Your Childhood Is Still Controlling Your Life (And You Don't Realize It) | Dr Nicole LePera

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 It's really clear to me, Nicole, that we see the world through the state of our nervous systems. What would you say the common signs are that might indicate someone has a nervous system that is perhaps a little bit out of balance?

Dr. Nicole LePera 0:17 I think the first sign that really inspired this whole journey into holistic focus, obviously grounded in the nervous system, is a kind of feeling of stuckness. No matter kind of how I'm thinking differently, I can't seem to change those reactions in real time. And I think beneath the surface when we begin to drop into our bodies, it's a sense of restlessness and agitation, I think, for a lot of us, where we feel on edge, we feel uncomfortable in our own skin. I think many others kind of don't even feel connected to their bodies at all. They have a sense of numbness or a lack of awareness that they're even living in a body on the day-to-day. But I think those are the kind of the major signs, because our nervous system is determining how grounded we feel, how aware we are of our surroundings, our ability to think clearly and logically and responsibly about life. And again, when we're kind of driven by dysregulation, we lose access to all of that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08 Yeah. I think a lot of the time it also shows up in our relationships-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:12 Oh

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12 ... doesn't it? Often with those really personal and intimate relationships where we might blow up, you know, get angry-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:21 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21 ... get annoyed, become overly sensitive to criticism. All these things also indicate a dysregulated nervous system, don't they?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:29 Yeah, I think the more that we are kind of in relationship with others, but the relationship with ourself included, those are, I think, the moments where we kind of notice not only the dysregulation, what I speak of as the inner child, those moments of the disproportionate reactions where we're saying and doing things that we don't mean. Again, our intention is to show up as a, a caring, connected individual, yet we're blowing up or shutting down. And again, I even think it's beyond those moments of reactivity. I think a lot of us have adapted. We become an identity, we play a role. We kind of function in a certain way within our relationships, whether we become the caregiver to others, the appeaser, and I believe all of that is kind of grounded in these dysregulated moments beginning in childhood, where those were the only way that we have learned to adapt because that was all that the circumstances allowed at one time. Yet our body hasn't updated. We're in a different context. We're perhaps in different relationships, yet we're still driven to see, believe, and repeat the same patterns.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:29 For someone who's never come across the term inner child before, or perhaps someone has no awareness that their childhood experiences might be impacting their adult behaviors and their adult reactions, how do you get this message across to them if they need convincing?

Dr. Nicole LePera 2:53 Yeah, so our, our inner child is a, a part of us that was formed in childhood that we retain, right? It's what learned safety, it's what learned connection, it's what learned how to deal with unpredictability, conflict, disconnection, unmet needs, and I think there's a lot of us-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:07 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 3:07 ... especially well into adulthood, where we either don't want to look back, it feels like it was so far ago, we don't imagine it's still creating any impact in our daily life, or if you're like me, I have very little ability to recall-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:21 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 3:22 ... what happened. I can't tell the story necessarily of what was happening or not happening in my home, yet I'm living those reactions. And those are the moments that we were both kind of just talking about, the kind of disproportionate reactions-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:34 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 3:34 ... the identities that just don't feel like us, our inability to change even if we set the intention to do so. All of that is kind of indicative of this inner child that's living in our body. The sense of urgency, the overwhelming emotions that quite literally seem to take over no matter what we want to do differently, and I think many of us, again, we meet those moments-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:55 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 3:55 ... in our daily life or in just our daily patterns in general.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:58 Yeah. Okay, so the central idea I feel i- in much of your work, including your brand-new book, Reparenting the Inner Child: The New Science of Our Oldest Wounds and How to Heal Them, is that in childhood we undergo certain experiences. Some of those are positive. Some of those perhaps are not as positive as they could've been. And we adapt to those situations, and those adaptations can become problematic. So I wanna go back to a passage in the introduction of your new book that I really enjoyed reading. "Before the external world begins to shape our instincts, we exist in a state where we feel spontaneous and free, filled with wonder and awe, connected to our natural inclinations, creativity, and imagination. But as soon as we begin to explore our environment, we start picking up cues about how to belong, and with that awareness comes a slow disconnection from our natural wholeness." That's the book in a nutshell.

Dr. Nicole LePera 5:13 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:14 That's such a powerful message, isn't it?

Dr. Nicole LePera 5:16 Yeah. That's, I think, our human experience, and these adaptations are beautifully evolutionarily driven. They are, they're wiring us to survive those early environments because we need connection to physiologically sustain life, right? We're one of the few, if not the only mammal that is born so underdeveloped, and this is a newer-Finding in our field where, I mean, there was a time where parenting experts, even just a couple decades ago, weren't talking about the immaturity of the human nervous system, right? This idea that children could just soothe or calm themselves on their own. And the reality of it is that we can't. And our nervous system is being shaped even before we're physically born into whatever circumstances we're born into. It's actually being shaped by our ancestors. And again, this is a beautiful adaptation because we live driven by prediction and survival, and we want to, right, more or less learn the environment enough so that we can begin to function in that environment. And in childhood, when relationships are the foundation in which we find safety and security, though of course not all of us-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:19 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 6:19 ... do have those relationships, those are where those earliest adaptations begin. And so ideally, right, we not only have present caregivers, we have caregivers that are grounded and safe in their own bodies. And I think this explains why the large majority of us are not, um, living or do carry dysfunctional habits from our childhood because even if, as was the case for me, I had two very present caregivers who were very well intentionally doing the best they can, even seemingly committed to breaking some of the habits of their own childhood. Yet, without the information, without the capacity in their own nervous system to be calm, grounded, attuned to a different developing individual, a child that is not them, many of us are left more so with unmet emotional needs, where the person around us is dysregulated themselves. So no matter how much they very much want to support us in exploring our environment and venturing out and developing our own unique self, they're unable to, again, because they're carrying the adaptations that served them in their earliest environments.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:22 It's basically, I guess the question for us as children, are we going to be authentic or are we going to attach?

Dr. Nicole LePera 7:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:30 You know, attachment versus authenticity. And you know, as Gabor Mate will say, "Whenever a child is faced with that choice, they will choose attachment-

Dr. Nicole LePera 7:40 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:40 ... over authenticity."

Dr. Nicole LePera 7:42 Right. Because attachment get, is the only way. As a child, they can't step away from the relationship. They can't zoom out and understand all of the different reasons and factors which are contributing to their parents' inability to allow them to be authentic. All they know, and again this is very survival driven, is they need their parent. So they will contort themselves and, you know, in all of these dysfunctional ways. Oftentimes they will idealize the parent because it's safer to imagine, right, that they, the parent is good, and this is, I think, where shame begins to develop. In addition-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:15 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 8:15 ... to all of these dysfunctional coping habits. In childhood, if we didn't have that present and attuned caregiver, the, the belief that many of us land on is it's not something that's lacking in my parent, which is always the case. The child will take full ownership of what is wrong and take it as a meaning that they are unworthy of being their selves. And so yes, it comes down to attachment will trump everything. And even writing a book, right, seemingly about individual development, I remember-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:45 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 8:45 ... kind of thinking through, I cannot begin this book without first speaking about the power and importance of attachment, not only hypothetically, but grounded, again, in the nervous system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:56 Yeah. I think the implications of your work and this book are, you know, quite profound. I think on an individual level, if, if there's an adult who comes across your work, there's the possibility for healing ourselves, right? Understanding what adaptations we've developed, and then going through the steps to change things. I certainly feel on, on my journey, born to Indian immigrant parents in the UK, academic success was very much prioritized.

Dr. Nicole LePera 9:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:31 I took on the belief as a young boy, through no fault of my parents, I might add, that I was only worthy of love when I was a straight A student or I got top grades. Once I became aware of that, I was able to see where that came from, go through the process of perhaps being a bit frustrated, but then also understanding your parents are human. It totally makes sense through their lens of coming to a different country, of facing discrimination. But healing is possible because once you understand it, and I know we're gonna get to some of these helpful practices that you fill your book with, but you can go back and make peace with what happened. And there is a new possibility, a new freedom, a new lightness, a new liberation when you exist in the world, when you go in and I guess do the work, right?

Dr. Nicole LePera 10:28 Absolutely, and I think my, all of my messaging is, my intention at least is one of, one of that level of empowerment, where, I mean, the goal and purpose isn't necessarily even to go back to kiss blame, because much like you're describing, I think a lot of us had very well-intentioned parents-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:44 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 10:44 ... that were seemingly, right, trying to create a situation where we didn't have to suffer in the way that they had. Yet again, because of a lack of own capacity, ability, I think society plays a huge role too, right? We were left with patterns that don't serve us. And I think being able to expand and say, "My parents did the best they can. This was the ways that they were able to show up and meet my needs. And at the same time, right here were the needs that I did not necessarily have met." Because-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:13 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 11:13 ... a lot of us get stuck on one or y- kind of, we get stuck on one of the sides, where we feel so bad kind of acknowledging our parents' limitations that we're actually doing ourself a disservice because we still have unmet needs that are probably driving a lot of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:29 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 11:29 ... our daily habits, and then we are gonna continue to betray ourself, abandon ourself in ways that, again, we learned in childhood because we could not see our parents clearly. And others get stuck on the other side, where they're stuck in such anger-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:42 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 11:42 ... and resentment and blame, and this idea of, "Well, I shouldn't have to do anything differently. My parents should have showed up for me in a different way," that then we do limit ourself in the ability to have grace, compassion, see our parents for who they are, and give ourself the possibility to evolve and change into someone different.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:00 Yeah.I have to acknowledge that there will be some people out there who've had really toxic childhoods. There might have been, you know, physical abuse-

Dr. Nicole LePera 12:08 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:08 ... emotional abuse, and of course, in those situations, it doesn't change the reality of what you're talking about, but it may be harder, right? Let's put it this way, Nicole. To heal, do you feel that someone has to make peace with what happened in their childhood, or can they heal without doing so?

Dr. Nicole LePera 12:28 I think it depends on how we're defining make peace. Um, the way I would define make peace, and I think a way that allows us to move forward, is to accept that it happened.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:36 Right.

Dr. Nicole LePera 12:36 Right? Peace doesn't need to be, mean I feel good about it, nor does peace mean I have to be in relationship with perhaps the people that abused me or neglected me. But I think peace, when we look, when we look at it as more of an acceptance that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:51 Acceptance

Dr. Nicole LePera 12:51 ... that did happen, and it is impacting me now, and here are the ways in which it's impacting me now, I think then we can heal in the sense of giving myself... 'Cause I think what healing then is, in definition, is giving myself the opportunity to have a new experience. I could not change what happened then. Right? I don't have to even feel positive about what happened then, or interact with the people who created the circumstances that caused my abuse, my pain, my suffering. But if I acknowledge that it did happen then, now, or that it's happening now, let me kind of bring it forward in time, then I give myself the opportunity to kind of end the story differently, create a new response, again, where those other reactions or just identities would have colored how I'm moving forward.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:34 Yeah. I really love that distinction, and I think i- it's a really challenging topic to talk about, but I think it comes down to we can't change what has happened. We may wish- [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 13:49 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:49 ... we were parented differently. We, we may wish we had not experienced certain things, and for people who've had difficult childhoods, my heart goes out to them.

Dr. Nicole LePera 14:00 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:00 I, I can't imagine what that must have been like, and at the same time, if someone does want to move forward in their life, and, you know, live these new possibilities and have that sense of freedom and calm and lightness, I think you're right. You have to, at some point, accept that this is what did happen. I don't like it. I wish it hadn't, but now I'm going to make different choices going forward.

Dr. Nicole LePera 14:28 Right, and I think it's important to have that moment, moments, period of time to be with the grief, the pain, the anger. I think that's absolutely part of the journey that is, I think, an uncomfortable piece. Though, then there is the kind of pivot point, right, where I maybe see where the grief, the anger, the dysfunctional habits are still driving my current circumstances, and then I give myself a new opportunity to, to do differently. Um, because without that, that moment, I do think in, as part of the healing journey, it is really sitting in how I feel about what didn't happen-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:03 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 15:03 ... whether it's anger, whether it's resentment, whether it's loss, because all of those emotions are real, and I think a lot of us have gotten very savvy at keeping those so kind of contained beneath the surface that we don't even realize how much emotion is still driving our current actions.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:21 Yeah. When it comes to healing, you have a part in the book which I, I, I completely echo, which is there are two steps to healing. Number one, becoming aware. Step number two, making different choices, and I really do think healing can be looked at that simply-

Dr. Nicole LePera 15:42 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:42 ... if we, if we sort of zoom out. In my experience, many people get stuck at step one. They, you know, take this wealth of information-

Dr. Nicole LePera 15:54 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:54 ... that's out there these days, podcasts like this one, you know, online blogs, um, Instagram pages, like yours, and they get insights.

Dr. Nicole LePera 16:02 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:02 They go, "Oh my God, that's me." Right? "Oh, I get now why this really bothers me or why when I get criticized I overreact." And often it does come from our childhoods, but I have found people often, they get stuck there. Uh, as we, as we say, they're blaming their parents, they're blaming their childhood, and that can go on for years. And I kind of have real sympathy for that, but I don't think that's helpful. In all your work, either with clients yourself, or I know you have an online community, The Selfheiser Circle, have you found that people get stuck at step one quite a lot, and if so, how do you help them move on to step two, which is making different choices?

Dr. Nicole LePera 16:47 So this is what inspired me to even evolve into a holistic framework, because I would work with very wise, very committed clients in my private practice when I kind of began this journey working more tradis- traditionally, and it didn't seem that no matter how much insight and awareness clients would gain about their patterns that maybe brought them into the treatment room, they would still come in week after week and report the same behaviors, the same dysfunctional habits in their relationship. And even outside of, right, being stuck in blame, anger, and resentment, I mean, I am a prototypical person who was stuck in analysis.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:22 [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 17:22 I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. Why? Because it felt safer to kind of hover above my lived experience-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:28 [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 17:28 ... and try to seek understanding, because it kept me separate from all of the emotions, all of the overwhelming sensations that had been living in my dysregulated body for quite some time. Because that's what we're talking about we need to do to build the bridge into new actions is, as simple as it sounds, I almost can imagine people getting so frustrated when they're like, "Well, what do I do?" And I'm like, "Well, you become aware of the patterns, and then you show up newly and you make a new choice." And I know it can... imagine it sounds very frustrating as it's that simple, but building that bridge means shifting into action, right? Reconnecting with our body that's driving a lot of our reactions or our behavioral patterns, and for our nervous system, that is challenging. We love the habitual.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:12 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 18:12 We love to be able to predict what happens next. It decreases the uncertainty and the fear that's related to the uncertainty. It is energetically conservative, right? To not have to think from our very powerful prefrontal cortex and make new choices, right? We are able to demi- limit the amount of calories our body is using. So for a million different reasons, we don't wanna do the uncomfortable thing, and the uncomfortable, discomfort begins even with a healthy choice. The minute we step out of those patterns to create a new action. So for me, the minute I stop living in my mind and drop down to my body, I'm already immediately now met with all of the discomfort that's been living there for so long. So what we're really talking about is expanding the capacity of our nervous system to tolerate newness, not-... all at once, and I think that's what, where a lot of us do ourselves-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:03 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 19:03 ... a disservice, especially now with a million pieces of information online, and all of these protocols that you can do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:09 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 19:09 And even from the depths of suffering, I can understand, of course, you wanna, right, have this idea that if I just change my lifestyle from top to bottom starting tomorrow, that I will find the quickest route to feeling better. But what we're really doing from a nervous system standpoint is any new choice is gonna expand our capacity for discomfort. The more new choices we tack on, the more uncomfortable we become, and the way our body will work is we'll get to what I call, like, the point of no return. The more stressed we become, the more we fall right back on those old habits, because they're comforting, they're familiar-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:42 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 19:42 ... even if they're dysfunctional.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:44 Yeah. When I think about these behaviors, or the behaviors that we might introduce into our life to, you know, get healthier and, you know-

Dr. Nicole LePera 19:55 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:55 ... work on our longevity, whatever it might be that we're looking for, I always think it's not about the behavior, it's about what's going on behind the behavior. You know, you can do healthy habits from a really dark place-

Dr. Nicole LePera 20:08 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:08 ... from one of guilt and shame, and-

Dr. Nicole LePera 20:10 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:10 ... you don't love yourself. You're punishing yourself through these choices.

Dr. Nicole LePera 20:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:15 And I have done that in the past. Or you can make the same choice, but the energy behind it is completely different. There's compassion there, there's grace, there's, "No, I wanna do this behavior because it supports the person I want to be." It's not about disciplining yourself or shaming yourself. There's a, there... It's the same behavior, but there's a different energy behind it.

Dr. Nicole LePera 20:39 100%. I think what's interesting now is with all of the information out there, all of the health protocols, right, aimed at health and wellness, I do think that a lot of people are, are coming at those behaviors-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:52 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 20:52 ... habits even, from a more shameful place-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:55 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 20:56 ... perhaps even from a distracting place r- from a very rigid place. Um, I will always, when people ask, like, "Do you have a protocol? Is there something you do every day non-negotiable?" And my answer might surprise people, is, "No."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:08 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 21:08 Because my body feels different every day, right? The thing that kind of helped me feel supported on one day, where I have high energy, might not be the thing that makes me feel supported the next day. So it's, can I, right, drop in and understand the why, the intention for what's driving the behavior? And in my opinion, at least, can I allow my body's needs, which for a lot of us change over time, over seasons, as we age, and so can I reconnect with that kind of level of flexibility?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:35 Yeah. I, I can't, I couldn't agree with you more. I personally don't really like the word protocol-

Dr. Nicole LePera 21:40 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:40 ... I've realized over the last few years.

Dr. Nicole LePera 21:42 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:42 It's, it's a very popular term in online health and wellness.

Dr. Nicole LePera 21:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:47 And I get it, some people respond well to it, right? I'm just saying personally, for me, there's a rigidity to a protocol that I don't think is helpful long-term. Now, let me just clarify what I mean by that. Let's say you're stuck, and you're lost, and you have no motivation, and you don't know where to turn. I reckon in the short term, a protocol actually might be helpful, because it gives you some rigidity. It, it takes you out of the stuckness and gives you something to follow. But what I've seen in my clinical practice, Nicole, is that the people who heal in the long term, not just for a few weeks or months, at some point the plan starts becoming my plan for them, and it starts to become their plan.

Dr. Nicole LePera 22:36 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:36 Right? So they take the guidance that I may have given them, but over time they've started to listen to themselves and figure out, "You know what? Actually, yeah, I think 70% of that works well for me, but that 30%, it's not the right approach for me. I feel better when I do it this way." I've always loved that, and I think, as you're saying, I think that's one of the missing pieces when people are trying to make these changes. They're latching on to the latest protocol from the latest influencer online that they follow, and I, as I say, it can be helpful for a short time, but then at some point you gotta start tuning into yourself and asking yourself, "Is this the right approach for me?"

Dr. Nicole LePera 23:17 Yeah, I 100% agree, and I think some of us resist structure and protocols, again, because of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:23 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 23:24 ... the learning that happened in childhood, where maybe we have, as I call it, an over-permissive parent, where we had no boundaries, no limits. So now even the suggestion, right, that there's a protocol out there that could be helpful, right, feels restrictive, controlling. You're not gonna tell me what to do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:39 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 23:39 So I think in some scenarios, right, that particular person, right, could benefit from some level of structure in their life, kind of a-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:49 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 23:49 ... an internal motivation, learning how to do something even when we don't necessarily want to, or where it feels controlling or... Because again, in childhood, without those limits, right, it does feel very restrictive to have someone tell me what to do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:04 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 24:04 But my goal is always, much like yours, is not to, even though I do give somewhat of a structured framework of how to heal, all of my intention with any of the exercises are not to just listen to me. All of those exercises are kind of redirecting your intention-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:20 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 24:21 ... inward, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:22 You mentioned these overly permissive, I think, was it an overly permissive parent? And I, I, I want to talk to you about this. It's, it's towards the start of the book here when, in the section on emotionally immature parents, and you almost go through different archetypes of certain parents. And I, I never really come across that before. Can you talk to some of the common ones? Like for example, the status-orientated parent.

Dr. Nicole LePera 24:46 [laughs] Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:46 If that was our parent, what does that mean for us?

Dr. Nicole LePera 24:50 Right. So much like we've both been, I think, describing in our childhood, a status-oriented parent is a parent who is kind of more driven by performance, right? Presenting ourself in a particular way, sometimes even looking in a particular way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:04 Can I just pause you then, Nicole-

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:05 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:05 ... a minute? Because I think it's a key point here, I just wanna make sure we're keeping in mind, which is it could also have been our interpretation. Do you know what I mean?

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:13 That, it's certainly something I've found in my life, is that, as I said before about my parents, is that-I honestly feel my parents were fantastic, but I took on the belief-

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:24 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:24 ... that I was only loved when I achieved certain things. Do you see what I mean?

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:29 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:29 There's a subtle difference, right?

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:31 Right. And I think some of this is, again, going to the parents' ability, too, and how they, they-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:36 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:36 ... communicate, right, this unconditional love. And again, I think this goes back to imagining the circumstances. My parents as well, who came from an immigrant household, right, they did not learn how to, even though inside they felt that unconditional love-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:51 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:51 ... driven, again, by societal factors, by the reality that there are certain aspects of achievement that afford most humans around the world some level of security-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:59 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 25:59 ... financial, even kind of emotional security, relational security. That's real. So I think a lot of us are dealing with what you're beautifully describing, which is a mis- mismatch-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:09 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 26:10 ... between an inner desire and the outward-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:12 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 26:13 ... presentation, which is, again, driven by the environment, by culture, by beliefs, by their own past and ancestors, and ways that they've learned to communicate certain-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:21 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 26:21 ... emotional feelings. But again, if that was the circumstances in childhood-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:26 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 26:26 ... which was very much, I know for a fact, much like you, I was wired both directly and indirectly. I would bring home the 96, I'd get asked why it wasn't 100.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:34 Oh, snap, snap, snap.

Dr. Nicole LePera 26:35 Or, right, when I was not kind of doing well, as I did very clearly at softball, when I was, say, in dance class and I wasn't in the front of the line, right, my mom was a little less interested. She came to still my recitals, but it didn't light her up as much. So it's, sometimes it's, it's direct, and other times it's this indirect messaging. But again, it came from a very well-intentioned place. They thought that academic achievement would result in successful college, successful, right, financials, future.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:02 And it did.

Dr. Nicole LePera 27:03 And it did. I mean, and there's also a little bit of status-oriented in terms of appearance. My mom, coming from a very traditional older generation where, right, women looked a particular traditional way which secured them the marriage and the financial security, again, at a time where not many women had that on their own, right? There was all these versions of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:22 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 27:23 ... messaging that weren't inherent to who I was, but how I was presenting myself. All very well-intentioned. I do know both of my parents, my mother, who is also no longer here, she will have been dead five years in May, very well-intentioned, right? The, this, I think the internal unconditional love was there, but because they were functioning-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:43 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 27:43 ... in a society, right, they were driven to teach me, again, through direct and indirect messaging, that my worth only depended on how I was presenting myself in the world, and more so how the world was reacting to my presentation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:57 Yeah. It is beautifully put, and I guess if I think about my own parenting, I've always tried to make sure my children know that I love them irrespective of any achievement.

Dr. Nicole LePera 28:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:11 Right? It doesn't mean I don't want them to achieve-

Dr. Nicole LePera 28:13 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:13 ... or do well, but I want them to know that my love for them is not dependent on that. And, you know, somebody will get this. I was flicking through your Instagram, uh, this morning, and one of your recent posts was that all parents traumatize their children.

Dr. Nicole LePera 28:27 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:27 Okay? So we, we'll come back to that in, in, in a short moment. Have you tried to meditate before? Perhaps you've heard about some of the benefits, like reducing stress and increased focus, and you've given it a go and thought it's not the practice for you. Well, I believe that may well be because you have not tried the right approach. The Way is the only meditation app with a single long-term pathway. You're not forced to make loads of choices each day. Instead, you're guided on an enjoyable and progressive journey that deepens your practice step by step. Since I partnered with The Way, I have had so much positive feedback. One listener said, "Dr. Chatterjee, I came to The Way through your podcast. I have tried other meditation apps in the past with limited success, and like the idea of following a single guided path. I'm nearly two months in now and loving it. Henry's gentle and concise approach is very calming, and The Way is now a part of my morning routine." You see, that's the sentiment that so many people report when they start meditating with The Way. For listeners of my podcast, The Way is offering 30 free days to establish your own meditation practice. All you have to do is click on the QR code on screen or go to thewayapp.com/livemore to get started. Let's get back to these different parent archetypes, right? So you had started to describe the status-orientated parent before I sort of-

Dr. Nicole LePera 30:03 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:04 ... you know, briefly interrupted you. Let's go back to that. So the, what does the status-orientated parent look like? Um, and what does that do to us as children?

Dr. Nicole LePera 30:12 So again, it's this focus on appearance, performance, right? Kind of a way of being in the world, even a hierarchical, right, idea of what is better or less than. A lot of times we might even hear that, direct, indirect messages. We're compared to our siblings, our peers. Again, where we are absorbing these messages-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:33 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 30:33 ... and then we are modifying the parts in which we show other people, and then the parts in which we feel shameful, messy, imperfect, and we don't show, and that, again, drives our reactions in certain times, where we become so hypersensitive to even any perceived criticism. Even if it's not criticism, it's helpful feedback, someone else's perspective-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:52 [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 30:52 ... we take it personally, right? We kind of ad- we embody these identities around it. But I wanna go back to what you're saying, because you're sharing such wisdom when you're describing even your parenting. Right. A lot of these habits we've developed. So for me, right, and I think you, this drive to succeed, if I'm honest, and I-Oftentimes people will say, "What's the goal of all this? How do I know when I'm healed? Is it never doing that again?" I can make a case that, at least for me personally, I don't wanna lose my drive. I don't wanna lose my passion. It helps me show up and make the impact that I want to make on the world. What I want to, though, do is, just like you're beautifully teaching your kids, I wanna feel worthy regardless of if I'm performing in a moment. I wanna give myself the ability to rest, to say no if my, if that's what I need, not to just overstep my boundaries-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:40 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 31:40 ... and have to show up in a particular way because that's what's desired or required of me. So I think, and what I'm describing here, is kind of where I build to in the book, which is this process of integration, where our part, our past becomes a part of us. It doesn't drive us, though, anymore. So I'm expanding and I'm saying, right, discipline, passion, drive, motivation, all of that is important to me, but I don't have to be driven, so to speak, by those aspects of me to avoid shame and unworthiness as I had been for so long.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:11 Yeah, it's not the behavior, it's what's behind-

Dr. Nicole LePera 32:14 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:14 ... the behavior.

Dr. Nicole LePera 32:15 So when you allow yourself choice, flexibility-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:17 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 32:17 ... right, the, the ability to say no, to rest in a moment, not to, again, have to feel like I have to hide the messy parts of myself, to give myself the opportunity to make a mistake every now and again, that's how we learn, that's how we grow, to take in feedback from another person, even if it feels immediately like criticism. So I wanna be able to do all of those things and choose which part or which action, right, I'm gonna live from or respond to in the moment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:43 Yeah. I- it's kind of interesting you mention criticism there, and that's come up a few times in this conversation. I used to be hypersensitive to criticism, not that long ago-

Dr. Nicole LePera 32:53 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:53 ... I would say.

Dr. Nicole LePera 32:54 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:54 You know, relatively in the, in the context of my life. It, it doesn't tend to bother me anymore, and my belief is that criticism only really bothers us to the extent that we believe it to be true. And I guess one of the things that I found really helpful was asking myself the question, why does this comment bother you? Why? Oh, you know, oh, this reminds me of what happened when I was at school. Oh, this reminds me of something Mum said to me. Uh, whatever it might be. And again, going to that two-step path to healing, number one, becoming aware, and then moving to the second stage, which is make a different choice. Actually, you know what? I don't need to let that bother me. That's useful feedback for me that I can use to change my behavior going forward. Certainly, that's been my experience with getting better at dealing with criticism. Is this something you've ever struggled with? And if so, Nicole, how did you get through it?

Dr. Nicole LePera 33:58 Oh, I mean, I've had... My fear of criticism and feedback almost would've prevented me from posting online in the very early stages of this. I had a very real concern of what will people think, right? As I'm coming up with this new, not new, but, like, I'm integrating this holistic model and I wanna start to speak of it, right? I was very clear and concerned about being misinterpreted, right? Being told by either colleagues in my field that I very much esteem that I was now talking about the body and nervous system and nutrition, and who am I to talk about that? What role does that play? And so that almost prevented me from, as Lally, my partner, was kind of urging me to go online-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:36 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 34:36 ... from even wanting to. Um, in the beginning stages, there was a lot of fear about what I would post. I would have always kind of a, kind of like a running therapist in my head where I would run something in my head before I said it out loud-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:51 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 34:51 ... and always worry, how will per- someone, this person, that type of person, take what I'm saying? And I wasn't really able to be in a full flow state when I was speaking or creating or delivering content in any way, because that fear was so real, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 35:06 And it's the fear of, right, not only being seen as less than perfect, not wording something, not talking to something that I'm allowed to be speaking to, but it's a fear that I think sha- a lot of us humans share-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:17 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 35:17 ... which is being misinterpreted, right? Not being fully seen for my intention or for the desire that I'm creating or sending in the message itself, and that's a very core fear, right? Again, it's very socially driven. We, to some extent, shame and all of that, those restrictive behaviors where we don't wanna speak-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:36 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 35:36 ... or say something that we really mean to be true, is driven by our need to be socially accepted. Again, originating in childhood, very much a social emotion. It keeps us operating within the bounds of society, and when we feel like we're being ostracized or being told that we are not a part of this group, it, it very much is a, not only emotional pain, a physiological pain.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:00 H- how did you manage that, though, Nicole? Because as I've already mentioned, if you look at your platforms today online, they are huge, okay? You cannot post on Instagram without, I'd say, a minimum of 30,000 people, you know, engaging with your posts, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, okay? It is inconceivable that every comment is going to be positive. You've already shared that you had a fear before you started posting. Now the reality is that you do post-

Dr. Nicole LePera 36:35 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:35 ... and have done for many years. How have you dealt with criticism and pushback?

Dr. Nicole LePera 36:40 So to get me to a place now where I learn how to navigate feedback, I had to live the experience. I had to go and get all different types of criticism from all different types of people, and again, this is very nervous system, body driven, teach myself and in the embodiment that-I will be okay, right? Teach myself through boundaries, right? Through knowing where I'm at in terms of my capacity. When I'm not eating well, not sleeping well, over-stressed for whatever reason-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:07 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 37:07 ... is not the time to go into the places that I know, right, are gonna have most likely the negative comments. But of course, sometimes I'm always surprised that when a piece of co- content goes up, and sometimes I know when it's gonna be a little bit more, you know, controversial, and I'm, like, prepared for what could come back in feedback. And other times, I'm completely blindsided because even in my community that has very aligned individuals more or less, we are all subjective, right? We're all gonna view and hear and consume a piece of content through everything that we've been talking about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:38 Exactly.

Dr. Nicole LePera 37:38 Our past experiences, our beliefs. So you can never fully anticipate what's going to get criticism or not, and I am. So while I've learned how to live the experience, create boundaries, right, kind of take my own accountability when I'm putting myself in an environment or, you know, in something stressful when I don't have the limits to do it, th- by no means means to turn off, right, access to feedback because that's how I've been able to learn from my community.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 38:06 Hear what's important, hear ways to word certain topics in a way that to my, you know, best intention will land and not just kind of create resistance in the audience, though I also understand that that's an unrealistic expectation to have the idea that everything or that my work is going to be everything for everyone. So between the practical applications of boundaries, really understanding myself and my limits, but also-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:32 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 38:32 ... making sure that I'm getting comfortable, right, within trusted communities, my team, my personal life, that I still allow myself to practice hearing the harder versions of feedback and to teach my body that while it might feel, you know, kind of end of life in that moment and my body goes into a nervous system reaction, that I can teach myself that I'm okay. I can get through it. I can regulate my body. These connections we'll still maintain. The community will still be there, and it's just been quite literally living that experience over the past however many years it's been. Um, though again, there are still moments where, you know, I have to hold myself accountable and know when I'm at my limit and, you know, know where to go for feedback that can feel more helpful than just kind of really tearing down.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:16 Yeah. It reminds me of something you say towards the end of the book, that healing is nonlinear. There is no finish line to cross, which I think is absolutely beautiful and a, and a very important message for-

Dr. Nicole LePera 39:27 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:27 ... us all to sit with. But you can apply that to what I've just said about criticism or what you've just said, which is we can do the work. We can get to a really good place, and then sometimes we might fall into-

Dr. Nicole LePera 39:42 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:42 ... old patterns. And I think as you just mentioned yourself, and certainly for me, if I find myself starting to take criticism personally, it's a reminder now to go, "Ah, what's going on in your life?"

Dr. Nicole LePera 39:57 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:57 Oh, maybe you're working too hard.

Dr. Nicole LePera 39:59 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:59 Maybe you've had a few sleep-deprived nights. Maybe you need to rest a little bit more. It's a signal that basically I'm taking on too much. So in many ways, it's a beautiful signal.

Dr. Nicole LePera 40:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:10 It's like, oh, criticism's always gonna be out there. I think for all of us as human beings, especially if you're doing something where you are putting your voice out there, it is naive to think you're not going to get-

Dr. Nicole LePera 40:20 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:20 ... criticism of some sort. The question is, how much are you gonna let that criticism bother you and affect you, and can you use that criticism as a teaching moment? You do write in the book a little bit about triggers, and I'd love you to explain, you know, what is a trigger the way you see things.

Dr. Nicole LePera 40:39 This is beyond just criticism, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:41 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 40:41 Moments of dysregulation are, I will always... Our triggers can be our teachers, right? Those indicate that something deeper is happening. And on a physiological level, what is happening in our body when we are triggered and having that disproportionate response, whether it's the outward one where we're screaming and yelling and doing things we don't mean or the inward one where we're disconnecting, kind of shutting down, going numb, it's something... We are being flooded, right, with emotion, with nervous system dysregulation. We're seeing threat or old experience in the present moment. So I always like to explain that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:16 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 41:16 ... because I think those are the most shameful moments where once our body calms down, we have a new perspective. We're like, "Why did I say or do that thing that I didn't necessarily mean or didn't align?" And the why again is all driven by our body, by the chemicals, the hormones, the dysregulation in our nervous system that is taking over and shifting us from the, the grounded, logical, the responsive, how we want to show up, and instead dropping us right back into all these instincts that we have been talking about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:45 Yeah. Sometimes if you think about how much our childhoods affect us in our adult bodies, it's amazing that anyone gets on, right? [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 41:56 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:56 You... Really, because, because we, we don't see the world-

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:00 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:00 ... as it is. We see the world as we are.

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:02 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:02 Right? And, and often this is really brought home to us when we get involved in an intimate relationship, right? Because then you often have two unhealed inner childs-

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:12 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:13 ... who then come-

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:13 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:13 ... together 'cause they're in love, and they, they might choose to get married. And then suddenly you realize- [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:19 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:20 ... oh, many aspects of our personalities are just children, right?

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:25 Oh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:25 We haven't tended to that inner child that perhaps needed certain things that he or she didn't get-

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:34 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:35 ... when they were younger, right? So it does make us think about how much of the division in the world-

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:41 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:42 ... is driven by dysregulated nervous systems.

Dr. Nicole LePera 42:46 As far as I'm concerned, I think all of it, right? Because when we are in survival mode, right, which w- when, when our nervous system is activated, however kind of that looks to you, the fight, the flee, the shut down response, right, through all those behavioral adaptations-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:01 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 43:01 ... what is quite literally happening in our body is our focus is narrowing to ourself.Right? This idea of a lot of talk is happening now, let me put it that way, around this concept of narcissism, right, this self-focus. I believe that it exists quite literally on a spectrum. And the more activated and dysregulated we are, the more we are fighting for our survival in terms of our nervous system, the more unable we are to see or care about another's perspective, wants, needs, emotions, in any given situation, even if it's our closest loved one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:30 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 43:30 Even if it's our child, the person that we want to, right, be there to support in a different way. Everything is narrowing. Our, literally, eyes turn inward.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:39 Exactly.

Dr. Nicole LePera 43:39 We get very black and white in the way that we think. "I'm right, you're wrong." We can b- be very combative, and that's when we can act, in my opinion at least, very hurtful to other people. I think that driving division, conflict, war, right, everything in between where we feel like we have to fight someone else because that is what our nervous system is doing. It's not seeing you as a separate, unique individual that's worthy and deservant of love. Even if I disagree, I lose the ability in my body to care, to expand to a different perspective, to take in feedback, to do everything that I think we are inherently able to do as compassionate social creatures. We become driven to survive in the moment at all cost.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:24 Yeah. In the book, you make the case that constant busyness, which is something that many people struggle with, is a sign of a dysregulated nervous system, and can be thought of as a survival strategy. Can you explain?

Dr. Nicole LePera 44:40 So keeping ourself busy, right, on like, on a surface sense of things, it keeps our attention somewhere. It keeps us moving in action. If we look beneath the surface at what that behavior is doing, it's keeping our attention outward, not inward on us. Right? It's keeping us moving.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:57 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 44:57 For a lot of us who never had safety and security, the ability to just, as I kind of intro the book, just be in childhood, rest, feel at ease, right, stillness, solitude. I mean, there was a time where I lived in the busiest city in the world, New York City. I thought I would live and die in a city where there was constant noise, constant stimulation. While I loved snowboarding, I would go to the mountains and snowboard, I had to have a television on at night because the sound of solitude, of silence, of not having all of my days planned, whether it was with things I wanted to achieve or even plans with friends. The minute my body was needing or had to or had the opportunity to stop, what was I met with? The agitation, the overwhelming sensations that busyness was protecting me from. So I think busyness becomes an outward manifestation of a kind of dysregulated nervous system, the energy inside-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:50 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 45:50 ... that's being translated to attentional focus outside and to doing. Again, because we didn't learn, it didn't feel safe-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:58 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 45:59 ... to stop, not to do. We didn't feel enough, maybe, when we were... Some of us even got very direct messaging on to avoid, right, sitting. It's lazy. It's this, it's that. And so we don't have that, whether it was kind of very direct in that manner or indirect, because in stillness meant waiting for the next explosion. Or maybe in your childhood, there was never a moment of quiet. There was always yelling, unpredictability. So now your nervous system registers peace, ease as so unfamiliar, right, that it's to be avoided because it's going back to that moment where it wasn't safe-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:34 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 46:34 ... or it wasn't possible, even.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:35 Yeah. You, you write about this right at the start of your book, don't you? How in your childhoods you were always-

Dr. Nicole LePera 46:42 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:42 ... kept busy. You were always scheduled, right? So the question then for me is was there already an existing dysregulated nervous system that was managed through scheduling you, or was it that the overscheduling of your childhood has resulted in you not knowing how to be still?

Dr. Nicole LePera 47:08 I think that I, like many of us, I was born with a, a dysregulated nervous system. Um, again, what we're talking about when I bring up even ancestors is epigenetics, right? The passing on, not necessarily of our DNA changing, but how our DNA is functioning. And so I think that the large majority of us who came from, right, insecure ancestral experiences, whether they were displaced by war, immigrated to a new country, there was abuse in the relational family and the kind of societal experience. We now know that right development begins in utero.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:40 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 47:40 That's when our brain begins to form. And so all of us who come from those families or even just those immediate environments where we have to think about what was happening in my mother's life as she was carrying me, how much stress was in the home-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:52 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 47:52 ... how much cortisol, right, was closi- crossing the placenta. And so I have an idea of all of the stress that was in my home that came from my ancestors that was even around my pregnancy. So when my mom died, I was at my mother's funeral, and one of my aunts came up to me and shared with me, laughing, a story of... So I was unplanned. I was, my mom was 42 when I was born, and my dad was 45, and I had an older sister who was 15 and a brother who was 18. There was no plans to have a pregnancy that late in life. And so when my mom started to have symptoms of morning sickness, she disclosed to this aunt that she was very close with, a concern that she had stomach cancer. Very, you know, on, on brand for my family because we had a lot of health-related issues.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:32 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 48:32 My older sister included, had, or especially I should say my mom with chronic illness, but my sister with a lot of acute illnesses in her early childhood. So she would have never, right, thought, "Oh, this is pregnancy symptoms." She immediately went to stomach cancer. Long story short, she went to the doctor and was diagnosed with pregnancy with me. Right? But I think about those early m- weeks or however long it took my mom to get the diagnosis of pregnancy and how much cortisol and fear and worry of that I was stomach cancer was impacting my development. So again, whether it was acute in my family, but for me it goes back ancestors of, you know, a family who just had a lot of insecurity in a lot of ways. Studies will now show that there are children, many of us, who are born with hypersensitive amygdalas, limbic systems, nervous systems, where we are experiencing seeing and experiencing stress where perhaps there isn't, and having an overreaction to it. So as I intro the book, right, that from the moment I was born, I was, quote unquote, "bouncing off the walls," right? All of this overwhelming energy without a calm environment. I lived in a city, in addition to having stuff inside the home.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:42 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 49:42 There was noises outside the home. There were sirens. There was crime that was a very real risk. So much so that when I went to high school, some of my friends from the suburbs weren't allowed to come to my home. So all of this stress in my environment was manifesting in, as in childhood, were just emotion, were just movement. So I started to bounce off the walls, and my family, I think from a very well-intentioned manner, were trying to help me direct my energy, were trying to help themselves deal with me-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:08 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 50:08 ... and all of my energy. And again, were setting me up to succeed. If they could find the thing I was good at and invest in the thing I was good at, academics ultimately and athletics, right, then I would-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:18 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 50:18 ... have the success in life. But this is the case for a lot of us, where development... ancestral epigenetic changes. And this is why for a long time when I would learn in the field that, well, wait a minute, brains look different, so is it nature or nurture? And now epigenetics really marries the two. It says, yes, brains are going to be functioning and wired differently for some of us from in utero development, again, because these early adaptations to stress will change the way our brain functions because at one time when there was stress everywhere, it benefits us to be wired and prepare for stress-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:52 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 50:52 ... around every corner. And it of course can be changed 'cause we can rewire ourself at any age. But to simply answer your question, I think I was born with that hypersensitive nervous system. Some of us call us highly sensitive kids. I think that's, again, dis- dysregulation that both of us are describing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:07 Along that line of thought then, it's not only that it's our childhoods that are affecting our adult behaviors, it's our ancestors' lives.

Dr. Nicole LePera 51:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:21 What were the adaptations they needed to survive in the environments in which they used to live? I guess food would be an obvious-

Dr. Nicole LePera 51:30 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:30 ... thing, right? I think you write about this-

Dr. Nicole LePera 51:31 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:31 ... in the book, right?

Dr. Nicole LePera 51:32 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:32 So explain how food helps us see this through a different lens.

Dr. Nicole LePera 51:35 Right. So even just make this a bit more concrete even, so women are born with all of the eggs that they will ever have. So, uh, the egg that developed, like all of us as humans, or went into our development, was actually created in the womb of our grandmother, right, as our mother was in her own gestation period. So to make this concrete for people, like quite literally [laughs] a part of us was living back then. So that is, again, impacting our environment. And from a very evolutionary standpoint-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:03 That's mad, isn't it?

Dr. Nicole LePera 52:04 That's crazy to con-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:05 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 52:05 And, and also too, to make it clear, sperm also very much plays a role where men and the health and their lifestyle choices and the sperm that would eventually go to create you, right, does begin the impact, I should say, begins before conception.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:18 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 52:18 So to be clear, both genders, right, everyone is playing a role, but again, women and, and the fact that their eggs are kind of, that's it, and that begins so early. And again, from a very evolutionary standpoint, makes total sense.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:29 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 52:30 Right? If we were born into the same village where more or less circumstances did stay the same, why wouldn't that be beneficial? And so what I cite is a very fascinating study. It's called the Dutch Hunger Study.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:40 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 52:40 And so they investigated during the Netherlands several years ago, decades ago, there was a very severe famine, and so much so that there was like no, no food was available, and if it was, it had very limited nutritional content. And what they found was that women who were pregnant during this time when, of course, they, you know, kind of their ability, they... I'm gonna really simplify this. Their body changed in terms of the way they utilized energy, held onto fat, not being sure of when the next-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:07 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 53:07 ... meal would come, made complete sense that their body did that. What they then saw in the children that were born to these women was the same sort of changes, where their body, the way it used energy, the way it held onto fat, and then over time, if there was no intervention, they would begin to evidence some physical diseases. Um, high blood pressure, cancer, a million different other things that would kind of be then the impact of very beautiful changes. 'Cause if we, if food is unpredictable, scarce, absent at all-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:38 [sighs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 53:38 ... these changes helped that person survive. And then they're carried on for generations, assuming that that child is born, the offspring is born to the same environment. Of course, now things have changed. We have airplanes. We fly to different geographical locations.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:51 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 53:51 Right? Society changes very quickly, where scarcity in one generation can change to another, yet we are still operating from a body that is wired for that early environment. Just to kind of bring the hope into that study, they then found that the offspring who, right, had access to nutrition, who had healthier lifestyles, were able to change kind of the way their bodies, the epigenetics of the way their own system functioned, that if they were to then have children, they would almost reverse in a very simple way the changes that had happened to prepare, prepare them to survive. But again, all of this is grounded in very beautiful adaptations, what was needed. Our lives have changed, and this is why a lot of us are carrying, wired into us even now, right? Some of us hold onto fat differently. We process things differently-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:36 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 54:36 ... or we have these unspoken traumas where we're not living in a world of scarcity, but yet we're still wired to see lack instead of the abundance that perhaps is available, whether it's physical stuff, money, or emotional scarcity. Again, because this began generations before us when that was the lived experience.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:54 Yeah. That's the opportunity, isn't it, for all of us? Like, if we are able to go in and heal, it doesn't just impact us. It also has a potential to impact future generations.

Dr. Nicole LePera 55:09 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:09 Right? It works both ways, and it's... You know, I think one of the things that many of us feel these days is with all the awareness that exists out there about trauma and inner child work and the sort of things you're sharing and, and other people around the world are sharing, it's, it, it really does give me hope that there's an opportunity that this generation can start to heal. And if this generation can start to heal, it heals the wounds of the past, and it perhaps reduces many of the wounds for the future.

Dr. Nicole LePera 55:44 I couldn't agree more. I think even for those of us like myself who might not choose to have offspring, I mean, the work that we're doing, and this could sound lofty to some people, is we're, we're, we're beginning a new way of being-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:56 Oh, yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 55:56 ... in our current society. Again, like I said, I truly believe that division, right, kind of the hurt people hurt people sta- saying, I believe that-To be true. So as we are-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:05 100%

Dr. Nicole LePera 56:06 ... creating safety, security, healthier relationships, even if we don't choose to pass on the epigenetics, which is completely possible. I mean, this word cycle breakers is very real.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:15 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 56:15 We are breaking not only behavioral cycles, but physiological cycles of dysregulation, and gifting that then to our offspring, our future generations. But again, even if we choose not to have them, we're changing the world around us.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:27 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 56:27 And I think we're living at a time where a lot of us are feeling very helpless. We're now met and have a- accessibility to all of the suffering from around the world, and I think humans instinctually, right, wanna help, wanna know how to help people, and relieve the suffering. And I believe at least this is how we do that. We change the way we're functioning. We create safety and security in our interpersonal relationships, in our communities, wherever they might be.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:51 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 56:51 And then we're ch- we're literally changing the signals that our nervous system-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:55 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 56:55 ... is sending to the world around us. And I always think about my community self-healer circle, and we have this really cool feature, and it's much like a Google Map, but it's a private one. And members can drop the pin in, you know, geographical locations, so they can connect with each other, and sometimes-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:08 Right

Dr. Nicole LePera 57:08 ... I go in there and my- I have chills. I just see from around the world all these little pins, and I think about, wow, all of these signals are beginning to shift from dysregulation, from fear, from division, to safety, security, acceptance, compassion. And I have hope, um, even at a hopeless time. So I really like to speak to empowerment, not only to change ourselves, again, to change our future generations, but to change now what is happening in the world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:34 Yeah. I love that. You know, I very much see change as something that we do one person at a time, in the sense that you start changing who you are and how you show up, well, everyone who you interact with-

Dr. Nicole LePera 57:48 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:49 ... starts to experience that.

Dr. Nicole LePera 57:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:52 And again, it's not to have guilt or shame around it, it's just to remind ourselves that actually the way we show up matters. And if you don't like what's going on in the world, you wanna change the world, call me naive-

Dr. Nicole LePera 58:05 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:05 ... but I feel the best way you change the world is to start by changing yourself.

Dr. Nicole LePera 58:09 And I couldn't agree more, and I think it's very common, right? And a lot of us as we're struggling, say, in relationships, a theme throughout this conversation, it's so natural, right, to see the, the problem someone else is causing. "Well, if you just showed up differently or did a little of this, more of that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:24 [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 58:24 ... right, then I'll just feel differently."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:26 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 58:26 And of course that's natural to have that instinct of, "You change, not me." And again, I think one of the most difficult realities of life, aside from dealing with the uncertainty of all of it, is the lack of control. We can't. We can desperately want and wish someone would be different and to have a different experience with them in relationship, whatever the relationship might be, but it's not gonna be demanding, giving them an ultimatum. Oftentimes I see the word boundaries is misused, in my opinion-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:51 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 58:51 ... to be more of a delivery of a boundary or an ultimatum or a consequence. Instead of saying exactly what we're agreeing, "No, no. You keep being you. I'm gonna change the way I'm showing up."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 59:01 "I'm gonna create a boundary or a limit perhaps where there once wasn't one. I'm going to give myself the opportunity to embody safety, security, openness."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 59:10 And that is then more indirectly the way we create change. But I wanna just say something really quickly about passion and purpose too.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:17 Please.

Dr. Nicole LePera 59:17 Because I do think, especially when people see, like, you and me, they set this expectation that I can't be impactful. Like, we have this idea, I think at least, that purpose needs to be huge, at scale.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:27 Oh my God.

Dr. Nicole LePera 59:27 And that if we don't have, like, something that's more public like you or I have created for ourself, 'cause this has been our journey, that we are not making the, the impact that you were beautifully describing. So I just wanted to get a little disclaimer in there or a re-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:41 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 59:41 ... kind of imagining of what purpose can be.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:43 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 59:43 Because purpose looks like whatever is kind of driving us from inside, our unique gifts, our talents. For a lot of us it is kind of existing only in our s- you know, our smaller relational circles, but it doesn't mean that's only the impact. Because again, that goes so much beyond ourselves.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:59 Yeah. I, I sometimes wonder about all the people out there, the many millions who are making huge impact that we've never heard of.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:08 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:08 Because these are the people who've got their priorities right, who don't feel the need to constantly be busy-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:14 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:14 ... or overachieve.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:15 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:16 They do prioritize time with their friends and their family. They're not posting online-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:22 Yeah, mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:23 ... because they're enjoying their lives, right?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:25 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:25 And they're impacting their communities. And there'll be millions of people around the world who actually do do that.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:31 Yet we don't see them, therefore we don't celebrate them, and we don't-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:35 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:35 ... think it's real. But of course, it is real, and I, I would say with us, years, I've met people like that. I go, "Wow, you just got it. You, maybe, maybe you were lucky. Maybe you-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:00:44 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:44 ... had the right parenting," whatever it might be, "But you're living it. You're living the life that many people want, but no one knows about it." And I think that's a really beautiful thing. Nicole, could we just go back to the parental archetypes for a moment, right? We've mentioned two so far, the over-permissive parent and the status-orientated parent. The critical parent, I imagine, is one that many people might resonate with. As many of you know, when glucose is relatively stable, you feel better day to day with steadier energy, mood, and focus. But over time, unstable and elevated glucose can also impair your metabolic health and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Now, globally, more than 760 million adults are thought to have pre-diabetes, many without symptoms or a diagnosis. And the problem is that our healthcare system often waits until you get sick before taking action, when we should take a proactive approach to prevent problems before they start. Now, many of us don't have access to our own glucose data, and therefore don't have clear feedback on how our everyday choices impact our glucose. That's where Lingo by Abbott comes in.Lingo is a biosensor and app that helps you see how food, movement, and lifestyle choices affect your glucose in real time, so you can notice patterns and build healthier habits in the moment. With Lingo, you can get to know your glucose to build healthy habits for today and tomorrow. For listeners in the US and the UK, Lingo by Abbott is offering an exclusive 10% off a four-week plan. Just scan the QR code on screen or visit hellolingo.com/livemore for more information. Terms and conditions do apply.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:02:44 So the critical parent is a parent who, as the word says, right, criticizes, shames, right? Kind of does not allow acceptance in, in self-expression, whatever the parameters may be. Some of us are even cr- criticized for sharing emotions, right? Again, emotions being a-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:00 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:03:00 ... a newer landscape for people. Some of the criticism comes around, "You're too dramatic," right? "You're not enough. You're not doing the way I need you to, or I, I desire you to show up and do." And again, this voice that often becomes the critical voice in our mind is informed, colored, influenced by those early voices, those voices of criticism, of shame. And again, often it comes from perhaps a very well-intentioned reason with, right? There's a reason certain aspects are being criticized, to keep belonging, for status in the community, whatever it might be. But whenever we are told directly or indirectly that we or part of us is, is shameful, is not enough-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:41 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:03:41 ... right, we are going to then adapt. We're gonna show less of that side. We're gonna have a very loud internicle- internal critical voice. Some of us might stop showing up at all, right? Because it's too unsafe. We've learned to be seen in any way. If every way that we were-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:58 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:03:58 ... in childhood was met with criticism, that then we shrink ourself. We don't share us, our embodiment, our perspective, our ideas because, again, we're always anticipating that criticism.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:10 Yeah. I mean, you write beautifully in this section here. "Chronic criticism sends the message that the child is inherently flawed."

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:04:16 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:17 "Over time, children internalize this harsh lens and grow with self-doubt and a powerful inner critic that mirrors their parents' voice. As adults-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:04:27 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:27 ... they may fear failure-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:04:29 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:29 ... overachieve in pursuits of approval, or avoid taking risks altogether." There's a lot of crossover, isn't there, between the different parental styles. Some of the, some of the traits I feel are quite similar. Would, would you agree with that?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:04:43 There's a lot of, and a lot of times when I... I'm always of two minds when I give archetypes in this way because I don't ever want people to feel like, "Oh, I have to find the one-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:51 Yeah, exactly

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:04:52 ... parent that I had." I think, again, we're very complex creatures. There's, there's similarities and differences in each.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:59 I think it's really helpful, actually, because c- you know, having, I think you've got eight or nine in the book, right? Um, someone may not identify with the term the status-orientated parent, but they might identify with the term the critical parent, even though there may be a bit of crossover. So I think it's quite nice-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:05:19 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:19 ... the way you've done that. On the subject of criticism, then, I imagine there's a lot of parents thinking, "Okay, but of course, one of my jobs as a parent is to help my child be the best they can be. So if they haven't done something as well as they could have done that thing, what am I meant to do as a parent? I don't want to come across as critical, but I want to help my child get better." Are you able to give any guidance to that parent as to how they could have that conversation?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:05:53 Yeah, I think this intention comes up a lot in the parenting styles, whether it's kind of using criticism to corral or kind of modify behavior, using strict boundaries and limits perhaps in, in another kind of parent to kind of contain behavior, all with this idea of, right, "I want you to be the best. I want you to be accepted. I want society and your relationships and your perhaps financial security to be intact for you in the future." And so this idea of how do, the, really the way we shape behavior, and to just focus it on this kind of idea of criticism, effort, right? What are we criticizing? Are we criticizing the outcome?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:06:32 Or are we able to see and separate outcome for effort, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:06:37 So we might want someone and, and want a child to, you know, operate in a certain way. Of course, when we're investigating why it is and how it relates-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:45 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:06:45 ... to how we feel about ourselves or what society thinks of us and unpacking all of that. But again, it's effort, right? Because outcome and effort are two separate things, in my opinion, right? We could have a child who tries very hard and just for whatever reason is not able to succeed in whatever way or show up, translate that effort into the outcome that we want.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:07:06 So if we're able to say, right, "I want what's best for you. At the same time, though, I want you to honor yourself, be true to who you are, maybe just put in a good effort, even if the outcome doesn't translate to what-"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:17 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:07:17 'Cause usually we're criticizing outcome-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:20 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:07:20 ... instead of the effort that underlies it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:23 Yeah. One, one thing I found helpful over the years is to ask my kids what they think. So it would be, you know, "Do you think you did your best there?" You know? 'Cause they often know.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:07:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:38 Right? You ask them, and then s- and then it doesn't become me telling them. It's like, "Yeah, you know what? Actually, I think if I'd done this slightly differently, it would've been better." If I'm completely honest, uh, Nicole, I feel I've done a lot of inner child work over the years to help me understand my present and then change my present through deliberate, aware choices. I would say one of the biggest drives for me to do so-Was to be a better parent. I didn't want my children to take on the patterns or some of the patterns that I took on. And so I've certainly done everything I have been aware of at least, and within my capabilities, to try and prevent that from happening. Now, what will the end result be? That I can't tell you, but that's certainly been-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:08:29 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:29 ... one of my big drives.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:08:31 I just wanna quickly talk about effort and then respond to this, because separating effort as you're doing, right, did you try your best regardless of the outcome? Because something I had learned, and this goes back to this kind of fear, fear of failing, um, if and when... So in childhood it was very clear to me very early that there were some things that, quote unquote, "came naturally" to me, right? Academics, some versions of athletics, I was just simply good at. And so I confused for a long time, right, that as needing to be my guidepost. Meaning, I would avoid for a very long time things that were hard, even if I wanted to do them. If I had to tr- try hard at something, I immediately would tell myself that, "Oh, this wasn't for me. It's not what I'm good at. I should avoid this thing." And so until I learned that, right, effort is, is something that is important to be able to, right, c- contain, maintain, give effort to something without, aside from the outcome-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:28 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:09:28 Right? I probably would have allowed myself to pursue things from a very young age that might have been of more interest to me-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:35 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:09:35 ... um, in adulthood, but I avoided them because they didn't come easily. I wasn't used to being seen and acknowledged, and I did not have effort validated because... And I was told, a running thing in my family was, "Oh, things just come easy to you, Nicole." So I developed this false belief that if something didn't come easy, that effort was something on some extent to be avoided. And so I wanna get to the parenting, though, 'cause I think we've been kind of weaving around this-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:59 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:09:59 ... for a long time, which is, like, a lot of parents do listen, and I really wanna celebrate parents who are listening, and I don't want ever parents to be heard, or any of my work to be heard or taken from a shaming manner. And I also want parents to hear that it is unrealistic, as you kind of brought up that post, that you be a perfect parent. And a lot of parents that are meeting this work are doing so when the children are, you know, already grown or at a certain level of development where the fear then is, well, have I already messed them up?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:27 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:10:27 Is there any kind of undoing this, or do I just have to leave, live with shame and maybe hear from my children later of how terrible I was? And so what I wanna make sure I'm putting into words during this conversation is that moments of disconnection, not meeting an expectation, not meeting a child's need, or a partner's need into adulthood, is part of the human experience.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:47 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:10:47 And so interpersonal re- uh, research has now shown that conflict, so to speak, disagreement, disconnection, unmet needs are a natural part of a relational experience of being human. And they're actually, not only is it unrealistic to imagine that that never be a part of our relational journey with our children included, but that actually, the presence of conflict or disagreement or unmet needs, often which conflict and disagreements stem from, isn't an indicator of the health or the security-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:16 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:11:16 ... of a relationship. What is, is the ability to have a different awareness, make space for a different perspective, take accountability, and repair on the other side of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:25 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:11:25 So I want parents to hear this in, in direct words, which is it's never too late. It is so valuable at any time in life to create space to hear maybe difficult feedback from your child. Maybe it's not exactly as how you remembered it to be, but perhaps your child is going to share an experience that might be upsetting and what is so important. Or these moments, unavoidable. You might have an overreaction, whether it's with your child or your partner. More important is what happens next.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:53 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:11:53 Can I calm down? Can I, can... I have to first calm my body down to be able to, right, expand to hear someone else's perspective, to hear the difficult feedback or the fact that there is a need that has gone unmet for however long it's been that you've been-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:06 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:12:06 ... in this relationship with this person. But can I be calm enough to allow that in? Can I take accountability? Can I perhaps say, "I'm sorry"? And again, that and when, many of us were not modeled that in childhood, so this is a skill we need to learn. Again, all grounded in the body, but those are the moments that are going to predict the future security of the relationship.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:28 As you were talking there, Nicole, I think I had, at least for me, a penny dropping moment, which is we know individually that it is hard experiences, difficult experiences in life where we grow the most, where we learn the most about ourselves, right? If, for example, on an individual level, our life was all plain sailing and nothing ever went wrong, we wouldn't develop or cultivate so many of those important skills that we do through grief, through relationship problems, through work issues, whatever it might be. They're all opportunities to grow and learn. In relationships, if there's never any conflict, if there's never any struggle, then of course, how is that relationship gonna be shaped? Maybe, as you're saying, we need a bit of conflict, a bit of struggle-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:13:22 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:22 ... now and again. Maybe that's what helps kind of refine the relationship and sort of tend the kind of loose parts at the sides and really forge down as to what is the core of this relationship. Maybe conflict's a good thing if it's managed in the right way.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:13:39 100%. I mean, if, if and when, and I get oftentimes, I used to do a lot of couples work when I was in individual practice, and it could be to some extent a bit concerning, right? If you are of or maybe existing in a relationship where we always agree. There's never any conflict, right? How un- you're different people. What do you mean? Every single moment of every day, right, you are in total agreement with perspective, with want, need, desire, emotion, even what you want to have for dinner, right? Again, I, I operated for a very long time in that conflict-free model. Not because I was in perfect alignment, but because I wasn't-Either connect it to what it was that I wanted or needed or how I felt or even what I wanted for dinner, or if I had an idea-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:20 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:14:20 ... I would overstep myself to try and appease and to please the people around me because, again, that's how I gained safety in childhood, right? Attuning myself to how I, how I needed to be to avoid. For my mom, it wasn't outward explosion of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:35 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:14:35 ... uh, of emotion. It was more disconnection. And to avoid disconnection, which, again, in childhood is threatening to my, my survival, physiological and emotional-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:44 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:14:44 ... I became... And out of the three siblings, my f- my brother and my sister would joke because I, I beca- I was the golden child, as it was called. Not because necessarily I was in full agreement, but because I acted like it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:57 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:14:57 I smiled. I said, "Whatever you think, Mom." I never voiced my opinion because I learned through my mom, not necessarily, again, with explosive behavior, but with a look, with a removal of attention or, or, or warmness or connection-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:10 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:15:11 ... or love. I learned very quickly that to maintain that connection, I carried this into my adulthood to be seemingly conflict-free-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:19 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:15:19 ... only to understand that I wasn't in perfect alignment with the world around me. I was too afraid or disconnected-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:26 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:15:26 ... from my actual perspective, want, need, or emotion at any given moment to feel safe enough to communicate that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:32 Yeah. It's so fascinating to hear and for you to share your own personal experiences because I think sometimes there might be a tendency for people to think, oh, you know, Nicole's got all these followers. She's written all these books. She's got it all sorted. And as you often openly share, you know, it's a constant process. As we said before, you know, healing is nonlinear. There's no-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:15:55 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:55 ... end point. It's part of what it is to be a human being. At least, it's part of what it means to be a conscious, aware human being who's trying to make progress and, you know, trying to stop these cycles that maybe have been perpetuated for, for good reason through generations.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:16:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:13 We could spend so long, Nicole, talking about childhoods and, and all the different patterns. I would like t- us to talk about some practical things, however possible, in terms of what we can actually do. So healing is a two-step process. Number one, you've gotta become aware. Hopefully, throughout the conversation so far, people have started to become aware of elements of their childhoods and how it's impacting them as adults. Now, let's move on to what they can actually do and how they can make different choices.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:16:44 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:45 There's a whole selection in the book. [laughs] There are just so many. Do you have a favorite one that you feel you'd like to share at this point in the conversation?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:16:54 I wanna even just bring awareness into, beyond awareness that you're gaining from a podcast or in a therapist office or in a good conversation with a loved one. I want to bring awareness into the lived embodiment in real time, right? And what I mean when I say that is learning how to, as we're going about our day, and the most foundational tool that I'm always kind of citing going back to, whether you're in my membership or my books, is in real time awareness. Meaning, and we are all helped by, right, the phone that we carry around, that we can set-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:21 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:17:21 ... an alarm on or the Post-It note, you know, near our desk at work, or even the habit that already exists in our life, the fact that many of us brush our teeth at least once a day or drink a, have a drink of coffee, whatever it is. And so awareness is a lived, embodied experience, right? Not just the awareness that we're talking about, "Oh, I see my patterns," but in action in real time, rebuilding that connection with my body. So when that alarm goes off, when that, you know, we walk past the Post-It note, or we're at that kind of habit time where we wanna stack another habit onto, awareness exists in the ability to refocus our attention, not on our to-do list, not on the million needs that maybe our child has in front of us, but on us and our body. And it's as simple as, I call it a conscious check-in, where we shift the focus, right, and we begin to explore how my body is feeling in this moment.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:18:11 And I like to cite kind of three anchors for o- where we can shift our awareness to because these happen to be three physiological systems that shift and change-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:19 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:18:19 ... as our body increases in stress. And so they are the tension in our muscles, right? Even just shifting our focus and noticing. A lot of us, until someone suggests that we do so, are not aware that we're clenching our jaw, that our shoulders are up to our ears, that our, we're, we're, we're bracing around our midsection. All of that tension, or on the other side of it, the numbness, the fact that I can't even feel the fact that I'm in a body that's surrounded by muscles. Usually, both of those are markers of how stressed my body has become.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:48 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:18:49 Because as we become stressed, naturally energy builds, our muscles become tense, so we can fight or flee the situation at hand. The more chronic that stresses are overwhelming, the more some of us then drop to that kind of playing dead end of the spectrum, like animals do. We become numb. We can't even feel any energy in our muscles to get off the couch, even if we wanted to. We call it procrastination, lack of motivation, but again, it's our nervous system telling us that we're in a stressed state. So our muscles, a great place to refocus that attention. Maybe even just doing a quick scan of your body right now as you're listening and noticing kind of what end of that spectrum you're on or, or do you feel yourself. "Oh, I'm being held nicely. I'm at ease. I'm able to get up, up if I wanted to, but I don't feel so agitated that I have to get up and do something."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:32 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:19:33 Our breath is also a great marker of something we could shift our focus of attention to because our body is always breathing. Sometimes our breathing or our breathing shifts, and sometimes what we will notice is a stressed state of breathing where it's really quick and shallow-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:47 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:19:48 ... indicating we're in that kind of sympathetic, energized state. Some of us are holding our breath. Even I often drop into my body and notice, oh, I've been holding my breath for a while. All of this bracing is shifting my breathing into a stressed state. And then those systems, the more stressed we become, impact our heart rate. So this consciousness and awareness that I'm talking aboutActually, in my opinion, has to come off of the insightful podcast moment or the moment in therapy-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:15 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:20:15 ... where I, like, can talk about my pattern. It has to be a lived experience. Because if in those moments I notice that my body is stressed, then I could start to ask and explore and get curious if I don't yet know the answer. What does my body need, right? If I'm tense-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:29 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:20:29 ... can I relax a bit and create more ease in my muscles? If I'm holding my breath, right, can I begin to release that restriction and allow my body to breathe? Or if it's so quick, can I slow it down?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:42 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:20:43 Because now we're living the experience of awareness, we can then drop into our mind, right? What am I interpreting? What meaning am I making of the situation that's creating the impact emotionally in my body, right? And now we start to build choice. With a regulated body, right, we can now begin to choose to show up in a way that kind of breaks those habits. Because again, the first step is awareness so that I can break the habitual reaction and then create the new opportunity-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:10 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:21:10 ... by saying, "What is it that I need?" Getting curious, because I think a lot of us, again, have the expectation that I just know what I need. If you've never practiced, though, connecting with your body, you might not exactly know what feels good and supportive to you when you're angry, sad. You might not even have those words in the moment, and you're just connecting with the heaviness, the agitation-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:28 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:21:28 ... and then, right, helping your body, helping yourself first be in presence with those sensations, and then helping your body to process them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:37 That was beautiful, and so many things came up for me as you were talking. Firstly, this idea that awareness has multiple levels. It's not just awareness in your mind.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:21:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:47 "Oh, I understand now how Mom and Dad doing this for me when I was a kid has affected me in adulthood." That's great, but that's awareness with the mind. Now you're saying there's also awareness with the body, and even as you were just describing it, I let my belly go out-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:22:06 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:06 ... and felt, oh, maybe for the last hour-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:22:09 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:09 ... with Nicole, I've been holding onto tightness without realizing it, right? So that allowed me to soften. It also reminded me of when we were talking about constant busyness as a survival strategy. And the fact that so many people now are chronically, constantly busy, and therefore are completely disconnected from their bodies. They're all stuck in their mind. This task, that task, I've gotta do that. Gotta check the WhatsApp.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:22:36 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:36 I've got five minutes to myself, but instead of being with myself, I'm gonna go on Instagram. I'm gonna go somewhere else. So constant distraction from our bodies. The other thought I had, Nicole, was how many of the times we read an email and interpret it as a criticism or as a reflection of who you are as a human. But actually, maybe that email was never that. Maybe it was just the fact that everything in your body was tight because you've been accumulating stress-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:23:05 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:05 ... since the morning. You've not had a break. Perhaps, you know, you've got experience with this with clients and, and people in your online community. But let's say you had a timer that went off once an hour or once every two hours, and it was just a little gentle-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:23:20 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:20 ... maybe it was a, not an, not an aggressive, harsh tone-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:23:23 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:23 ... but a really, a warming and maybe like a meditation bell to remind you to go, "Oh, what if for the next minute I just take a few deep breaths and just pay attention to how I'm feeling?" I mean, I imagine if someone did that three times in a morning-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:23:38 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:38 ... three times in an afternoon, they'd still get the same amount of work done, and they'd be so much more present and, dare I say it, more productive as they are doing it.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:23:50 100%, and that's, that's kind of the foundation of change, and acknowledging that a minute will, will be a very long time for a lot of us that aren't used to, right, just being with ourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:01 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:24:01 And if we have a lot of dysregulation, right, if our whole life has been busyness and we're avoiding kind of what's inside of us, it doesn't even have to be... I think a lot of times when we think about this, like, moment of awareness, consciousness, meditation, a lot of us call it, I do think we have this idea that it has to be in silence, right? When that alarm goes off, I have to shut everything off, I have to close my eyes, I have to sit here, and I have to be comfortable, and my thoughts have to be calm. A lot of us, again, we have so much dysregulation in our body. We're not practiced at doing that. That is an absolute nightmare. It's actually not a safe place for us to be, again, if we're carrying a lot of dysregulation in our body. So I make the suggestion that we don't even have to be taking this moment in silence, right? Take the moment of, of just being in your body when you're drinking a cup of tea, right? And have that be just the process of sitting there, feeling the warmth in your hands, right? Drinking tea.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:54 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:24:54 And I'm using this kind of... When I began, I was so dysregulated, again, so not used to silence. There was no safety in stillness for me, that the most approachable, accessible place that I was able to be in presence with myself was in nature. So I would take myself, not put on, even though thank you for listening to this podcast, not put on a podcast, like, not walk with, like, sound-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:17 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:25:17 ... but just take myself on. I happen to now live, very gratefully, thankfully, on a, on a lake. So for me, right, when I'm in the natural world, and it's not that I'm closing my eyes and I'm turning out stimulation and I'm now with all of the overwhelming thoughts in my mind, 'cause that's, again, what happens when our body is stressed. I'm giving myself somewhere to focus, right? I'm looking at the water. You know, I'm, I'm hearing the sound in the trees.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:40 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:25:40 Right? That's another place that kind of can be a foundation for a lot of us to begin this practice of presence and awareness. Because again, if we have this expectation that we turn off the lights, we turn down the sound, we close our eyes, and now we're met with all of this overwhelming sensations in our body and the racing thoughts in our mind, that we're probably not gonna continue that practice.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:00 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:00 So I'm giving permission-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:01 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:02 ... to build a bridge of this conscious practice wherever it feels most approachable, because you're doing so much more kind of internally, and you're building, again, that muscle, the safety of how to learn and increase your capacity to be with more and more uncomfortable se- sensations. And you're not able to do that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:19 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:19 ... right away, nor is it safe for a lot of us to do that right away.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:23 Yeah.I really appreciate how you sort of highlighted that that awareness can be as simple as drinking that cup of coffee in the morning whilst paying attention.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:36 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:36 That's what we're talking about, right?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:37 We're, we're talking about paying attention.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:39 Instead of slurping it down whilst emailing-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:26:43 Right. Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:45 ... just pay attention to the whole process, the warmth, the, the joy of the coffee on your tongue and, you know, the enjoyment, whatever it might be. Um, recently I was on a meditation retreat, and one of the guys who I was on the retreat with was sharing with me how, you know, he used to over drink alcohol and caffeine and all sorts of stuff, but he still enjoys coffee, but he's limited it to one a day. But he has criteria around it, which is, "I can only have one, but when I have that one, I cannot be doing anything else." And really, he's talking about, "I'm gonna be present with that coffee." And he says that's all he needs now. He doesn't need five or six cups.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:27:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:33 He needs one cup where he's fully present and he's not doing other stuff, and he's lucky he lives on a... You know, he says he's got a balcony where he lives, so he'll go out to the balcony-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:27:42 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:42 ... enjoy the warmth, really savor the taste, and look out. And I think sometimes when we talk about these behaviors that we want to change, we- we're, we're always talking about the what. You know, "Well, how many cups of coffee should I drink?"

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:27:58 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:58 "What is enough?" Rather than the how. Well, what if the reason you need four cups of coffee is because you're not present with the first cup? What would your caffeine requirement be like if you were able to be fully present with that first cup? The other thought I had, Nicole, was when you were talking about the lake. You expressed gratitude for living somewhere where you have access to a lake. I had a few years ago, a patient who lived right in the center of a city, and we would talk about nature and the benefits, and he said, "Ah, man, I don't have time. There's no nature around." And you know how I helped him? I basically recommended he listen to five minutes-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:28:37 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:37 ... of nature sounds-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:28:39 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:39 ... on his phone each morning. I am not kidding you. That was life-changing.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:28:42 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:42 This is a guy in his 20s.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:28:44 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:44 He wasn't connected to nature. But he'd put on bird sounds or the wave-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:28:48 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:48 ... the ocean, the sounds of the ocean first thing in the morning, and little by little, that started to change how he saw himself, how he showed up in the world. So yes, if you're lucky to live in nature-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:28:59 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:59 ... or near beautiful nature, great. If you don't, you can still access nature, can't you?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:29:05 100%. I think there's actually studies that show-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:07 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:29:07 ... the regulating benefit, benefits of the sounds of nature, and so I'm even describing this practice that I did begin in a city. Um, I did not have immediate access. I was not living in a lake that I w- I was now, though I was walking, and I would, you know, take the route that took me through the very tiny city park and kind of find the green spaces.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:27 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:29:27 But again, if you're completely limited and that's unavailable, and there's incredible research out there that talks about nature sounds, certain even sound frequencies that can really help our body regulate. But again, I think what we're talking about here is not just plugging in the nature sounds and being on our cell phone and lost in our mind. We're talking about listening to-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:45 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:29:46 ... the birds in that moment or, or even just the fact that we're walking, you know, through the earth in any given moment and just being present to our body moving through time and through space. And I always try to be really accessible with these tools-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:58 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:29:58 ... because the reality is, life is busy, and a lot of these habits are driving our life, and these practices don't feel safe. And we're never gonna change, make new choices unless we f- find a way to approach it in a way that feels feasible, not only practically, but in terms of creating a new habit, which for a lot of us is so counter to these small, small moments of presence, but they can go an incredible long way. So much so that when asked like, "Well, what is your routine, first thing you do in the morning?" And the first thing I do in the morning every morning is I have a cup of coffee.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:30:28 I don't... I'm not on my phone. Oftentimes my partner is there. We have a few moments to connect. We'll maybe go outside, and thankfully I live in a place where there's sunshine now first thing in the morning, so I just let it hit my skin and I taste my coffee. That's... it's just presence.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:40 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:30:40 There's not a structure. There's not an activity. It's just being in my body in that day and building that foundation then to carry me through the day, where I remember then at lunchtime, for instance, to tune into, what is my body feeling like today? Is it hungry? Is it hungry for-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:54 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:30:54 ... a certain thing in particular? Can I taste the food I'm eating instead of contorting myself and trying to be on my phone and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:59 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:31:00 ... eat food at the same time? And so then we can build that habit into more parts of our day once we just create the foundational presence at any part of our day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:09 Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for doing one thing at a time.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:31:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:14 It... the, the simplest thing, the most obvious thing, but the thing that is getting lost from society where we're always multitasking, we're always catching up as we do something else. Try for a week of just doing one thing at a time.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:31:29 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:29 And even that will bring a degree of presence to your life-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:31:33 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:34 ... that will have profound benefits. In terms of more practical things that we can do, and I, I wanna emphasize it in the book, there are so many wonderful practical exercises like, you know, writing a letter to your inner child. I think there's an attachment timeline. There's, there's so many, uh, people are gonna find things in, in there for them that really appeal to them. Walking, of course, is one of the best things we can do. You, you posted a few days ago on Instagram, "Walking is therapy. The natural bilateral eye movement-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:32:07 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:07 ... the sun on your skin," if it's sunny-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:32:09 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:10 ... "and the activation of your frontal lobe helps you process emotions. You'll see everything differently after a walk because your body just made sense of what your brain couldn't."I love that

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:32:23 Yeah. Walking's a great opportunity, too, to have both connection with ourself, difficult conversation. Um, there's a lot of research. There was this one therapist, I forget her name now, where she would walk with clients. Um, not like having to immediately look in someone's eyes, the bilateral stimulation of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:42 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:32:42 ... the eye movement, the kind of regulating nature of just movement in general allowed and facilitate it, the possibility, kind of going back to the couples or the relational stuff with conflict, right? It allowed those conversations to be more approachable. And, um, bilateral stimulation, the eye movement that naturally happens when either we're walking or even back to the phones, being turned inward, so with- on such a small screen-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:06 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:33:07 ... is naturally sh- signaling stress to our body, 'cause that's what, as I described earlier, our eyes will do, right? When we have to find the threat at hand and keep our eyes on them to make sure that we're safe. Now all of us are doing that all day long with-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:19 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:33:20 ... the phone. So whether we're getting out on a walk and just letting our eyes fall on the horizon, not looking at our phone when we're walking if we can avoid that habit-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:28 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:33:28 ... but even just looking up from our phone throughout the day and just, like, scanning our room, right? Any time we're moving our eyes, this is what EMDR-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:36 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:33:36 ... a very, I think, very helpful therapy for a lot of trauma, and I talk about in the book ways to bilaterally stimulate through, right, the butterfly, um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:45 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:33:45 ... hold, where we're literally crossing our arms and kind of rhythmically right and left kind of tapping. Um, even just across our midsection, pulling our left leg up and our right arm up. Any time we're bilaterally-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:33:57 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:33:57 ... stimulating our eyes or our body, what we're doing is we're reintegrating the right and the left hemisphere of our brain. If I'm gonna simplify it, the, the right is feeling, sensation, emotion, instinct. The left is logic, story, narrative, meaning. And when trauma happens, that connection, that bridge kind of disintegrates. It do- those hemispheres, again, I'm really simplifying it, don't communicate as effectively.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:21 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:34:21 So we feel things that we can't put into words, or we can talk about things, but we don't have the feeling. So-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:27 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:34:27 ... these moments, in addition to just kind of calming our body into that parasympathetic state, are actually doing a great service for our integration, where we can, over time, 'cause what healing is, is aligning emotion, intention, feeling, action, and... right? And being able to then live in that coherence. But if and when trauma happened at any point in our life, that bridge is broken, and so we can, though, rebuild those connections-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:52 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:34:52 ... through these bilateral stimulations throughout the day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:56 A lot of what you're asking us to do or suggesting we might want to do is reconnect with our bodies. The cold and cold plunges are a way that many people have started to reconnect with their bodies, but I don't think you believe that they're for everyone, do you?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:35:14 So I think that they can be greatly helpful if our nervous system has the capacity. Cold will stress our body out.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:21 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:35:21 Our blood vessels constrict, our muscles become tense, right? Sounds like the stress response-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:25 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:35:25 ... that I was describing earlier. So I discovered cold therapy very early on in my journey, but I, I was in such a dysregulated, overwhelmed body that it felt near intolerable.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:36 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:35:36 And I had since learned that actually that was my body sending a signal that I should not be tolerating it to that degree. I don't need to be in the 40-degree cold plunge, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:46 [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:35:46 I can turn my shower if I want to experiment with slight cold, because cold can be not only physically beneficial, right, stimulating our body, kind of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:55 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:35:56 ... our blood vessels, getting our blood running. Mentally, it can kind of clear our mind, but it can now help our nervous system become more flexible, assuming that it can, it has that capacity.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:07 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:36:08 So for a lot of us, again, if we are completely overwhelmed or in that shut-down state, diving into the coldest water will only overstress our already overstressed system. So we can experiment with cold-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:21 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:36:21 ... but I would call it cool would be a great place to start. The goal would be really to resource our body, learn how to downshift in that parasympathetic state, slowing our movements, deep breathing, right? Really grounding our attention in the, kind of check in with s- senses in a given moment. What can I see, touch, taste-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:38 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:36:38 ... all of those things, right? Learning how to calm our body so that then when we want to kind of increase the level of cold, so to speak, we're not just gonna send ourself right back into old habits.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:49 Yeah. It just really highlights the importance of individuality, right? And of course, cold has been life-changing for so many people. And at the same time, it's not for everyone, at least not for everyone at the same part of their journey.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:37:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:07 And I think this is one of the things I just see around so much online is people wanting to know good or bad.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:37:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:14 Is cold good or is it bad? Well, it depends. Is fasting good? It's like, well, it depends. For some people, it's life-changing.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:37:22 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:22 For other people, it's, it's very toxic, right? And I feel certainly that's what I try and do on this podcast and have done for many years, is to try and showcase the nuance that exists-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:37:34 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:34 ... that, that context matters for every single piece of health advice. Context matters, and too often that context is removed online.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:37:44 Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And so often, too, when I get asked, and even think about, of course I want to be of impact, and I know one book, right, is hopefully gonna be in many individual hands. So it's always an interesting-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:55 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:37:55 ... kind of internal exercise in, right, how do I translate something, which is very much what I try to do in this book, right? Mapping this idea of the different aspects of development onto a reparenting journey so that hopefully more readers than not can kind of see where they might not have had needs met in childhood and then kind of know where to begin. But I'm always hesitant of doing that, though the question I often get asked is very similar. Like, "What's the protocol? What do I need to do?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:22 [laughs]

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:38:22 And I think a lot of times I frustrate people 'cause I always go back to, well, your body will tell you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:26 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:38:26 Build that connection, right? Learn how to tune into your own internal signals, whether it's your physical needs or that deeper sense of intuition, and rebuild the trust, right, through habits, through discipline, through, right, working through discomfort and learning that we can tolerate difficult things and branching out to create even more habits. But I can't give you-... the exact answer.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:48 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:38:48 I can give you, like, a schematic, so to speak, a general roadmap, but I wouldn't wanna give it to you because I don't know you. I don't live in your body. You're so uniquely different. I wanna give you the tools to reconnect with your own inner knowing, and that's always my goal.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:02 Yeah. No, I love that, and I, and I ca- echo it so, so much. Nicole, I just wanna move away from your book for just a moment. Um, I, I really enjoy reading the posts on your Instagram page, and I noted down a couple which really caught my interest this morning. So can I just read-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:39:20 Please, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:20 ... a couple out to you and get your comments? Um, one was to do with emotionally immature mothers, okay? And so this is, I think, quite a provocative post for some people. "Emotionally healthy mothers want their daughters to shine, but some emotionally immature mothers see their daughter as a threat." What does that mean?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:39:44 So again, emotional maturity is, is not... I'm not speaking from a derogatory standpoint. I'm speaking from the evolution of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:52 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:39:52 ... everything we've been talking about, with the ability to be grounded in my perspective-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:55 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:39:55 ... expand, hear another, see kind of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:57 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:39:58 ... who I am and my child even as being someone who's uniquely different. And so when parents, as many of ours have had, they have not had access to the tools and resources they need, so they begin to, right, develop a certain sense of immaturity where they can't expand, e- honor that a child-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:16 Mm, mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:40:16 ... even if they look the same and you want them to so desperately be the same, that they're a different, unique human. They don't have perhaps the ability to tolerate conflict and disagreement-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:25 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:40:26 ... and difference and understand that, right, there's gonna be a different expression that doesn't necessarily have to be a reflection on me and my parenting. So in absence of being able, for the parent, to have just been comfortable, right, being who they are and find that value from within-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:41 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:40:41 ... as we've been talking about throughout this conversation, they will then project onto a child, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:47 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:40:47 They'll project a sense of similarity. "Well, you must be exactly who I am." They'll project a desire for a certain presentation and/or they will become, if they don't have self-trust and self-security and self-esteem of their own, they could either want their child to succeed, to reflect positively on them and their parenting, or they could equally feel threatened-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:11 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:41:11 ... right, by the validation that my child is getting, by the attention that my child is getting. Sometimes it gets very complicated-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:19 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:41:19 ... right, where a child is getting more attention from the co-parent than the parent wants, and things get really kind of confused. And then indirectly and directly, there's a sense of I'm threatened, um, and it can, it can turn into a jealousy, a over-focus on looks, a parent who's trying to win in a certain circumstance. And again, all of that messaging going to the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:41 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:41:41 ... child about kind of who they are and how they have to show up to be accepted by that parent.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:45 And all of that reminds us and highlights the importance of reparenting the inner child because if that emotionally immature mother was able to do that, no matter where they are in their life, that can change.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:42:01 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:01 And for the daughter of the emotionally immature parents who maybe grew up with that, again, reparenting the inner child is important. It's important for both, right-

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:42:12 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:12 ... to be able to move on. Another one that caught my eye was this one. "The art of letting someone be in a bad mood will completely change your life." Why?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:42:26 So I think that goes back to, again, one of the parents that we didn't necessarily talk about earlier, but this, the idea of what I'm gonna kind of describe the, the reactive parent, right? At a time, monitoring someone's moods was probably the safest thing that we could do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:42:42 Right? Sensing any shift in tone, in energy, in presentation in any way. At one time, if there was predictability, if there was explosive behavior, even if, again, the behavior was a kind of shut down disconnection, sensing those changes, that hypervigilance, being more attuned to someone-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:01 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:43:02 ... else's shifts kept us safe. Because-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:05 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:43:05 ... what? We could modify how we showed up. We could be a little less of this, a little more of that, maintain the connection and the safety, whatever was available. And so a lot of us carry that hypervigilance into adulthood, where we're always, maybe not even conscious that we're doing it. Um, I know I struggle anytime I sense a shift. And my partner Lali, she becomes a little quiet or her mood's a little snippy, even if it has nothing to do with me, she answers me in a short way because she's stressed out about work or thinking about something different or is just tired, overwhelmed herself, needs a minute. Again, in childhood, what's being cued up for me and, and activated is those shifts meant something, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:40 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:43:40 For me, they meant disconnection. So I then have a tendency to ask a million times, "Are you okay? What's wrong? Are you okay? What's wrong? Is something wrong? Did I upset you?" Or in my mind, right, I'm imagining that I was the cause of that shift. So learning, right-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:56 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:43:56 ... the habit I have, that self m- that monitoring, not self, of others, kept me safe because at, at one time, it was what I needed to do to ma- maintain the connections and attention that was available. But now it has created, uh, not only a meaning where I will always assume that anyone in a bad mood around me is because of something I did or did not do-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:17 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:17 ... and, uh, I will assign, right, that responsibility of I've upset you-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:21 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:21 ... right, because that's what I learned in childhood, right? Me, my emotions, my energy, right, would cause stress or upset in the home.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:29 So I continue to assign that meaning, and the reality often is, is that's not the case.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:34 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:34 There's a many different reasons, and even if it is upset with me, I have to break that kind of immediate connection between upset with me equals disconnection from me. Upset with me-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:44 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:44 ... equals you're abandoning me. Upset with me equals you're rejecting me, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:47 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:47 Everything that I learned from those more implicit, unspoken messages-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:52 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:44:52 ... in childhood... comes alive in those moments. So learning, right, seeing the habit that we have to not allow someone to be upset or in a bad mood, trying to micromanage, solve the problem, make them feel better, right? Sometimes I do it through humor. I'm gonna try and be funny and make sure you're laughing and having a good time with me. All of that is this inner child who's so desperate to make you feel okay-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:14 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:45:15 ... so that I can feel connected and safe.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:17 Yeah. I think so many people will resonate with that as they listen. I think the one to maybe close this conversation on is something you posted, I think, just a few days ago now, but really speaks to the new book and all the potential that is within it for us if we choose to go there, and this was your post. "You heal your inner child when someone compliments you and you say nothing but thank you. When you don't apologize for crying. When someone asks you what you're doing today and you say relaxing." That's such a beautiful post, and as I say, gives us a sense of the possibility that's out there for us. Why do you think that those very simple things signal to us that we are quite far along on our healing journey?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:46:25 So when you are... allow yourself to hear and accept a compliment, right, you're allowing yourself to be seen. Um, I still struggle with this. The minute someone says something nice about me, I feel like I have to reflect something very nice about them right back. It's hard for me to allow myself to be, to be seen in, in, out- outside of what I'm doing or how I'm performing, right? Just someone to see me or experience me and say something nice. Um, the ability to allow ourself to emote, to cry, to have an emotion, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:55 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:46:55 So many of us, and I think sometimes it becomes second nature where we're saying, "I'm sorry," and I watch it oftentimes too a lot on, on TV shows.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:02 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:47:02 I love reality TV. I learn a lot about human nature in addition to online, which is a prolific example or, or, or evidence or stream of, of examples to give. Um, but we are so instinctual with having an emotion and immediately saying, "I'm sorry," instead of just allowing ourself to not only be in our emotion, but allowing someone else to be in our emotion with us. So, right, allowing ourself to be seen, allowing ourself to be complimented, and then the ability to, again, a theme throughout this conversation, just be. Rest. To tune into when I need a moment to just allow myself to be in my own presence, to lay down on the couch, not to have a day that's kind of curated and planned. And I think, again, all of these are markers of our ability to be calm, to be regulated, to be at peace with ourself through rest, through the experience of emotions will be always a part of our journey. The goal to healing is not to be devoid of emotions. They c- contain incredibly important information. They allow us to feel-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:01 Mm-hmm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:48:01 ... connected to the world around us. That's what so many of us are looking for. Not to be, not to have our problem solved or be told that we shouldn't feel this way. Just to have someone sit down next to us-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:10 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:48:10 ... and say, "I understand. I understand why you would even feel that way."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:14 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:48:14 And to allow ourself to be seen in all of our positive, include it, the ability to accept and to be with a compliment. I think all of those are, again, markers of... The entire theme of this conversation and my work is of our nervous system regulation, our health, our true health, and our true wellness.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:30 Mm. Well, let's see how you're doing with accepting a compliment.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:48:34 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:35 I think your work over the last few years, your public-facing work has had such a profound impact on so many people. I've enjoyed reading your posts. I know for many of my team, many of my friends, they have found so much wisdom from reading what you have to share, and I think this latest book, Reparenting the Inner Child: The New Science of Our Oldest Wounds and How to Heal Them, is gonna be such a helpful and life-changing read for so many people. So I wanna say thank you for all the work you've done, and thank you for writing it.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:49:09 Thank you. [laughs] I will practice just breathing into that. Thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:13 Yeah. And as well as the book, Nicole, you obviously post on all the social media platforms under the name The Holistic Psychologist. You also have this membership community. What do people get if they sign up for that?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:49:28 So the membership community, SelfHealers Circle, um, it's global, so you can join from around the world. It's virtual. Um, we join together every month. We, we release a new topic. Uh, next month we're doing covert narcissism. So we have workshops with myself and outside presenters that come in.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:44 Okay.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:49:45 Workbooks to give us kind of the tools to work through the journey. We have a new addition, which is incredible, of, um, nine different therapist-led groups to really kind of capitalize on the connection piece. Um, I think a, a large reason why people join the circle is, of course, to learn, to have a library of tools-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:00 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:50:00 ... resources, meditations, ways to translate insight-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:02 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:50:02 ... into action, though I think many more join for the community. Uh, when you join, you get much like... It's now on our own private app, so it's not affiliated with any social media platform, so I like to think about it like a Facebook, 'cause every member gets a profile page and can-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:16 Right

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:50:17 ... interact with other members by putting up posts, responding to other members' posts, DM'ing, the members map to connect with people in their area.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:24 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:50:24 And so a lot of these conversations, of course, the social media platforms will always be part of what we at The Holistic Psychologist do. Um, it is actually our way to continue to, you know, give back and have impact and understand-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:36 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:50:36 ... that not everyone has the money, though thank you if you ever buy any of my books and join my membership. Of course, it allows these social media platforms to put out the free and accessible resources and conversations of the beautiful community that will always exist, hopefully, on those platforms, and to gain those resources there. But the circle is really for the people who want it a little bit deeper of a dive, a little bit more of a safer space, as we were kind of joking earlier.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:00 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:51:00 So often I get people who are in my DMs because they can'tThey wanna put up a, a comment or respond to something, but they're so afraid that someone that they know might see-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:08 Gonna see it, yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:51:09 ... or hear. So it's really been created out of the desire, as something I said earlier, the belief, I think, that a lot of us have, the shame we feel, feeling alone in our reactions, our struggles. And so the community, I think, for a lot of people-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:22 Yeah

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:51:22 ... has become a safe space to feel less alone.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:25 Yeah, love that, Nicole. You're clearly doing so much work to help so many people. To finish up this conversation, I want us to think about the person who is listening, and throughout this conversation, they've really gained a lot of insight as to why they behave in the manner in which they do. Some people, though, will take that insight, and I believe they'll think, "It's too late for me. I lash out. I people please. I overreact. I overwork." If they say to you, "Nicole, this has been me for several decades. Is it too late for me to change?" what do you say to them?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:52:15 I would wanna acknowledge that they're already starting to change. The ability to gain insight, right, to see ourself in a way, hopefully. The reason why I'm always laboring the evolution, the science, right, the dynamics, is to hopefully allow the criticism and shame to expand into grace and compassion for oneself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:34 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:52:34 But the moment of awareness, in my opinion, is the beginning of change.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:38 Yeah.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:52:38 So I want to acknowledge to that listener that you are already in the action of creating a new opportunity. Now, the goal, right, is to, as we've been talking about throughout, translate the insight that you've gained from listening to this podcast, and again, thank you for tuning in, but to your daily experience. Not the traditional sense of insight that you and I have been talking about, but the lived experience. Because every moment that we tune into ourself is a moment where we give ourself the opportunity to shift our body into a state that will allow us to show up differently.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:10 Mm.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:53:10 Though I don't want it to be lost on people that the moment that an insight is gained, an awareness is gained, right, hopefully... Again, even if there's that voice-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:18 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:53:18 ... of criticism or fear or worry that it's too long, it's too late, it's, it's overdue, I've messed up all these people, and I've hurt people in my life, is really the moment we can give ourself the opportunity to, with a bit of understanding of why we've adapted-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:30 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:53:30 ... in that way, maybe allow in the possibility of feeling-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:33 Mm

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:53:33 ... grace and compassion in a future moment. But it is the moment that change has already begun.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:39 Yeah. Beautiful. Nicole, thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you for writing this new book, and thank you for coming back on the podcast.

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:53:46 This has been such an honor. Thank you for having me and for all the work and beautiful, um, embodiment that you are putting out into the world, too. [upbeat music]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:54 If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you are really going to enjoy this one.

Speaker 1:53:58 If I were to choose to live my life over again, I wouldn't live it in this way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:02 Yeah.

Speaker 1:54:03 I wish I hadn't worked so hard. When you're driven to work too hard, you actually ignore what matters. Then where does that come from? Again, that comes from childhood trauma.