How to Break Free From the Patterns Secretly Running Your Life | Dr. Nicole LePera

0:00 How does somebody break free from the past patterns?

0:03 So, what you'll always hear me speak of, um especially

0:06 for a lot of us who have awareness of our past patterns,

0:09 um much like what you inspired your community to do,

0:11 it is really creating new moments for new actions.

0:14 Um these past patterns are wired in, they've become beautiful adaptations,

0:19 the way that we've learned to maintain survival, connection.

0:22 Of course, I explore all of the underlying causes

0:24 of some of the patterns that keep us stuck.

0:26 Though, really to create change, we need to create new consistent actions.

0:31 Do Like, what do you think's the first step to become aware of how

0:35 some of someone's past or their pattern

0:37 is actually showing up in their adult lives?

0:40 So, awareness, as I will always say, can begins uh in the current moment.

0:44 And and I say that because especially when I talk about early environments,

0:49 early childhood, when I think back to my own,

0:52 um I am someone who I imagine like maybe many of you listeners,

0:56 I have a difficulty recalling, right?

0:58 I can't necessarily tell the story of what happened to create the patterns.

1:03 And of course, there's a scientific reason for why we struggle

1:06 to do that that I can get into if that's interesting,

1:08 but the to create change, it starts in the moment now.

1:11 So, becoming aware of our daily habits, our patterns,

1:15 how our body feels in terms of the sensations,

1:18 being aware of those moments where we're acting out of character,

1:22 we're overreacting, we're underreacting,

1:24 or we're playing roles that don't really serve us.

1:26 We're the caretaker, the overachiever.

1:28 So, simply it's in real time um where we

1:31 see ourself reacting from that autopilot or those habitual reactions,

1:36 where we can then not even necessarily needing to make sense of why

1:39 or where it came from, but we can begin to inspire new actions.

1:43 And as you'll always hear me um acknowledge the role of the body.

1:48 Um the body is where we begin to create change by creating safety, regulation,

1:53 and ultimately shifting into a more powerful part of our brain,

1:56 not the habitual one, but the one that can make those new choices.

2:01 I heard you bring up something that's kind

2:02 of interesting in that when you recognize something that's going

2:05 on, it you know you you don't have to necessarily

2:07 say where it came from, you just know it's there.

2:09 You see a lot of people, they will say, "Oh,

2:12 I'm responding like this because of what happened to me when I

2:15 was like nine or 11 or 15." Do you think that's a mistake?

2:20 Do you think people should just find a way to move on from that and stop

2:23 blaming what happened to them as a child for how they're behaving now?

2:27 I don't necessarily think it's it's a mistake.

2:29 Um I will often explain where things come from because that I think

2:35 for a lot of us can shift us out of the voice of criticism,

2:38 of shame, of you know, kind of um imagining that there's no other way that we

2:44 can shift and change and into a more compassionate voice.

2:49 Um I will say this as someone who spent a lot of time,

2:52 maybe not surprising to hear, you know, as a clinical psychologist,

2:55 I spent a lot of time in that explaining, understanding myself,

2:59 other people, and what I've come to understand is that that, right,

3:03 the tendency to overanalyze or continue to live in our thinking mind,

3:08 exploring what happened, knowing what happened,

3:11 can be for a lot of us a protection

3:14 um against feeling what's going on, not only back then,

3:18 but that's the reality of the inner child.

3:19 We're not talking just about things that happened in childhood.

3:22 We're quite literally talking about emotional experiences

3:25 that we're reliving in the current moment.

3:28 So, I will say that I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing unless, right,

3:32 you rely on that overexplaining as a protection from feeling,

3:37 which is a pattern that I myself am continuing to break.

3:41 And so, what's the difference between awareness around

3:45 where these things come from and then blaming?

3:48 Cuz I think those two things can be true

3:50 and they they often happen at the same time.

3:54 So, I think, right, when we become aware

3:56 of where things have come from, we can shift,

4:00 if we want to put kind of awareness

4:01 and blaming very loosely on a spectrum, right?

4:04 If we become aware of something, where something came from, and as you'll speak,

4:08 as you'll hear me speak,

4:09 it's not just awareness of the habits in my own childhood, in my home,

4:12 in my relationship, I actually go back in time to understand

4:16 why maybe the core caregivers in my early childhood or for listeners,

4:20 why they developed their own habits from their own childhood.

4:24 Right?

4:24 So, when we live in awareness, right,

4:27 we can, like I said, shift from judging, criticizing,

4:32 from being angry and resentful to understanding more completely

4:36 that we are all going to do what we learned.

4:40 Um many of our past our parents' generations didn't have access to information,

4:45 to tools, to resources that allowed them to show up any differently.

4:49 However, like I said, if we only, right,

4:52 kind of sit on that understanding end of the spectrum,

4:55 what a lot of us then will do if we

4:56 don't make space for how we feel about our parents' limitations,

5:00 even very well-meaning parents, right,

5:03 then we kind of are continuing to bypass our own emotional experience.

5:08 So, this is kind of expanding into the complexity of being able to hold both,

5:13 where we are able to say, right,

5:15 I can compassionately understand why I didn't have certain needs met

5:18 or get the support that I deserved because my parents were limited,

5:21 they didn't have the support themselves, or whatever the story is for me,

5:24 and at the same time, I can still sit in the the grief, the anger.

5:29 I don't have to remain stuck in those emotions,

5:31 but I can make space for how I felt and what the impact of their inability

5:37 to support me or parent me in the way that I needed it was.

5:40 I'm going to use myself as a test case here,

5:42 um be that to really hammer this point home cuz I love

5:45 where we're going with this, cuz I think one of the big mistakes

5:47 people make is once they they gain awareness around what happened to them

5:51 in childhood or what's going on in childhood if they're still a child,

5:55 is they use those experiences as an excuse to behave poorly.

5:59 For me, you know, I was picked on a lot, my parents got divorced,

6:03 I wasn't good at sports and I love sports and everything I could to fit in.

6:06 These things all impacted the way that I felt about myself.

6:12 Um and that being said,

6:13 because of that, I made excuses as to why I could abuse and sell drugs,

6:18 cuz I was like, "Oh, my parents or the kids or whatever." And then I then

6:23 I get to the point where I'm 21 now in jail,

6:26 you know, and now I'm not a kid anymore.

6:28 And so I had made choices in response to the quote-unquote,

6:32 you know, trauma that I had you know, endured.

6:34 And that's a that's a huge trap,

6:36 because you can't just be you can't use the boogeyman

6:40 as an excuse to behave poorly for the rest of your life.

6:43 How can people overcome that?

6:45 Yeah, and thank you um for so honestly sharing your journey.

6:48 And I think that's the other end of it, right?

6:49 I was kind of focusing on the emotional,

6:51 but I think we do limit ourselves from being able to change.

6:54 Um it's kind of like what we were

6:55 briefly talking about before we hit record, right?

6:57 If you and I come from a very much an empowered standpoint,

7:00 which is like, "Yes, all this happened, it hurt." Like you're sharing, right?

7:03 I created all of these maladaptive habits out

7:05 of a childhood where my needs weren't met.

7:08 And still, right, if I understand that they came as an adaptation,

7:12 and that as we now learn,

7:14 verified by science, that change, we can create new adaptations,

7:17 new habits at any time, right?

7:19 Now we kind of shift the focus from, "Well, I'm stuck in the past,

7:22 this is inevitable, this okays poor behavior,

7:26 whether it's as you're describing, right, my own poor actions or habits,

7:31 or the habit I continue to have even until recently is

7:34 I excuse other people's abuse abusive and neglectful behavior of me, right?

7:40 That still doesn't uh assuming the responsibility, it's not their their fault.

7:44 To some extent, it's my fault for not creating boundaries,

7:46 limits, separating myself from dysfunctional relationships.

7:49 So, right, that keeps us though stuck in past actions.

7:54 But, what I've come to learn is

7:56 empowerment can be very challenging and very threatening

7:59 um for a lot of people to hear that you have more of a choice.

8:03 Some of us feel very resentful where I where I shouldn't have to, right?

8:05 I shouldn't have been parented properly and I shouldn't

8:07 have been put in the position like you were you

8:09 felt you had to do things that were quite literally

8:12 against the law to land you in drugs or right?

8:15 I I might feel like I should have been parented in a different

8:17 way where I just know how

8:18 to set boundaries and identify problematic behavior sooner.

8:22 Yet, we don't, right?

8:23 So, that's the part and I talk a lot

8:26 in the beginning of book of the book about just general development.

8:30 Um what we need not only from our environment,

8:32 but from our relationships so that then

8:35 when I introduce the term of re-parenting,

8:37 which is exactly what you and I are talking about now,

8:40 learning as an adult how to show up differently,

8:43 how to teach our body safety, security, boundaries,

8:46 limits, how to assert ourselves and our needs,

8:49 and how to behave in the ways that we want

8:51 to as opposed to the ways that we once needed to.

8:56 Yeah, the way I see what you just said is you kind of have to say,

9:00 "Well, so what?" You know, at in that moment.

9:02 Like, yes, that was horrible and it wasn't

9:05 ideal or whatever it would happen, but now what?

9:07 Like, what are you going to do now to make your life better?

9:09 Because the only way to make you feel better or feel like you're going

9:13 to be okay in life is to change your behavior, is to move forward.

9:16 Like, the other thing is just going to guarantee The other way just guarantees

9:20 that you reinforce some of those horrible

9:22 patterns that you're so afraid of, right?

9:24 So, I just think it's important to to not sulk

9:26 and and and and have compassion at your for yourself at the same

9:29 time and then not sulk and then spiral into that victim

9:32 mindset which will keep you stuck and trapped for years.

9:36 We will continue to rely on the habitual patterns that we know.

9:40 It's not a logical thing.

9:41 It's driven by our nervous system.

9:42 It's attempt to gain predictability and familiarity even if

9:46 what's on the other side is self-destruction, other destruction.

9:49 It's what we know.

9:51 And so I'm always speaking right from the body perspective

9:54 of things which is that that is safer for us.

9:58 That is learned our learned patterns are learned habits.

10:01 We have a sense of familiarity and even

10:02 a sense of quote-unquote safety in what we know.

10:06 So stepping out to create change,

10:08 I also want to acknowledge how difficult, right, what we're talking about is.

10:12 It's kind of expanding our nervous system in a new way,

10:15 challenging ourself with uncomfortable behaviors for most of us uncomfortable

10:19 emotions that we've been distracting ourself from in our body,

10:23 but quite literally at least giving ourself

10:25 the opportunity to then shift into new actions.

10:28 But again, I want to continue to reiterate

10:30 none of that happens from just thinking differently.

10:33 We have to teach our body how to be differently in in each new moment.

10:38 So let's walk through an example.

10:40 Like how can somebody connect their mind and their body

10:43 to be able to transform their patterns and their habits?

10:47 So in in real time, um the most foundational habit that I will always kind

10:51 of cite as the beginning of change is

10:52 just learning to pay attention to our body.

10:56 And as simple as that sounds, I think what most of become most of us become

11:00 aware of is how little attention we give to our body.

11:03 We're always in our minds, right?

11:05 Thinking, ruminating, um trying to analyze what's happening or our attention

11:12 isn't even necessarily in our minds, right?

11:14 We're hyper-vigilant to the environment.

11:17 We're looking for any shift or change in someone else's mood

11:21 or emotion or reaction and then using that to determine our action.

11:27 Not once, right, are we dropped into say, "Hmm, how does my body feel?" Right?

11:31 What are my muscles tense?

11:32 Are they at ease?

11:34 Is my heart beating really fast or is it pretty much its normal rhythm?

11:38 Am I breathing really slow and quick or holding

11:40 my breath or am I breathing calmly and deeply?

11:43 So, creating, and I want to emphasize this as well,

11:46 this connection outside of the moments where we're going to react in a way

11:51 that we want to avoid is where

11:52 that begins because the moment we become stressed,

11:56 I like to describe it as like a a very much like a scale or a dial.

12:00 We get to a point of no return.

12:01 Meaning the more stressed our body becomes,

12:04 the more likely it is going to rely on those old habits.

12:08 So, dropping into our body in real time

12:11 to notice how stressed we are using those three markers,

12:14 our muscles, our breath, and our heart rate will then allow,

12:18 so say the example is, right?

12:20 And a lot of us, right?

12:21 We don't get a response on our phone.

12:23 We text someone and they're not getting back to us.

12:26 And so, say in childhood we learned that distance,

12:29 quietness meant something was wrong, we start to panic, right?

12:33 Our heart starts to race,

12:34 we start to over analyze the last three texts that we sent,

12:37 we start to want to reach out and text them 50 more times,

12:40 say, "What's going on?

12:41 Are you mad at me?

12:42 Is everything okay?" Right?

12:43 So, in real time we can drop in and first break that habit, right?

12:48 I I I'm going to have all of those feelings,

12:50 panic, because I learned that silence meant abandonment, meant rejection.

12:55 My my body will react accordingly, right?

12:58 My heart will start to race, my muscles will become tense.

13:01 I'll want to pick up my phone and start to fire off those texts.

13:03 So, if I can just pause, right?

13:06 Calm my breath, ex- release the tension in my muscles, right?

13:12 Allow my body to regulate in real time, then I might give myself the opportunity

13:17 to break that habit using one example of many.

13:20 But again, the more connected I am to my body,

13:22 the more I can see and catch those reactions, pause,

13:27 calm my body down so that then I can make

13:30 the new choice that I want to make in that time.

13:32 What about long-term?

13:33 What are some long-term behaviors that you think will

13:35 help in regulate our nervous systems over over time?

13:39 Again, this is going to be all of the different

13:42 lifestyle habits that we can build into our day

13:45 and we're breaking old habits that create stress

13:47 in our body so that our body can remain regulated.

13:50 So, really exploring our sleeping schedule.

13:54 I mean, sleep is a huge nervous system regulator

13:57 that very few of us get the sleep that we need.

14:00 So, right?

14:01 This exploring what are my sleep habits?

14:03 When do I go to bed?

14:04 How how rested am I when I wake up?

14:07 Building in a new sleep schedule if possible.

14:09 Nutrition, I can't go on and on about how regulating nutrition can be.

14:13 Giving our body the nutrients that it needs.

14:15 Removing the things that stress our body out, the toxins that we consume,

14:20 the sugar that naturally internally creates stress in our body.

14:25 Um so, nutrition, sleep, movement is a big one.

14:29 I mean, to the best of our ability if we're able-bodied enough.

14:31 I mean, this could even be gentle moving,

14:33 swaying, stretching, um slow walks, movement.

14:38 I just think a lot about our ancestors and how our body

14:41 is wired and we come from people that rose with the sun,

14:45 that went to sleep when the sun went down, that moved a lot of their day,

14:50 that did not have the endless stress, phones, blue lights, right?

14:54 So, the more we can get back to the way the human

14:57 body is wired with those type of habits in our day,

15:01 the more likely long-term we're going to be able to maintain the regulation

15:05 that we need to continue to make the new choices toward change.

15:09 And I think when it comes to adult behaviors,

15:11 I think it's important to talk about like

15:12 just some commonalities to help people get started.

15:15 What are some of the common behaviors,

15:18 patterns that keep people stuck in adulthood that are rooted

15:22 from like past bit past environments and the way they grew up.

15:26 Oh, these these these are many.

15:28 Um I will start with some that personally resonate with me.

15:31 Um so I know in childhood where attention and validation was more inconsistent.

15:37 Um in childhood I learned very quickly that I was

15:41 given attention and praise when I succeeded academically and athletically.

15:44 So I became a very prototypical overachiever who learned,

15:48 right, a sense of worthiness when I excelled.

15:51 Excelling to earn praise turns into overworking, perfectionism,

15:55 constantly trying to avoid even the mildest criticism.

15:59 Again, because in childhood we learned that our sense

16:02 of worth was based on how others assessed us.

16:06 Um really other common ones are the many of us who had learned to shut

16:10 down or to go quiet in childhood to reduce overwhelm or to prevent conflict.

16:17 That now turns into whether it's a general state of emotional numbness or some

16:22 of us experience it as pulling away even when someone is safe or wants

16:26 to be close to us or maybe we just shut down in difficult discussions

16:30 or in conversations with someone who desperately wants

16:34 to understand us or to seek a resolution.

16:37 Another really common one, um if we lived in an unpredictable environment

16:41 in childhood where there was unpredictable actions or unpredictable resources,

16:46 we naturally develop a hypervigilance, right,

16:49 where we're always scanning the environment.

16:51 That's kind of turns into the difficulty sometimes with texting

16:54 and not getting the feedback that we want, right?

16:57 It looks like social anxiety.

16:59 It looks like overthinking interactions or feeling

17:01 responsible for everyone else's moods or needs.

17:04 Again, because in childhood that kept us safe.

17:09 And then there's some of us who had

17:10 learned at a time early on that striking first,

17:14 right, striking outwardly first to defend ourselves,

17:18 or maybe self-deprecating was the safest thing.

17:21 So, now we become an adult who kind of enters that fight

17:24 response where we're snapping at any moment of disagreement or conflict,

17:29 where we're pushing people away with dominating or controlling

17:32 behaviors the minute that they get too close to us.

17:35 Again, the important thing to understand as I'm

17:37 describing these is all of these actions at one time were the best thing

17:42 that we could do to maintain connection and safety.

17:45 Because in childhood, connection is safety.

17:48 And now they become the habits that we

17:50 rely on, maybe even the identities, right?

17:52 I'm the overachiever, I'm the caretaker, I'm the the good girl or boy, right?

17:57 So agreeable because this is just who I am, or I'm super empathetic, right?

18:01 So hypervigilant to the environment, always worried about you.

18:04 But really, they were just protections that we needed to maintain

18:08 the safety and the connection that was inconsistent or unpredictable.

18:12 So, this all goes back This all goes back to self-sabotage, I think,

18:17 cuz all of these patterns can lead to just sabotaging your your future self.

18:22 Um what do you think is an effective way to stop that cycle of self-sabotage?

18:29 So, it's again, when we become aware without judgment, whatever the pattern is,

18:34 um the reactive pattern in the moment or the identity

18:37 that we've come to know ourselves as, not judging, um as many of us do,

18:43 or fearing that there's no other way that we can show up,

18:46 understanding compassionately that we are using that still,

18:50 our nervous system is driven to repeat that, and then it becomes creating

18:54 small daily habits to walk through the discomfort of doing something new, right?

19:00 Instead of staying quiet or shutting down or being agreeable,

19:04 to break to notice that we will still be driven to react in those ways,

19:09 to hit pause on that reaction, and to summon the courage to assert ourselves,

19:15 to speak our truth, to stay connected in a difficult conversation or right,

19:20 noticing the moment where we feel kind

19:22 of compelled to strike out or to dominate, pausing that reaction, right,

19:28 and allowing someone else the space or the safety to speak.

19:35 Um, so it's again, in the moment, not but that moment,

19:39 right, we set ourselves up for success in that moment.

19:41 Let me Let me word it that way.

19:42 By just exploring the patterns across time, noticing, right,

19:47 the stress in our body because once it builds enough,

19:50 we're going to rely on those old habits, but then the important step is showing

19:54 up differently and not anticipating that it's easy,

19:57 that it feels good immediately because ultimately

20:00 the moment we begin to do new things, not to self-sabotage,

20:04 not to betray ourselves, is the moment that we're going to feel,

20:07 driven by our nervous system, uncomfortable.

20:10 Because now we're in this whole unknown space.

20:12 We don't know what comes next.

20:14 We've not rehearsed this pattern yet and it's

20:16 going to challenge us, which is why, going back to those daily habits of nervous

20:20 system regulation are so important because we have

20:23 to expand our body's capacity to stay

20:26 in that discomfort so that we don't then just say,

20:29 "Okay, you know, I I I I mean no, but I'm going to say yes and now I'm

20:34 too uncomfortable to say the no that I mean,

20:36 so now I'm just going to rely on I'm

20:38 going to go back and take my word back." So,

20:40 we have to expand our nervous system's ability to be

20:42 in discomfort so that we can challenge ourselves to show up

20:46 differently when we need to and then do that consistently

20:49 enough that we create that new action as that new habit.

20:53 Let's talk about external validation because I know that it's

20:55 that could be something that's very challenging for people,

20:57 especially with the rise of social media and phones,

21:01 but, you know, if you're not careful,

21:02 like not only is external validation addicting,

21:05 you'll get yourself into some bad relationships because of the validation.

21:08 And again, external validation or the over-reliance on that.

21:12 So, let me be clear.

21:13 This is different than, right, wanting to be a good person by having

21:16 the immaturity to zoom out and take influence of another,

21:20 simply meaning to understand how we are impacting the world around us, right?

21:24 That's a human uh tendency.

21:27 We are all wired to be safely connected in groups of people, right?

21:31 So, we all have that kind of internal assessment

21:34 system where we want to make sure we belong.

21:37 So, right, there's some level of validation that is human.

21:40 Right?

21:41 We can't just and I don't think it's healthy for us just to walk around and say,

21:44 "I don't care at all how the world

21:46 impacts me or how I'm impacting the world." Right?

21:48 Then we could be a very cold, callous, even dangerous human being.

21:52 So, I want to be make that distinction here.

21:54 What we're really describing,

21:56 I think both of us is and exploring is the over-reliance, right?

22:00 Where I'm so connected to the validation of the world around me that I

22:03 only have a sense of how I'm doing based on how others are assessing me.

22:09 And again, that begins in a childhood where as a child we are

22:14 overly reliant to understand ourselves based on how other people are showing up.

22:19 Are they caring for us?

22:20 The more consistently someone shows up and care for us,

22:23 the more then, right, we understand that we're worthy of care.

22:26 So, again, that natural tendency to seek validation is

22:30 a protective mechanism to keep us safely connected in childhood.

22:34 Though, we have to again understand how much we're relying on that.

22:38 And now with us being able to share our lives on social media,

22:42 I you know, opened and to endless sources of perspective of other people, right?

22:48 If that's the only way we're gaining value, right?

22:51 Then we find ourselves showing up constantly

22:54 based on how others are perceiving us.

22:57 And the reality of it is, and this is something that's very difficult,

23:00 is there's no objective reality here, right?

23:03 Everyone, even the people giving us positive feedback

23:06 on the internet or negative feedback on the internet,

23:08 it's all subjective based on their lived experiences,

23:12 the meaning that they're assigning to our behaviors,

23:15 which are again more based on them than us.

23:18 So, seeing if and when, right,

23:21 we're changing the way we show up or what we say or do,

23:24 we're trying to, as I did for many years, right,

23:27 say things just the right way so

23:28 that no one misunderstands me or misinterprets me,

23:31 right now we're setting an unrealistic expectation because we are over-relying

23:36 on being seen in a certain way to feel good about ourselves.

23:40 So, this kind of goes back to a theme throughout this conversation,

23:43 which is, right, how do we remain so connected to ourselves that again,

23:47 we're not shut down from feedback of you know,

23:50 within discretion, like people closest to us, the people that we, you know,

23:54 trust to give us valuable feedback because that can be very helpful.

23:58 We become very self-focused, we can't see our own patterns.

24:02 It's the one closest to us that are saying, "Hey, you know,

24:05 you do a little bit of this or you don't do a little bit

24:07 of this and I experience you

24:08 as that and that." While it might be uncomfortable to hear,

24:11 might be the inspiration to show up differently, but that does not mean, right,

24:15 opening ourselves up to perhaps all of the feedback

24:19 that the world around us now could give us at any time.

24:21 So, then the practical approach is seeing, right,

24:24 when we're over-reliant and creating boundaries for ourselves and also, right,

24:29 developing that internal self-trust, that compass to know who and when

24:34 is appropriate to receive feedback from another person,

24:38 not putting ourselves into the fire when we're overly stressed, right,

24:41 looking at the negative reviews at a moment where we're already feeling terrible

24:45 about ourselves is probably not the best time to take on outside feedback.

24:50 Um but when we develop that internal compass and discretion,

24:53 I think we can find that balance in the middle.

24:56 Do you think that there's a relationship between somebody who

24:59 takes a lot of selfies and loves validation and narcissism?

25:02 I think narcissism is interesting cuz it's a it's

25:05 a word that I think is very commonly used now.

25:08 Um if I were to speak very honestly about narcissism,

25:11 I think that it exists on a spectrum.

25:13 Um meaning I think we all can enter

25:16 into a narcissistic state because the way I view

25:19 narcissism is a protective self-focus that a lot

25:22 of times happens when our nervous system is feeling threatened.

25:25 Right?

25:25 And in in childhood, right?

25:27 That is the most natural state of being.

25:28 The whole world revolves around us.

25:31 Same thing happens when we're overwhelmed in adulthood, right?

25:34 Our our perception narrows in.

25:36 We can only see what's happening to us and feel how we feel.

25:41 In those moments, it's very hard to expand

25:43 out and take the perspective of another person.

25:45 The way I'm describing can be helpful.

25:48 So, to reiterate, I believe that it narcissism isn't just reserved, right?

25:53 For the very traditional narcissistic personality disorder

25:56 that is very commonly used and maybe overused.

25:59 I think we all can enter that state.

26:02 Though the question is, right?

26:03 How consistently are we living in that state?

26:06 Are we able to calm our body down and exit that state?

26:11 Um and so, whether or not there's a connection

26:13 between people taking selfies on the internet and narcissism,

26:16 I mean, I think, you know, we all desire to present ourselves differently.

26:21 We all have a different relationship with our physical body,

26:24 um whether or not we're looking for that external validation in that moment.

26:27 Would I call that narcissism?

26:28 Would I call that just a need of self-worth for validation,

26:31 just like we were talking about prior?

26:33 Um I think it can be a little bit of a lot of things.

26:37 Um but again, I do I do want to make sure we're all aware, right?

26:40 Narcissism isn't just reserved for those that are very traditionally, right?

26:45 Deemed narcissistic.

26:46 Um I do also think sometimes it gets thrown

26:48 around at times as a weapon, as a projection.

26:51 I mean, I think that there's a lot

26:53 of complicated rabbit holes we could go down with narcissism,

26:56 but I think it's a natural human

26:58 tendency to become self-focused when we're stressed,

27:00 when we're overwhelmed, perhaps when we don't feel good about ourselves.

27:03 So, we're looking for the internet to tell

27:05 us how attractive we are or successful we are.

27:09 Um but again, I think that comes from a protective habit as opposed

27:13 to a intentional per se choice or even a personality that we can't change,

27:18 if that makes sense.

27:20 I think it's certainly a spectrum and there's

27:21 a difference between narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder.

27:25 I know we both know Dr.

27:26 Ramani and she's done an amazing job on the show.

27:29 Dr.

27:29 Jerry Wise, I don't know if you're familiar with his work.

27:31 He'd be a great connection for you just based on what you discussed.

27:34 Um and there's a big difference there.

27:37 I will say having self-awareness around this is really important for for healing

27:41 and having a better relationship because like do I think posting selfies is bad?

27:46 I mean, no.

27:47 I think if you do it a lot,

27:49 you may have to ask yourself like, what are you doing it for?

27:52 And there's this comedian Sebastian Maniscalco,

27:54 I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's he's really funny.

27:56 And one of his one of his things he was saying one time

27:59 is he was kind of making fun of a selfie and he's like,

28:01 do you know how alone you have to be to not find someone to take a photo of you?

28:06 Like and I thought about it in a in a more

28:09 I guess philosophical way in that man, is it a sign of loneliness?

28:12 Do you feel empty and do you need the validation from the internet

28:17 or from other people because you're not happy with your relationships

28:20 or you don't have those deep relationships where now you're going

28:23 to the external to get this influx of of fake attention.

28:28 Yeah, and it's I think you're really wisely stating right, it's it's two things.

28:32 All right, it's the consistency, how often are you doing it?

28:35 Is that all you're doing, right?

28:36 Do you actually just feel good if you're not having people

28:39 on the internet um tell you you feel good and even,

28:44 you know, the other deeper aspect of that is why are you doing it, right?

28:48 Are you doing it because you don't have, you know,

28:51 kind of anyone in your life or you're not feeling good about

28:54 who you are or are you I used to know someone very close

28:56 to me who would take a million pictures of themselves and blow them

29:00 up and oh and pick out every possible imperfection that they saw, right?

29:06 So, why are you taking the selfie?

29:08 Are you taking it to because you feel good

29:10 about yourself in that day and you want to preserve

29:12 the way you look or you like your outfit

29:14 or whatever it is or you taking it a million

29:16 of them to blow it up and right see if you have a wrinkle here that you can

29:20 then go get fixed because right you've assigned a meaning

29:23 to the wrinkle that you're seeing on your face.

29:25 So, I think the two things to explore, right?

29:27 If you notice the habit in yourself are how consistently, right?

29:31 Is this happening similar with the narcissism, right?

29:34 How consistently are you self-focused?

29:36 Can you ever shift out of focus on yourself and hear someone else's perspective,

29:41 leave room for someone else's want or need

29:43 or emotion in a moment and why, right?

29:46 Are you doing it to gain a sense of goodness, of worthiness,

29:49 to criticize yourself with the idea that if you fix

29:52 yourself in this way that you will then gain your worthiness?

29:56 Are you doing it because you just wholeheartedly

29:58 like the way you look or you're getting

29:59 older and you want to remind remember what

30:01 you look like in your 30s when you're 60.

30:03 And again, those are different things and I think exploring

30:06 and understanding and having maybe

30:08 those honest conversations with yourself of wow,

30:10 I am doing this a little more consistently than not or wow,

30:13 I am really kind of relying on this for a sense

30:16 of worth or a sense of teardown even, then maybe you can change that habit.

30:21 Honesty is the best policy, right?

30:23 You got to be honest with yourself.

30:25 And honesty is difficult.

30:26 That's the thing is a lot of the things that we're being honest about,

30:29 a lot of the feedback that I've heard

30:30 that I am working to change doesn't feel good, right?

30:34 It doesn't feel good to say, "Hey, I'm you know,

30:37 I've learned to distract myself with achievement because really I'm

30:40 really uncomfortable that I don't feel I dedicated actually the book

30:44 to little Nicole as a reminder that I'm worthy however

30:47 it is that I am and I'm still working to believe

30:50 that and that's really uncomfortable right to have all of these accolades

30:54 in life and successes and in in the reality of things

30:57 if I'm honest there are a lot of moments where I

30:59 don't feel that sense of worthiness let alone right to allow

31:04 in feedback from a loved one you know that is

31:06 valuable to us to hear that you know what there are

31:09 moments where I could show up differently and it would benefit

31:12 the relationship a lot of times we feel shame right when

31:16 we see ourselves in an in a not agreeable light

31:20 but that can be the inspiration not to shame ourselves into inaction

31:24 of course cuz shame is a whole another rabbit hole

31:26 we could go down but to create the opportunity to change.

31:29 How do you define self-love?

31:31 That's a very interesting conversation because I don't think self-love is

31:34 defined by just feeling good about our self all the time.

31:38 I think self-love is kind of wrapped

31:39 in this conversation of honesty that we're talking about.

31:42 It's really more grounded in self-connection in the ability

31:45 to show up for our self at any moment when

31:47 we're feeling good and joyful and happy and also

31:49 when we're feeling down and and not great about ourselves.

31:53 I think self-love is grounded in self-connection which

31:56 allows for the whole range of very complicated

31:59 human emotions that we sometimes feel about ourselves

32:02 about other people about the world around us.

32:05 And I think at the end of the day people want healthy

32:08 relationships and that's what people are chasing towards and I think a lot

32:12 of times you know I've heard you say relationships are your greatest teacher

32:15 and a lot of these things will be revealed about us in relationships.

32:19 So how how does somebody work on getting a healthy relationship?

32:23 We still have that need to maintain

32:25 connection that originated in childhood throughout life.

32:28 We are wired to be social creatures.

32:31 So relationships whether it's romantic friendships supportive communities that's

32:36 why I shifted my whole way I work from individual,

32:38 couples, family work to community-based because we all

32:42 need places where we can just be ourselves.

32:46 Um so, all of our habits were built in relationship to other people.

32:50 So, a lot of us are going to as we become more aware of ourselves in adulthood,

32:54 we're going to see quote-unquote more

32:57 dysfunctional habits that exist within our relationships,

33:00 especially in our romantic relationships where

33:03 our vulnerability is at its greatest.

33:05 That's when we are more often than not, right?

33:08 We find ourselves two inner children interacting with each other,

33:11 which is why relationships can be so challenging.

33:14 We can see so many dysfunctional habits and patterns.

33:16 The way to create change in them is not again by shaming ourselves

33:20 or our partners for how we've learned to show up and maintain connection,

33:24 but by doing the work that we can do because while so

33:28 many of us want to inspire our our loved ones to change,

33:31 we might want to demand or give them an ultimatum if they don't change.

33:35 Really, and maybe again we've learned to control the world around us

33:38 because that's the only way that we could keep safe in childhood.

33:41 One of the most difficult realities we have to embody

33:44 in adulthood is that we can't change anyone outside of ourself.

33:48 However, by showing up differently in our relationships,

33:52 by caring for ourself, by acknowledging what our wants and needs are,

33:55 by asserting ourself and speaking up and developing

33:58 boundaries and limits where we need them,

34:00 now we can shift our relationships more

34:03 indirectly because we'll be experiencing ourself differently.

34:07 We'll be safer.

34:07 Our body will be sending out different signals to our partners,

34:11 and those new habits and patterns can often determine what happens next,

34:15 whether our partners and our loved ones kind

34:18 of reorganize the way that they relate to us,

34:21 changing, right, in a more indirect way, or whether we find ourselves into a new

34:26 version of that relationship or a new relationship entirely.

34:30 What would need to happen for someone that is on their healing

34:34 journey and still feels like they have a emotional baggage?

34:38 What would need to happen for that person to have a healthy relationship?

34:42 Like when they're in the relationship

34:44 and that they're notice starting to notice different things.

34:47 You know, I think it's important that we maybe as I

34:51 think even through this like determine and define what is healthy.

34:54 Because healthy is not an absence of discomfort, difficult moments, conflict,

35:01 you know, slide backs where sometimes we rely on those old reactions again.

35:05 Because what is most important and this is verified in literature

35:08 about relationships is not and this is especially out there to parents.

35:12 It is impossible expectation to set for yourself

35:14 that you were going to show up perfectly every time, never become over reactive,

35:18 never have a moment of conflict or disconnection or act out of character.

35:22 Because you're going to and those moments are going to be when you're

35:24 stressed and your body feels like you need to rely on old protective habits.

35:28 What they have verified in relational science and research is what's

35:32 more important and predictive of quote-unquote healthiness is what happens next

35:37 or do we have moments to reconnect to repair again when

35:41 my body is calm so that I can show up calmly,

35:44 groundedly, maybe more calmly communicate what I

35:47 think or feel or what happened for me

35:49 and also hear from the other person the impact

35:53 that the conflict or disagreement had on them.

35:57 And again to be clear that's not going

35:58 to happen when I or they are still disregulated.

36:02 So I think maybe when we have if we're operating with my definition

36:06 of what healthy is which isn't the avoidance of discomfort, of conflict,

36:10 of even disconnection then I think we open up the space that if as many

36:15 of us will discover that we still have baggage or our partners or our loved

36:18 ones still have baggage whether they're family

36:20 or romantic or even work colleagues we

36:22 can still engage in the relationship and we can still heal in the relationship.

36:28 It's again kind of marrying all of these concepts we've been talking about,

36:31 knowing our patterns, right?

36:32 Learning how to regulate our body so that we

36:34 can show up differently either in the moment

36:36 by avoiding the reaction or after the moment

36:38 by learning how to repair, how to reconnect.

36:42 We can give and extend not malignantly so where we're

36:45 too compassionate that we're overstepping our own boundaries and needs,

36:48 but we can understand our partners and our loved ones reactions

36:52 and the way they are showing up and then we can together,

36:56 once we're both regulated and with consistent practice,

36:59 create the opportunity to change those relational habits.

37:03 But again, all of this is going to begin with our own awareness,

37:06 with our own ability to calm our body down

37:08 and to access those new choices with grace and with compassion,

37:12 then perhaps extending that outward when appropriate to those around us.

37:17 Do you think the internet has done society a disservice by focusing so

37:21 much on the other person in dating or in relationships compared to how

37:27 much how important it is for the person to actually work on themselves

37:31 and be the person who has the power and control over their dating narrative?

37:37 I mean, I think it go kind of goes back

37:39 to what we were talking about a bit earlier, too.

37:42 Um, you know, there is it's not to say, right,

37:46 that some of us are going to become aware

37:47 that we were hurt by in our current relationships,

37:50 in our in our original relationships with our parents.

37:54 Right?

37:54 That that is part, I think,

37:55 of the journey is is being able to identify when limits were crossed,

37:59 when boundaries were not set, right?

38:01 So that we are not feeling safe and secure in our relationships and we

38:05 had to rely on older patterns and to learn how to show up differently.

38:09 Right?

38:09 So I think that there is a it's not to say that we just give everyone, right,

38:14 and never focus on the impact because some of us will become aware,

38:18 hey, we need new boundaries, we need to remove ourselves from an unsafe dynamic.

38:22 But I think this is again grounded

38:23 in the empowerment in which you and I both profess,

38:26 which is, right, to even figure out where our boundaries are,

38:30 to be able to self-identify and assert ourselves in new

38:33 ways is going to begin with that internal connection to ourself.

38:39 What is your view of traditional therapy?

38:41 Um, I think therapy is and it's interesting when you say

38:44 traditional now because I'm still going to operate with the way

38:47 I learned the traditional therapy or what I've come

38:49 to know it as, which is really just based on um,

38:53 talking, gaining insight, developing safe connections.

38:57 I think that there is absolutely a role that that plays um,

39:01 for the many of us who haven't ever had a space to turn inward,

39:04 to explore ourself, to gain this awareness, or to have a safe relationship.

39:09 When they studied um, in kind of across all the different modalities

39:13 or ways that you could practice therapy from CBT,

39:16 cognitive behavioral, to dialectic behavioral, to um, analytic psychoanalytic,

39:21 which is what I trained with for an extensive period of time,

39:24 what they found was the greatest predictor cuz I'm often asked,

39:27 "What's the best therapy?" The greatest predictor of a therapy

39:30 being quote unquote successful is the relationship between the client,

39:35 the patient, whatever you want to be called, and the therapist.

39:38 So, safety, this goes back to kind of what I preach,

39:41 safety is at the foundation of all change.

39:45 So, traditional therapy in that way can be 100% helpful for a lot

39:50 of us if we have access to the resources, to the therapist.

39:53 I mean, there is a reality that for many of us therapy,

39:56 the price of it is out of reach.

39:58 We might be I I speak to a very global community.

40:00 Not everyone has access to therapists to even go

40:04 into the office to have that level of safety or relationship.

40:07 So, if we have all of the resources

40:10 that we need and the access to those individuals,

40:12 then that can play a role in our journey.

40:14 However, and I've seen the field changing a bit.

40:18 I hope it continues to change more where the idea of traditional therapy

40:22 is more expanded where there are more

40:24 conversations that are happening around the body.

40:27 Um somatic therapy is now a huge kind of kind of growing field and I think

40:32 when we kind of marry both of those, whether

40:34 inside or outside of a therapist's office,

40:37 when we find safe spaces to work with our body,

40:40 to develop new nervous system regulation tools,

40:43 then we give ourselves the opportunity to to actually transform.

40:47 You brought up a really good point in that, you know,

40:49 you have to do other things besides just talking about your problems.

40:53 You have to actually work on fixing them and you have

40:56 to exercise and take care of your body, like you said.

40:59 So I think if you go in and you just talk for an hour,

41:03 I mean, there's a couple of things that happen there in my mind.

41:04 Number one is that's just one piece of the puzzle.

41:08 Now you have to work on yourself the rest of the week.

41:12 The second part is if you are just lying and not taking

41:16 any kind of accountability during that hour or your therapist isn't pushing you,

41:19 now you've done nothing for yourself that week, right?

41:22 You've probably actually backtracked because

41:23 now you're you're reinforcing you know,

41:26 these old toxic behaviors over and over again.

41:30 Yeah, I think that so wholeheartedly agree with both of the points.

41:34 One of which is there's a lot of hours in the week and I would again,

41:37 when I was doing individual work, I had incredibly committed clients,

41:41 some of which I'd seen for years.

41:42 They would come in once, twice a week, right?

41:45 Had so much insight and awareness.

41:46 We would even practically come up with the the new

41:49 action that we're going to take in the moment

41:50 that we wanted to create the change and yet

41:52 week after week without those shifts in the body,

41:55 teaching our body how to tolerate discomfort, more often than not,

41:58 what I would get a report back was,

42:00 "I did the same thing again." Shame would increase,

42:02 we'd feel more and more disempowered.

42:04 I'd be sitting there with them like, "I don't know what to tell you,

42:06 I don't you know, until I understood why we

42:09 were so stuck." And you're getting to another piece,

42:11 too, which is that depending on the type of therapy,

42:14 it can very much be an echo chamber, right?

42:16 And I will say as a trained therapist,

42:19 most of us are taught to join, simply speaking to like hear, right?

42:23 Our goal is to hear from your perspective,

42:25 the client, how life is for you, right?

42:28 So when you're telling me a story and I

42:30 felt this way and this happened this way,

42:31 all we have in the room is you and your story

42:34 and we don't really have the tools, the information,

42:38 the other person to kind of say "Well,

42:40 wait a minute." Unless we're doing couples

42:41 work and then that can be very confusing when you have two people arguing what

42:45 really happened and that's when I became clear,

42:47 "Whoa, everything is so subjective." Because you're locked and loaded

42:50 that it was this way for you and I did a lot

42:51 of couples work and you're telling me it was this way

42:53 for you and I've learned that the truth is somewhere in the middle,

42:56 you know what I mean?

42:57 Because both of you are coloring the experience.

43:00 So I think, right, for a lot some people, um all right,

43:05 therapy can be used um to validate our perspective of things.

43:10 It can even then be weaponized outside of therapy, right?

43:13 where my therapist said this and you're the problem in this way and again,

43:18 we're not able to step outside of our experience

43:21 to maybe see the role we're playing or and and again,

43:25 I think all therapists work differently.

43:26 So I definitely don't want to group all therapy

43:29 and therapists into that kind of echo chamber approach,

43:31 but I think that's naturally what happens, right?

43:34 You want to validate the person in front

43:36 of you and all I have is the information the person in front of me is giving

43:40 me um to imagine that that's exactly what happened.

43:44 But if we again understand that we're

43:46 all kind of coloring our experiences by how

43:49 it felt for us and we might be leaving out objective details and facts,

43:53 then that's kind of back to this idea that we're all

43:55 little narcissists and we're definitely all

43:56 little narcissists in the therapist room,

43:58 um it can make it challenging to kind of push ourself into a new

44:03 then way to see what's happening and then obviously what to do differently.

44:08 What do you um I'm trying to think of how I how I frame this.

44:11 Um So so as a guy, I I I look at the men's mental health

44:17 crisis that we're in and I see that therapy for men and therapy for women,

44:24 I think can be slightly different just based on biology

44:27 and how men process things and how women process things.

44:30 And I've talked to other experts about this who deal with men's

44:33 mental health and they they kind of agree with what I'm saying.

44:35 I'd love to hear your perspective.

44:37 I know a lot of guys follow

44:38 your work because you're very relatable um to everybody.

44:41 Do you What do you What is your take on the men's mental health crisis

44:45 that we're clearly in and and what can we do differently that's to combat that?

44:49 I think that again, depending on the habits that we

44:53 learned in childhood of how to connect with ourself, our emotions in particular,

44:57 I do think if we want to be gendered about it, right?

45:00 A lot of men weren't taught to connect with their feelings.

45:03 They were taught it was weak.

45:04 They were taught how to, right, inspire action to do as opposed to feel,

45:09 um which has though some women were, too.

45:12 I mean, in a lot of ways I've learned to suppress and to, you know,

45:14 do instead of to feel from childhood.

45:17 Um so I think in a lot of ways, right, the benefit there is a great need.

45:22 There is a crisis, right, so to speak.

45:24 I'm equally though inspired as I see communities like your own,

45:27 like a lot of different kind of male-oriented therapists and communities and men

45:32 even growing in my community Self Healers Circle with over the years,

45:36 right, the population of men beginning to increase closer

45:40 to the the percentage that there are women in there.

45:43 So um I do think that working,

45:46 whether we want to be gendered or just kind of based

45:48 on the habits that are being brought into the therapy room,

45:51 uh you know, we can work with things and ought to differently if we're

45:54 shut down to our emotions as I'm still working to connect with my own, right?

45:58 That then becomes the the task at hand is how to not just

46:02 feel like emotions are weak or not just inspire or to do actions

46:07 to disconnect from emotions and learn instead how to be emotionally connected so

46:12 that we can create not only intimacy

46:14 with our self but intimacy with other people,

46:17 a more healthier form of aggression, right?

46:20 How to assert our self as opposed to rely on being overly controlling,

46:25 that kind of striking first adaptation I talked about a bit earlier.

46:29 Um and again, but I want to be clear I think that all humans,

46:33 and I write about this in the book, have both masculine and feminine energies.

46:38 And we both need, any human needs,

46:40 any individual needs to learn how to do both, right?

46:44 How to be connected and nurturing,

46:47 like the kind of traditional feminine energy, right?

46:49 How to create a safe space for our self and other people.

46:52 And we equally need how to set boundaries and limits and assert

46:55 our self and act when we need to, that more traditional masculine energy.

47:00 So, depending on, right, and we each have different We each spend more time,

47:04 often more often than not,

47:05 until we find the healthy middle in one side versus the other.

47:08 So, right, then we could tailor therapy, so to speak, to if we're, right,

47:13 overly nurturing to the point where we're overly empathetic to other people,

47:17 right, we could learn to assert our selves in a healthier way.

47:20 And on the other side of things,

47:21 if we're too aggressive, always doing, not connected with our emotions,

47:25 then we could build a little more of that nurturing side of our selves.

47:29 And I think that men, I think,

47:32 from what I've understood in talking to a lot of guys,

47:34 they just they feel like they don't have something that works for them.

47:38 They feel like they there's just been a lot of focus on other things,

47:42 which, you know, rightfully so and for good reason.

47:44 And then at the same time, men, I mean,

47:46 they're four times more likely, I believe, to commit suicide.

47:49 They're way more likely, I think,

47:50 to be homeless or struggle with drug addiction and stuff like that, which

47:54 is so sad to me given someone given the fact that I'm,

47:57 you know, I've in recovery for a long time and I have a lot

47:59 of friends that are and I see people

48:00 that are still struggling on a day-to-day basis.

48:03 And it's like, man, like men are so lost right now.

48:06 And and you have one side of the coin that's like follow you know,

48:11 the red pill community to you know,

48:13 learn how to like conquer the world and hate women,

48:16 which I don't think is the right way to do things, right?

48:18 And the other side is just be more feminine and it's

48:21 like that's not the right thing to do either because you know,

48:23 masculinity I think is healthy.

48:26 What makes things toxic is the person itself, not masculinity um as the energy.

48:31 And so it's just I think it's a really tough

48:32 situation that we're in and I think that, you know,

48:35 it all goes back and it's nuanced because

48:38 we people want to feel better right away.

48:39 They don't want to hear like, oh, you know,

48:42 follow a program that involves you going to therapy once a week,

48:45 you're exercising every day,

48:46 you're you're surrounded by a community of of great men um

48:50 that help you move the needle forward in your life and etc.

48:53 And it's just it's a tough battle,

48:55 especially when you're you're battling especially when

48:57 you're dealing with low self-confidence and low self-esteem.

49:00 Yeah, it is.

49:01 It is.

49:01 And I loved how I love that was such a wise thing to say

49:04 where it's not What makes it toxic

49:06 is the individual and I'll expand that, right?

49:08 It's the childhood, the adaptations, right?

49:10 The thing the reality that for a lot of men, women,

49:14 whomever who have learned to be in that more aggressive, right?

49:17 dominating that very much,

49:19 I'm not to to to negate the fact that there are then probably other people,

49:24 perhaps women, men, whomever, right?

49:25 That have been hurt by those behaviors,

49:28 but I am of the belief that hurt people, right?

49:32 And hurt do hurt people,

49:33 but the hurt comes as the most beautiful only adaptation,

49:37 the only thing that we could do at one time.

49:40 So, I feel sad, right?

49:42 To think and to hear how generalizing,

49:45 but this is what the body will do when they're

49:47 in trauma or in overwhelm or in a stress response.

49:50 We become very black or white.

49:52 We become one man hurt me, all men are bad.

49:54 Right?

49:54 That's what the mind does.

49:56 It will generalize.

49:57 Why?

49:57 Because that's the safest thing.

49:58 Right?

49:58 If I was hurt by one person who was blue, purple, man, woman, whatever, right?

50:03 The safest thing my body could do is to generalize and say, "Okay,

50:05 all people that look that act like that will

50:09 hurt me in the same way." That's the most

50:12 protective thing is to generalize to then react immediately

50:16 the moment you see someone with a similar characteristic,

50:19 appearance, whatever, and to run to keep yourself safe.

50:23 So, again, it makes me sad when I see

50:26 and hear these sweeping generalizations that are made um across gender,

50:31 across status, across whatever.

50:33 I do believe systems, right,

50:35 that are very problematic are made up of individuals that were hurt

50:38 that are gaining power in ways that are very problematic for groups of people.

50:42 But again, I think, and this is why I'm so

50:43 inspired to shout this roof this work from the rooftops,

50:46 which is I do believe it's because we

50:48 come from a lineage ancestors of very dysregulated,

50:52 traumatized individuals, right, that haven't learned a new way to show up,

50:57 and that the natural thing that we will

50:59 do is to protect ourselves often with generalizations, reactions,

51:03 and it makes me sad um when that can land on people

51:07 and create more shame and more inability to see a new way out.

51:13 Yeah, getting back to the masculinity thing, I think that there, you know,

51:16 if you there the the the I guess the language around men was like,

51:21 you need to provide, protect, serve, and defend at all costs.

51:26 And I think that there's obviously a lot of truth to that.

51:29 Like, I think that you should, you know,

51:31 do what you can to provide for your family and make a living,

51:34 do what you can to help other people,

51:35 to help your family, and to protect them kind of when needed.

51:39 But it doesn't have to be this huge identity

51:41 where now you close yourself off to anything else,

51:44 to emotional intelligence, or maturity, or awareness,

51:48 cuz that also is just as important.

51:50 But the idea that masculinity is unhealthy, I mean,

51:52 it would be like I I guarantee you and I'm not I can't speak for women,

51:55 but I I would imagine that if a a husband and a wife were walking

51:59 and somebody tried to um assault the wife

52:04 and the husband just stood there and did nothing,

52:06 I guarantee you they would either be divorced like that next

52:10 week or she would be highly contemplating divorce because she's like,

52:13 "What are you doing?

52:14 Like, why aren't you protecting me?" And I think that's

52:16 the I think that's where it comes back to for me

52:19 and like it would the husband be the husband defending

52:22 the wife would be a a form of masculinity, right?

52:24 Aggression and blah blah blah.

52:26 But would that be unhealthy?

52:27 I mean, heck no, right?

52:28 So, I think there's nuance to all of this and I

52:31 think the and that's why I think just labeling things is so

52:34 {quote} {unquote} toxic because then you you you take away some

52:38 of the good that comes from some of these things we're talking about.

52:41 I'm shaking my head wholeheartedly cuz what we're talking about

52:44 is kind of the point I get to in my book,

52:46 which is the goal, so to speak, which is integration.

52:49 It's not eradicating.

52:51 A lot of the adaptations, right?

52:53 Whether it's asserting ourself in the moment

52:54 where we need it to protect the woman, the man, whomever is, you know,

52:58 at risk of being hurt, whether it's even the drive, right?

53:02 I have learned overachieving as a protection.

53:05 That doesn't mean though that my goal is to be like, "Well,

53:07 I'm never going to do anything again." I

53:09 still want to have drive and motivation, right?

53:12 But what we're talking about here is the ability to choose, right?

53:16 To allow that to be a part of us,

53:19 not a part that overrides every other part in every moment where I can't use

53:23 discretion and notice that this isn't a moment

53:25 where aggression would serve me or others,

53:28 but to sit calmly, groundedly, to the best of our ability in all moments, right?

53:32 And to say, "Okay, this is the moment where I

53:35 do need to assert myself because someone's physical, you know,

53:38 self is at risk, someone's emotional, whether it's mine or someone else's,

53:42 self is at risk for me, right?

53:44 This is the moment where I can drop into drive,

53:46 not to exhaust myself because that's the only way I gain worth,

53:49 but because I'm so purposeful and passionate to give

53:53 this information so that other people can create change.

53:56 It's to right, not be overly sympathetic or sensitive to everyone else,

54:00 but of course to maintain that, to be able

54:02 to compassionately connect and empathize with the world around us.

54:06 So, what we're kind of defining here in action

54:09 is what my opinion of the goal is, cuz I'm often asked, right?

54:13 When we're healed, right?

54:14 What do we do?

54:14 Do we go back to who we once were?

54:16 Do all of these parts go away?

54:18 And I can make a case that they they they shouldn't really go away, right?

54:22 These, for a lot of us, are beautiful choices that we still want to have

54:26 access to, to assert ourselves when we need to, right?

54:29 To be independent when we need to, to be connected

54:31 when we need to, to be sensitive when that's helpful,

54:34 to be driven when that would benefit us or or the society around us,

54:38 but the goal is to, right, allow all of our parts and to choose which

54:43 part we're acting from in the in the appropriate moment.

54:46 Last question I have for you is what have

54:48 you changed your mind on in the last few years?

54:50 Oh, what have I changed my mind on?

54:52 That's a really, really great question.

54:54 Um, let me think of what I've changed my mind on.

54:58 Um, always open to changing my mind.

55:01 Um, something I'm learning to embrace is the ability to not

55:03 be kind of rigid in my thinking and and understand new ways.

55:08 Um, so I don't know if one thing is is coming up in particular.

55:12 I'd probably just sit with that a little more because

55:14 my goal is to always be open to to mind changing.

55:19 Um, What do you So, I guess another a follow-up question is like,

55:23 what do you get the most heat for?

55:24 Like, what's one of your post like posts

55:26 on Instagram that creates a lot of tension?

55:29 Okay, so what I've changed my mind that helped me get to.

55:31 What I've changed my mind on is that it

55:34 is not always safest for me to water down myself,

55:40 whether that's my perspective on something or my want

55:43 or my need or my emotional experience.

55:45 That has been my protection, right, as I shared earlier,

55:48 to always zoom out and worry about whose feelings I'm going to hurt,

55:51 whether or not I'm going to challenge someone's belief,

55:53 mindset, whether or not my emotions, perspective,

55:56 wants or needs are going to be a burden

55:57 or an inconvenience to someone else or upset them.

56:00 Um, and I've seen a big evolution since

56:02 I started speaking more publicly about, you know,

56:05 my ideas of clinical psychology, holistic psychology,

56:08 what underlies a lot of these diagnoses and symptoms.

56:12 In the beginning, I very much was watering things down.

56:16 So, what I've changed my mind on gradually over time

56:19 is the ability that that's not the most helpful thing,

56:22 that it would benefit me to say what I think, um,

56:26 and share that with other people because people will always misunderstand,

56:30 which brings me to the thing that I get challenged most

56:33 by when I speak to is when I share the fact

56:36 that I do believe that most of the things we're struggling

56:39 with, the dysfunctional habits and patterns that we've been talking about,

56:42 the symptoms, the diagnoses, whether they're physical or emotional,

56:46 a lot of those, if not all of those, in my opinion,

56:49 come from underlying childhood dynamics that might even predate us,

56:53 passed on from ancestral ancestors,

56:56 the only way that they learned safety in their own bodies,

56:59 passed on through cycles or through generations.

57:02 And when I have gotten more comfortable and confident saying,

57:05 "Hey, I think this is what creates it.

57:07 That's just what I think.

57:08 You could take it or leave it." That is where I often get, um,

57:11 a lot of challenge and pushback for people who,

57:14 you know, struggle to allow in that perspective.

57:17 But I've learned, so the thing I've changed my mind on is I've learned

57:20 for me it's it's important that I speak my perspective both to the public,

57:26 professionally, and also in my personal life,

57:28 something that I'm continuing to work on doing,

57:30 because not doing that is only doing myself a disservice.

57:33 Like you said earlier, I'm betraying myself.

57:35 I'm I'm not showing up.

57:36 I'm abandoning myself.

57:38 I'm having, you know, I'm not being, right, who I am.

57:41 Nicole, this has been awesome.

57:43 Always love your vulnerability and your wisdom.

57:45 It's great to to reconnect and to have you back on the show.

57:47 I think your work is really important.

57:49 I mean, I know you're you're humble in talking about

57:51 this, but you've been a pioneer in a lot of this stuff,

57:53 you know, even talking about this work for for a long time.

57:56 And I remember at first you kind of got a lot of pushback and now, you know,

58:00 you're seeing a lot of evolution around what, you know,

58:03 the content you've created that's helped so many people.

58:05 So, thank you for what you do.

58:06 Gosh, Doug, thank you.

58:07 You've truly been a support literally from the beginning and it's

58:10 such a pleasure to continue to grow and evolve alongside of you.

58:13 I want to reflect that gratitude right back.

58:15 I mean, what you're doing for your community um is is so incredible.

58:18 It's so inspirational.

58:20 So, thank you for who you are and I will look forward to many

58:23 more uh collaborations and to continue to see

58:26 where this crazy journey takes us both.

58:28 Thanks, Nicole.

58:28 I appreciate the kind words.

58:30 And then if people want to get the book,

58:31 they just go to your website or just wherever they get their books.

58:34 Yeah, the book's on I have some listed on the website.

58:37 They'll hopefully it's in all of the major retailers.

58:39 I'm hoping it's in as many local retailers.

58:41 So, definitely go check out however you like to purchase or wherever.

58:44 It's on Kindle, Audible as well.

58:47 Um absolutely, if you're not yet following me on social media,

58:49 come follow me cuz outside of spending a penny,

58:52 these are conversations, information, and tools that we're talking about all

58:55 day across all of the different platforms, The Holistic Psychologist.

58:59 Amazing.

59:00 Well, thanks again uh for coming back on the show.

59:02 Love this discussion.

59:03 Truly an honor.

59:04 Thank you for having me and thank you all for listening.