MASTER Emotional Regulation: 3 Simple Steps to REWIRE YOUR BRAIN & Reclaim Your LIFE!

Have you ever felt lost in life and unsure what path to take forward? In today's episode, three experts share transformative methods and tactics to help you heal your mind and find your true self. Gabor Maté, a renowned speaker and best-selling author, delves into why you may feel lost in life and how to find your path forward. Mariel Buqué, a Columbia University-trained psychologist and intergenerational trauma expert, teaches how to regulate your nervous system and heal your soul. Muniba Mazari, an artist, humanitarian, and global motivational speaker, inspires you to become the source of your own joy and discover true self-love. In this episode you will learnWhy you may feel lost in life and how to find your path forward. How to regulate your nervous system and heal your soul. Ways to become the source of your own joy and find true self-love. Strategies to heal your mind and uncover your authentic self. Practical tactics for continuing your journey toward mental and emotional wellness. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1619For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Listen to the full episodes featured today here:Gabor Mate - https://link.chtbl.com/1319-podMariel Buque - https://link.chtbl.com/1304-podMuniba Mazari - https://link.chtbl.com/1282-pod 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?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. What are the main mental health symptoms out in the world right now, could you say?

• 0:19Gabor Maté?

  Yeah, so depression and anxiety are fast growing and they're major challenges. More and more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD. More and more kids are being diagnosed with something called oppositional defiant disorder, which

• 0:37Lewis Howes?

  What is that?

• 0:38Gabor Maté?

  Opposition, that's when a kid is defiant and oppositional and goes against adult values and adult expectations. But we think there's something wrong with the kid instead of looking at the context of what makes the kid

• 0:56Lewis Howes?

  The environment, yeah.

• 0:57Gabor Maté?

  No, are these diseases? Well,

• 1:03Gabor Maté?

  you can talk about them as diseases to some degree and certainly, you know, I've had depression and I've taken medication for it in my 40s and it really made a difference for me. You might call it a disease, but actually, that's a shallow way of looking at it. Because actually,

• 1:21Gabor Maté?

  what does it go back to? It goes back to being a one-year-old infant or being a three-month-old infant. In the book, The Myth of Normal, the first chapter has a painting in it. The painting is by my wife, based on a photograph of me and my mother. This is Budapest, Hungary, 1944, and I'm three months of age. And my mother in the photograph is wearing the yellow star the Jews had to wear. My father was away in forced labor and within two months, her parents would be killed in Auschwitz. That was my first year of life.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:57Gabor Maté?

  And the look on my face is full of terror. I was absorbing my mother's fear and my mother's anxiety.

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  Because she had terror in her face and you're mimicking and

• 2:08Gabor Maté?

  She had it in her body.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Body. You're connected to her, feeding 10 times a day.

• 2:14Gabor Maté?

  Exactly.

• 2:14Lewis Howes?

  And you're feeling the stress.

• 2:16Gabor Maté?

  Exactly.

• 2:17Lewis Howes?

  There's probably now no calm in her.

• 2:19Gabor Maté?

  There's no calm there. And but she's already so stressed.

• 2:25Gabor Maté?

  And she's just trying to make sure that we survive. She's not there to really receive my feelings. And then when I'm a year old, around eleven months old, she hands me to a complete stranger in the street to save my life. Because she didn't think where we're staying, I would survive for a day. And probably I wouldn't have. Wow. So I didn't see her for six weeks, five or six weeks. And. And you're one? I was one then, yeah. Oh, my gosh. And now, what could I do as a one-year-old? I could do two things, or as an infant going through all that. First of all, how do I deal with all that stress? I tune out.

• 3:05Gabor Maté?

  I tune out, I become absent-minded as an adopt, as an adaptive mechanism. A coping mechanism. Exactly. Fifty-five years later, I'm diagnosed with ADHD, which is characterized by tuning out. Is it a disease? The heck it's a disease. It started as a coping mechanism. I'm also diagnosed with depression. Why? Because in an environment, I had to push my feelings down in order to not to burden my mother, who was already burdened enough. Create more peace and more, yeah. So I took that on, so I pushed on my feelings. I depressed my feelings. Then I have this depression. So are they diseases? Well, you can talk about them that way, but I say they began as coping mechanisms. And I'll tell you another story.

• 3:48Gabor Maté?

  I'm seventy-eight now, so six, seven years ago. I'm in San Francisco with a therapist, and I've taken mushrooms. She works with mushrooms. And I've, I've worked with psychedelics, and it's one of the things I write about. And that, but this time, I'm the patient, I'm the client.

• 4:10Gabor Maté?

  And I'm lying there on the mat, under the influence of the psilocybin. And I know exactly who I am. I'm seventy-one years old. I'm a medical doctor, I'm a writer, I'm a speaker. I'm married to such as, you know, my wife Ray. This is a therapist, so I'm not like hallucinating. I know exactly where I am, but at the same time.

• 4:31Gabor Maté?

  I'm experiencing myself as a one-year-old infant.

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh my goodness.

• 4:34Gabor Maté?

  And this therapist, my mom, is my mom. And I start crying and I say, "I'm so sorry I've made your life so difficult."

• 4:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 4:43Gabor Maté?

  That's my one-year-old self. All of a sudden, under the influence, speaking up. I took it on that early that I'm responsible. Now, you talked about-

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 4:52Gabor Maté?

  In our conversation before, you told me about how you were in this relationship and you couldn't leave it, even long after you realized it wasn't right for you. Because you took on the responsibility of how the other person would feel if you would, quote, "let them down." I'm telling you, that's your one-year-old speaking. That you took responsibility for the suffering of your parents.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:14Gabor Maté?

  And how you mustn't let anybody down, because it's your responsibility. We take this stuff on so early, without words, actually. They just become ingrained and then we live our lives out of it. Until something happens, like it did for you, your body rebelled.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  You have a breakdown or something happens, right? And you're like, either keep breaking down or it wakes you up and say, "Okay, why is this happening? What is off, what is out of alignment, what is, you know, where am I, out of integrity, whatever it might be?"

• 5:48Gabor Maté?

  Exactly.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  And I feel the challenge is, I was like, "I want to end this suffering." You know, I've repeated this pattern many times, I'm sick of the suffering. I'll do whatever. You know, I think when you, for me, I was like, "I've felt enough of this, I don't want it anymore." But it took so much courage to face these things for me. And I know other people have deeper traumas or different traumas and it just seems so challenging for people.

• 6:17Gabor Maté?

  I wouldn't go there. I would not compare your trauma with anybody else's.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  Well, we all have our unique traumas, right? Different experiences that we face.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so challenging for people to face it? And start addressing it? I was telling you, you know, I've been doing pretty intensive therapy for about a year and a half now, every two weeks.

• 6:37Gabor Maté?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  Not because I feel like something's wrong with me anymore, that I'm stressed more, because I want to maintain a level of peace.

• 6:43Gabor Maté?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  And I want to continue to maintain peace.

• 6:45Gabor Maté?

  Good for you.

• 6:46Lewis Howes?

  So, once I realized and started healing, I didn't say, "I'm good."

• 6:50Gabor Maté?

  Yeah.

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  I was like, "I want to go to the next level of..."

• 6:53Gabor Maté?

  Exactly.

• 6:53Lewis Howes?

  "Peace, love, you know, an environment of beauty inside of my emotions." But why is it so hard for so many people to face it? And actually speak the shame, guilt, insecurity, you know, imperfection about them?

• 7:08Gabor Maté?

  Well, I think in your own work, you've touched upon very accurately on the why it's so difficult. For one thing, if you, if you just, just the words that you just used, peace and love and connection, if you had played that to your twenty-year-old self, how would he have responded?

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  Uh, he'd be like, "Suck it up," or he'd be like, "What are you talking about? You're fine." Like, yeah, "Don't be a little wuss," or, you know, "Just work harder," you know?

• 7:34Gabor Maté?

  Yeah, but where would that have come from?

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  I mean, just my entire conditioning growing up from sports and, you know...

• 7:44Gabor Maté?

  Okay, so that's, so there's that.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  The house, you know?

• 7:46Gabor Maté?

  So that's one of the factors, is the conditioning in this culture, okay?

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:53Gabor Maté?

  I, I also say it would have come from intense fear.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 7:56Gabor Maté?

  Because if you'd actually, it's very fearful to look at all that pain inside oneself.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  It's terrifying.

• 8:01Gabor Maté?

  Yeah, it's terrifying. So there's intense fear. The, so there's the conditioning, as you say, then there's the, the fear, it really is fear, painful. You know, nobody wants to have pain, you know? Um, but that's called growing pains. And the third factor is, we all develop this personality. No, the personality, we think that's us, but it's not us.

• 8:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:25Gabor Maté?

  The personality is the traits that we took on to survive our childhoods. Along with some genuine traits. So the personality is kind of a, an amalgam of, of childhood coping mechanisms and genuine qualities.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, some good stuff, but then some also coping. Yeah, yeah. I remember, I used to be like, I was a fun-loving guy. I was like a kind, generous, but then when there was a trigger, like I was angry and, you know, defensive and guarded and things like that.

• 8:54Gabor Maté?

  Or you talk about the various masks, the sexual mask, or the, um, or the

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  Material mask.

• 9:01Gabor Maté?

  The aggressive mask, you know.

• 9:05Gabor Maté?

  I, I, when I started reading a chapter on the sexual mask, you wrote about some guy, whose name I forget, but who's sort of the champion, picking out women. I wouldn't have been in his shoes for one split second. Poor bastard, I was thinking.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:21Gabor Maté?

  You know, that this is what he has to do. But what's that? It's having to prove to himself that he's lovable. Where does that come from? You know, so, but we identify with it.

• 9:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 9:31Gabor Maté?

  So we think we're the personality. I'm this sexually attractive guy. Or I'm this aggressive guy. I'm this material guy who's gonna make it in the world, you know? And so we think that we are our personality. So it comes from, I say, three sources. One is the conditioning, the other is the fear for the pain, and thirdly, the identification with the personality. We think that's who we are, and we don't know who we'd be without it. All of which is all based on trauma.

• 9:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's the identi-, you know, building this identity that, you know, and I talk about how the identity has supported you to accomplishing certain things, right? Or protecting you from certain things by having this identity.

• 10:11Gabor Maté?

  Yeah.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  But it's also not serving us to hold on to that identity if we want the next level of peace and freedom.

• 10:17Gabor Maté?

  Exactly.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  So it's, but it's so hard to kill an identity. It's like you've had this thing for decades, maybe, and you've gotta let go of this thing.

• 10:25Gabor Maté?

  Yeah, well, you see, I wouldn't even talk about killing. I mean, I, in, in my healing chapters of this book, I talk about, let's make friends with it. Like, for example. I have to, by the way, I have to be honest. I said that I wouldn't be in this guy's shoes for a minute. That's not true. Part of me was envying him. You know, even here, I'm seventy-eight and married twenty-three years. But I read about this guy who slept with all these women. Why couldn't I be that guy? You know, I don't want to go there and I wouldn't. I've long ago chosen not to. But, but there's still something that. Who doesn't want to be wanted that much?

• 11:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:01Gabor Maté?

  You know?

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  Something with the ego or the desire, yeah.

• 11:04Gabor Maté?

  Yeah. So.

• 11:07Gabor Maté?

  But if we didn't kill those parts, but made friends with them. If somebody came to me with that kind of pattern of, I'm not sexual guy. But they don't want to, but they realize that it's not. They might feel high for a moment, like any addict will.

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  It's not fulfilling.

• 11:27Gabor Maté?

  It's not fulfilling. I wouldn't say kill that part of you. I'd say let's make friends with it. Let's find out what it's really trying to do for you. What it's trying to do for you is trying to make you feel wanted. Make you feel valuable. Make you feel desirable. Make you feel loved temporarily. Make you feel powerful. What happened to you? That you don't feel lovable? That you don't feel desirable? That you don't feel powerful? You know, in other words, it's not a matter of getting rid of these parts or these aspects of ourselves. It's a question of actually getting to know them. And they all began as coping mechanisms. That man that you describe in your book, I guarantee is a highly traumatized human being.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  So when we start to ask ourselves this question that you're asking is what happened to you? Or when, you know, when did you feel not powerful or not lovable or not wanted?

• 12:19Gabor Maté?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Lewis Howes?

  And let's say we're able to, someone watching or listening is able to assess themselves and actually be present.

• 12:30Lewis Howes?

  Really reflect on the painful moments of the past, which a lot of people aren't even willing to talk about it to themselves, right?

• 12:36Gabor Maté?

  That's right.

• 12:36Lewis Howes?

  For twenty-five years, I had a memory of being sexually abused and thought about it almost every day, like for a moment. You know, it would come, you know, at least weekly. Maybe not every day, but it was like a memory, yeah, that's there. You know, but I never told anyone for twenty-five years because it was so shameful. And I didn't want to be, you know, made fun of or all these things. And so if someone's able to self-assess and say, okay, I had this pain, this trauma, I felt not powerful or whatever it might be. What's the next step for them, once they start to journal about it and be aware of it? And they're like, I really want to heal, you know? What would be that next step in the process?

• 13:16Gabor Maté?

  Well, I mean, it's not that I can prescribe a butcher, but it should be for everybody and there's many different ways of working. But one of the things I would address, first of all, is the shame. Like, one of the impacts of trauma is shame. Because children are narcissists by nature. When I say narcissist, I don't mean in a pathological negative sense. I mean, they think it's all about them.

• 13:39Lewis Howes?

  The world revolves around me.

• 13:41Gabor Maté?

  Exactly. So if bad things are happening to me, it must be a must be a bad person. You know, number one. Number two, I didn't fight back.

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  I couldn't defend myself.

• 13:55Gabor Maté?

  And so that makes me weak and, you know, and so I'm ashamed of that. Now, actually, when you look at it, the not fighting back is nature's coping mechanism. Part of your nervous system just freezes. Because if you fought back, what would happen?

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  Just depends what age you are.

• 14:16Gabor Maté?

  No, but as a young child.

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  If you fight back on...

• 14:21Gabor Maté?

  Against the sexual abuser.

• 14:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh, right.

• 14:23Gabor Maté?

  What would happen to you?

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  Who knows? I mean, it could have been even worse.

• 14:27Gabor Maté?

  And were you in a position to run?

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 14:29Gabor Maté?

  No.

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  I was trapped in a bathroom.

• 14:31Gabor Maté?

  So the part of your nervous system that would have you fight or run away gets inactivated.

• 14:38Lewis Howes?

  It's protecting yourself.

• 14:39Gabor Maté?

  You're protecting yourself. And the part of the nervous system that freezes you, just be still. You get through this.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  Wait till it passes.

• 14:48Gabor Maté?

  Yeah, that takes over. So it's actually what you're ashamed about is actually the brilliance of your nervous system that protected you.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  But you're beating yourself up in retrospect, saying, I should have ran, I should have fought back, I should have done this.

• 15:03Gabor Maté?

  That's the first point.

• 15:05Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 15:05Gabor Maté?

  The second point is,

• 15:09Gabor Maté?

  if I can ask you, how old were you when this happened to you?

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  Five.

• 15:11Gabor Maté?

  And how long did it go on for?

• 15:13Lewis Howes?

  It's probably ten, fifteen minutes, yeah.

• 15:17Gabor Maté?

  No, but it was only one time?

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  One time.

• 15:18Gabor Maté?

  Okay. Who did you speak to about it?

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  No one.

• 15:21Gabor Maté?

  Okay. Now, you don't have kids yet.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 15:24Gabor Maté?

  But if you did have a child, five years old, and this happened to you, who would you want them to speak to?

• 15:30Lewis Howes?

  Me.

• 15:31Gabor Maté?

  Yeah. Now, if you found out that this happened to your child, and your child never told you, how would you explain that?

• 15:39Lewis Howes?

  How would I explain it to?

• 15:41Gabor Maté?

  How would you explain to yourself, why my child is not talking to me about this terrible thing that happened?

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  I would explain it by saying it's something I'm not doing. I'm not creating a safe environment to allow this child to speak up.

• 15:53Gabor Maté?

  And that was your primary trauma?

• 15:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:56Gabor Maté?

  So the sexual abuse is a secondary trauma. As a matter of fact, the abuser, like you were bullied in school, you said? And the bullies can always sense the vulnerability. The bullies have like a laser.

• 16:07Lewis Howes?

  The weakness in you.

• 16:07Gabor Maté?

  They have a laser like.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  Because you're an insecure, weak person, yeah.

• 16:12Gabor Maté?

  Which, by the way, speaks to their own trauma.

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:15Gabor Maté?

  But, but, but, but they have a laser like, like the physicians who abuse their, their patients, the spiritual leaders who do that to their followers.

• 16:26Lewis Howes?

  They see a weakness.

• 16:27Gabor Maté?

  They, they laser like they sense it, and that's who they pick on, and the bullies do the same thing. Now, that weakness, as we call it, comes from not having the solid support and protection and confidence and security in your family of origin. So that's the primary trauma. That's, that's, that's the first thing that happened.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the case for sure.

• 16:49Gabor Maté?

  So, to answer your question, then, if somebody comes to me with those issues, now, first of all, if somebody realizes those things, I'd say.

• 16:59Gabor Maté?

  Don't try to do this on your own.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard.

• 17:02Gabor Maté?

  Talk to somebody.

• 17:03Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard.

• 17:04Gabor Maté?

  Yeah, well, look, um, people with addictions, at least they have the two step groups. Where they can actually talk about it and people ideally will not judge them.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  It's a safe space to.

• 17:17Gabor Maté?

  Safe space. Or you might have friends, or you might reach out to a professional, or you might have an intimate partner that relationship is close enough where you can actually share this, you know, but

• 17:29Gabor Maté?

  you have to um, bring it out of you. By the way, um,

• 17:36Gabor Maté?

  that just reminds me, uh, this is one of the ancient gospels written around the same time as the other gospels, is the Gospel of Thomas. In which Jesus says that what you shall bring out of you will save you. And what you don't bring out of yourself will doom you. He says something like that.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 17:53Gabor Maté?

  He was a supreme psychologist.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:55Gabor Maté?

  And so you gotta bring it out.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, what you suppress becomes more depressed, right? It's like.

• 18:01Gabor Maté?

  Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's gotta start with that somewhere.

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  You've gotta bring it out. And if, and if someone has a, what if they say, well, it wasn't that big of a deal. This thing that happened back in the day, I was a kid and it only happened a few times, whether it's sexual abuse or someone screaming at you, or you were neglected, or put in the corner, you know.

• 18:22Gabor Maté?

  I hear that all the time.

• 18:23Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't that big of a deal.

• 18:25Gabor Maté?

  I hear that all the time.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we're coming. I shouldn't be that concerned about it. It was five, who cares, you know, it's like, what do we?

• 18:32Gabor Maté?

  Okay, then that's a very simple way to answer that.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  But why are we so messed up right now?

• 18:37Gabor Maté?

  No, no, no, no, not at all. If a five year old kid came to you and you were the uncle,

• 18:45Gabor Maté?

  Uncle Louis, this guy did such and such to me. And I'm really scared and hurt. Would you say to them, oh, no big deal?

• 18:58Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 18:59Gabor Maté?

  Think of all the other kids that worse things have happened to. Would you say that? Why wouldn't you say that?

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  Because I'd want to be there for my nephew and make sure he felt supported and seen and loved.

• 19:09Gabor Maté?

  And what would be the impact if you did say that?

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  I feel like it'd probably affect him for a long time. If that was a pattern of, that was the response that he got.

• 19:21Gabor Maté?

  But you see, that's what you're saying to yourself.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:24Gabor Maté?

  When you say that it's no big deal, you're saying to the five-year-old that was hurt, it doesn't matter. And there's no self-compassion there.

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:33Gabor Maté?

  What you would never say to anybody else, you're saying to yourself. And one of the impacts of trauma is lack of self-compassion.

• 19:41Gabor Maté?

  And again, if I may mention my book, The Myth of Normal, I talk about that, about how this idea of self-compassion. And I see it all the time. And so when somebody says to me, "No big deal," you know, I say, "Okay, take any other child in your position, plug them into that situation, and tell them it's no big deal." And of course, I wouldn't.

• 20:05Lewis Howes?

  But people do. They do say these things to their kids or to their nephews or nieces. They're saying like, "Ah, you'll be all right," you know. And I think it's because they don't have the emotional courage to handle the wide range of emotions because they probably suppress the emotions themselves.

• 20:23Gabor Maté?

  I mean, that's the whole point.

• 20:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:25Gabor Maté?

  Is that they're not comfortable with the child's pain.

• 20:29Lewis Howes?

  Someone crying, they're like, "I can't handle it."

• 20:31Gabor Maté?

  They can't handle it, yeah.

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  You know, my daddy should be like, "Stop crying," you know, just stop. There was no like hugging and like, he had a lot of love and affection in other ways, but he couldn't handle the crying and the screaming. Yeah, the emotions.

• 20:45Gabor Maté?

  Well, one of the, in the book, I talk about the essential needs of children. And one of them is that they're given the freedom to feel all their emotions, particularly sadness and grief and pain.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  And if we heal the trauma, will we be able to eliminate these symptoms? Or these disorders?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  I think we'll be able to get rid of a lot of stuff. A lot of it. Some of it, as I mentioned, because there is that genetic loading. And we gotta think of the genetics that we talked about already, right? Like, we're talking about lineages of genetic loadings. So, you know, if we start doing the work now, maybe we'll see a lot less of these disorders happening within our families and our communities. So there is a lot that we can do to actually rectify

• 21:37Speaker 02

  the abundance of mental illness that's out there, right?

• 21:41Speaker 02

  I believe that there is a lot of the mental illness that exists in the world that has an undercurrent of trauma. And we just haven't talked about that undercurrent or that possibility as much. But I don't know if we'll be able to absolve ourselves of 100% of the mental illness in the world, but I think that we can do a really good job in this generation to break cycles.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  Could an individual eliminate these mental health issues on an individual level if they're willing to do the deep healing work? Because essentially, because I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, are these, these are like symptoms of trauma. You didn't grow up depressed. Certain things happened, an event happened, an environment continued to foster the feelings of depression.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:28Lewis Howes?

  The state of depression. And if we can heal the memory, the trauma, the event, and reconnect to our purest self, our whole human self, wouldn't those things start to go away?

• 22:42Speaker 02

  That's precisely the goal. So, you know, where we started off with psychology and psychiatry is we started off with symptom management. A lot of psychiatry, you know, we're still kind of there a little bit.

• 22:54Lewis Howes?

  Which is like, here's the drug to manage the symptoms.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Band-aid.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  But that's not healing.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  That's not resolving, that's just managing it.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Precisely.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  But that doesn't... Do anything to bring back to wholeness?

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Yes, and integrate the person.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  Integrating the healing, right?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Exactly, and that's the goal. That's the goal for me. That's the goal in my practice. I want full integration of that person. I want them to see, really see their authentic self. Some people have never even had an opportunity to see like who they could be at their true core self. Because it's been masked by so much of the trauma and the symptomatology that's associated with the trauma, like the depression.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so you believe that people can heal these mental health challenges as well if they integrate fully?

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Many of them, especially the ones that, you know, because I think we have like bipolar disorder and we have, you know, schizophrenia that have a different mechanism to them, but many of them, absolutely.

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  But many of the ones that a lot of people are facing, depression, ADD, ADHD.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Depression especially, yeah.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:02Lewis Howes?

  How important is finding a meaningful purpose in life supports you in overcoming feeling depressed or depression?

• 24:10Speaker 02

  It's like so critical. It's one, yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, like when we're talking about what happens after trauma, meaning making is at the center. It's like one of the biggest things because you have, you have to see your life having some sort of value and that there's meaning associated with your life and with everything that's within your life in order to actually like even feel motivated to do the heavy lifting that is the healing work to get yourself to the other side. So you have to have meaning in that journey. Meaning making, it's alchemized in that journey. It's created in that journey, right? But I, I think at the very least, you have to have hope that meaning can, meaning making can be possible.

• 24:55Lewis Howes?

  Because what it sounds like to me is a lot of people attach meaning in a more negative, harmful state to events, to words, to actions that happen around them.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  And therefore, that meaning causes more depression, ADHD, or, you know, negative thoughts, all these different things that hurt us.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  But if we created a different meaning around the event with the words, or the breakup with a loss of a career, created a new meaning around it, and had a different intention, a different purpose moving forward, we wouldn't have those mental challenges as much.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think people, you know, just haven't been trained to ask themselves the right questions around meaning-making, right?

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  And so, what's the right questions?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Well, the right questions are, you know, well.

• 25:43Lewis Howes?

  Somebody experiences a traumatic event, or big T or little t, what questions should we ask?

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, we should be asking, you know, so, questions around, well, let's talk about what was learned in that circumstance. It's a really hard question to ask, because sometimes people will be like, you really, you think that that needed to happen? No, it didn't need to happen.

• 26:05Lewis Howes?

  It did happen.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  It happened.

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  Can't change it.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  You can't. That's, that's in your history now. But what can we take from that experience? And it doesn't even need to be the traumatic event itself, but your response, your reaction. What can we take from that to learn how to now create a healing protocol for you? And it's, it's about, you know, being able to ask questions that get people thinking outside of the box. Because what happens when you're in a state of trauma is that you're, you're frozen in many ways. Your thoughts are frozen. You, you start thinking a lot of the same things, right? Like, it's a lot of protective functions. Your, your feelings are frozen in time. Like, people like constantly feel worry, anxiety, like, a lot of things that are, you know, just them being in a protective state.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  And so, we can start asking questions to freeze some of that up. That's, that's gonna be like really key. But I, I like that question, even though, you know, I, I think it can veer us in different directions, but I'm open to that whenever it comes to work with a client, right? Because wherever we go, I'm with them. I'm going with you, and we're following that path.

• 27:10Lewis Howes?

  If someone stays committed to their story of meaning, that it was this horrible event and it ruined my life. The divorce, the job loss, the injury, whatever it might be. What happens if they hold on to the meaning in a negative way as opposed to, "That was a traumatic event. I don't wish it upon anyone, but here's what I learned from it. Here's what I gained from it. Here's what I'm gonna do with it in a positive way." What happens to those?

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Well, the way that I interpret that is that that person is, one, still in a state of fear. They're not ready to really get curious about what other definitions meaning can have in their life. They're just really stuck on the one definition, that it tarnished their lives, that it got in the way, and they're just stuck there, right? And so, if that's the case, then my role as a clinician, or their role as a person that wants to get out of it, hopefully, is to work on the fear. You gotta work on, where is fear trapped? How is the nervous system operating around fear, right? Like, where can we free them up in a bodily sense?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Because the nervous system requires a lot of that body-based work. And so, we have to really get curious about that and go in that direction versus, you know, the questions are very mind-focused, right? But we need the body-based practices in order to create safety in the body.

• 28:41Lewis Howes?

  To release also, right? To release the fear, the pain, the trauma, and reconnect to the safety of your body, is that right?

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so, that when a person can feel that there is safety in their body, they can feel that they can actually go into the depths of their minds in a way that doesn't feel scary and existential.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Right. Speaking of fear, I saw somewhere recently, I don't know if this is true, but I saw somewhere recently that we are, that human beings are born with three fears. The fear of loud noises, the fear of falling, and the fear of abandonment. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, we tend to build, add more fears as time go on. I don't know if that's true, if those are the only three, or we don't have fears at all, but... But it seems like we gather, we collect more fears through childhood and adulthood. Why do you think we gather so many fears and collect them?

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Well, I think you're talking about like primary fears, right? Like those feel like primary fears to me, like they're like what you start off with. As a baby, you're gonna have that startle response. As a baby, you're gonna need to feel deeply connected and attuned to a caregiver.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, you don't live, yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Basically, right? And so like, it's basically a fear of losing life or a fear of losing safety. So it makes a lot of sense, but the accumulation of it also makes sense because we operate in mental representations and categories, basically. So we have specific categories in our minds that are primarily created in our childhood. And then everything else that happens in life, we put in the different categories and the buckets of our minds. And they just start accumulating and growing. So if you have a big fear bucket, then you're gonna have a lot of fears that are gonna, you know, like come into your life and stay there.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  So when we're thinking about a way to heal initially, and we know that we've had some stress, or maybe we're reactive in certain situations, or maybe we feel tightness or just not our fullest, highest self, and we know that there's been some trauma, but we're not sure how to talk about it or how to heal it. What is something we should be thinking about with our bodies to start this process?

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Well, the first thing is that we have to befriend our bodies. We have to actually engage in a relationship with our bodies and really tune in. Most of us don't actually take the moments throughout the day to say, how's my body feeling right now? Where do I feel the tension? Where am I experiencing in my body this external situation, right? And if we can actually train ourselves to just do body scans, for starters, right? There's so many things that we can do, but for starters, just scanning how we feel in our bodies from head to toe, and just getting a sense of how our body is taking in our environment, that's already a really good setup for understanding ourselves better and understanding ourselves.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  When we're juxtaposing ourselves with what's happening outside of ourselves.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  So if someone has experienced a level of trauma, but they have no clue if they've actually got a lot of trauma, a little trauma, or somewhere in between, how can they do a trauma assessment within their body scan to know, oh, this is actually a big thing that I need to address right away, or this is more minor, but I still need to address it? How can they scan?

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Well, you know, it's actually much simpler than what one might imagine because people can actually just remember, right? Remember what they actually do remember and then simultaneously try and gauge what's happening in their bodies as they're remembering.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  As they're thinking of the story and the scenario.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Are you feeling tightness in your chest or your throat? Or are you clenching up? Or are you sweating?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  It's like, what are these symptoms?

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. And typically, some of those symptoms correlate with how the nervous system is actually internalizing the story. We typically get a knot in our stomach, for example, right? But that's really our nervous system actually shutting down specific functions of the gastrointestinal tract. Because we actually don't need that for survival in a moment where we're in survival mode. And so.

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  So if we feel a knot in our stomach, it's almost like we're in fight or flight mode.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  Just thinking about, you know, thinking about a story for 30 seconds or a couple of minutes from something that happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. That's fascinating. So something that happened that long ago can continue to harm and hurt you decades in the future until we learn to heal it.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. It continues to live in the body. It can metabolize in the body then as chronic illness when it goes on unaddressed. And of course, one of the biggest risks and repercussions of it going on unaddressed, many times because we just don't know that it's there or that it's something that needs to be addressed. But what can happen is also the possibility of transmission into the next generation. So there's a lot of consequence.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And that transmission is really you leaving a legacy. You know, do you want to leave a legacy of peaceful, harmonious, emotional well-being? You know, humans as children or kids that carry your stress responses.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:55Lewis Howes?

  And kind of your nervous system responses, right?

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I always ask parents, like, look at your little one and look into their eyes. And think for a moment, do I want them to hurt the way that I have hurt?

• 34:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  And that usually is enough for a parent to say, you know what? Actually, I want to break this cycle because I don't want their little heart to then absorb the kinds of traumas that I've absorbed.

• 34:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  And for them to then be the adult that has to then be in search of their emotions or in search of healing because they now have an inner child wound as an adult.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  What's the greatest gift a parent can give their child?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  Oh, the gift of understanding their emotions and understanding how to self-affirm. Because when we can actually know how, what our emotions even are, and what I mean by that is that we have emotions and that they're body-centered, right? Like that we have a really concrete understanding of the full spectrum of our emotions and how they can manifest in our bodies. And then how we can actually do something to validate ourselves through the emotional process. I think that's a beautiful gift that parents can give their children. And when parents do that for themselves and their children, it's a beautiful generational gift.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's beautiful. So the first thing I'm hearing you say is kind of the ways to start healing is to first do an assessment of the stories and the memories that hurt you and see how the body reacts or responds.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:25Lewis Howes?

  What would be the next step after that? We notice a tightness in our stomach, a clenching in our throat, a pain in our chest. What would be the next step to starting that healing process?

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Step two is relaxation. Step two is actually going into any kind of practice you choose, right? But it can be breath work, it can be meditation, it could be Tai Chi, it can be yoga, it can be so many. That can actually help your body to release some of that tension.

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  And so what we're doing in that very moment is that we're, of course, recognizing that there's a pain that has been there, that has been emotional, that has now a physical manifestation, and that we're also integrating a relaxation, a body relaxation practice to help release that tension, help absolve that tension from the body.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  If we never release it, what happens?

• 36:17Speaker 02

  It becomes disease.

• 36:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So emotional memories turn into physical pain and eventually disease in some way?

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Many of the metabolic conditions that we know about, diabetes, for example, cardiac conditions, a lot of those can be mapped back to stressors in life. And there's a lot of studies that have been done around even autoimmune conditions being very deeply connected to stressors and to trauma. And more recently, there's some studies that also have some correlates to certain cancers. So when we start thinking about what the body is telling us, the body, when it's in that state of disease, is telling us, I don't feel well because I'm not being taken care of emotionally. And that, you know, is usually like the clue for us to say, oh, I need to slow down,

• 37:13Speaker 02

  when we needed to slow down probably fifteen, twenty years ago.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. So once we, you know, recall the memories, and I guess really reflect on where we're feeling this pain or reaction in our bodies, the third thing I'm hearing you say is to relax through some type of therapeutic process. Breathwork, meditation, yoga, some type of relaxation process to release it, right? What would be the next thing? Because a lot of times, most people just numb or disassociate the pain, right? We don't truly feel the pain because it's too painful. And so we'll find ways to numb, distract, disassociate, block the memories.

• 37:55Lewis Howes?

  To not feel that pain and that can be just as harmful, right? Just to numb, block or disassociate?

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Can, you know, there are protective factors or there are ways that we protect ourselves from the pain that we truly feel and especially the depths of our pain. Some of us just don't want to understand how deeply hurt we have been.

• 38:15Lewis Howes?

  How wrong we've been.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  How wrong we've been.

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  How unfair, unjust, you know, hurtful these things are.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, like in order to self preserve, in order to make it through another day, the mind and the body, they're just brilliant, brilliant like machines. They have mechanized a way to actually protect us from ourselves.

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  And so they basically like structured all these coping mechanisms that albeit harmful or maladaptive or not helpful or not connecting when we're talking about relationships, right? They can, you know, still help keep you safe for another day. But the alternative to that is to then learn coping skills that actually can be adaptive, connecting. And that can actually be the better recipe for not only your ability to stay within healthy relationships with other people, but also for you to experience the type of sustainable and long-term mental and physical wellness.

• 39:22Lewis Howes?

  What's the next step after that? Once we start applying some of these self therapeutic experiences, you know, it might be 10 minutes of breath work or some type of release. How do we get to a place of truly healing that wound or that memory? You know, how long does it take of us doing this over and over again? Do we eventually need to process in other ways? Through talk therapy or more intensified therapies? What's the solution to?

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  Absolute healing and is that even a thing?

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Well, there isn't really a 100%, you know, type of healing that truly exists. I mean, I think that anything that leans in the direction of perfectionism is a myth, including healing, right? However, there are ways in which we can live a life that is filled with ease and peace more often than not. And a life in which if triggers were ever to present themselves, that they would be just subtle and tolerable. And that we can have the actual tools, the, the sense of empowerment and agency over our own bodies and minds to actually release that process and move into the next thing that life has for us. Rather than being stuck and frozen, which is what tends to happen with trauma.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  But the, the next step really is, you know, I, the, the way that I work is that I integrate a lot of these nervous system restoration practices for a long period of time with folks. And I, I've done it myself and with my family and with kind of everyone and in the book. But this actually is the lengthier part of the work, the actual grounding.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  This can take months or years, right?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  It can, it can. And you know, sometimes I, I actually like to give it a bit of context, like for people who feel like, well, let's say, you know, that I want to do this work, but how much am I gonna have to do in order to really?

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Might be a lot. It might be a lot.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's okay.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  And it might feel exhausting and it might feel overwhelming and it might feel emotional and it might feel, you know, like it's all consuming at times.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, all of the above.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  And, and that's actually, I wouldn't even go as far as saying maybe not might, but it will, right?

• 41:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, for a period of time.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, for a period of time and it is survivable. And if you have the tools to actually help you to settle. Once things feel like they're getting really heavy, then it's gonna make the experience more tolerable.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  You're not gonna feel like you're thrown into the abyss of your deepest, darkest emotions and have no way out. You're like in a black hole.

• 41:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there's this, I don't know who's originally said this type of quote or this kind of phrase, but you'll hear people say, you know, what happened to you is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to overcome it, to heal it, to process it, to, you know, realize what it was and not let it consume your life.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:18Lewis Howes?

  And I think what you mentioned about like higher self, like learning about our nervous systems so we can work with it to become our best, highest self as most often as possible, right?

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  Which means having peace and harmony inside of us as frequent as possible, because that is our true nature, peace and harmony. And I think that's what it comes down to. What are you willing to do to create peace and harmony, to actualize your highest self as frequently as you can?

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  It's not about perfection. You're not gonna be this Zen person all the time, but that's a beautiful life, living in peace and harmony. Living in suffering and pain and agony and numbing yourself is not a beautiful life. It's a survival mechanism which is useful for a period of time, but not for all of time. And so we just gotta be aware of that.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:07Lewis Howes?

  And it's gonna take doing some intense, painful work for a period of time for hopefully a lifetime of freedom afterwards.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah, and then, you know, I like to always like help people understand that if you're, let's say that the work needs to take a period of two years. Let's just say that. You need to focus, you need to do nervous system restoration practices each and every day for a period of two years. You need to do journaling and some of the digging work and do talk therapy and you need to, you know, engaging in, you know, connections with people that help you feel at home. All of that needs to be a part of your process. Those two years, when you take into consideration the forty that you've already lived.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  That have felt awful. Those two years feel like they're really worth it. If you want to live the next forty, feeling more abundant, more peaceful, more grounded, more like you know yourself, your true core self, and more like that core self that is now burgeoning from within you is a reflection of your higher self.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes, and I'm just a big believer that flow and abundance does not come to those who are constantly in suffering or holding on to pain.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  It comes to those that have peace, who have clarity, who are relaxed, in a more relaxed state.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  And that may seem like a nice thing to say, but if you're in your thirties and forties and you've got three kids and you've got, you know, responsibilities and job and you're overstressed, and you're thinking, I don't have two years of my life, let alone thirty minutes a day to go to the gym. How can I do this work when I have so much responsibilities, when I've got, you know, a partner that I'm in a relationship with, I've got kids, I've got bills, I've got all these different weights on top of me. Doing this type of work seems like impossible. What do you say to someone like that?

• 45:00Speaker 02

  It isn't. It actually is really doable because the work requires for you to bake it into your life. It's not work that is a task apart from the rest of your life.

• 45:10Lewis Howes?

  It is your life.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  It is your life.

• 45:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  And, you know, the work can actually, the way that I like to structure the work is to make it very accessible. And the reason why I like to make it accessible to anyone is because I want people to do the work. And I want to make it as easy as possible. I've gotten that statement so many times, well, you know, I'm a mother of three and, you know, they're all really young and how am I going to find the time? I always tell people, listen, you have a thousand four hundred and forty minutes in the day. If you take five of those minutes and do a breathwork practice, you're already ahead of the game.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  And if you do that for an entire year, three hundred and sixty-five days, what we know, what neuroscience is telling us is that it takes an approximate three to four hundred repetitions of a nervous system restoration practice for our body memory to start shifting.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  So if you take those three hundred and sixty-five days, that year of those five minutes, you're already doing work that is going to be monumentally effective in you feeling more settled and like your nervous system is actually. Experiencing a lot of ease and calm that it wasn't experiencing before you did the year.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  And how, how much is our partners in intimate relationship picking up on our nervous system wounds and also our kids picking up just by watching and observing us and being around us? How much do others pick up our pain?

• 46:41Speaker 02

  It's almost instantaneous and especially the people that are closest to us, but especially children, because children are very, very keen on picking up on non-verbal cues. We actually, when we're like infants, that's the way that we understand whether or not the world is safe or not. We actually see the facial expression of an adult that's our caregiver. And if the facial expression is one that mirrors safety, calm and ease, then what we interpret that as is the world is safe, I can be calm. If the adult feels preoccupied, angry, right? Like babies pick up on that and their nervous system is also

• 47:21Speaker 02

  picking up on that. And so it's important for us to actually be more attuned to the ways in which other people also pick up our energy and, and, and perhaps that can offer more motivation for people to actually do the nervous system practices that can actually be helpful for them and their families.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  If, if a, you know, a parent is watching or listening to this right now and they're thinking, wow, my kids are five or 12 or 16 and I'm just starting to realize that maybe I was too reactive based on a, you know, my nervous system wounds or for many years or maybe we shouldn't have yelled at each other as parents, you know, in front of our kids. Or we shouldn't have been so reactive in situations that we were explosive, but we didn't need to be. And they're starting to realize, okay, this could have some long-term effects on kids. And they've been living that way for a decade with their kids growing up. What can they instantly tell themselves right now about how they've shown up?

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  And what are some actions they can take to start breaking the cycle for themselves and their kids? Who still have developing minds, who maybe aren't as comfortable talking about emotions yet because they're younger still. How can they start shifting that without thinking I've ruined my kids' lives?

• 48:40Speaker 02

  You know, it's important for parents, for anyone really, to understand if I didn't know better, I couldn't do better. So if you didn't know that what you were struggling with was intergenerational trauma, because you were exhibiting toxic relationship behaviors that were reflected in your childhood home, and you absorbed those as the norm, as a status quo. Then you wouldn't know to actually disrupt those and not pass those on, or not, you know, exhibit those in your home. However, it's important that if you now do know better, that you take actions, that you decide, okay, I know that there's a different way, and I understand that the way that I've been behaving is unhealthy. Let me shift. That is already a step in the right direction.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  When it comes to children, it's important to understand that children can also engage in the healing process.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  They can.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of age-appropriate ways in which we can integrate the work with children. Children can meditate, children can do breath work, children can talk about their emotions. Children can, you know, do dance parties with their parents that actually help them to release some of the stress and tension of the day. And all of that can be a large part of what families can do together to actually do some collective healing and engage in age-appropriate types of practices that can help their children not only absorb the healing in the moment, but also understand for the long term, for the entirety of their lives, that they can do something that can help them to heal.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Yeah, dance party and drawing classes together, just different things, you know, going for a walk out in nature.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:22Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. What are some, you mentioned these nervous system restoration practices.

• 50:28Lewis Howes?

  What are the couple other examples you have for that? Where we can start healing the nervous system?

• 50:33Speaker 02

  The, the practice that I tend to integrate into my work the most is humming.

• 50:39Lewis Howes?

  Humming?

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Humming, yeah.

• 50:42Lewis Howes?

  It's so calming.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  It is very calming and most people don't know you actually have this tool that you can use whenever. And it can actually help you feel calmer.

• 50:52Lewis Howes?

  Well, humming, I mean, there's so many, you know, there's now science that's backing all this, but this has been the, you know, ancient spiritual leaders have been oming and humming for, for thousands of years.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  Uh, because of the, you know, I, I think om is like God, right? It's like you're connecting yourself to God and you're speaking like source creator. Breathing it.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  And there's chemicals involved, there's dopamine involved and it's calming. Like this feeling in your heart is starting to like get into a better rhythm, right? So there's all these benefits to this.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Yes, and when we think about it from, you know, just integrating the nervous system perspective into that as well. There is, you know, we have like different branches of the nervous system. And the branch that actually helps us to feel relaxed and calm is the ventral vagal nerve, which is what tends to be stimulated when we om.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  When we om.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Yes, and so, and so, or when we hum, right? Like typically like if I'm doing work with a family and or with a child, you know, sometimes I'll pick a song that they like and we'll hum the song instead of singing it. And that already is an age appropriate practice that we can do that integrates the practice that we understand is going to be restorative to their nervous system. But we're not necessarily like shoving mental health, you know.

• 52:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. Just therapy talk all day.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Right, right, but we're, we're doing something that can be very health promoting. Now eventually, you know, people catch on and they say that made me feel relaxed. That made me feel more at ease, especially when I had all these like floating thoughts that just wouldn't go away. And so when these children are then older, they have the tools. And that's what I want for us. I want for us to be able to be the generation of cycle breakers that can build the tools for ourselves and for the next generation. And even if we want to, maybe like pass some of that back. My parents are sixty five and seventy one, and I do this stuff with them. And they're open and willing, and they're Dominican parents, like, which I would have never thought would, you know, like, do anything that was related

• 52:56Speaker 02

  to mental health, period. But they're so willing, right now, after a couple of years of talking, talking it through. And it's beautiful to see how they have never really had any kind of like foundational orientation around how they can feel more settled. And now they do. And that in their old age, they can actually feel more at ease in their own bodies. It's beautiful.

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  If someone's in a, in a marriage, um, and they realize they want to break the cycle, and they're willing to do the work themselves, but maybe their partner isn't as open yet. And they're, they're realizing like, oh, this person, you know, I want to do this work, I'm healing, but this person's still in a nervous system reactive state and unwilling to break their own cycle. What can they do if they're the only one trying to grow and their, their partner is not?

• 53:46Speaker 02

  That's really empathizes anyone that is in any kind of environment, particularly a home environment, in which they have to go back to the source of their pain, right? Or, or back to a place where their safety is compromised in any way, their, their sense of psychological safety, I mean. And so, you know, what I tend to help people reorganize in terms of like their own thinking around this is like, Show up as your more healed self. Let people see how you walk and move as a more healed version of yourself. Model for them, whether it's your kids, it's your parents, it's your partner, it's friends, right?

• 54:30Speaker 02

  Like anyone, let them see how you're modeling, how you show up differently, and how you no longer feed the cycles, but you break them.

• 54:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  And then see who is willing to join you in that process.

• 54:44Lewis Howes?

  Right, and there may be, you know, months of resistance and challenge, where you've got to keep showing up as a healed person or in the process while someone's reactive or crossing your boundaries, you've got to keep creating those boundaries.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  Which is a challenging thing to do.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  It's one of the biggest barriers to people being able to continue their cycle breaking process, which is going into the spaces that where people have not actually done the work, and then feeling like, what am I even doing this for?

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Like, I may as well just like, you know.

• 55:14Lewis Howes?

  Let it go and just play their game. So challenging.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  It is very challenging, and it's, you know, a process that also is going to require that they, in essence, like, just tolerate the distress, which is why distress tolerance skills are so important when it comes to trauma-based work, because we have to train the mind and body to tolerate the guilt. Tolerate the guilt of being the one that's doing the work and leaving others behind. Right? Like, that, that sometimes tends to be like how people feel about their healing. And so, when we're, when we're able to reorganize the body and how it's actually internalizing that emotion, it helps them to sit with whatever guilt may still be lingering

• 55:59Speaker 02

  in a more settled way and not just throwing the towel.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  What do you think of all the different traumas that you've worked on in your clinic and worked out with individuals? All the different types of traumas, abandonment, abuse, neglect, all these different things, bullying, you know, being cheated on, all these different things. What one is the hardest trauma to overcome that you've seen? Or it takes the longest for people to psychologically wrap their heads around the wounds that they have received? You know, grieve, forgive, own, move on, process. Which one is typically the hardest to overcome?

• 56:43Speaker 02

  What I have seen has been the hardest and what I have seen like people struggle with the most and has taken the most time has been abuse, childhood abuse specifically.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  Them experiencing childhood abuse.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Them experiencing it, yeah, from a trusted adult, someone who either cared for them or someone who was proximal to them. And the experience of feeling almost kind of like their entire life formation was around that experience also being a part of it. And then having to extract that from all the layers of how it became a part of them is something that can be really, really hard. But also there's people that can live really abundant lives once they start doing the work in that direction.

• 57:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  Usually wherever we feel the biggest triggers, that's where the work is. And so when we can centralize the work there in that triggered space, right? It makes it so that we can experience probably the better part of our healing.

• 57:45Lewis Howes?

  I guess in storytelling mythology, there's heroes and there's villains. And they have a similar backstory. They've both been abused or abandoned or something happened to them, right? And the villain uses that pain to hurt others. And the hero, you know, works with that pain, transforms it into making sure that others don't have that pain ever again, right? And I probably had both of those in my life of like, I've used the pain to try to be angry at others and like dominate and win in sports. And then I've found transformation and been like, I don't want anyone to feel this pain ever again. And so I think we have a decision at different times of life of like,

• 58:27Lewis Howes?

  how are we going to use this trauma or this memory or this experience for us? You know, are we going to live it to harm others or to help others and be in service? And I think it's really tricky, speaking from experience.

• 58:42Lewis Howes?

  As an adult mind, trying to understand, you know, your five, seven, 12, 15 year old self who is sexually abused, childhood mind that's still stored inside of you. It's hard to reflect back and recall all those moments and then think about how you carried that trauma until the adult mind is reflecting on it. Process, however many years that is, and all the decisions you've made your entire life, why you've been reactive, relationships you've gotten in, challenges you might have, good that might come from it too, and then learn how to heal that time. It's like, it's kind of a mind, you know, it's a, it's a mind mess, you know, it's, it's

• 59:25Lewis Howes?

  tricky. And so I think you're, you know, you're probably right in that that's probably a painful one to overcome. I know there's lots of different traumas, but that one's definitely painful. But I know from experience that there is incredible peace and love on the other side, if you're willing to do the work. Took me a couple of years to really kind of feel like I could speak about it without having a nervous system response anymore.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  But I think also, when you realize you can overcome something like that, it gives you a lot of confidence, a lot of poise, a lot of power, a lot of peace. And knowing, okay, if I can take on this as a five, seven, 10 year old, what can I take on as an adult with these tools that you're providing? So I think it's a great, you know, it's a great thing that you're sharing these tools because a lot of adults don't have them still. And I'm still learning as many tools as possible. But why is that so challenging for adult minds to understand sexual abuse or some type of abuse as a child? Why is it hard for adult minds to understand that and overcome it?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Well, because there's been a really pervasive intrusion, you know, like a person feels like they are accessible to people, like they, like people can hurt them, right? You know, they're vulnerable and they've remained stuck in that vulnerability.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  And so the, the challenge in our adult lives is in the fact that that vulnerability just got carried on. And we, we still feel raw and open and vulnerable and like tender to the touch. And people can actually hurt us easily. And so that's why very often like people also develop the coping mechanisms to try and protect themselves because they don't want to land in a similar situation where they're, you know, then, then there's yet another intrusion. And how will they then survive that, right? And so it, you know, it, it's, it makes it, I always say, you know, when, when it's doubly hard to actually get through something, the reward would be double.

• 1:01:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, even more. It'll be exponential, right? I think so.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  And I think your, your story, you know, which I know you, you've spent many years now sharing. And I, I think that it offers a beautiful moment for all of us to also reflect upon the fact that there is hope about abundance on the other side of healing. Because most of us think like, when will this ever end? Will I ever heal? And we kind of get stuck in that narrative.

• 1:02:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Rather than in the narrative of just do the work.

• 1:02:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  And trust that there will be abundance on the other side. There will be a steady version of you that is meeting you on the other side.

• 1:02:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I, I started the healing journey 10 years ago with this, with the sexual abuse that I experienced as a kid. And I thought that I had healed a lot of it. But I still kept, and I did in certain areas, but I still kept entering relationships that proved otherwise. And allowing myself to be kind of cross certain boundaries that I, I didn't want to, right? Cause I didn't have the skills or the courage to be able to stand for the inner child inside of me and what he really needed during certain relationships. And so it wasn't until about three years ago, when I kind of revisited it again through intimacy, like I was able to heal in some areas, but not every area. And that's when it took even more work.

• 1:02:57Lewis Howes?

  It was like an extra couple of years. So, you know, I feel like healing is a journey. It doesn't like mean, okay, I've done six months of intensive work. Now I'm good. Like new things might come up in a couple of years that you have to readdress. And at least that's what's happened for me. But it, but not thinking you've got it all figured out. I think is something we need to, to have in mind. Be like, okay, I don't know all the answers. Even if I feel better, I'm going to keep working and processing. If we don't learn to heal our inner child as adults, what will happen to us?

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Well, we can actually develop the same type of inner child wound in our children.

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:38Lewis Howes?

  So they don't have to experience the wound. We're just passing it on, right?

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and you know, that comes up, of course, you know, we're talking about intergenerational trauma, having some biological, you know, connections, right? Like, so there's already a family that perhaps is already from a nervous system perspective, from perhaps an epigenetic perspective, already having tenderness and vulnerabilities that are emotional. And then you have, you know, the, the possibility of there being like misattunement between a caregiver and their child. The caregiver may be so preoccupied with their own stress and trauma that they miss the social cues that their child is telling them, I need you. And that sense of emotional abandonment, you know, can surface or an inability to really

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  relate to and connect with others, which is kind of like the, the general foundation of like attachment and attachment styles, right? A lot of those things can start to surface as a result of those initial imprints of, of the relationships that are primary to us, which are with our caregivers or individuals that are in essence, taking care of us in the school system, any of the individuals that have proximity. And then, you know, it, it, it's going to be really important for us to also understand that whenever we're talking about like not wanting that to carry on to the next generation, not wanting that tender little soul in front of us to then experience the pain that we have carried for so long. We have to talk about how we can also heal our own wounds.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  We need to reparent ourselves.

• 1:05:17Muniba Mazari?

  With time, I realized that, you know, everyone is fighting an unseen battle with, everyone. And we are so good at the art of concealing the pain that we are in, all of us. You know, the methodology changes. You know, there are certain ways that we conceal pain. Sometimes we share, sometimes we don't. But we all are going through something in life every day, you know? And I realized that if I think that I'm the one who's the most broken one, no. I have traveled around the world. I have met so many people. And they had shared their very personal stories of how broken they are. And let me tell you, none of them were in the wheelchair.

• 1:06:01Muniba Mazari?

  So there are so many people who are walking around, who are perfectly fine. They are running their businesses. They are so broken from within. All they want is to be understood. They want someone who can understand their pain. You know, and I feel so blessed that when people look at me, when they see me in the wheelchair, maybe, you know, they just think that because she is in pain, we can talk to her because she can understand what we are going through.

• 1:06:29Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think so many people are broken in the world? Um, who maybe

• 1:06:37Lewis Howes?

  aren't in a wheelchair, who have able-bodied, let's say, don't have a disformed body or something, but they're broken? Where do you think that brokenness is coming from for so many people?

• 1:06:49Muniba Mazari?

  Too many expectations from people. Too many expectations. You know, we want to get into a relationship because we want happiness. We want to feel complete, right? Soulmates. No, you are your own soulmate, period. You know? If you are not in a good relationship with yourself, you will be miserable, even if you are in a relationship with someone. That's why people are broken. My happiness cannot be taken by someone because my happiness does not come from someone. Nobody is giving me my joy. I am the reason of my own joy. If we manage to understand this tiny little truth about life,

• 1:07:34Muniba Mazari?

  we will heal. And time doesn't heal you, you heal you. You need...

• 1:07:43Muniba Mazari?

  Love yourself enough, you know? And if you love yourself enough and you believe in self-love, no external force will ever be able to break you.

• 1:07:55Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn to love ourselves if we have been telling ourselves for so long, "I'm not lovable," or "I had this accident," or, you know, "I went through a breakup in a relationship and they left me," or "they abandoned me," or whatever it might be? How do we not let outside factors dictate our feelings about ourself? And not let the fear of abandonment of people or people's love hold us back from loving ourselves?

• 1:08:29Muniba Mazari?

  Yes, the fear of abandonment, we all have that. And we need to overcome this fear. You know, I always say, "When wrong people leave, right things start to happen." And we all are living a life story. You have your own story, I have my story. My brothers have their story, my mother has her own story. And when you find yourself in the wrong story, just leave. If someone is not adding value to your life story, or if you are not adding value to someone's life story, leave. Sometimes it takes letting go to realize you're holding on to nothing. We are too busy clinging on to those relationships,

• 1:09:13Muniba Mazari?

  which are not meant to be in our journey, you know? And that's why I say that these people are so toxic. With time, they become so toxic for you that, you know what? Your presence in their life is their only definition.

• 1:09:29Muniba Mazari?

  And they will never want you to leave because they're so weak, they want to stay in your shadow. So you need to pick and choose. This person is toxic, leave. Liberate yourself by setting all these extra people free who do not belong to your journey. You know, and these people will always weigh you down. And if there's something is weighing you down, how will you fly high?

• 1:09:55Muniba Mazari?

  You know, and fear of abandonment, if you can manage to overcome this fear. Again, when you are on your own completely, that is where you will understand that solitude is very powerful.

• 1:10:10Lewis Howes?

  So powerful.

• 1:10:11Muniba Mazari?

  It's very powerful.

• 1:10:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Muniba Mazari?

  You know, because even in that silence, you're having a conversation. I mean, there is no energy vampire around me. I'm on my own and I'm manifesting the best things for myself. I would never trade my solitude to anything because when I am alone, on my own, I am the best version of myself.

• 1:10:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:10:36Muniba Mazari?

  Because I'm kind to myself. Yes.

• 1:10:38Lewis Howes?

  You're kind to yourself?

• 1:10:40Muniba Mazari?

  Yes.

• 1:10:43Lewis Howes?

  How much time did you spend alone after the incident?

• 1:10:49Muniba Mazari?

  Uh, so I have this, this really cool um habit. I switch off. So even when I'm, you know, surrounded by a lot of people, I'm actually not there most of the times.

• 1:11:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:11:02Muniba Mazari?

  Yes, I'm just thinking, you know what, recently I was thinking about something that when I was talking about how, you know, this beautiful balance of strength and vulnerability makes us who we are. I was thinking about it the other day, that I've experienced this balance on daily basis. You know, when I see my social media, you know, when I read emails and people sending beautiful messages, that you know, how your words have empowered us and you know, because if you, we're not, never going to give up. It gives me so much strength, you know, and I say to myself, oh my God, I'm so strong. And then, at the night time, when I'm thirsty, I'm unable to get up and get a glass of water for myself.

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:46Muniba Mazari?

  Right? That's my reality.

• 1:11:49Muniba Mazari?

  And how vulnerable I am at that moment. So this strength and this vulnerability makes us who we are. So I need to have my own moment with myself where I am willing to understand myself better. That if I am vulnerable, that's okay. I'm strong too. And the perfect balance of these two things make me who I am.

• 1:12:12Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:14Lewis Howes?

  I'm so fascinated by your story and every time I see your content, it makes me smile. Every time I see you post a video or a photo, I'm always just rooting for you. I'm so excited for you and your life and the impact you make. And you are so much more talented than just an artist. At first, you wanted to be an artist and then you thought you couldn't be. You were like, these don't look good. But now you're, you know, selling your art, your arts in galleries. It's really inspiring, but you're also a massive activist. You're, you know, a TV anchor, model, you did modeling, you sing and you're a speaker and you motivate millions of people around the world. You could have not done any of it.

• 1:12:58Lewis Howes?

  You could have said, I just want to be an artist and just go after that one thing. But you decided to go for more. What, what, when and why did you say, I want to start sharing this story and start putting this message out there in a bigger way and revealing these things about yourself that maybe you were scared to do?

• 1:13:19Muniba Mazari?

  You know, I remember when I gave my very first talk, that was TEDx. And it actually happened when I decided and I manifested that I'm going to overcome the fear of facing people. That's so ironic that a public speaker was once scared of facing people.

• 1:13:33Lewis Howes?

  I was for sure, yeah.

• 1:13:35Muniba Mazari?

  I know. So what happened was, I gave my very first TED Talk and after my TED Talk, a girl from the audience, she came to me and she was crying and she said, can I give you a hug? And I said, sure. So she gave me a hug and she said, your 10-minute TED Talk has solved 10 problems of my life. And she said, today you made me realize that those 10 problems never existed. They were just in my head and I was overthinking. And because of you, I'm never going to give up. You know, in that moment, in the flashback, I could hear my mother saying, one day, God will show you how did he choose you out of so many for this test? And that was the moment of realization that, you know what?

• 1:14:18Muniba Mazari?

  If my words can change someone's perspective, maybe this is my true calling in life. You know, and as they say that in the end, what matters is how many lives you have touched. So art is my comfort zone, Lewis. You know, I can sit in the corner of my room in a cozy environment, have a cup of coffee and paint and sell the work, make both ends meet, pay the bills, raise my son and live. But, I mean, is that enough? It's not enough. Because comfort zone is a good place to be, but nothing ever grows there.

• 1:14:53Gabor Maté?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:53Muniba Mazari?

  So if you really want to grow as a person, if you really want to learn and unlearn, we need to tap on all the abilities that we have. We are so blessed with immense potential, which remains untapped, because we are too busy doing nine to five. We are too busy paying bills. And we live the same routine for so many years and then we end up calling it life. It's not life. It's not.

• 1:15:20Gabor Maté?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:20Muniba Mazari?

  You know, I realized later that, you know, I was labeled as the first wheelchair-bound model, the first wheelchair-bound singer, the first wheelchair-bound anchor, first wheelchair-bound, you know, and it was so much rubbed in my face, that I said, you know what? I might be the first one to do all this, but I wouldn't be the last.

• 1:15:39Gabor Maté?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:40Muniba Mazari?

  I had to pave path for so many people, who are supremely talented, who are differently able, who are supremely talented, but maybe, maybe they were just a bit scared to take the first step. I took the first step. I broke those barriers. At least I tried, you know, and, and now I see a lot of young boys and girls doing amazing work. Why? Because now it's normal. It's normal for a wheelchair user to smile. It's normal for a wheelchair user, may it be a boy or a girl, to look good, to wear lipstick, to look nice, you know, to face the world. It's normal now. And even right now, when being an anchor person, you know, I'm working for the national TV of Pakistan,

• 1:16:25Muniba Mazari?

  and when I'm doing my show. I'm always thinking about that little boy or girl, you know, sitting in a far-flung village, watching my show. And I think about them that, you know, they might be thinking that if a girl or a woman in a wheelchair can do this, we can do that too.

• 1:16:42Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter.

• 1:17:26Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.