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The mindbodygreen Podcast
643: Healing inner-child wounds you didn’t know you had | Nicole LePera, Ph.D. (The Holistic Psychologist)
00:48:12
Nicole LePera, Ph.D., is the creator of the worldwide @theholisticpsychologist movement, and the author of multiple bestselling books including How to Do the Work and her newest, Reparenting the Inner Child. She was trained in clinical psychology at Cornell University and the New School for Social Research and studied at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis. Her work has reached tens of millions of people on social media, who are waking up to the idea that healing doesn't happen in a therapist's office alone.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the mybodygreen podcast. I'm jason wakab, founder and co CEO of mindbodygreen and your host. Most of us think we know ourselves pretty well. We know our habits, our tendencies or personality. But what if some of the traits we're most proud of are survival strategies you developed before you even knew you were surviving? Today's guest is Dr. Nicole Lapera, also known as the holistic psychologist on social media. She is the author of multiple best selling books including how to do the Work and her newest Reparenting the Inner Child. Her work has reached tens of millions of people who are waking up to the idea that healing doesn't happen in the therapist office alone. It happens in the small daily choices we make to show up differently. Nicole brings something rare to the space, the science to back up the feeling that something from your past is still running the show and a practical path forward. This one hit close to home for me. It was fascinating. I think you're really going to like it. Let's get to it. So what's a behavior that us adults think is, you know, just my personality, but in reality it's our inner child and there's a need that needs to be met.
- [01:20]
B
I think many behaviors end up becoming identities. Three off the top of my mind that I think are super common and even to some extent maybe even celebrated in our society. One of which is being independent or hyper. Independence, especially here in the west, where we pride ourselves, right, is not needing anyone or anything. And of course that can feel for many of us like a choice. Though I am of the belief that all things date back to our early childhood. Independence for a lot of us can be ended up being a protective stance where we learned at some time, in some earlier version of our reality, our relationships where we learned that relying on others met disappointment or it meant hurt. Drive is another really common one. I think for a lot of us, myself included, overachievers, right, it can feel like ambition. It can be celebrated by the world around us. The accolades, the letters after our name though for me, as I know is the case for many others, right? That drive, that ambition, right? That presenting ourselves in an achievement driven way for some of us can have been at one time the only reliable way that we secured attention or safety and even sensitivity, right? This attunement that we have to the outside world. I hear a lot of talk about highly sensitive people where we feel like this is just wired in, it's a temperament though again, I can make a case that that's actually A beautiful adaptation of a nervous system that at one time, in an unpredictable or unsafe emotional landscape, that scanning, right, developed from a protective standpoint.
- [02:51]
A
And how does one know when they're having a moment where, hey, not me. Sorry, excuse me. It's not my adult self. I'm reacting to my inner child. How does one go about that process to catching themselves?
- [03:04]
B
I think really common markers are when we have what feels like an oversized. A really big reaction to our circumstances. Oftentimes in those moments, right, we feel emotionally overwhelmed. Our reaction feels urgent, like what we absolutely need to do in the moment. There's no choice to do anything else. And in our mind, I think often that maps onto all or nothing, black and white type of thinking. But of course, there's the other side too, where we have an under reaction, right? Where we need to action, advocate for ourselves, maybe even remove ourself from an unsafe situation. Yet we cannot motivate to do that. So I think those markers, kind of the oversizedness of the reaction will often indicate to us and the lack of control, I should say, within the reaction that happens or the behavioral pattern, I think that is often a marker that that is dating to an earlier time. Because quite literally, what's happening in the body is we are flooded by emotions from an earlier time that limit then our choices in response. So emotional dysregulation, emotional dysregulation and. Or emotional flooding, again, that's what is the scientific term, right, for these oversized reactions. And I'm speaking to that because I really want to emphasize the physiology when we're in a flooded moment is real, right? We might have people or even ourself at a later time, like, looking at us, wondering, well, what's wrong? It's not that big of a deal. In that moment, though, again, according to our physiology, it is absolutely that big of a deal. We are overwhelmed with neurotransmitters, with hormones, with a nervous system that's now locked into fight or flight. And so in those moments, what we are dealing with in our body, even though logically it might not look like or be that big of a deal in our body, it absolutely 100% is.
- [04:50]
A
And so many of us had, quote, unquote, normal, good childhoods, you know, lack major trauma, but we still struggle with this stuff. Can you explain the disconnect?
- [05:01]
B
I think for a long time, and thankfully, the definition of trauma has transitioned from a label that we used to apply to an event, right, that would cross a certain threshold, typically the kind of more traditional instances of abuse or Neglect would fall into that category. And now that we understand the really foundational role that our nervous system plays in our ability to regulate or cope with from our everyday experiences to our more stressful, traumatic based experiences, we now understand trauma isn't just what happened to us. It is more so about the support that we may or may not have had to navigate the emotional fallout of what has happened to us. And so I think a lot of us, especially me, when I look back to my childhood, I had an intact family. I had two parents who were physically present. My mom was who, who was in care of me and my sib siblings. Yet what was absent was the emotional attunement that quite literally my developing nervous system needed to navigate from daily stress to even overwhelming stressful experiences that I lived. So I think when we now have them, we have an understanding of what trauma actually is and we have an awareness that very few of our parents had the tools or the resources they needed. From the fact that even clinicians in my field, right, who were parenting experts, it took until really the 70s where emotions and the need for that emotional attunement was even acknowledged in the role of parenting. In addition to the fact that of course, I don't think that many of our past generations of our parents age had the resources and the support that they themselves needed and they also did not learn how to navigate emotions in their own childhood. So that's why I think so many of us are experiencing cycles, right, of intergenerational trauma that are passed through that now leave us struggling with emotional dysregulation and of course a need to, as I talk about reparent ourself to learn some new tools.
- [06:55]
A
So with regards to that cycle, I can't help but think of like a parenting style that may be some 51. So I grew up in the 70s, so like a parenting style that I experienced in the 70s versus parenting today in 2026. It's vast, it's vastly different. And then I can't help but think of, well, what's parenting going to be in 30 years? It's the same way I think about food, nutrition, you know, what did we know 20 years ago that's completely wrong? And what are we doing today then 20 years we're going to say that's crazy. What's your take on how parenting is shifted?
- [07:33]
B
I absolutely think that there's kind of generational shifts that we have seen some that are in reaction to an awareness that certain things, right, don't work. And what I mean, when I Say that is, I think sometimes there can be like an overcompensation in an opposite direction that isn't always helpful because of course, right, children grow up and many of which become parents themselves. And so I think it's that moment, right, where there's a kind of reflection back and you know, those of us that had the attuned parent that we needed, maybe we want to repeat some of the things that felt good and supportive about their own kind of relationship with their own parents. And then many others, right. Kind of look back and are like, oh, I, I don't want to repeat those things, right. So I'm going to show up differently. So I think kind of generationally we do see shifts, but we don't always necessarily land in a healthier place. Right. So a common example, I think, which is happening as I kind of just referenced emotions weren't in the equation. We had doctors that were speaking about a cry it out method, right? This idea that a child can kind of downregulate or soothe themselves. If you just put them in a room, eventually they'll calm down. Right. We now know that's not the case. So we've begun to talk about emotions and emotional attunement and the need children have to be soothed and how important emotions are. And I think to some extent, right, there can be, and I talk about this in my book, almost an over correction where there perhaps aren't limitations or resilience, where we have more like a helicopter parent scenario, right, Where a parent is maybe for a very well intentioned reason because they themselves had a painful childhood, so they're going to be so attuned they might overstep. Right. Emotional boundaries, want to become their child's best friend and you know, share with them mature content that is well beyond their developmental years. So I think naturally, and I think we see this in our own healing journeys as well, right. We discover something doesn't work, we over correct to another extreme. And it takes a bit of time for kind of a falling into a middle that's more workable. And I think that same kind of pattern exists more globally with parenting in general.
- [09:37]
A
So maybe swung a little, swung the pendulum a little bit too far and maybe a bit too gentle, if you will.
- [09:45]
B
There could be some kind of talk of what are the concerns, which I have many of not having, right. Limitations or not having boundaries between again, information that's too emotionally overwhelming for a child that can't understand developmentally what is happening. So yeah, I think an overcorrection can often end up with behaviors and habits that aren't boundaried, aren't maybe developmentally appropriate, and then have their own kind of set of consequences for the child.
- [10:12]
A
You know, something I think about a lot. We have two little girls, nine and six and a half. And you know, I think, you know, in preparing for this interview, I'm like, oh, God, like, what am I? I need to assess myself. What am I doing? And I. And I make mistakes. We all do. And something you talk about in the book is this idea of safety, and it's how foundational. And I looked at this and said, you know what? I'm probably pretty good here, so I feel good about that. But like, but maybe not. Can we talk about, like, if there's a hierarchy is really safety so foundational to being a parent and the development of child, and what does that look like? What is. If I'm a parent listening, how do I assess? Like, did I do a good job in checking the box of safety here? How does this show up in a child?
- [11:01]
B
I believe safety is really the foundation of any kind of grounded, healthy individual, let alone any individual who wants to create change. Because a body or a nervous system that doesn't feel safe isn't going to be able to be grounded, responsive, at ease in a body, right? Not able to shift from reaction to response. So without safety, I don't think that any kind of connection, healing or change, which is what many of us are kind of wanting to do when we discover things that aren't working, is available or is possible. And to be clear, though, safety doesn't always mean creating or manufacturing an unrealistic world where things aren't difficult or hard or can feel unsafe in any given moment. The question is more so can I make my way back to safety? And of course, in childhood, right, that means can if there's a moment of conflict or disconnection. I mean, to speak to your very wise point, Jason, humans are imperfect. The goal isn't to avoid uncomfortable emotions or even moments of conflict or disconnection, even with your children. More so the impact happens with what happens next, right? Can I come back to safety? Can I regroup after a dysregulated moment? So after a parent, right, kind of reacts or overreacts, screams and yells or gives a silent treatment, needs a moment. All of which we might not want to do in the moment, or break the habit of the question isn't so much as, oh, well, what is the damage now that that happened because the damage can actually be mitigated. If that parent comes back to the child to reconnect later. Because that's what true resilience is. None of us are ever going to be able to create or manufacture a world where we feel safe all of the time. So the question really becomes a, can I identify when I feel unsafe? And B, do I have the support? Can I, do I know how to calm myself down and. Or can I make myself vulnerable, reach out and then receive the support I need from someone else? Whether again in childhood it originates with our parents or our core caregivers and of course into adulthood it extends outward to our closest partnerships, et cetera.
- [13:13]
A
It's such an important point because I think very applicable for grownups in relationships when a relationship, we've all been there, there's been a fight and there's that moment, do I come back and hold that person close or do I just keep on going and it's like I'm done or I'm livid and I can't come down. And that's when it's that moment of truth where I have certainly had this like, how much do I really like I need to, I need to walk myself back here versus I'm done.
- [13:42]
B
Well, some of us might have that reaction out of protection, right? Done could feel safer if we didn't have someone model and I'm speaking from my own experience, who had a mother who could not reconnect, who would give the silent treatment for sometimes days, sometimes months and then seemingly life would just go back to normal and there was never that conversation. So I'll be the first to admit I do have that I'm done kind of narrative where if conflict gets too great, I feel safer just to say, well, I'm not going to let you hurt me again. I'm just going to leave before the next time that you hurt me. So even if we have the I'm dones happening in our head, I do want to acknowledge that some of us that grew out of protection because why am I going to put myself back in a situation where I could be rejected or abandoned again or what feels to be rejected or abandoned but with a child.
- [14:27]
A
I think the memo and we have for parents is you're going to make mistakes. There are going to be blow up, blow ups. Don't beat yourself up over it. As long as you come back, you say I'm sorry, I screwed up, there's a hug, but it can't be a blow up. That just continues, that goes off into the sunset and there's no acknowledgment of what happened, life goes on like that is not okay. You can screw up, but you got to come back and take ownership.
- [14:56]
B
And I want to emphasize that take ownership piece because there's such wisdom in that. Because without kind of coming back and a parent acknowledging, hey, this had nothing to do with you, right? I had a bad day at work, I'm overstressed. Like your reaction, I know I overreacted. I might have said it, right? It was because you left your toys on the floor, right. I want you to hear right now, it has nothing to do with who you are or the goodness of you as a person. And I'm emphasizing that because a child's mind, just like our mind, is always seeking to understand the world around us. And developmentally, when we're in those kind of first several years of immaturity, we don't have the ability, as we gain in adulthood, most of us at least, right, to zoom out, to understand all of the different factors that contribute to why mom or dad might explode or disconnect from us that have nothing to do with us. Because never is it about us per se when we are in that. That mode or development, which is known as the egocentric stage. We make everything that happens in our world because of us and about us. So a child developing brain will see moments of explosion or disconnection and will assign a meaning of, oh, well, that happened because I did too much of this or not enough of that, or I didn't show up in the way that mom needed me or whatever it might be. So that kind of statement of personal acknowledgement where you shift that narrative for a child and you acknowledge, right, it might have felt like it was about you, but this had nothing to do with you. That now begins to separate the shame that will develop if we're not told that. Because we will now say and believe we are unworthy. Because right. Insert whatever it is that we've picked up on in our environment and then we will own that as an inherent reflection of our unworthiness as opposed to a responsibility of our parent and a
- [16:43]
A
separateness from us and something to build off of that. Our nine year old. There's a lot going on in that brain. Nine year old girl, lots going on. And she will struggle a lot in certain situations, just kind of like lose her, just lose it. And we're dealing with that. And we'll hear this narrative sometimes, like, I'm a bad kid. And we'll say, no, you're a good kid. Having a bad moment can I get a doctor Nicole approved on that.
- [17:15]
B
That is a beautiful, powerful, you know, kind of continued reminder for your child because that is the reality and that even translates to adulthood, right? We are good people that have bad moments, right, that might act and have hurt, you know, as an outcome of our reaction. But again, I make a case in all of my work in this book included that even those overreactions again came from sometime, some place where they were adaptive, like so, for instance, so many of us in our childhood that was highly unsafe had to develop a habit in protection to strike first, right? To go into that fight mode, to scream, to yell, to keep ourselves safe again in an unpredictable environment, that then translates into. Right, that's our go to response. And now we're screaming and yelling, protecting ourself from our nine year old, right? But our mind kind of, we go quite literally our body more so back in time as if we're the nine year old who had a strike first to protect herself from our siblings who were maybe abusive or a father or a mother who was, you know, unpredictable. And that was the only way that you were able to gain some semblance of safety. Yet now the context has completely changed, right? It's not adaptive, it's not helpful, we don't want to repeat it. But again, that was a protective adaptation and the only thing that you could do at one time.
- [18:34]
A
And so can you talk about the role of ownership in this process that we all need to. We all need to. We all have trauma, we all have. It's very clear with your work and I think more people are waking up. The fact we all have stuff from our childhood, no matter how great it was, it's all there, shows up every day. How do you think about ownership?
- [18:55]
B
I think ownership is kind of foundational right up there alongside of awareness. And what I mean when I say both is owning and becoming aware that even for the many of us who write, childhood was so many decades ago and maybe it's something that we don't even want to think about again. Maybe you're like me, you don't have access to the quote unquote memories. To even recollect it though we have to understand, and that's what inspired this new book, is that all of us have that younger part of ourself, right? The inner child who has all of this emotional learning and survival driven responses based on our earliest environment, which then once we become aware and own that, right, that I have this part of myself with these oversized, right, emotionally flooded reactions where I'm behaving out of character or not whom I want to be, then I can advance to the next kind of process, so to speak. And I kind of outline it in an entire chapter in this new book, which is Reparenting, right? Where now we begin to witness in real time the reactions or even the habits and patterns and identities that we want to begin to shift and break, and we give ourself a new outcome. So reparenting really is in the process of kind of learning, right? Noticing when fear, when old rules, when old reactions are driving us, understanding again that they're driven in a very real way by the physiology, the kind of neurological wiring and firing of our nervous system, of our inner child. So not ignoring it, not shaming it, or making us wrong, but by listening, understanding, and then teaching our nervous system a new way to first experience safety in the present, so then we can then access a new choice in the present moment.
- [20:37]
A
And so is that process vastly different for, say, a pattern or trauma that's been with us for generations? It goes deep in the lineage.
- [20:48]
B
So, thankfully, science is now kind of overwhelmingly verified, right, that change can happen at any time. So the process of change is by consistently showing up, making enough new choices that quite literally, we're firing and wiring some neurons and creating actual new habit change. But I think there's something important that you're kind of referencing here, which is that some of the habits and patterns that are causing dysfunction or suffering in our life didn't even originate, maybe in our own homes. And what I'm referencing now is kind of the epigenetic transmission of a lot of these habits and behavioral patterns that have happened across time. Right? Where, again, in a very beautiful way, our biology is so intelligent, all of the adaptations are meant to serve future generations, right? With the idea that future generations will be born into the same environment. Right? So it would make sense if our ancestors maybe dealt with kind of food shortage. And there's a ton of research on this, that epigenetic changes to kind of hold onto fat and use energy in a particular way. And of course, I'm simplifying all of this that was needed in that generation because food was inconsistent or completely absent. So assuming, right, as was the case generations ago, when we didn't have airplanes, we couldn't fly to the other side of the world and geographically change our location. Future generations were born into that same environment, so the likelihood that they have an inconsistent access or a absence of food was large. So the changes that kind of happen epigenetically would set those future Generations up for survival, though things have categorically changed, right? Very few of us find ourselves in the exact same environments as our ancestors. Yet these changes are quite literally wired into the way our nervous systems function, as well as the way our cells turn on and off in reaction. So many of us are left again with dysfunction that didn't even originate, maybe in our, in our kind of immediate family homes, but might have originated generations before. But again, because neuroplasticity exists, through consistent new choices, we can change even down to the way our genes fire and function for future generations.
- [23:04]
A
And is it ever too late to recognize the pattern and stop it?
- [23:08]
B
With awareness, you know, becomes the ability to make choice. So at whatever moment or for whatever reason, I think sometimes suffering and right, life being entire, intolerable, like we need to change things at whatever point in life that that happens. The second we become aware, whether it's, I don't want to continue to live like this and or aware of our patterns, we give ourselves then the opportunity to make new choices. So, no, I don't think that there ever is a, a too late. I think change is possible quite literally at any age.
- [23:38]
A
Where do most people struggle? Is it the awareness that the issue is there? Where do people get tripped up?
- [23:43]
B
I think people, and I would see this in my practice, which is what inspired, you know, so many years ago now, me to work more holistically as I now do. I don't necessarily think it's the insight or the awareness. So many of us can tell the story of why we're so dysfunctional and the habits that we want to change. It's the action. Because awareness, our nervous system, doesn't learn by insight alone, as we've been talking about, quite literally, our nervous system learns by eliciting a new response, by engaging with the moment more presently and therefore differently. So. I think that's the place where I would see this in my clients and I would feel very disempowered and stuck alongside of them. Why is it seemingly that we have so much awareness, right? We can tell our story into the, into the ground, but we can't change those patterns. And again, because they're wired in, because our nervous system, no matter how dysfunctional the patterns are, will feel a sense of familiarity because they're predictable. We know what happens next, so no amount of logic can shift that. It is truly learning how to cope with the discomfort of doing something new and then doing that consistently enough so that we've quite literally created a new pattern for ourself.
- [24:51]
A
You mentioned Discomfort. I think of the tension there between learning how to embrace discomfort versus I think many of our quests in 2026 revolve on how, how can we become so comfortable? You know, how do, how do I relax in the air conditioning and you know, watch TV and scroll like, how do you think about embracing discomfort?
- [25:13]
B
I think so many of us, myself included, not only has society changed to a much more comfortable or to offer the large majority of us a much more comfortable existence, we get really savvy and good and that's what our. We're wired. So in a moment of stress or discomfort, our nervous system will immediately try to exit us from that stress and discomfort as quickly as possible. Right. We'll distract ourselves, we'll avoid. Right. Well, the discomfort will be happening, but we'll be paying attention to something else. It'll be so suppressed. So I think we get really savvy and some of these become habits and again, some of them are celebrated. Right. The overachiever. For many of us, overachieving, focusing on the next thing that I'm going to do is a very helpful distraction or even just keeping ourselves busy is a very helpful distraction because when I stop right now, I'm too in contact with all of the uncomfortable sensations. So again, this goes back to the idea of resilience, which the goal isn't nor is it possible to have a stress free, discomfort free existence. The goal is to expand our ability. And the reality of it is very much of us have a very small window of tolerance for discomfort, myself included, because we haven't practiced sitting with discomfort long enough.
- [26:33]
A
What are some of the issues you're seeing more of or, or like common themes in 2026 that people are facing when they talk to you, when they're DMing you, people you see like what's
- [26:47]
B
coming up I think really consistently across the board and I don't know if it's shifted or is More so in 26, 2026 than other years or decades. But relationships are always, I think, top of conversation. More often than not, people will be, you know, reporting dysfunctional habits in relationship that are the cause for concern. And that is very true. Whether it's the issue is I either feel lonely and I'm in a relationship. So why, how and why could that be to there's dysfunctional patterns in my relationship where there's conflict and a lack of ability to repair or maybe some other dysfunctional habits, I think relate. And again, this goes back to we are all relational creatures. We've learned to relate to Ourselves within our relationships with our core caregivers. And again, most of the patterns or the ways, because in childhood connection is survival. So most of the wounds that we carry developed in relation to whatever caregiver was most present to us. So that's then why. Right. Somewhere down the line, typically the issue or cause of concern that I'll hear from at this point, my near global community will, will be kind of relationally based. Like I'm having this problem or that problem again, I'm in a relationship, but I feel alone or I'm in a relationship that's really kind of traumatic or dysfunctional in a certain way. Help me. I don't know what to do or if it's even possible to change on
- [28:15]
A
that note, what to do and if it's possible to change. What about when that relationship is with the parent?
- [28:20]
B
And that's. And I think what I am now seeing, maybe this is a better, more specific way to answer the question as these conversations become more prolific, right. As you're sitting across from me and your communities listening to me, right. Talking about early childhood relationships, I think that is parental relationships are now being more frequently mentioned in the complaint concern around relationships. Because then that's, that's where the core wound existed. And as we become more aware, it's so natural that we want to go back to our parents if they're still living and we want to tell them right, what didn't work, what hurt us. And we want to shift the dynamic there. And of course it's greatly challenging for many different reasons, not only because these are the relationships where they're deepest wounds developed, but because a lot of our parents again are from generations where, you know, some of which we're saying us asking them to take accountability, that might not always sit comfortably and might not elicit the reaction that we want to get when we go back to parents to share with them, you know, how our experience of childhood was and what we maybe could have used a little more of or a little less of. And you know, and then I think caught commonly what happens and this happens across relationships, but I think particularly in parental ones is we want our parent to change so very badly. And then the question becomes, well, how do we continue to navigate a relationship where we can't control or demand someone to change. The only power truly that we have to change is how we relate to our parent. But I think a lot of us have that childlike part of us, right still that just desperately wants to be unconditionally loved and seen by our Parents. And the reality of it is not, not many, not all of our parents are going to be able to offer that to us.
- [30:03]
A
Right. And I definitely see there's some very strong opinions online about this. Whether it's, you know, the kind of the let them, the Mel Robbins approach. Then there's the let's get in there and let's change and let's do family therapy and try to change grandpa or dad or whoever it might be. And then there's I think in my view, the more pragmatic approach, if possible, not always possible. How do we just kind of accept who this person is and try to make the best of it? Because at this stage I'm speaking for people who have older parents, like, you know, there may not be a lot of years left. Like, how do we just work with what we have? Try to love and accept them and try not to like, you know, do any more damage.
- [30:49]
B
So I will speak from my lived experience with my mother who I've now lost. It was a little over five years ago and as she was getting up in age, right, it became very clear to me that I was having all these revelations, including how she parented me. And you know, because of many different reasons, she was unable to hear, to be present. She was struggling with her own health and her own emotional issues. So acceptance really begins when we first allow ourself to be present to what was right. Acceptance for me, right, was a long term process of me becoming aware that, hey, you know, I didn't have a traditional trauma in the sense that anything kind of overt happen, but my trauma existed in my mom's absence, right? That lack of emotional attunement. So it's a process of, right, not just saying, oh well, that's how mom is and she's never going to change. Like I had to actually sit in then the grief, right, of I had a loss, right? This core attachment figure I did not have access to. Some of us might even feel angry, right? Because that's an unmet need. I need it attunement and support and comfort. And I did not get that. And so it's the kind of the process of making space, right? Once we gain aware awareness of what had happened, it's also the emotional presence to be with what had happened to allow the grief, to allow the sadness. And then for me to write, acknowledge, if you do have the parent that's just not going to change or they're old or it just like isn't going to be for you, then we flip the Question from like, what do I need you to do different? To how can I shift or change the dynamic? How can I show up differently? Perhaps can I create a boundary with how I interact with you? Especially if there's kind of overt harm that's still happening. Right. But that's what a boundary truly is. Right? Can I begin to initiate an action to show up differently, to create a boundary so that. Because the reality of some of us might want to modify to some extent our relationship, but that's what acceptance is. It's a long term process of being with our pain and also exploring the ways, if any, that we might want to change the dynamic, but not asking or demanding that they do anything different. Acknowledge that they're going to probably be the same and then we do differently. And for me, quite honestly, that allowed me to stay presently in my mother's life. Right. Allowing me to mourn my grief and my hurt and my anger and modify my relationship to the extent of not really looking to her to emotionally support me. Right. Finding other people in my life that I can gain emotional support from. Right. Shifting the conversations that I had with her so they were a little more surface about things that we, you know, could connect around. And then that allowed me to accept to some extent who she was and then really how she remained until the end of her life.
- [33:30]
A
It feels like acceptance is kind of the only, in my view, the, the only viable path forward in a situation like a lot of us are facing, like yours, where there, there's an older parent and like, you know what, it wasn't that great, but here we are.
- [33:45]
B
Yeah. I think for a lot of us sitting in because the human condition is to try to seek control and to see control again kind of back to what we're talking about earlier. The quickest way to discomfort, if you're not giving me enough of or doing too much of that is you stop. You. Right. So it's so natural that when we kind of come to the awareness it stops. Something's not working. That we do kind of go outward with the demand for the relief of discomfort to come from you modifying your behavior. Though I think in the process of acceptance, right, where some of us are accepting that you're not going to change, that now allows us to take power back. So now we're not just waiting for something that could never come and then living in the, the grief or the hurt as a result of it. We're acknowledging that and we're giving ourself a moment or a possibility of shifting and, or Stepping forward because I think,
- [34:39]
A
is it safe to say that most people end up in a lot more pain if they're not able to do that? If they carry the anger and the resentment and whatever it is to the grave?
- [34:49]
B
I think that, yeah, there's a lot of ways that we kind of hold onto and maintain and recreate our own suffering and resisting what is, is. And I could even make a case, right. The more we resist, right. Or repress, quite literally kind of clenching our internal, like our energetic system. I mean, there's an entire so much research now of how physically that makes us sick, emotionally that makes us sick. So, yeah, I think there are many ways that we hold on to our early wounds and our suffering and can cause ourselves not only emotional discomfort later, but even physical illness.
- [35:26]
A
I've come around to this idea partly as a parent and talking to our kids. Like, it's good to be angry, it's good to be anxious. Like, that means you care. Like, these are good things. Like, lean into it, acknowledge it. You gotta pivot. You can't just stay in anger. You can't just stay in anxiety. You gotta, like, turn that. We need to, like, work with this and turn it into something productive. But, like, that's amazing. This is good. There are feelings here.
- [35:50]
B
Your body is working. That's what emotions are, right? There are internal signals of how we're interacting or experiencing the environment. Right. It's important. Feel fear or anxiety when something could possibly be overwhelming and scary. We need to remove ourselves from the threatening. Right. Experience Anger is completely natural. It's when our boundaries are crossed, our needs are being unmet. Why? Because all of that mobilized energy of anger helps us action, you know, advocate for ourselves, make sure that we're getting our need met. The sadness is a common. Of course we're going to feel sadness when we experience a loss. It points to what is important to us. But again, this goes back to kind of the thread we were talking about earlier, Emotions, right? We're not. I mean, not even in the field of psychology have they been really fully understood. And very few of us have the tools to be present to an emotion, to say, hey, I'm feeling this emotion. I'm aware of the information it's giving me. And then more so, it's ending. Because that's the reality. Our body always wants to go back to homeostasis, right? When we become elevated or in that sympathetic nervous system, it wants to downshift into the parasympathetic rest and digest state. When hormones and neurotransmitters are being released. Our body wants to and does metabolize them and they go away. But very few of us have that experience again. Why? Because we begin to tell ourselves a story about what is happening. Right. We keep it alive in our mind and then we keep it alive in our body.
- [37:12]
A
You know, whenever I've gotten into, I'd say something didn't work out or I've gotten into proverbial trouble personally or professionally or, you know, way back when athletically, it was when I just didn't care. There was no emotion. It was just like, ah, whatever. And that just didn't work out. Never worked out when that happened. And I want to spend it like the pivot, I think is so important and like somewhat related. I have to bring it up. I was listening to a podcast about Roger Federer, the all time tennis great, and how he was like, he's like Mr. Cool on the tennis court. But apparently Federer really struggled with anger. And like in his early tennis years, like he was a mess. He would like throw his racket. Like he just. And then finally said like, I can't do this. Like, this is embarrassing. I want to be the best. I gotta figure this out. And so he said he still had these emotions. Like after every point he would lose, he'd be like, that's terrible, Roger. You're an idiot. Like, what are you doing? Like, you're a disaster. And then he would. And then find a way to move on. Okay, next point, let's go. And I think I was like, wow, Roger Federer feels this. This is like one of the all time greats. To ever play anything, you look at the chord, he's no John McEnroe. Like, no, like that's impressive. And it, and it, it speaks to this idea. We all feel these things, but it's the awareness. You're aware, you embrace it, you move on in a healthy way.
- [38:33]
B
And I want to just quickly make sure we're distinguishing what we're talking about here. Awareness, being with. Right. Allowing the anger to be present. Oh, I'm angry. Right. And maybe the context of being on a tennis court. And for all of the reasons right now, I'm dysregulated, throwing a racket, my game might be impacted, then fans might think something about Mary. So contextually. Right. The anchor though was still there. Because I want to contrast this from again, a very beautiful survival based adaptation where there's a more general sense of shutdown in our nervous system. Again, oftentimes in a childhood, it is intended is our best attempt to reduce overwhelming, consistently overwhelming experiences. That then translates to a general sense of overall emotional numbness where we don't even have. And I lived in this state for a very long time. People would call me stoic. I remember thinking, like, I would get kind of reflected back to me, oh, where are you? You're numb. You know, my first boyfriend, I remember, told me that I felt emotionally unavailable, and I was very confused at what he was describing me as. And that is, again, I did not yet have the language for the reality that I was. I was so far away from my own emotions. It doesn't mean that they weren't happening in my body. But again, my best protection was to distance myself, which is where all those habits of focusing on achievement. Right. Focusing on, you know, everything else outside of me became the quickest way away from all of the emotions in my body. So I just want to make sure for listeners that we're understanding the slight difference there of saying, oh, okay, I'm having a feeling, and I can choose how and when I want to express this feeling is categorically different from, I'm so emotionally numb. And again, if you are in that category, as I once was, that I'm completely emotionally numb all around, that is probably, again, because that was the best thing that your nervous system could do to protect you from all of the overwhelming emotions and sensations you were feeling.
- [40:27]
A
Well said. Sorry for the tennis diversion.
- [40:30]
B
No, I love it. I love tennis and I love Federer. So I was very pleased when you went there. I was shaking my head and I. I did not know that either. So that's a fun fact because he does look very calm and cool on the court from when I've seen him.
- [40:39]
A
On the flip side, then, I was thinking of, you know, the Royal Tenenbaums and Rishi Tenenbaum just walking around the tennis court moping, and, you know, turns out he's suicide. So, okay, back on track. Say, other than picking up the book, which I encourage everyone to do, fantastic read. Surely another bestseller. If I'm listening, I'm getting the book, but I want to start now. I'm realizing, okay, I'm just like, old patterns galore, people pleasing, whatever it might be, avoidance. What can I do, like, right now to start doing the work?
- [41:15]
B
I think the work begins again as we continue to reiterate in awareness, but also in shifting our relationship around what is happening. Right. So what. I mean, the reason I'm often giving. Right. The neurobiology. The reason, the productive adaptations of what's happening. Right. Is so that in real time, we can understand that what is happening, whether it's the over or under reaction, or maybe the whole identity as the overachiever, that we continue to play, right, with unrealistic standards on ourself, that that came from protection so that we can. Then when it happens again, which I assure you it will happen again, you'll listen to this podcast, you'll feel armed and ready and like, yes, I'm going to change my habit. And then here comes the habit. And so in that moment, right, where we're learning what's where we're observing, I should say in real time, we want to do two steps. The first step is, right, We. We want to stop living in our. In our mind insight. We want to stop analyzing what's happening. We want to drop into or shift our attention to our body and begin to notice what's happening inside of me, right? What sensations are happening? How is my breathing? What is my heart doing? How are my muscles? Are they tense? Are they at ease? Right? Do I have energy available to me? And then we want to ask the second question. So the first question, right, is pausing. So acknowledging the habit's going to come back. So we want to get rid of the expectation that it doesn't. When we notice ourself going into the reaction, we want to pause before we instinctually, right, react in the same habitual way we always have. In that moment, we want to refocus, explore what's happening in my body, how do I feel again? Those markers, breath, heart and muscle tension are a great place to start. And then we want to take the second step and ask the next question, which is, what do I need now? What do I need to happen? How can I calm myself down? Right? How can I get back into that calm, grounded state of ease where my muscles feel relaxed but I have energy available should I want to do something, my breath is back to normal and I can think clearly, right? And I can intentionally choose oftentimes again, learning from all the habits that don't work and the outcomes. I want to avoid what I want to do differently next. But again, that first foundational stage of shifting from my mind not what I think I should do, but how I'm feeling is where then we build a foundation to help our body again experience and then navigate and then choose a new response in the moment, because that's where true healing happens.
- [43:46]
A
Fantastic advice. Nicole, Such a pleasure. Thank you so much. Congrats on the book. You are prolific. Everyone can find you. Where can everyone find you?
- [43:54]
B
You tell us well, thank you so much for having me for listening at this point across all different social media platforms. So however you consume your content, my handle is some version of the holistic psychologist so you can come hear this information, get helpful tools and resources. My new book, Reparenting the Inner Child as all of my books are available wherever books are sold, also on Kindle and Audible. So however you consume your book content, you can do so. There's and I have a membership community which is now housed on a very new app that we just developed over the winter. You can find more information@selfhealercircle.com Amazing.
- [44:30]
A
Thank you.
- [44:30]
B
Thank you so much for having me and thank you all for listening.