Nicole Lepera Quotes

You may label these thoughts as ‘you’, but they are not you. You are the thinker of your thoughts, not the thoughts themselves.

Not everyone wants to get better. And that’s okay. Some people have an identity tied to sickness. Others fear true wellness because it is the unknown and the unknown is unpredictable. There is comfort in knowing exactly what your life will look like, even if that reality is making you sick.

Our practiced thoughts become our truth.

The familiar feels safe; that is, until we teach ourselves that discomfort is temporary and a necessary part of transformation.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. —James Baldwin, Remember This House

Our brain actually prefers to spend most of its time coasting on autopilot—it is best able to conserve its energy by knowing what to expect. This is why our habits and routines feel so comforting

I discovered that our genes are not destiny and that in order to change, we have to become consciously aware of our habits and thought patterns, which have been shaped by the people we care for most.

As we expand our level of conscious awareness, we can see that we are not our ego stories. Thoughts happen to us. They don’t mean anything about who we are. They’re simply our ego attempting to defend our identity and protect us from pain.

To truly actualize change, you have to engage in the work of making new choices every day. In order to achieve mental wellness, you must begin by being an active daily participant in your own healing.

Trauma occurred when we consistently betrayed ourselves for love, were consistently treated in a way that made us feel unworthy or unacceptable resulting in a severed connection to our authentic Self. Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.

Your inability to move forward or make changes isn’t about you, it’s an extension of the conditioned patterns and core beliefs you developed in your childhood.

You have to see yourself to love yourself—and you have to love yourself in order to give yourself what you weren’t able to get from others.

The part of you that knows this to be true is your intuition. It has always been there. We have simply developed a habit of not listening to or trusting what it says. Being here today is a step in healing that broken trust within ourselves.

How a parent-figure treated you as a child is not a reflection of who you are. Or even who they are. You do not need to be a reflection of their unprocessed trauma.

The familiar feels safe, that is until we teach ourselves that discomfort is temporary and a necessary part of transformation.

Once our immune system gets the signal that we’re living in a near-constant threat state, it repeatedly sends out chemicals that cause inflammation throughout the body.

I wasn’t bad. I wasn’t damaged. In fact, those habits and behaviors were learned responses that my body used to keep me alive. They were survival mechanisms.

Healing rarely comes without difficulty. It’s painful at times and terrifying, too. It means letting go of narratives that hold you back and harm you. It means letting a part of yourself die so that another part of you can be reborn.

There is tremendous freedom in not believing every thought we have and understanding that we are the thinker of our thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. Our minds are powerful tools, and if we do not become consciously aware of the disconnection between our authentic Selves and our thoughts, we give our thoughts too much control in our daily lives.

Many of our core beliefs, unfortunately, are shaped by traumas.

heal self-betrayal by rebuilding the trust you have with yourself,

Love, I have learned, is not about showing up in any particular way but about embodying the feeling itself, offering others the support and opportunity to be themselves, exactly as they are.

Emerging science tells us that the genes we inherit aren’t fixed; they are influenced by their environment, beginning in utero and continuing throughout our lives. The groundbreaking discovery of epigenetics tells a new story about our ability to change.

Healing is a daily event. You can’t “go somewhere” to be healed; you must go inward to be healed. This means a daily commitment to doing the work. You are responsible for your healing and will be an active participant in that process. Your level of activity is directly connected to your level of healing. Small and consistent choices are the path to deep transformation.

There is tremendous freedom in not believing every thought we have and understanding that we are the thinker of our thoughts, not the thoughts themselves.

As a result of a lifetime of unmet needs, you may consistently feel resentful, unfulfilled, or needy.

making space to allow each of us to be seen, heard, and authentically expressed.

The first step to healing is awareness.

Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.

You are the thinker of your thoughts, not the thoughts themselves.

In order to emotionally connect with another person, as I discovered years later, you have to be emotionally connected with yourself. And to be emotionally connected with yourself, you have to be able to authentically feel and express your emotions. Authentically expressing our emotions allows us to feel truly seen, known, and supported by others—core emotional needs we all share.

When we don't consistently feel safe and secure or when we fear that those whom we rely on for our survival won't consistently be available to us, we experience a lack of certainty and control.

If parent-figures have not healed or even recognized their unresolved traumas, they cannot consciously navigate their own path in life, let alone act as trustworthy guides for someone else. It’s very common for parent-figures to project their own unresolved traumas onto their children. When even well-meaning parent-figures react under the influence of their own unconscious wounds they, instead of offering guidance, may attempt to control, micromanage, or coerce a child to follow their will. Some of these attempts may be well intentioned. Parent-figures may consciously or unconsciously want to keep the child safe and protected from the world so that the child will not experience the pain that they, themselves, have. In the process, they may negate the child’s wants and needs.

Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless . . . we become illuminated and enlightened to the Truth of who we are and where we are going . . . to the light while we live through love. —Jesus, about The Great Work

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness. With objective consciousness it is possible to see and feel the unity of everything. Attempts to connect these phenomena into some sort of system in a scientific or philosophical way lead to nothing because man cannot reconstruct the idea of the whole starting from separate facts. —George Gurdjieff, The Fourth Way

was detached, avoidant, and unresponsive. It was as if I learned not to love anything too much, because if I truly loved something, it could be taken away from me. It wasn’t just a feeling of loss and abandonment; it was a fear that without a certain person I would not survive.

This has been an issue in almost all of my romantic partnerships. It has kept me reserved and pathologically self-sufficient in my friendships and professional life; it can even rear its head when someone cuts me off in line, when the narrative in my head tells me: You don’t matter. Why? In that instant, I truly believe that a complete stranger doesn’t consider me, just as my mother couldn’t. I’m a ghost that they can walk right through.

These were tears of healing. I'm a living testament to this truth: Awakenings are not mystical experiences that are reserved only for monks, mystics, and poets. They are not only for "spiritual" people. They are for each and every one of us who wants to change, who aches to heal, to thrive, to shine. With your awareness awakened, anything is possible.

Healing is a conscious process that can be lived daily through changes in our habits and patterns.

Holistic Psychology focuses on the mind, body, and soul in the service of rebalancing the body and nervous system and healing unresolved emotional wounds.

yourholisticpsychologist.com

Today I am practising when I use my breath to ground my reactions and make space for new, conscious choices.

My mom, a wounded child herself, had never been shown the love she craved deeply. As a result, she was unable to express love to her own children, who she did love deeply.

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

I suddenly felt how hollowed out my life had become. I was energetically drained,

I want you to try to witness your body's sensations when you're feeling threatened. [page 34]

No one even asked her how she could take part in her own healing, because that was not a part of the vocabulary of care used by mainstream medicine.

Putting others before myself wasn’t selfless; it was self-abandonment.

When we are stuck in fight/flight/freeze mode, we devote our resources to managing stress, and, to put it simply, our child brain suffers. Childhood is a time of great vulnerability. Unable to survive on our own, a parent-figure’s withholding of anything perceived to hinder our survival sends stress signals flooding through our bodies. The resulting ‘survival brain’, as I call it, is hyperfocused on perceived threats, sees the world in black and white, and is often obsessive, panic driven, and prone to circular reasoning. We can break down or shut down when faced with stress.

The habit of thinking a particular thought over and over again changes our brain, our nervous system, and the cellular chemistry of our entire body, making it easier to default to such thought patterns in the future.

Begin to practice being kind to yourself and your loved ones, regardless of what comes up. How a parent-figure treated you as a child is not a reflection of who you are. Or even who they are. You do not need to be a reflection of their unprocessed trauma.

The overwhelming pull of the subconscious mind makes it hard for us to change. We are not evolutionarily wired for change. When we do try to push ourselves out of our autopilot, we face resistance from our mind and body. This response has a name: the homeostatic impulse

Every time we make a choice that is outside of our default programming, our subconscious mind will attempt to pull us back to the familiar by creating mental resistance. Mental resistance can manifest as both mental and physical discomfort. It can take the form of cyclical thoughts, such as I can just do this later or I don’t need to do this at all, or physical symptoms, such as agitation, anxiety, or simply not feeling like “yourself.” This is your subconscious communicating to you that it is uncomfortable with the new territory of these proposed changes.

If parent-figures have not healed or even recognized their unresolved traumas, they cannot consciously navigate their own path in life, let alone act as a trustworthy guide for someone else. It's very common for parent-figures to project their unresolved traumas onto their children.

If this pattern continues, the child might “toughen up” or detach, ignoring their authentic Self and presenting a false self, which emerges from a core belief that parts of their identity are unacceptable. I see this a lot with my male clients and friends. For some who grew up with the model of toxic hypermasculinity, where men are discouraged or shamed for expressing emotion, even acknowledging that they have an emotional world may be challenging. In cases like these, we’re fighting not just the conditioning of our parent-figures and family unit but society at large.

A guide is largely nonjudgmental, allowing the child to exist as they are. A guide is more likely to observe and act from a state of awareness and wisdom. This allows the child to experience the natural consequences of their actions without intervention and laying the foundation for them to build self-trust. Think of the guide as a wise teacher, someone who has faith in the foundation they have provided and trusts that the student will be able to weather what life brings. The child then internalizes this faith. This doesn’t mean that the child avoids pain, loss, anger, or grief—the wide array of human feelings—instead, the guide or parent-figure has provided a base of security and resilience for the child to return to when hard times come.

The problem for many of us though is that our nervous system doesn’t return to a state of relaxed calm. Instead, our body gets stuck in a stress response, though not necessarily because we face stress all day long. Though many of us have stressful, busy lives, if our nervous system is regulated, we can toggle back and forth between a stress response and calm, everyday function. But many

For many of us, communicating our emotions is challenging, even in our long-standing relationships. We're so desperate to be loved by others and scared of "losing" them that we don't ask for support or set needed boundaries. This is especially true if our feelings were ignored or dismissed in childhood. And, when we believe our ego stories that we're unworthy of having our needs met, we continue to suppress or deny them.

This is not the “rom-com” depiction of love. Authentic love doesn’t always feel “good” or even romantic. The cycles of emotional addiction that we commonly associate with romance aren’t activated, so it doesn’t have the charge of excitement born of fear of abandonment or withdrawal of love and support. It is a grounded state. You do not need to perform in a certain way or hide parts of yourself to receive love. You will still feel bored or unsettled. You will still find yourself attracted to other people and may even mourn the loss of the single life. Conscious relationships aren’t fairy tales. There’s no “You complete me.” There’s no smile and poof!—living happily ever after. Like everything else you have encountered so far, authentic love requires work. The path forward is to become aware of the role of self-betrayal in your trauma bonds and the role that you can play in honoring your own needs.

This childlike part is free, filled with wonder and awe, and connected to the inner wisdom of our authentic Self. It can be accessed only when we are safely in the social connection zone of our nervous system, able to feel spontaneous and open. It is playful and uninhibited or so fully present in the moment that time doesn’t seem to exist. This same inner childlike part of each of us, when not acknowledged, can run rampant in our adult life, often reacting impulsively and selfishly.

In other words, traumatic experiences aren’t always obvious. Our perception of the trauma is just as valid as the trauma itself. This is especially true in childhood, when we are most helpless and dependent. Trauma occurred when we consistently betrayed ourselves for love, were consistently treated in a way that made us feel unworthy or unacceptable resulting in a severed connection to our authentic Self. Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.

Research shows that practices like yoga and meditation that help us to focus our attention on the present moment, are especially powerful in restructuring the brain. When new neural pathways are forged, we are able to break free of our default patterns and live more actively in a conscious state. In fact, functional MRI (fMRI) brain scans confirm this,23 showing tangible evidence that consistent consciousness practices actually thicken the prefrontal lobes, the area where our conscious awareness actually lives. Other forms of compassion-based meditation (or just closing your eyes and thinking about someone you love) help strengthen an area called the limbic system, which is the emotional center of the brain. All of this work helps to rewire our brain, disrupt our default thought patterns, and wake us up out of our subconscious-driven autopilot. From this foundation of consciousness we can then begin to witness the conditioned patterns in our thoughts, beliefs, and relationships. This honest self awareness shows us our pathway towards change and ultimately healing.

The wounded inner child carries all of these compulsions into adulthood. We carry this powerlessness, hoping that others will change our circumstances and make us happy, externalizing quick fixes and daydreaming of alternate realities. We seek approval from others so that we will feel good about ourselves. We choose the quick fix—drugs, alcohol, sex—to feel pleasure in the moment that will dull our pain. Our real long-term goal is to find that security inside ourselves. Our work is to internalize the feeling of being good enough—a state of okayness that is not reliant on others. How can we begin to get to that place? This is the question at the heart of our inner child work.

My awakening unfolded in phases. It occurred during a time of extreme physical and emotional stress when I was imbalanced in body, mind, and soul. It was a crisis of the Self. Life began to feel intolerable, old and new struggles compounding around me so that I had no choice but to address those that had gotten so far out of hand that they were my “normal.” It’s highly likely that if I had sought outside help again at this time, I would have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety, as I had been in the past. Instead I was intuitively drawn inward to self-witnessing that showed me how disengaged I had been. For the first time ever, I began to view these signs as messengers, not as something to repress or avoid.

they often emerge from a state of inner turmoil; they often occur in a natural setting; and they often connect us to some kind of spiritual (in the most expansive sense of the word) practice. Awakenings open us to the reality that we are more than simple creations of flesh, that we have a soul or spirit, that we desire connection to something greater than our individual selves. Awakenings show us that who we think we are isn’t necessarily who we are. Often, we gain these insights through suffering, living through confusion and sorrow on our way to finally becoming conscious. An awakening is a rebirth of the Self that involves tearing down parts of who you were when you lived in an unconscious, autopilot state of existence.

When we have poor vagal tone, we have higher sensitivity to perceived threats in our environment, which overactivates the body’s stress response and leads to reduced emotional and attentional regulation overall. Those of you who experience the discomfort of social anxiety might recognize this disconnect. Imagine walking into a party filled with strangers. You might have obsessed over what to wear to the party, planning every detail, every possible conversation topic, or you may have felt totally neutral about the party—no warning signs that you might feel uncomfortable and act accordingly. Either way, none of it matters once you actually walk into the room. Suddenly, all eyes are on you. Your face grows hot and red when you hear laughter, which you’re certain is about your outfit or your hair. Someone brushes past you, and you feel claustrophobic. All the strangers seem to be leering. Even if you know rationally that this is not a hostile place, that no one is looking at or judging you (and if they are, who cares?), it’s nearly impossible to shake the feeling once you’re trapped in it. That’s because your subconscious perceives a threat (using your nervous system’s sixth sense of neuroception) in a nonthreatening environment (the party) and has activated your body, putting you into a state of fight (argue with anyone and everyone), flight (leave the party), or freeze (don’t say a word). The social world has become a space filled with threat. Unfortunately, this kind of nervous system dysregulation is self-confirming. While it is activated, anything that doesn’t confirm your suspicions (a friendly face) will be ignored by your neuroception in favor of things that do (the stray laugh you felt was directed at you). Social cues that would be seen as friendly when you were in social engagement mode—such as a pause in the conversation for you to enter, eye contact, a smile—will be either misinterpreted or ignored.

More often than not, each individual in a relationship is dealing with the aftereffects of their unique childhood traumas while, at the same time, both are trying to live, love, and thrive together.

Neither partner’s needs are being met, and each partner grows upset with the other. This is the essence of the trauma bond dynamic. When needs are consistently unmet, resentment soon follows. Resentment is a relationship killer.

When our parent-figures directly or indirectly express preferences about our beliefs, wants, and needs, it creates a lack of space for our authentic Self-expression. This can manifest itself in a variety of ways and often results in reliance on external guidance—from partners, friends, even mentor types—for input into or feedback on all of life’s big and small decisions.

What’s wrong? Are you mad at me?

So, when you find it difficult to change your habits or behaviors, it’s not mere failure but rather it’s because you are living on the same script, a repetitive pattern that makes you run on autopilot.

she is a people pleaser, in many ways a martyr, who sacrifices her emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being without asking for anything in return, because that was what was required of her to receive love in childhood.

Once we learn how to establish boundaries, there is space for us to be as we really are with others as they really are.

Boundaries provide a necessary foundation for every relationship you have—most importantly the one you have with yourself. They are the retaining walls that protect you from what feels inappropriate, unacceptable, inauthentic, or just plain not desired. When boundaries are in place, we feel safer to express our authentic wants and needs, we are better able to regulate our autonomic nervous system response (living more fully in that social engagement zone because we have established limits that cultivate safety), and we rid ourselves of the resentment that comes along with denying our essential needs.

Learning to say “no” is often the kindest thing you can do for yourself and those you love.

Though many of us struggle with permeable or nonexistent boundaries, quite a few of us exist on the other extreme: we create too-rigid boundaries.

A boundary, rather, is a personal limit that is expressed so that your need will directly be met. It is an action we take for ourselves regardless of how the other person reacts.

It is beneficial for us to put up boundaries around our internal world. We then allow moments of quiet in conversations without rushing to fill the silence with our own stream of consciousness. There are things that we can decide to keep private. When we have proper boundaries in place, we have a choice about when and to whom we direct our emotional energy.

Another common outcome of mental/emotional and resource boundarylessness is emotional dumping, the spilling of emotional issues onto a person without being empathetic to their emotional state.

Emotional dumping need not be one-sided. A relationship can be built around emotional dumping as the main form of connection. An example of mutual emotional dumping is when a relationship revolves around a central shared conflict.

Change needed: You want a more reciprocal relationship.

When you state your boundary, it is helpful to use objective language as much as possible. You want to focus on facts.

Especially if you are new to boundary setting, I suggest you start small.

The discomfort we face while setting boundaries will save us years of anger and resentment. The relationship that emerges after a boundary is set might not look anything like the way it did before, and it will be stronger, more honest, and ultimately more sustainable. Boundaries are essential to all healthy relationships. Think of them as an act of service. The third step may seem simple, though it’s often the hardest one: maintain your new boundary. Once you’ve set a boundary, it’s important to remain present and calm, resisting the urge to defend or overexplain yourself, regardless of the reaction you are receiving from the other person(s). You may feel stress as a result of someone’s reaction, or the reaction from a greater unit (your family, work, etc.). It’s very important that once you set a boundary, you keep it set.

When we begin to change how we show up in relationships, it is helpful to remember that the longer the relationship has existed, the more expectations have been enacted and solidified over time.

There is no going back to old patterns if you truly need and want change. If you put up a boundary and take it down when someone freaks out, all you are doing is reinforcing that person’s ability to walk all over your limits with their behavior. It’s classic negative reinforcement: they’ll continue that behavior anytime they’re faced with opposition in your relationship. If I scream and yell enough, everything will go back to normal.

Anytime our ego, or story about the self, is threatened, we can become emotionally reactive—arguing our points, criticizing others, and throwing tantrums or detaching (usually whatever you typically do when you’re upset). As you begin to explore and identify the deeper beliefs driving these reactions, you must realize that they will not go away overnight.

Find nature and witness it. Go outside and just experience any small aspect of the natural environment that is accessible to you. Notice the colors of flowers. Sit under trees. Place your bare feet onto grass or into water. Let the wind blow on your skin. Nature is a natural balancer of our nervous system and gives us a “reset.

Many of you have been living a lifetime in a dysregulated body, so healing, which will happen, will take time.

daily win of drinking her water. She paused after drinking her water to congratulate herself and reflect on how proud she was that she stuck to it. “OMG,” she would say to herself, “look at you go.” Thirty days later,

As a parent-figure, the best thing you can do for your child is to devote time and energy to making sure that you are taken care of.

Our body learns to engage in patterns like these to feel like our familiar self. Ideally, when we experience a powerful emotion, either our activation or our immobilization mode is triggered and we return to our baseline social engagement zone quickly.

Our body responds to those feelings by releasing hormones such as cortisol and neurochemicals such as dopamine that fundamentally change our cellular chemistry. We now need to seek out the same kind of emotional hit again and again. Even if an emotion makes us stressed or sad, it often feels familiar and safe because it provides the same type of release that we experienced as children.

unpredictable relationships, news media that leave us feeling scared and angry, social media that allow us to pick fights online. This is why we are drawn to vent to friends and chronically complain; these behaviors help us remain in a heightened state. Nonactivated peace is dull and unfamiliar. Our

unpredictable relationships, news media that leave us feeling scared and angry, social media that allow us to pick fights online. This is why we are drawn to vent to friends and chronically complain; these behaviors help us remain in a heightened state. Nonactivated peace is dull and unfamiliar. Our body and mind seek the familiar, even if it is painful, and many of us are left ultimately feeling ashamed about and confused by our behavior.

Our nervous system—and our unconscious addiction to keeping it in a highly activated state—is at the heart of many of our psychological and physical symptoms.

Learning how to harness the power of the vagus nerve was the most impactful and empowering discovery of my early healing journey, and I hope the tools that follow help you to do the same.

regulate your nervous system.

Do a visualization meditation. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Picture a white light coming from your heart. Repeat the words “I am safe, and I am at peace” as you place your hands on your heart. Do this three times throughout the day.

Be conscious about your consumption of information. When you consume information, your nervous system consumes it, too. Be mindful of how you feel in your body as you consume various kinds of information. Do you feel replenished and restored or depleted and fearful? Disconnecting from media that activates anxious feelings can be helpful.