You don't have to give a reason why. You also said, "That sounds amazing, it's just not something I can commit to right now." So, simple solutions you can use without having to say, "I'm sorry, I'm not gonna make it." "I wish I could," you know, things like that. So, I really like that, how to say no without apologizing or explaining yourself. This is another one you posted about relationships, what I think is really powerful. Now, I was in a long-distance relationship for a year and the relationship moved in and things have become more, let's say, normalized, right? It wasn't every other weekend where I'm going to visit or she's visiting and this incredible experience every weekend. We still have amazing experiences, but we're around each other all the time.

• 1:01:25Lewis Howes?

  And you said, this was, I think you called it "normal things in relationships." You said, "Feeling bored or unsettled, being triggered consistently, mourning the loss of single life," which I've felt that before, "and needing alone time." Because I think when we get in a relationship that's normal, you're around each other a lot and you feel like you need space, right? Why is this such a powerful post that you think that you shared?

• 1:01:52Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I got so many messages in response to that post of gratitude of, "Thank you."

• 1:01:57Lewis Howes?

  It's okay to feel these things.

• 1:01:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I've got people, I've talked about this with my partner, my husband, and we're so grateful. You make us feel normal. We were really worried.

• 1:02:04Lewis Howes?

  Not like our relationship is messed up?

• 1:02:06Dr. Nicole LePera?

  No, thank you. We're feeling these things and we now know that it's okay to feel these things. Some of it, I think, I mean, first of all, the conversation we're having today mostly, right? Most of it is around the relationships that we were modeled and the relationship that we were in at a young age, right? So, that becomes our model for what relationships should be. Not all the times, of course, are we given the healthiest models. The relationships we're seeing happen and the relationships we're experiencing with caregivers around us, the peers around us. Again, they're based in conditioning that for most of us, intergenerationality transmitted by caregivers and people who are in their own world with their own issues, right? So not always the healthiest. So I think that's a big part of it. You know, people just aren't modeled the healthiest type of relationships.

• 1:02:50Dr. Nicole LePera?

  You know, I think that's a big part. And there's also like the Disneyfication. I think I might have just made that word up.

• 1:02:55Lewis Howes?

  No, but it's like this Disneyland.

• 1:02:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  That's another level of messaging that we're getting.

• 1:03:01Lewis Howes?

  It's not that way. But it's also you get to create intimacy, passion, love. Like you also, in my opinion, you shouldn't make it boring all the time. Like you get to bring the energy, you get to bring the love, you get to be creative and care. And I think powerful relationships are ones that have caring and creativity. I think I heard Tony Robbins talk about that where it's like, if you just have a little bit of creativity, you can create that spark all the time. And if you just show you care, it does not have to be this grand Disneyfication gesture, but just creativity and caring every day will make someone feel seen, acknowledged, appreciated, and enough. The thing that is our biggest trauma for most of us, right?

• 1:03:45Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:46Lewis Howes?

  So anyways, I love that, that post. And the last post that I saw that was, for whatever reason, went crazy, is talking about childhood trauma and what childhood trauma also is, which is not just physical or sexual abuse, but other types of childhood trauma. You said, "A parent denying your reality," which is, I think, a big trauma for people that gets overlooked. A parent living vicariously through their child. Maybe, you know, the soccer mom or dad or whatever that's always there, the events, trying to hype them up because they never got that experience. And just not being seen or heard. That is trauma for children, childhood trauma. Is there anything else you want to add to that?

• 1:04:31Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I mean that.

• 1:04:32Lewis Howes?

  Why that's so big for people?

• 1:04:33Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So much that could be experiences traumatizing in our earliest relationships. You picking up on the denial of reality one, I think that's a real, again, have really met a minimum of people who haven't had that version of experience because reality is subjective. So to have a caregiver be able to step out of what their perception of an event was to acknowledge your own takes this level of consciousness that we're talking about. Personally, I know I was not raised by two conscious humans, so they were not able to gift me with that.

• 1:05:04Lewis Howes?

  So how do you speak to a child who's seven? Who doesn't have the perception yet, who doesn't have the ability to see their own thoughts and observe their own thoughts? When you saw an experience happen and you're like calm and relaxed and they're going through stress and chaos, how do you communicate to a child about their reality without being like, "Just grow up, you know, here's what happened, it's not that big a deal." How do you actually speak to someone in that situation then who has a chaotic reality or stressful reality?

• 1:05:36Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Ask them. You can start with as simple as asking them. Parents, I think, lead with telling their kid and they cut it off. Or they assume why they think their kid is reacting. Instead of saying, "Johnny, what is going on?" You look upset, "What's happening for you right now?" You know, "What's going on for you?" "What are you feeling in your body?" You know, "What are you feeling like you want to do now?" Just like asking, I mean, I think that's a really simplified answer instead of just assuming. And this happens too. I was sharing with my partner the other day, one of the most impactful gifts or lessons that I was taught by a supervisor clinically very early on was she pointed out to me that the importance of inquiring, especially around concepts that are quite universal.

• 1:06:19Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So for example, I've known anxiety, like I've been saying, my whole life, that's all I know. Just so happens that a lot of people that come into my treatment room or my old office have anxiety, right? So Lewis would bring shit and say, "I'm anxious." "Oh, okay." And I could do one of two things. I could assume that when I hear you say anxiety... What my brain is gonna do, let me put it this way, is going to overlay my anxiety. So I'm gonna assume that what you mean by anxiety is exactly how I experience it. I'm always on edge, I feel irritable, sometimes I have panic. I'm gonna make your version of anxiety exactly what mine is. Or I could ask.

• 1:06:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So the supervisor really emphasized the value of not assuming you know. Even if it's something that you've lived, especially when it's something you lived. Ask what that person means. Okay, Louis, so anxiety, anxiety feels different for everyone. So Johnny, little kid Johnny, right? Even if Johnny's like, "I'm nervous," and you know. Okay, Johnny, tell me what nervous is for you. What's going on for you right now? What is making, even if you think you know what made Johnny nervous, ask Johnny. You might be surprised that that's not what made Johnny nervous at all. He made up some other story about what happened, and that's what made him nervous. So asking is, I think, the most, with children, with anyone really, the most pivotal thing that you can do.

• 1:07:31Lewis Howes?

  Asking and listening with an open mind.

• 1:07:32Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Asking and listening, and then containing, this is where it gets really hard.

• 1:07:35Lewis Howes?

  Not.

• 1:07:36Dr. Nicole LePera?

  How you feel about what you're hearing.

• 1:07:38Lewis Howes?

  Not trying to coach or teach or.

• 1:07:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, not trying to remove the discomfort that you're feeling. If Johnny does share something with you that, I'm not a parent, I'm not going to be a parent, so I cannot relate, I can't empathize with how it must feel when a child that you've born, right?

• 1:07:54Lewis Howes?

  It's gotta feel helpless sometimes.

• 1:07:55Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I can't, yeah, so that's gonna happen, on top of a million other feelings. And as a parent in that moment, unfortunately, consciously, that's all happening over here. I need to learn how to contain that so I can save this space to hear and help Johnny. Because what we do, understandably, is I don't like how I feel. So now I tell Johnny, "That's not what it was, Johnny. Stop it, you're fine, we're fine," is what I'm saying. "We're fine, moving on." And that's not helpful to Johnny, so it's.

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  That was my childhood, my dad saying you're fine with everything.

• 1:08:24Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Lewis Howes?

  Even when it's like, "No, I'm in pain." No, you're fine.

• 1:08:28Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It's a tall task, which, like I was saying. We all are traumatized.

• 1:08:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Dr. Nicole LePera?

  We're humans raising humans. I mean, there's no way. We don't have to be shameful.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:35Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Parents listening don't have to feel shameful. I get a lot of parents who want the guidebook now on how to not fuck up their kids. And I'm always the bearer of the bad news that you're going to. There's gonna be something that's gonna happen in your... And that's okay.

• 1:08:47Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:08:47Dr. Nicole LePera?

  If you teach your child resilience and how to process their own feelings...

• 1:08:51Lewis Howes?

  Forgive me, son.

• 1:08:51Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, they could actually come out the other side a much more resilient human being. You know, and things are gonna happen. We're humans raising humans. That's why, intergenerationally, we're at that point in, like I said, the collective evolution that we all need to change.

• 1:09:04Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like we're, as humans, more messed up now than ever? I feel like the word "mental health" and the industry of self-help and the industry of therapy is just so much more talked about and bigger now than it was before. Is it because we're more messed up now? Or is it because we've always been messed up and now we're just finally using the tools or starting to learn about the tools?

• 1:09:28Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:29Lewis Howes?

  And talking about it more?

• 1:09:30Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I think in some ways, lifestyle choices that are now being made quite universally are resulting in, back to our pyramid, physiological dysregulations that are causing symptoms.

• 1:09:43Lewis Howes?

  Which choices are the...

• 1:09:44Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I think our food system. I think the amount that we're moving or not moving, the whole sedentary city life. I mean, I, you know, we're in a very big building, sitting here filming. You know, this is not natural for us humans. This is actually quite stressful. Even though I feel very calm, I'm sure we all feel very calm in this room. This is actually quite stressful for us humans. So even the movement into cities, you know, is a stress. We have to understand this. So there's a lot, I do believe, that has shifted, just in terms of humanity, that is causing symptoms.

• 1:10:13Lewis Howes?

  A lack of nature.

• 1:10:14Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Of being messed up, you know, if you will, lack thereof. So...

• 1:10:17Lewis Howes?

  Disconnection, yeah.

• 1:10:18Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I also think that we're at a very beautiful time for humanity, where we're awakening and we're actually moving toward healing at such a fast rate that I don't see it as we're going to hell in a handbasket and things are just becoming more fucked up, we're becoming more messed up. I actually think we're on the brink of incredible growth and incredible evolution

• 1:10:37Lewis Howes?

  Awareness and awakening, yeah.

• 1:10:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  As a species. So I think it's that "and" again. But I do think that, yeah, just humanity, there's a lot of just environments that we're living in that are causing a lot of stress on our systems.

• 1:10:52Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing we need most? No matter where we're at in our stage of healing journey. What do we need to think about and remind ourselves the most every single day?

• 1:11:04Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Connecting to ourselves, coming back, coming back home, going inward. Reminding you that there is a self behind it all that you might feel very disconnected from, but that's worth getting to know. That makes all of this work worth it, right?

• 1:11:20Lewis Howes?

  As a therapist doing this work, what's your biggest fear moving forward with the amount of attention that you've gained in the last year, two years? And the amount of attention you're to continue to gain? Do you have any fears around that? Do you have any fears of like, anything?

• 1:11:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Lewis Howes?

  Insecurities or?

• 1:11:41Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Not necessarily.

• 1:11:41Lewis Howes?

  Who am I type of?

• 1:11:43Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, so this beautifully, full circle, right? Back to that little girl who was never considered, who desperately wanted to be seen and considered. It's one of the most challenging things for me to do and show up for.

• 1:11:54Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:11:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So this has been the case before, you know, growth. I mean, this has been the case with 1,000 followers. This has been the case the first time I got on camera. This has been the case when I hit a million. So this will, I'm sure as the numbers exponentially grow. And as I start to do maybe like speak, like things where I can see now the people more visually. The internet is a great buffer. Although I have done the Googling of numbers to spook myself and be like, whoa, there's that many people in my community right now? I've stopped doing that now because it's gotten out of hand. But little buffer virtually. So I think as I put myself more in front of the people and as I start to kind of concretize, that little girl wants to run for the hills. And she's still there and she considers it. Yeah, I mean, I'm often joking that I'm getting on the next airplane out of here. And like holistic, I'm not.

• 1:12:38Dr. Nicole LePera?

  But that's that little girl. I understand what that is now. I don't have to take that to mean anything other than that little girl, it's just so unfamiliar, being seen so vulnerably, being impacting other people because I'm being seen so vulnerable. That's another reason the impact. Because I'm just being me. I'm putting authentic me out there and I'm being seen. And as much as I desperately want that, that's scary. It's uncomfortable. So it's not a fear. It's more just of a discomfort that I is and has always been there.

• 1:13:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. When do you feel the most loved?

• 1:13:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  When I'm considered.

• 1:13:12Lewis Howes?

  Well, when are you considered, the way you want to be considered, right?

• 1:13:15Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:13:15Lewis Howes?

  What makes you feel the most considered?

• 1:13:17Dr. Nicole LePera?

  No, when someone reflects something that I think I can identify is like uniquely me or me back to me. Whether or not it's through a gesture, whether or not it's because they actually heard what I said. I mean, this sounds really simplistic, but listening in a reflective way where I'm like actually hearing what you're saying as opposed to formulating my response or going down the journey of what association my mind brought up when you said the thing. That's a skill and that's hard and we have to practice doing that. So when someone offers me that, when I feel like someone is truly present, as you even have in this, you know, interview to me and you're hearing me and you're reflecting back what you heard me say, that makes me feel considered. Because you heard me, something that I said in that moment was uniquely mine and you heard it.

• 1:14:01Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It could also be a gesture, you know, where someone like does something that like is helpful to me, makes me feel seen, cared for, loved. For who I am.

• 1:14:11Lewis Howes?

  I like that. Okay, so just listening and reflecting back is when you feel the most loved?

• 1:14:15Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, when you're present and like you just heard me and got me in that moment. It could just be a micro moment, but I was a human and you were a human and we just had a connection.

• 1:14:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:14:24Dr. Nicole LePera?

  And that's what I didn't really feel like I had growing up and that's what makes me feel loved.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  What about when your partner, what's the thing that she does that makes you feel the most loved besides that?

• 1:14:34Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I think anytime she's present to me fully. I think presence is very loving.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  Presence is the thing that is the...

• 1:14:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Presence is loving and it's hard as hell. But it's, you know, so any moment where I feel like she, and it could just be a moment, but when I feel like she's, we both have a lot going on. There's a lot of moments where we're not fully present, or me too, where she's talking about something, I'm like, oh, this other thing I have to tell you about, you know? You know, just because business-wise or whatever, you know, there's just so many places our attention can be. So sometimes it's micro moments, sometimes it's time we, you know, consciously carve out to be off our phone and just be us. But I think presence is incredibly loving and it's not a gift that we give or it's not the way we love a lot of people or a lot of relationships because we're not practicing it ourselves. So before I can be present here with you, I had to have learned how to be present in my own body.

• 1:15:22Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Because once I enter a room, now your energy's here I could be responding to, what you're saying I could be responding to, what you're doing, you know? So now I have to learn how to maintain my presence with... An external factor that is another human. So if I didn't, back to this conversation, if I didn't practice outside of here, the second I come in to interact with someone else, I could go back into that dissociative state.

• 1:15:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:15:44Dr. Nicole LePera?

  That lack of presence. So it's much harder than it, it's much easier said than done. But if you can practice presence, I think you can give a true gift of love to all of your relationships.

• 1:15:56Lewis Howes?

  It's not easy, but it's a simple concept.

• 1:15:57Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Simple.

• 1:15:58Lewis Howes?

  That's it. If you guys want to hear more, go listen to our last interview we did together. You shared your three truths there, your definition of greatness as well. So I want to ask you that again here now. Maybe next time I'll ask you and see what's changed.

• 1:16:10Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Maybe it'll change.

• 1:16:12Lewis Howes?

  How can we support you right now? You've got your Instagram, you've got your membership. Where can we go to find everything?

• 1:16:18Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, everything is the.holistic-psychologist. That's the main hub of all things Instagram. Speaking of the membership, April 1st, you'll probably hear me talk about it next week online. I'm going to open up a new launch period for the virtual self healer circle. So we've already had the founding members, they're all nice and settled in. So we're going to open up another, another group for enrollment. So I'm super excited.

• 1:16:38Lewis Howes?

  And what do they get every month?

• 1:16:39Dr. Nicole LePera?

  So every month, what that looks like is there's a different topic of healing. So members who will join in April will have access to all of the topics that the founding member group has already worked through. Everything is packaged in a month module, meaning we're going to focus on one area of healing. And that month, we're going to work toward that one area. So it can be very much a design your own journey, a self-direct it, pace for people. But every month, as a full group, we address one topic of healing. You get worksheets, you get PDFs, you get a virtual training, an hour with myself or other experts that have very generously gifted us with their time. You get a month or an hour Q and A live with me on that topic where I come on

• 1:17:21Dr. Nicole LePera?

  and I answer everyone's questions live about how they're doing the work or what they could tweak. I put guided meditations in there. I have a playlist in there, a book club. So it's really a contained healing experience where we can capitalize on connecting with other people. So groups of us all around the world at this point. So anyone who's interested, check out my Instagram. You'll definitely hear me talking about it on there. There is a website up where I have a waitlist so everyone will get blasted out the link on the first. So that's exciting because that's right around the corner and that's going to allow another whole group of people and healers in there to begin to start doing the work.

• 1:17:54Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:17:54Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I'm super excited.

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  You also have a texting platform where you text out updates.

• 1:17:58Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Oh yeah, the text happens.

• 1:17:59Lewis Howes?

  That's on your Instagram.

• 1:17:59Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Yeah, everything. The Instagram is a hub. There's a link tree there. I have some free goodies that come out if you sign up for my email list. Future self journaling, so.

• 1:18:07Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 1:18:08Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Everything runs through Instagram.

• 1:18:09Lewis Howes?

  You don't have a journal yet too.

• 1:18:11Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Uh, not yet, not yet.

• 1:18:12Lewis Howes?

  That's what you need to have, sure.

• 1:18:14Dr. Nicole LePera?

  I'm actually, it's funny you say that. I was in the process this morning of doing some tweaks on the old journal prompts. I think I'm going to release a new edition and then maybe it turns into...

• 1:18:23Lewis Howes?

  A journal book, I like it. It's amazing. Uh, I want to acknowledge you again for, for being here, for showing up, for teaching us so much. I think your traumas and learning and going through it allows us to heal through our traumas and you, by you sharing what you're learning and the practices. For me, this is, this is a book. This interview is a book in itself that we could print off and give to people. So I'm excited to dive into this more. And it's going to help heal a lot of people and I'm just really grateful for the work you do and acknowledge your wisdom, your, the, the ability to connect to your inner child and really, you know, have the deeper conversation and then share with us how we can do that. I think it's really powerful. So I appreciate you.

• 1:19:07Lewis Howes?

  I'm grateful for you. And you're also speaking at Summit of Greatness. So September 10th through 12th, you'll be speaking there.

• 1:19:14Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Come out and see my little child, Jake onstage. No, I'm just joking. I'll be great by then.

• 1:19:18Lewis Howes?

  It's really amazing. Yeah, make sure you guys check it out if Corona hasn't taken over by then. Hopefully it's all settled in the next two months.

• 1:19:24Dr. Nicole LePera?

  It'll be all settled.

• 1:19:25Lewis Howes?

  Summitofgreatness.com, you can check that out. Um, yeah, thank you so much.

• 1:19:29Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Thank you, Lois. I mean, you, you've been an inspiration to me beyond just from your personal journey, your professional journey. So I'm indebted with gratitude every time you have a conversation with me.

• 1:19:39Lewis Howes?

  We'll do it again soon.

• 1:19:40Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Of course, I love it. I'll be here.

• 1:19:42Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:19:42Dr. Nicole LePera?

  Thank you.

• 1:19:43Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. This is great.

• 1:19:46Lewis Howes?

  My friends, I hope this helped you. I hope this gave you some inspiration. This gave you some tools. This gave you some healing wisdom that you can apply in your life right now. You might be going through some challenges in a relationship in your life, an intimate relationship, a friendship, a colleague, a family member, and hopefully this gave you some tools, some inspiration, some boundary exercises to help you really cultivate the relationships you want in your life and restructure them so that you have that self-care and the self-love and you don't allow yourself to be taken advantage of or be hurt in different relationships. I hope you start to learn how to heal from your past childhood trauma through this episode.

• 1:20:26Lewis Howes?

  I hope you learn that things are okay. If there might be some processes in your current intimate relationship that you think are boring, things are okay. You can learn the pyramid of self-healing. All these things were super powerful for me. I love consuming Nicole's content. If you're not following her, make sure to go check her out. She is a rising star taking over the world of self-belief, of boundaries, of self-healing. Go check her out right now. You can check out all the information about her on our show notes, lewishouse.com/932. Go to our website for more content. We'll have the link back to our previous interview with her,

• 1:21:07Lewis Howes?

  which blew people away. I mean, I keep getting messages about this episode. You can subscribe over on youtube.com/lewishouse to watch the full YouTube video of this and the previous interview that went crazy online as well, and so much more. I hope you enjoyed this. Again, please subscribe if this is your first time here. Go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and just click on the subscribe button. Leave us a review if this impacted you in any way. We'd love to hear your reviews. We read these out to our team and it also helps us spread the message of greatness to more people in the world. So please subscribe right now and leave us a review if you enjoyed this and give us your feedback. We want to learn how we can make this better.

• 1:21:48Lewis Howes?

  Support Nicole, share her page, share her content, because I share it all the time. I love it. And again, you can be a Champion in someone's life, you can truly change someone's life, improve someone's life, or even possibly save someone's life with this type of information. It's free. Share it with your friends right now, LewisHowes.com/932. Post it on your Instagram story. Text a friend. Put it in a WhatsApp group text. Whatever you've got to do to help other people in your life, you've got the opportunity to really change someone's life by doing that. As Oscar Wilde said, "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." And Brené Brown said, "Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves,

• 1:22:31Lewis Howes?

  even when we risk disappointing others." The greatest pain of all is disappointing yourself. I hope you know that you are loved. I hope I know that you have so much goodness in your heart. You have so much creativity, and there are so many good things coming your way because you are an incredible human being with one of the biggest hearts. And you wouldn't have the biggest heart if you weren't coming here on a consistent basis. So that's why I know this. I'm so grateful for you. I appreciate you. I love you so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.