[00:00:00] Dr. Nicole LePera: Ultimately the goal is to be present to learn how to tune in and to be aware of the moments, the people, the circumstances, and our interpretation of them. Because what most of us are doing is applying old stories to current events.
[00:00:53] Travis Chappell: Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Travis Makes Friends. Today I have the pleasure of making friends with Dr. Nicole LePera @the.holistic.psychologist over on Instagram. Go check out some of her stuff. Nicole, welcome to the show once again.
[00:01:08] Dr. Nicole LePera: Thank you so much for having me, Travis.
[00:01:10] Travis Chappell: Okay, so I'm in a lot of group chats, as I'm sure you are with random friends, from high school, from the business world, whatever. And we're always constantly DMing each other random stuff that we find online, and the majority of it is probably not things that should be shared publicly. They're just ridiculous, stupid things that make us laugh or whatever. But I will say, of all of the serious posts that we send to each other back and forth, I think yours are at the top of the list in terms of volume. I just wanna say congratulations for putting out such amazing, helpful, shareable content.
[00:01:45] Dr. Nicole LePera: I'm honored, and thank you all for sharing it amongst your group of friends.
[00:01:49] Travis Chappell: of course. Okay. The first time we did an interview, it was for your other book, your first book. , but now we're talking about the workbook, how to meet yourself. And I have to say, this is, I think going to be, not to, pigeonhole you or anything, but I, I think this is the most important work that you've put out. To date because of how focused it is on making people actually do the work. Like it's not called a book. It's literally called a workbook. And it's like as soon as you dive in, there's stuff for you to immediately start doing. It's here's some information, here's some information, here's some information, and then like immediately do somethingNot, like entire pages of questions that people have to ask themselves. And I know as a psychologist and as a clinical psychologist, you gotta probably get pretty good at asking questions. And that's something that I've really been diving into a lot lately, especially as an interviewer myself, and then trying to figure out ways to increase the quality of life overall practices and disciplines.And the one thing that. It keeps coming back to this, there's another book literally on my desk right now and it's a totally different book, but a totally different topic, and the subtitle is 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just the more I get into this, the more I start realizing that it really is like the quality of our life really is dependent on the quality of the questions that we can ask or the quality of questions that we can ask ourselves.Part 1
[00:03:09] Travis Chappell: How do you view question asking and asking the right questions, especially when it comes to doing the work of meeting yourself? How do you view those things intertwining and how important is that? [00:03:19] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah. I actually love this and I don't think I specifically thought about it in the context. The questions to ask are ultimately the right questions, though. I think the process of inquiry of looking at yourself is, in my opinion, the basis of change. You'll always hear me as I often do. I simplify the concepts that I talk about. I simplify the process of transformation and relieve our suffering by changing our lives into two steps. And the first step will always be becoming conscious of what it is, and how things are.In particular, what role I'm playing to create the outcomes, the habitual outcomes, more often than not that I continue to get, once we see how things are, the role I'm playing, then we can make that next step into choice. So even just weaving in this concept of questioning, I think one of the greatest questions we can begin to ask ourselves is, what role am I playing in these outcomes that I continue to get in the course of my life?And the large majority of us, myself included, I think for a very long time, we don't feel like we are active participants in creating our current circumstances. Though of course, that's what my first book, how to do the Work is really about, is showing all of this unconscious, subconscious world that is creating those habitual outcomes that we can then become present to.So that we can become that active participants. So I think that the primary first question is what role am I playing? How am I creating what's happening around me so that I can begin to make those new choices to create the change that I'm looking for? [00:04:45] Travis Chappell: It's, it seems like, it seems like there's a lot of people that are almost afraid of taking that first step and are actively avoiding asking themselves the right questions andI don't know exactly why that is, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts. A hypothesis of mine is that awareness breeds accountability and once you become aware of something, it's all of a sudden now on you. To decide whether or not you're gonna fix it. And that doesn't feel good. We want to think that everything bad that's happening to us is our environment's fault. And it was our parents' fault, and it was our teacher's fault, and it was culture's fault. And, I'm just trying to do the best I can with all the crap sandwiches that the world fed me. Do you know what I mean? I, that's, again, that's just me. My hypothesis here is, am I wrong in thinking that way?What do you think about what can make people jump into that first step of becoming aware that the problem exists and that they are ultimately the ones responsible for solving that problem?
[00:05:42] Dr. Nicole LePera: I think, to speak to your point, it absolutely opens up. The aspect of personal responsibility and then all of the ways that we could feel about ourselves, the humans, and our family, the environments that we've come from that have created that way of being.But I think even before we get to accountability, I think it's really natural and understandable. Many of us, and again, speak from my own lived experience, we don't feel a participant because all of this happens so outside of our awareness that it seems to us that we go about life and circumstances happen and we don't have the space to see.Is that underlying whatever event happened outside of my being internally, that I've interpreted that event that my body has shifted into some sensation, right? It's beginning to perceive what's happening and, and assess one major. Areas. Is this something that's safe? Is this something I've experienced before? Is there possibly something that's threatening at this moment? Again, now I'm interpreting what's happening based on how my body is reacting based on old mental narratives that I've been repeating to so many of us for as long as I can remember, based on the earliest ways that I've learned to make sense of my circumstances, and then I might tune in.Mid-reaction, right? Mid-implosion or explosion, or maybe even somewhere after the fact where I'm feeling shameful and where I don't feel like I've had that space to say, wait a minute, I'm participating. I'm playing a role. I'm interpreting this. My body is shooting me into this reaction. I'm not located in this equation at all.  So it's very understandable. I think as many of us age in years and repeat this cycle subconsciously outside of our awareness for decades of time when we hear someone say, you're playing a role in what's happening. It is really easy to, you know if not just roll our eyes outright. Defend. Yeah. And I know I did this about how that's not the case.I was actually talking to my sister earlier this morning. We were having this exact conversation, which was some version to complicate things further. Not only are most of us on autopilot, unaware of the role that we're playing. Some of us were very much modeled that externalization, the world is happening to us. I can't affect change. It's overwhelming to me. And that was very much what we were taught in my family home. So we both acknowledge how difficult it is. Factor yourself into seeing the role that our interpretations are playing to see the role that our dysregulated nervous system is playing in terms of forming those interpretations.And to ultimately locate me as an active player. But I think that's an important aspect of it, is it's so unconscious to us that. understandably. We are like, what are you talking about, Nicole? We don't have, I'm not able to change and until we really become conscious of ourselves south in that process, we will feel a victim to our circumstances.
Part 2
[00:08:26] Travis Chappell: And especially cuz up to that point of awareness. All you've ever practiced is that version of yourself. Like that thought process, that spiraling that happens, that state of anxiety or depression or fill in the blank is reinforced from something that happened early on, but also, it's the state that we've practiced every day. Until the moment that we've become aware that we play a part in it and we have the actual ability to change it, and even then, it feels almost impossible because it's so habitual and it's so subconsciously rooted into our entire routine that it's just so easy to just get addicted to that feeling and then feel so comfortable, even if it's bad.Just because I know that feeling, even though yeah, I'm anxious, yeah, I'm depressed, but like at least I know what to expect. At least I know I'm gonna end up in my boxers with a handful of, Doritos crumbs watching, crappy TV, or something like that. At least I know that's the path for me and, there's some sort of comfort in Right. Even as weird or as messed up as that sound, [00:09:30] Dr. Nicole LePera: so much wisdom in what you're describing. Absolutely. Travis, there is. Comfort in the familiar, because we love as humans to be in control, to be able to predict what happens next, even if it's a un, an uncomfortable outcome of having the Doritos on my chest or whatever it might be. Even if that's what you want to avoid, and maybe you even objectively came up with all of the consequences of that to your subconscious mind, which is driving all of our behavior, which is driven by our nervous system. It is only, prioritizing the safety of that next moment and the habitual familiarity of those patterns will feel safer than the threat that's in that possible unknown.And to speak to another point, you very beautifully created these habits for many of us, because we are like the horse with blinders on it. Become for some of us, part of our personality, we do think it's our identity. We wrap ourselves in this habitual way of being, and we don't even see the possibility of showing up in a different way or having a different response in those moments because we begin to then recite things like, this is just how I am or who I am. Not understanding that this habitual way of being, again, was born out of our circumstances, not out of something intrinsic about us in general.
[00:10:43] Travis Chappell: , is this. Environment and relationships come in a little bit because I e even as you're saying like that last piece, I really love that last piece where, where you talk about how it actually is, it starts embedding into our personality and becomes our identity. Not just an extension of ourselves, but who we are. And I felt that, that way in my life about a couple of things about myself that, that I was just like, you know what I, I feel. I feel like I am more this way because people labeled me as that and I just bought into what other people observed about me, maybe on a bad day or something.But I bought into the fact that that was my identity and now I search that out and seek that out. And my biases move me in, like toward action in these areas that don't even make sense to me, are like, they rob me of some sort of inner joy that maybe I had in the past and. I feel like the things that have helped, and again, this is something that I struggle with to this day, so I'm not acting from a place of, oh, I've made it, but I think one thing that's helped me at least identify those things is allowing myself to get around other people who.Don't know me in that capacity or who are used to constant change and aren't meeting you with this abrupt, like what, whom are you trying to be, bro? You're not even, that's not you. You're, you're saying this stuff like, why are you smiling? You look weird right now. You usually like the chill. Do you know what I mean? I have in my mind this version and brand of you, and if you try to be or do anything that exists outside of that, then you are not real or genuine, or you're trying to be someone you're not. You just need to accept who you are. Do you know what I mean? That environment can really just crack you back down into this mode of comfort or lack of growth. How would you recommend people think about that and, and try to get outside of that?
[00:12:21] Dr. Nicole LePera: I think the first beautiful awareness again that you're sharing in there is that we come to know ourselves to speak to. I think you asked a question a bit earlier about relationships. We come to know who we are in relationships. Beginning in our earliest relationship. There is no self on an island. We are interconnected interpersonal beings. We're wired. We are in a physical state of dependency. As human infants, we. Sustain life on our own. There has to be some degree of a present caregiver showing up consistently to just literally keep us alive.So then when we talk about psychological concepts like the sense of self, who am I, right? That is very much defined by how I was able, and how safe I was to express myself. Who I am in those earliest relationships. And the reality for many of us is we didn't have a safe, grounded, curious, attentive caregiver who was able to explore us as a different beings.We either grew up in an unsafe environment, we didn't have that level of attunement, or we were seen as an extension right, of our parents. And given all of this messaging of what we should and shouldn't be, and before long, whom we come to know ourselves as then is a byproduct. How we had to be, and the adaptations we had to make in these very early relationships. So again, we are not solo individuals. Even if we don't feel connected to the relationships around us, whom we think we are was created out of those relationships. And then to complicate it further, to go on with your point of how embedded then we become in these relationships as we begin to come to a new awareness, leave home, meet new friends, try on new aspects of our being, have the freedom to do that, and then we turn around and try to right express these different parts of yourself in a system that's become so locked by expectations, right? I've always shown up this one way, and now here I am, lo and behold, doing something d. At a minimum, we're gonna violate a lot of expectations. So it's gonna, there's going to be a lot of surprised humans that are having something unfamiliar now in front of them. That then might react from a much more complicated place of threat. Might begin to feel abandoned. Might not necessarily like this new way that we're showing up. And then we might get different degrees of kickback, where before long the pressure internally, already feels uncomfortable enough to do something unfamiliar, right? My nervous system is alerting me that this could be scary, be careful, tread slowly. And now if I couple that with the external environment screaming at me, right? To stop being different, who do I think I am better than me Before? Long before I know it, I am right back in those old familiar patterns. [00:14:59] Travis Chappell: Yeah. No, that's so well said. And, I appreciate you expounding that a little bit.
Part 3
[00:15:03] Travis Chappell: I'm curious selfishly, okay. I, for some context, think the last time we spoke, my son was maybe a year old or something. We didn't have my daughter, but now we have a two-year-old girl and we have a three-and-a-half my son's three a half now. And I am constantly thinking about how screwed up. My kids are gonna be when they get older. , because I've come to the conclusion, Nicole, that no matter how hard I try, I don't have any control over something that they're gonna experience because of me. That's, they're gonna be talking to their therapist about when they're 28, 33, or whatever years old trying to work through something because their dad messed them up with something. I am curious from your perspective how to kinda walk that line as a parent because I heard Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about this. I think it was on Joe Rogan or something. But he was talking about how he was walking through Central Park in New York, and he saw a mom and her son walking next to each other, and he saw a puddle in front of them, and his mind immediately went to oh, this, this little boy's gonna see that puddle.He's gonna wanna jump in it, it's gonna splash, it's gonna be awesome. And he sees, he sees this playing out in front of him in real-time, and he sees a, a look in the mom's eye where she saw the puddle as well. And then his immediate thought was like, no, no, no. Please don't keep him from doing that. And then she immediately, of course, Moved him away, don't jump in the puddle, or wouldn't let him jump in the puddle.And he was like, he was basically saying from the extent that if you start squelching your children's curiosity, then that will prevent them from finding out that version of themself or that will prevent them from being playful and, and experiencing what life has to offer. And so I've, I, I've always been conscious of that with my kids. It's like I want them to engage in curiosity and I want them to like me, even if it's more of a mess for me sometimes like I want them to be. Put their hand in their food or feel things like experiencing things. And, but also, I don't want them to grow up being a brat that can do whatever they wanna do whenever they wanna without any discipline or structure. Cuz that's not a good situation either. How can I, as a parent, how can we as parents practically work through that yin and yang?
[00:17:01] Dr. Nicole LePera: I wanna first, offer all of the respect and compassion in the world. The tall order that is parenting to have to write consistently and endlessly be available to another human outside of yourself is no easy feat. And I and I say that again with all of them, all of the compassion and all of the respect to parents in, in the world, to speak to your point about, teaching children, allowing them to live, the natural, this is the language I would use, the natural consequences of their actions, right?To jump in a puddle and see if they like being wet, muddy, being dirty. They may, they may not, and allow them to then. Navigate the choices that they're making within safe parameters. And that's really the, the job quote unquote, of a parent, is to put in the safety in place to make sure that child can continue to sustain life in a safe manner, though, to allow them those moments of maybe doing something that you wouldn't do or you would advise against within reason and allowing them to determine right, if.Outcomes are aligned for them because this is something we have to remember when we're raising other humans. Even if they look like us, even if they are seemingly similar to us in a lot of ways, they are still different. So maintaining that curiosity. There's another huge gift in being able to admit, admit the imperfections of us as a human and as parenting humans.And what I mean when I say that is I think a lot of us have this idea, and I know myself, not even being a parent. I have this kind of drive to perfection. Again, originates from my own childhood, originating from how I got validation in my childhood, originating from the overwhelming stress, and stress in my family's life with this idea that if I'm perfect right, I won't add to the already debilitating, stressful feelings in my home.I've learned, however, that perfection is not only impossible. It overtime prevents me from pushing myself through challenging situations, from doing new things, and from taking chances that might resonate with me out of fear of not being perfect in doing it. And what is the most valuable skill that you can teach a child is how to be imperfect.How to come back and say, you know what? I parented you one way for this amount of time, and now I have some new information and I'm not perfect. And we might not know exactly what's gonna happen now moving forward, but we're gonna try something new, right? When we teach that version of repair, even maybe an apology, hey, I used to do things this one way and I'm now understanding that might be painful to you, child. I'm sorry for the impact of these actions and now I can change. That is such a gift, in my opinion, to give our children. So throwing out the idea of being a perfect parent, understanding compassionately, again, that as any of us being human. We're impacted by the skills and tools and environment we grew up in. So we only know what we know. And as we expand our awareness, we listen to conversations like this and gather some new tools, it is not shameful to begin to change and model that change and maybe the model that responsibility. Going back to that topic model, the apologies model, doing something new and different. It's not going to debilitate our children. It's actually, in my opinion, gonna create resilience and give them the opportunity to continue to modify themselves as they grow and age and gain information that we don't even have access to yet and that we don't even know what's coming.
Part 4
[00:20:22] Travis Chappell: Yeah. You've branded yourself wisely and I think that's actually part of your origin story, quote unquote the holistic psychologist, and from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, you were basically doing a lot of clinical work with people and then started realizing that, oh, this isn't just about the mind, there's more. If, if we really want to affect real change, then we have to deal with more than just the mind. And so you talk about this mind, body, soul, complete holistic experience that you have to understand each of these things in order to create true change in your life. Can you expound on that? Just for a brief second then I have a couple of quick questions on how you parse through the importance of those three.
[00:20:59] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah, so I came to this awareness of the importance of it after traditionally trying to attempt change from just the mind, right? Having this private practice where people came in and we talked about, we explored their past, their present issues, we even came up with an actionable game plan about how to make those new choices to relieve the symptoms, the suffering break, right?The conflict that I was having, I did a lot of work in relationships, and what I would see week after week was not a report of how great these new tools were actually working. A disempowered, almost frustrating report of how it doesn't matter how much insight and awareness I have, I can't seem to either create these new habits, create this change, break the habit that doesn't serve me, or maintain it. And in seeking to understand why I was really opened up to how foundationally important the body, in particular, is dysregulation in particular around our nervous system that many of us have. Have been impacted by those earliest environments, which weren't safe, which didn't have that attuned caregiver, which now still lives in our body, with no amount of white-knuckling it affirming, right?How we want peace or something different in our lives is gonna actually create change. Even going back to what we were just touching on, our body is so wired within that familiar range of patterning that it doesn't wanna change. You will feel uncomfortable, you will become conscious of all of that underlying emotion that you've been distracted from for so long.So shifting focus and really, Honoring the full embodiment of us, the body that is in endless communication with that mind and also the uniqueness. Whether or not you like the term soul or spirit, or maybe you prefer essence. I think most of us have an idea. That there is something unique about each of us as individuals and really allowing that and allowing our bodies and our mind and our thought to be a channel for that is really what my work, I'm interested most in. Because what most of us are operating, again, is that autopilot, all of the bi-habitual patterns of dysregulation that served us in one environment, but don't continue to serve us as we grow and as we change.
[00:23:07] Travis Chappell: So what are some things that we can do on the physical side since Everything is interconnected, is this like a cold plunge, breath work, exercise? What are some actual practical things like, hey, you're feeling this way? Maybe it's just because you need sleep or maybe it's just because you have eaten nothing but packaged foods for the last two days, and you don't have any real nutrition in your body and your brain can't even feed off of the energy that you're giving it and that's why you feel foggy or what, what are some actual practical ways that this kind of shows up in our daily lives as especially how it affects our, our mind?
[00:23:42] Dr. Nicole LePera: The first one I'm gonna say might sound so simplistic that I'm, some listeners might even roll their eyes and the first foundational connection to. that you're living in a body. And I say this for the many of us who are always lost in thought, always in our mind somewhere else, as I call it on my spaceship, where I don't really even know where I'm at.But I'm definitely not attuned to my physical body. I might only tune in when I have a screaming headache or right when I'm so tense, I'm buckled over and I might not even tune in then. So really consciously learning how to shift that focus of attention. From my endless worry-based thoughts from that blank mind.Again, that might be that the nervous system is shutting down and learning how to be present in my body. And then once I'm present in my body, what I might be met with is tension, discomfort, feelings that have been accumulating for some of us for decades of our life, which makes it really understand why I don't wanna pay attention and why that doesn't feel safe. So when I really labor this point of rebuilding that foundational connection to our body, it is so important, so simple, yet so foundational, because if I'm paying most attention somewhere else, to my mind, to the external environment, you know as well, I'm not able to then, beautiful suggestions you made.Tune into how food makes me feel. Do I feel you know, revitalized when I eat or do I feel lethargic? What about sleep? Am I impacted by the number of hours? Most of us as humans, don't sleep to the extent that we need to sleep. Can I begin to pay attention to how I'm moving my body, releasing the tension in me, by stretching, by gentle movement, can I also build in restful moments that are just as important?Resting my muscles, allowing my body to repair. As moving them is, can I tune into the way my body is breathing, learning how to breathe in a grounded way from my belly as opposed to quickly from my chest? These are all things that we gain access to once we begin to pay attention to our bodies. So for me, I can't stress how important that is, which could mean just beginning to become present to yourself during you.One of the tools, it's so simple, I like to suggest, because most of us walk around with a cell phone. So whether you're setting an alarm on your cell phone, writing some post-it notes, maybe you know in the mirror posting it, that you walk by at a certain time during the day and giving yourself a reminder when that reminder alert goes off.  When you walk by that post-it notes at that moment, first just tune into where is your attention. Were you fully present in your body in the experience of walking from room to room or whatever it is that you're doing when your alarm goes off on your phone? or is your attention somewhere else? And I imagine the large majority of listeners will come to find that they're not present in their bodies.They're not even tuning into how it is that their body feels. So really rebuilding that connection then does open the door to those other practical suggestions where we can intentionally now shift the way my body is feeling, release some of that stress or that tension that's in my body that's been accumulating over time and even begin to make.Of the emotional experience of my physiological body, cause that's what emotions are. They register in my body; things happen that I can feel assuming I'm paying attention to my body.
Part 5
[00:26:51] Travis Chappell: And then how do we start controlling, or at least I don't, I don't even know if controlling is the right word, maybe producing the correct or maybe just better feelings. This is something that I've, I've just been exploring a lot lately, Nicole, just because. I, if you subscribe to any sort of stoic philosophy or anything like that, they always talk about the event and then there's your interpretation of the event that gives it negative, positive, or neutral meaning to that event.And our feelings are often our body or mind's initial reaction. Just the crude, brutal reaction to whatever the event happened and how you happen to be feeling that day. Largely or in, or maybe the severity of the event itself will largely contribute to the way that you feel about it. How much of that is good, like letting, your emotions come out, letting your body feel the way that it should feel versus how much of it is, is giving away too much control to outside environments that we can't control? I guess the question is like, cuz I, I, I have, I almost have a problem with thinking that If I'm feeling a certain way, that's probably for a reason and I probably shouldn't just immediately be like, no, that's bad.That's a bad feeling. Feel something different. Generate this other feeling because it's on you. You can decide to be happy or whatever. It's well, so I think it's probably pretty good to experience the whole spectrum of human emotion within some sort of moderation, I just don't know how to think about that.
[00:28:11] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah. So, I go as far as to say not only do emotions give us our human experience, they animate our life. There's value in them, right? When I feel angry, usually I'm getting a message that there's some violation I'm feeling, like overstepped in some way. So our emotions contain information. So the last thing we wanna do, keeps them so below the surface that we're not aware they're happening, or try and strong-arm shame ourselves for having them or strong-arm them away. I think that is just a form of. Very commonly used. The word is bypassing all of the same. Our goal is to make space to be present to our emotions because there is value in them. Not only, again, do they color our life and allow us to feel and embody the experiences that we're having. They might be something we wanna pay attention to in certain moments. They might be indicating when we need to shift our path or shift our behavior. The reality for most of us though is, we don't know how to have that safe relationship. We don't know how to be a safe container for our own emotional experiences. We either suppress them overwhelmingly and never allow ourselves to tune into the fact that they're still happening below the surface, or we just react from them and we don't have any space to build in that responsiveness.So ultimately the goal is to be present to learn how to tune in and to be aware of the moments, the people, the circumstances, and our interpretation of them. Because what most of us are doing is applying old stories to current events. Mm-hmm. So what we're feeling might not necessarily be an accurate reflection of what's happening, though if we don't or if we turn our attention away.The reality is that it's happening. We're just continuing to keep it alive in our bodies so we can distract ourselves. But it doesn't mean that the energy of that past story isn't still the case. We can be present though and determine whether or not that old story applies, which might allow us then to metabolize the emotion, shift out of that energetic feeling, and that's what most of us can then begin to do.Not continue to live in the story of what happened as I know I have done for decades of my life. I can rehash something that happened so long ago, right? And call up the same upset at this moment, like it just happened yesterday. So now we can again see the role we're playing and continue to live on these emotions, but just because they come from some older place. If they're happening in our bodies, they're real. So allowing them to happen, being present while they happen, maybe being intentional about how we can allow our body to create grounding while they're happening. If they're feeling overwhelmed or creating relaxation, whatever it is that we need, we can be in assistant aid. But to speak to your point, we never wanna suppress it, ignore it, or will it away because it's gonna live inside of us all the same,
[00:31:01] Travis Chappell: just because of the story. isn't true. It doesn't make the feeling any less of a bread salad.
[00:31:07] Dr. Nicole LePera: 100%.
Part 6
‍[00:31:08] Travis Chappell: So in your workbook, how to meet yourself, if you're listening right now and you haven't already picked up a copy of this, then please go pick up a copy right now before you do anything else, how to meet yourself. The workbook for self-discovery has four different sections, but the last three are meet your habit, self, meet your Emotional Self, and Meet your authentic Self. Can you give us a brief overview of those three things? Yeah, 100%. And so I very strategically put that Section three, meet your authentic self.Imagine most people who pick up this workbook are interested in getting to know who they really are. And until, and the reason why I did not begin the book with that is until we rebuild that conscious connection to our habit, self, or the body, all of the daily actions that we're taking are not taking, that are impacting.Our stress, our ability to tolerate stress, our ability to stay regulated and grounded and connected to whom we are in any given moment. That begins again with that foundation. As you enter section one, you'll learn about all of the different, daily habits that many of us do,
[00:32:03] Dr. Nicole LePera: You know, these days that might be creating or continuing that dysregulation in our nervous system.Because our nervous system is foundational. It's gonna be the difference between, I'm reacting to this moment two, I'm feeling what's happening and how I'm feeling about this moment. And I'm responsive. I can be a. Participant and intentional about what I do next. Breaking some of those old patterns of reactivity and peeling back then that once I have that foundational layer of stability and connection to my body, I can begin to peel back all of the onion of our mental world and all of those habitual narratives that, again, were created in one early environment that our mind will continue to assign as the current meanings giving us the opportunity to see.Things like our ego, our inner child, and all of those rehearsed stories and how they're coloring our reactions in real time over time. Then peeling back those layers of the onion. Now we're left with space. Space to begin to intersection three and tune into and get curious and explore things like purpose and passion and creativity.Gifts that I believe are inherent in each of us, but because of our conditioning, because of our patterning, because of our dysregulation, and our nervous system, which won't prioritize things like purpose, passion, and future, I'm just trying to survive this moment right here. Right now. There's no space or time for my attention somewhere else.I might not be connected to those yet, which is again, why you'll meet that in section three. Creating the safety, the grounding, pulling back all of the impacts of these early stories, and this conditioning will now give you the space to reconnect with who you really are.
[00:33:39] Travis Chappell: I love what you said about being a conscious participant because sometimes I take on this role of, of in most things I preach the radical responsibility thing, which takes responsibility for everything you can, and I think there's just much more empowerment in believing that even though something may not have appeared to be on me, that even believing that it still was on me gives me more power to change it or fix it or improve it and prevent it from maybe happening again.However, it can sometimes feel disempowering when. There are a bunch of these other external factors that are creating something inside of me that feels opposing to what I believe or what I believe about myself. And ha, I, I really like that, that term being a participant a conscious participant because it's accepting the responsibility that you have in the scenario, but also acknowledging.There are outside forces that, there's, I didn't sleep enough last night. I'm, I have stress in my, with, with my kids or with my wife or with my business or whatever. And then, and then you add on top of that, that I have pressure from outside investors and you add on, on top of that.  I have this thing. And then that thing happened to me when I was a kid. And then I feel like crap, or maybe I'm still lingering, I still have a cold that's lingering. There are so many external factors that can facilitate or influence the way that you're acting or thinking at that moment.And so just acknowledging that it's not just me that has the ability to make the decision to get out of it. There's also a lot of other stuff that's going on. So just acknowledging that there are external things that you don't really have that much control over, but you do have control over the thing that you do have control over. I think that that's a really good way of looking at it. So I appreciate you, for parsing that up for us. So again, how to meet yourself, the workbook for self-discovery by Dr. Nicole Lap. Please go pick up a copy of this book.
Part 7
[00:35:19] Travis Chappell: And Nicole, I would love to transition here and talk a little bit about the business side cuz a lot of my audience are entrepreneurs and want to know how you are. Done what you've done up to this point, and, I was listening to something of yours earlier and realized that you didn't start posting on Instagram until 2018. Is that right? [00:35:36] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yes.
[00:35:37] Travis Chappell: So 2018, in the last five years, you've gone from zero to seven or 8 million followers on Instagram, millions of followers on TikTok. You got millions on every platform you're involved in. You're a multiple New York Times bestselling author how and why, like, where did this come from five years ago? That's just, it's such a short period of time to be able to achieve the things that you've been able to achieve. Why did you want to do it, to begin with, and how did it happen?
00:36:03] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah. It's even mind-blowing, honestly, Travis, when I hear you recite back the litany of. Incredible things and opportunities have come to creation. Cause if I'm being honest, if you would've spoken to me a decade ago when I was that therapist with my shingle up in Philadelphia, I never would've spoken words like the author, like public life, like visible in any way.And I got to the part, honestly, in my healing journey where I started to see how much I watered myself down because I was taught, predominantly in my field, that one of the things that we learn is not to be a human in the room. People want professionals, they want tools. They don't wanna, they don't want your humanity.So I watered myself down. That was very much in alignment with, the pattern I saw in my personal life, I didn't share my thoughts with people. I didn't share how I really felt. I was always filtering things through, just like I did in childhood, a lens of how will this impact me. And if I had the idea that it would create more stress or worry, or would paint me as anything less than perfect. I would just suppress it, keep it in, and modify myself. So even creating the Instagram account wasn't necessarily with the aspiration, to be public, to get a book deal, to do. All of the things that I've been given the opportunity to do were actually an exercise in me having a space to begin to share. About myself, about the reality and the realizations that I was coming to, and the work and the change that I was creating in my life. And one of the overwhelming things that I was met with was how universally resonating not only aspects of my own struggles and my own journey healing from anxiety, healing from this cultural patterning of always putting my family first and how resonating that was with the Global Collective, how much people were, desiring of the tools, the community, the connection. So for me, it grew out of just the intuitive right next step of, wow, there's a big community here, and I'm starting to finally, for the first time in my life, Feel a little less alone.This is an opportunity for me to begin to now talk practically, talk about these concepts in ways that are understandable, and give people the tools to relate the concept to their daily life. Because one of the things I very much knew early on is in talking to a global audience. Not all of these humans have access to this information, to the services that we do here in the United States, to these conversations, to the community, and to these tools.So for me, it's just been a journey of, one intuitive, like need, a desire that I was hearing from the community that I was connecting with that created then the membership. that created the opportunities to translate this work into books that are now translated around the world. So for me, again, it began as an exercise in my own healing journey. And I think because of its universal need and universal resonance it has really shifted into why you know, the numbers and the community are as large as it is and has then opened the doors for opportunities to put things in books, have a podcast, open up membership through all the things.
[00:38:55] Travis Chappell: One thing I really appreciate about your work here is that I'm a big fan of anybody that goes against organizational, traditional things. I just like the rebel story a little bit and it feels weird to call you a rebel of all people, but within your field and your practice, that's how a lot of people look to you for a long time, and probably some of them still do.But what I really appreciate about your work is that. You met people where they were and not where you wanted them to be. And that I think a big problem in the clinical world, is that they want everybody to adapt to the way that their practice is being done. They want you to disrupt your life to come in once a week to have a full conversation, and then as soon as the hour's up, it's boom, ding.  All right. Now we all of a sudden can't talk about this. It's well, I, you just dug something super important and deep out of my past, and I'm like, in this deep emotional state. I'm in the middle of the story and it's well, our hour's up, we'll see you next week. And it's but I, but I like it there.Realspace is there to like work through some of those issues sometimes. And I'm not saying that you should not get clinical work. I'm not trying to down that side at all. I'm just saying that there are a lot of other people either who will just not do it because of the stigma around it. Or maybe they don't have access to the capital to do it. Or maybe, as you said, they live in a different country and they don't have the type of infrastructure that we have. There are so many people that need the work or that need the tools and need the practices that will not meet a therapist in theirs.And, a lot of times in these like older, traditional industries, they're so dogmatic about how it should be done that they're not open to hearing other methods of potentially getting the word out there. And what you've done is basically, like I said earlier, as I said at the beginning of this conversation, the group chats I have with my friends are mostly just us sending stupid memes and jokes to each other and then there's like holistic psychologist stuff that we send to each other as well, because you're meeting people where they are. You're giving them something that they need while they're consuming something that they want, which is like the foundation for continuing to spread a message to a lot of people is that it has to be digestible and you have to give it to 'em the way that they want to give it to them.And then, you can give them what they need after you give them what they want, but you have to start with what they want. And so I really acknowledge your ability to recognize that early on and obviously resonated with enough people to blow up your audience over a long period of time.And you were able to do it through a ton of pressure and outside criticism, from people in the clinical world. , including this massive article that Vice wrote about you that almost painted you as like a freaking villain that you're being detrimental to people's mental health and stuff like that.Can you talk us through Some of the criticisms that you've received along the way and, also how that helped grow your brand? Cuz from what I remember, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, I'd love to hear the timeline chronologically that vice piece really like actually helped propel you in a lot of ways to a lot of other different opportunities. So can you, can I just walk us through that kind of timeline from 2018 till now and then, A couple of those things like the vice thing and some of the other outside pressures that you've been, that you've had that have been negative.
[00:41:51] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah, I, I appreciate all of your, your kind supportive words, Travis, of an acknowledgment and I think something else that, you know, is a bit of a disservice that people want.Just to go back to that for just one quick second. I think people want humans in the room. I'm still struck to this day as I share aspects of my own struggles that continue to this day. The humanity in me. I met with, oftentimes in my membership, just such relief when I share a little, difficult moment I had this morning or last week or whatever it might be.And there's just such relief that, oh my gosh, you still. I think in the field we do a disservice with, and I understand the clinical idea of being this blank slate of having these, like you're saying, containing hours where time is up and now it's a structured session and until next week and we could talk about it then. And I also understand humanity and I think that largely people do wanna feel less alone in their struggles. I have heard from so many clients who won't even share what's really going on with therapists for no fault of the therapist because it's shameful. Because you do have, and you project this idea that, oh, I can't share with this perfect human who has no issues in their life.What's really happening with me, I think that's a large disservice. One of the aspects of the work that I do and of my journey was sharing the continued struggles that I have. And I think that's the relief that is offered there. When I see articles like the Vice article, however long ago that came out on.I know, I hear the criticism. I think, not only does some of it come from just outright misinterpretations of statements that I have not made, words that have not come out of my mouth. Mainly around this idea. While I do talk about empowering people with tools to be this conscious, active participant in their journey, never once.Offered the op opportunity or, or suggested that people don't get support if they have access and means to it. And again, when I see some of these criticisms, it's very adamantly it's being suggested that I've said otherwise, and that's just largely not the case. And then I, I think another reality that applies to all of us is, we’re all humans interpreting people's messages, creating stories of what we think they mean based on, again, this entire conversation you and I have been having, what we've interpreted from the past.So I think some amount of criticism is to be expected because we're not always gonna. Be perceived the same way, because we're not objective creatures. We're all objectifying the reality around us. So when things like that come out, while on one hand, I can say it's, it’s parred for the course.Of course, there it is. there is the other hand whether or not it propelled me or not, I'm not actually sure. I do think that, in articles like that while, sometimes people can react very negatively to the content, should they believe it and unfollow or do all the things just as equally people can be attracted to, it can come over.So it could have drawn people my way. I would be lying. However, if I said that, it's just so easy to roll. Allow those things to roll off my back. I'm still a human. Feels threatened by this criticism, wants to yell out how they're wrong, how they're misinterpreting, or even just take my own advice of, oh, just let it be over there.You're just being misinterpreted. Keep your time, attention, and focus here. And that's not the case. Even going back to something you beautifully said earlier, when I'm not eating well when I'm not sleeping, when I'm stressed out and I have a lot on my mind, it's very easy for me to give that criticism, more weight even to seek it out, to be reminded of all this terrible crap out there about myself.In those moments. Seeing it, I don't know the exact numbers of how it helped, or how it didn't help. What I do know is when those things happen, I have that whole. You know, All those various different responses. I can hold space for misinterpretation. I can hold space for just my ideas, not being aligned with someone else's beliefs, framework, or their way of being.And I can hold space for the reality that I'm a human who can be impacted, hurt, and dysregulated when I see those things. And then again, being conscious. It's my choice. I can choose how much I engage; I can choose how much attention I give it. I can choose the reframe of, okay, well some people might have taken it negatively and I could see all of the people who have taken it positively. But I get to choose how it is. I interact with the reality that is there, and I'm anticipating it will probably always be there to some extent. [00:46:01] Travis Chappell: You are prolific in the sheer volume of valuable content that you release. What's your guys' content strategy? What do you think about it? What's your schedule on that? Are you, how, how often do you record, or how often do you write stuff? Do you have team members that are doing this for you? We help a lot of people from just a context perspective. We help a lot of people in my agency with creating podcasts and repurposing content and their overall content strategy and stuff.And you guys kill it and crush it with that on multiple platforms. So, to hear what your strategy and, and kind of day-to-day content operations look like.
[00:46:32] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah, so generally as we've been gradually now expanding across platforms general strategy is always to look at the platform and the unique opportunity that I think each of them offers in terms of the content that's presented, the how content is presented. So we've gotten into video content for TikTok and little skits, so it's taking what exists and then seeing how we can modify the message, what it is that we wanna share using the framework that that platform offers.So as we've been gradually expanding that, that means then, you know, thinking about content in new ways, thinking about how to present what was once a meme in a more scripted delivery, of these little vignettes that we've been doing or how to translate it into a thread in Twitter. And so as we've been expanding, we expand, we've now needed it. Expand the manpower behind it and have, the kind of team that helps post-manage certain accounts. We've now had an Instagram account for the circle, the soundboard, our podcast, and all of the things. So making sure, however, that, however, it is, or whomever it is that's putting the message up, that it's still the voice, right?Coming from, our ideas, the way that we would say things tailored to the content, and then listen. To the community on each of those platforms. That's something that we have done from the beginning is, always listening to how messages are landing what content is of interest what's the next question that comes to mind once you read this meme to the next meme to sequence then what happens next.And it's not anything that we've ever formulated, written down, and never modified. It's actually a living, breathing conversation is the way I think. I like to think of it with the communities that exist on all of these platforms, allowing it to be a collaborative effort of what are you interested in. How is it, easy to hear and communicate and metabolize these messages and make them as relatable as possible?
[00:48:21] Travis Chappell: What does your team look like now, just on the content side? [00:48:23] Dr. Nicole LePera: In terms of, what do you mean? Just the number of people? Yeah. We actually just uh, one of us, we hired a person who is helping us, an individual with some backend things and actually who can translate into Arabic. So we have a new oh, great movement where we're going to have some Arabic translation pages. So she's a new edition. Awesome. And then we have another team member who runs some of the accounts. So it's a little bit of, I would say, three or four people in general. And other things.Yes. We don't have just a content type designation. Often some people are, wearing multiple hats, working in the circle, doing other things at once, and doing that.
[00:48:59] Travis Chappell: And then how many across all platforms combined, even if it's the same video on four different things, how many pieces of content do you think you're distributing on a monthly basis at.[00:49:08] Dr. Nicole LePera: That's a really good question. I don't know. Several, several pieces of content usually go out on each platform. A couple of threads a day, a couple, yeah. Posts a day. Our video content gets batched, in terms of when we're recording it usually. [00:49:21] Travis Chappell: So you're up around 3, 400, 500 maybe. If you add them all up across all platforms
[00:49:26] Dr. Nicole LePera: probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot
.[00:49:29] Travis Chappell: That's the strategy. Yeah, that's why, I was asking. I was just curious. Yeah. That's something that's been a hypothesis of ours recently just really shooting for quality of the content, but also the volume of quality content, and then finding what works and then creating more about that thing That works well.Listen, Nicole, I know I know we gotta get running here pretty soon and I don't want to take up too much of your time here. Thank you again for coming to the show, the book How to Meet Yourself: The Workbook for Self-Discovery. Please, please, please go pick up a copy of this book and you will be thanking me eternally if you do.And please go follow Nicole on all channels @the.holistic.psychologist. And I know that you're going to enjoy the stuff that she puts out over there, cuz again, it's, it's one of ours. My friend group's most, most shared accounts. So I appreciate you for coming on. Last question before, before we take off here, Nicole.This show, Travis Makes Friends, was rebranded from Build Your Network. The last time we talked about the show was called Build Your Network. Now it's called Travis Makes Friends. And the reason for that was that we wanted to take the idea of building high-quality relationships and move it outside of just people who are networking to get ahead in their career and their business.
[00:50:30] Just basically be like, look, this is a good thing for everybody to do just because it enriches your life and makes you a higher quality individual. So the last question is just about how you would recommend adults. Because it's more difficult as an adult. Go find and create new friendships.
[00:50:46] Dr. Nicole LePera: Yeah. Great question. I think relationships are the fabric of our being. We need them, and I think the number one suggestion I can have been to be flexible in terms of where you're meeting the people. I'm looking at the virtual space. We have a prolific, vibrant community of individuals that you might become, and many have developed deep relationships with humans that are living literally on the other.Of the world. So I think while nothing beats being able to have coffee or dinner or, go to a movie with a physical human, I think, as we're beginning to maybe experiment with new ways of being with new, authentic friendships, of even tying this whole conversation full circle, the online world might be a great place to start.It might feel a little less threatening even to begin to experiment with these new ways of being with someone who isn't, you can, whom you can see at this store next. And it can give the basis for four deep, deep, deep friendships that over time maybe can translate to in-person friendships. But I don't, I don't think it's anything to disregard, to look down on is the virtual landscape. Cuz the reality of it is you might not live in a town that has aligned people. Everyone that you might again, might be that embedded network of people who are trying to, because of their desire to be familiar. Keep you the same. So for some of us, it is looking outside of our communities, which might be in virtual space.
[00:52:00] Travis Chappell: Yeah. Search for commonality rather than physical proximity perhaps. [00:52:04] Dr. Nicole LePera: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:52:05] Travis Chappell: Well, Nicole, I, I could keep asking you questions for the next three and a half hours, and I know you don't have the time, so I will let you go. Thank you so much for coming on another episode of the show, and I can't wait to promote the next book that comes out or whatever else that you got going on. It's always a pleasure chatting with you. [00:52:18] Dr. Nicole LePera: Thank you so much for having me, Travis, and thank you all for listening.