How To Be The Love You Seek w/ Dr. Nicole LePera

Ever since, I've been hooked. Known as quote the holistic psychologist doctor Lapera offered is real talk on how to heal thyself. I've been wanting to chat with doctor Lapera on my podcast for a while now, and this conversation did not disappoint. A major theme running through our conversation is the importance of being emotionally connected with yourself and learning the skills of authentically expressing your emotions to others.

Doctor Lapera helps people heal from trauma and connect deeply with others using a variety of approaches, including an embodied somatic approach. Want to know how to be the love you seek? Let's find out. I bring you, doctor Nicole la Pera. Nicole, thank you so much for being on the Psychology Podcast today.

into a private practice. I was living in Philadelphia at the time, you know, doing the work that I thought, you know, I was called to and wanted to do, Trudging along in a committed relationship, living near my family, and I continued to find myself feeling really disconnected, really unfulfilled from my own personal life, very much still struggling with For me, it was a lifetime of anxiety which really hit a lot of panic in my twenties, so

that being ever present and at that point having clocked many hours working with clients who would come into my office week after a week, and I was feeling professionally really disempowered. I continue to hear that from even you know,

the most insightful from the most insightful conversations, awarenesses. The clients I was working with kept coming in and reporting more of the same, more of the same symptoms, more of the same struggles, more of the same dysfunctional habits, and very much seeing that mirror reflected in my own

personal life. At my own attempts at therapy and self awareness, and using all of these tools, I sought to understand I'm a lifelong learner, as my dad would for many years joke when I was finding myself in a year after year of school, He's like, I think you just

really want to be a learner. And so I, as many of us do, I went online and I sought to find is there other information out there that I'm missing in terms of clinically working understanding the human condition, And very thankfully I was met with a wealth of

information in terms of the physical body. I think foundationally, for me that was the biggest opening, from everything from gut health to nervous system awareness and how trauma really imprints the way our nervous system functions, the power true power of our subconscious mind, and how we have so many of those you know, neurobiological habits that are just

wiring wired into us. And I finally started to have a bit of language for why so many people were stuck no matter kind of what they knew to do differently, they were kind of compelled to repeat the same habits and patterns that were often created and you know, colored

by their childhood experiences. And for me, that was when the very gradual kind of realization in terms of Well, I think I now need to start working holistically, bringing the body into conversations with my clients, you know, giving tools that are much more of the embodiment piece of practice. And that's when I think I kind of shed that final, that final identity of working traditionally and really began to embrace again the idea of a holistic psychologist.

the list in terms of relevance. And I'm looking forward to being published and you know, getting out in the collective and seeing kind of the impact that it'll have there.

And there's just so many mutual areas of interest and and little nooks and crannies weing go in, you know, as we can turn out on something I thought was interesting that you just said is about going into holistically because you felt perhaps the somatic aspect was missing from a lot of techniques, and obviously the book The Body Keeps the Score really brought to prominence the importance of the body. My question is, you know, do you think it's ever possible for a for a pendulum to swing

too much in one direction? Because to me now, when I think holistically, I think we've left out the mind. All we talk about is the body. And I'm wondering how what's coming up for you when I say this, because I feel like the pendulum with the Body Keeps the Score kind of has gone a little too much in an extreme direction, that we're not actually being holistic anymore about it.

and impacting the mind. And the simplest example of that is I think the experience I've lived, coming from a lifetime of stress and anxiety, housed in the body right not able to feel, and until I became aware of how much tension and constriction and emotional trauma I was carrying that was so reflected in my mind, my racing thoughts, my endless worry, and as I integrated the body into my conversation naturally through somatic practices and creating a ground

and calming presence, I was though it's indirectly though, I was very much still impacting my mind's ability to embrace stillness and internal reflection, and actually my ability to empower my mind to be what I think is the greatest gift of our mind, which is the power of intentional creation, as opposed to I think the deeper recesses of our

subconscious which many of us are are driven by. And so I think I just when I think of mind and body, I even think about it when I see and when I saw my own physical manifestation of a hunched over body and self protection of my heart carrying all of this constriction specifically for me around my mid section because I was so frozen in that you know, kind of vaguel dorsal vaguel response for so long, and that shut down and now as I heal right, my

body is not only showing a different manifestation again, my mind is too.

spoke their truth. But I think this is really profound, and it's been offered up in different kinds of therapy practices. For instance, DBT they teach wise mind, And I saw a connection between kind of the wise mind practice and with a lot of the threads running through what you talk about, I was wondering, do you see a connection there with this idea of being grounded in wise mind, which is grounded in your body as well?

Where does it live? And so really coupling that with the incredible science of the heart, I really like to cite, you know, Heart Math Institute, I think is at the forefront of studying the heart and its energetic power, and so for me giving it a physical location, right, and again emphasizing again the foundational importance of if we're paying attention endlessly, distracted or hypervigilant to the world around us or even in our thinking mind right over analyzing, always assessing,

and if we're not giving any time attention and connection to our bodies and specifically our heart. That's again the location of where I think this very beautiful conceptual idea of deeper truths, though they actually can for a lot of us map onto sensations, you know, things that kind of internally we can tune into when we're ground it

and safe. I think that's the biggest caveat there in being present in our physical body, when we're able to be in that moment of stillness, silence, solitude, when we're able to tune out or at least unhook our attentional focus from all of the endless distractions of the world around us and give attention to and then more so begin to make choices from the heart as opposed to all of the different conditioning and reasons why we can

convince ourselves out of. For those of us who have somewhat of a connection to that internal guidance, those inner pings that oh, I know maybe what I want to say or what I need to do in this situation, though, I override it because quickly what comes in is all of the conditioning, all the reasons why I learned I shouldn't, for whatever reason, say, do feel or act in that way.

you know, you're too sensitive. You know, and but you know, there are great individual differences, and I personally find it easier to connect with people who are more heart centered and or more integrative with their heart in their mind. But you know that's not everyone. I mean, there are some people I meet who are so extraordinarily analytical, and I feel like I have no way in They're like just like there. I don't know how to describe. But there's some people I just feel like I'm floating in

space when I'm talking to them. I have nothing to connect to. Do you ever feel that way when you meet some people?

that I needed to navigate all of those overwhelming, you know, sensitive emotions that I was going through on a daily basis. And then interestingly, as I entered my thirties I had when I was in my psychoanalytic training program. One of the things that we did is we would sit around all analysts in a room and do kind of have a free association session, a group session where you would be open to you know, people kind of telling you,

sharing how they experienced you. And I had a really devastating piece of awareness or perspective given to me by a colleague at that time, and she described me as cold and aloof, and I was like, oh my gosh, I've never heard myself it reflected interestingly, I share the story in my book of my first boyfriend in my high school years when we broke up. He assessed that I was emotionally unavailable. Again took me by complete surprise, because in my being I had all of these feelings right,

I wasn't. I was shy in protection. I was aloof and emotionally unavailable all out of protection. So just sharing that piece that as I've gotten more now grounded in my own presence, able to be with all of the big emotions that I feel, and then more grounded in how I experience those around me, because for a long time I was so focused on how other people are experiencing me. Do they like me? Do they want to

spend time with me? Is there some silence in the air that I can fill all from a very distance

though place, never really sharing anything deep. So now to answer your question, I'm very much more able to attune to how I feel in the presence of other different individuals, And I think those that are more in their bodies, more grounded in their own presence, just naturally feel a bit safer for me, and I'm able to more quickly, you know, kind of connect and even just either if it's feel a little bit safer in the silence that once felt like I had to fill it with that person,

or more able to share a little bit deeper of a sentiment, whatever it may be. I do think that I have the same experience of that kind of internal intuition, kind of like resonating and being like, oh, this is kind of someone in their body and able to receive whatever it is that you want to offer.

with someone. Some people, in the most extreme cases, like borderline personality disorder, there can be this kind of no boundaries, you know, like they're just constantly, always scanning to see what they can give others, as opposed to lead from who they actually are, regardless of what someone thinks of it, you know, or how they're going to receive it. And I just think that is a major theme in your book because so much of love advice is like like

the what's your love language? Crapa, No, I shouldn't say that. Well, that what's your love language area of research where they ask others, you know, to change to meet you know, your needs. That it's a very common thread and a lot of this relationship based therapy. Your book really puts a different spin on this. Can you talk a little bit how your book differs from a lot of that thread running through a lot of that kind of work.

work and very much prescribing right to that model. If we just you know, have helpful conversations, you know, share insight and awareness is give people this insight into how you feel most loved and most connected to essentially to simplify it, like you're very beautifully doing Scott, asking people to understand me and then modify how they are, very similar to in my individual practice, I was meaning a lot of resistance, a lot of inability to actually make

headway with those particular tools. And I think many of us, most of us as adults, have come and were born into an environment where we've had to adapt ourselves to maintain the safety and the security of whatever version of connection that was present and for many of us, and one of the things I hope to impart readers in this book is really calling to awareness and possibly question what our definition of relationship is because so many of us define love and connection based on this idea that

I have to somehow be different. And now in adulthood, when it's whether it's my romantic partner, my family member, my friend who's asking, suggesting, maybe even demanding sometimes for us to be more, you know, the way they need us to be. Not only does it right activate all of that old conditioning and this idea that I'm not worthy exactly as I am that I think is at the core for many of us driving many of our

habits and patterns around that. I actually don't think it works because I think oftentimes what the person is even requesting in terms of the shift or change is so grounded in their definition of love and connection from childhood that now we've created a scenario where very sadly, both of the parties are left unfulfilled or not feeling truly seen, one because they're actively trying to be different, and the other because even in the way this person maybe is

successfully right being different, it's not necessarily landing. Because what I hope again another takeaway is a more true definition of what love and relationships are, which is the space to express ourselves whatever that is our thoughts, our feelings, our perspectives, our emotions, and the safety and the security to really gain the value that we all intrinsically need in terms of the support, the support of nervous system in those moments of dysregulation of overwhelm, the collaboration of

you individuals creating or imagining a life and a future together, however big that group is. This of course absolutely extends beyond our romantic partnerships, in my opinion, into our communities where we can have space for difference and difference ideas, opinions, emotions, wants and needs and still be joined together as the group in which that we are.

want to give me that kind of relationship. A little cheeky, but the idea of I mean, your book really puts a lot of things I'm sorry about metaphors on their head, spins them on their head. So that's one of my warning disabilities as metaphors. Your book spins a lot of things on their head. Makes sense, but okay, But one

thing it does is the idea of trauma bonds. You know, you see a lot of discussion of how trauma bonds are bad, right, Like you'll see all over Instagram, Like, don't ever go in a relationship if it's formed with trauma bonds. But your book actually has a little more nuanced there, and you say there can actually be power to trauma bonds, it actually be something that it can be beneficial to a relationship. Can you talk a little bit about that.

to other individuals. And so I think when we expand that definition beyond a particular type of dysfunctional habit and pattern to all of the different ways that we've learned to water ourselves down, censor ourselves, over step, are ONTs in needs, become merged with other people, or kind of whatever version it is, I think then we see how wide that net is and the large majority of us.

When you were actually making your cheeky joke about emailing, I was making a joke in my head of like, oh, I I love to get that email too, because I've yet to meet an adult who truly had the safety and the security that they need it physically and emotionally

in their childhood. I have met many adults who have been able to become aware, and I think this is where the power comes in of what our trauma bond patterning is, or what our habitual relationship with ourself being the first relationship that we're all in inevitably until the day we die, and then how we relate or have learned to adapt and modify who we are to be connected and safe with another person. You know, we can shift. And that's very much the experience that I have had.

The relationship i'm in, My longest one has been now upwards of ten years. We just reached and when we began, there was a lot we were not I was didn't even have this information. I was still finishing up my PhD. I thought I was going to be very traditional psychologist. I was not speaking in any of this way, and I had yet to even go through what I was describing earlier, that kind of dark night where I was

just feeling disconnected, unfulfilled. So saying that to say, we had a lot of my partner LOLLI, that is a lot of dysfunctional habits and patterns that I would conceptualize as a trauma bond and we can. However, I think when we become aware of the role we're playing breaking I think a pattern that a lot of us have that I know I had of pointing right, externalizing the blame. You're the problem. Oh, I'm just picking the wrong person and really looking at the role.

I'm not sure you know what's here, and the relationship would drift and end naturally, or I would agitate it so much with these complaints that the relationship would implode or explode, and then onwards I would go to find someone else who was a bit more emotionally connected. Until I understood again the deep patterning that so many of us are driven by, myself included, I began to observe the role that I was playing really simply in terms

of my emotions. I was so disconnected from my body, from my emotions, so overwhelmed, like I was sharing that shy That shy girl turned into just a dissociated adult who got very good at going through the motions of life, checking all the box of achievement, thinking that I was going to feel some kind of way, thinking I was looking for connection and reality, I was a million miles away, overstepping my physical limits, not connected to my emotions at all.

So yeah, I use that as again, you're the problem,

It's not me. Until I really saw and again, that's why I think the power of a trauma bond can come in is when we notice, because I do get asked then often of well, what if I'm in what if I do know that in my current relationship, you know, whatever loved one it is, romantic partner friendships, they can absolutely be trauma bond it family relationships, even our professional relationships can be See these dysfunctional habits and patterns, and you know I'll get asked, can do we have to

leave what happens next? And empowerment happens, in my opinion, when we become conscious of the role we're playing. So for me, that meant become conscious of how disconnected I was. Beginning my own journey of not only creating the safety and security and my own physical and emotional body to be present to my emotions, but learning how then to offer myself sharing my emotions, asking for support, learning how to vulnerably receive the support that I was not familiar

with receiving from my early childhood. Then I think we can actually begin to embody a more secure relationship, which I think is possible though, I too. If you ever get an email from that one Unicorn that that came from the secureness in their childhood, I would love to interview them.

this and you're talking about in your book. It's one that is near and dear to my own heart and my own research and writing. Is how can we I view the kind of opposite end of the empowerment consciousness of victim mentality? And I don't know how, if how you view it that, but that's how I see it. And I feel like our society is so ensconched in a victim mentality right now and and not knowing that,

but we reward it. We'd reward it that people can get attention for it, You can get like it's you can get it's it can be nice to just stay there your whole life. How how can we move people more into this empowerment consciousness? And I and I did want to acknowledge your own what you just said and say, you know kudos to you for for really wanting to wanting to do that work, because it takes work, right, you can't just like the victim mentality doesn't doesn't believe

in hard work. It's like, forget it, it's not worth it. But you didn't take that tact. You said, you know what, this might not be an easy journey, but I'm gonna I'm going to try my best.

be more beneficial. In that moment, in that state of blind autopilot, I think it's really natural to miss all of the opportunity that we have to empower ourselves to become aware of what's in that subconscious mind of ours, to begin to shape and shift, not only the way we're physiologically reacting, the way we're thinking about it and giving us the moment to change. And so I want

to normalize. And that's again just the way I conceptually understand it, having actually come from a family who very much taught, modeled and who saw in myself that mode of conscient siousness, especially around the capabilities and for more it was me the limitations of my physical body, coming from a caregiver, my mom in particular, who suffered with

chronic pain the entirety of my life. She was forty two and she had me, and from that moment on she was suffering with chronic pain, taking heavy medication for chronic pain for the entirety of my life. Had other chronic health issues in terms of heart and heart surgeries. My older sister, who was fifteen years older than me, I was unplanned third child. She also had a lot of chronic health issues herself, at least in her early childhood.

So I had a lot of ingrained belief in terms of I was literally just waiting for myself and what physical ailment, disease diagnosis. In addition to the lifelong anxiety that I thought it would just be the rest of my life. Saw very similar anxiety in my family and my mom and my sister in particular, so had no reason to think that there would be any possibility to feel differently. Again, was awaiting limitation in my body, my

body to express disease as opposed to express wellness. So the work began for me with being actually in quite

resistance to the possibility that I could be different. I saw in the running dialogue in my mind right convincing me that I would read powerful stories of people using their bodies to create transformation and change their minds to create transformation and change, and I would close the books say good for you, and continue to embody the beliefs that that's not the journey for me, until, of course, I became really conscious of all of the ways that I was limiting myself, all of the ways that I

was reacting on blonde blind autopilot, not having the possibility to make new choices, which a and blond in all seriousness, I was that person who on the daily when I decided and learned about the power of the body and nutrition and the importance of sleep and for me of movement and stretching out my very now tight and constricted muscles after three decades and of nervous system regulation, understanding that I had none. I was so overwhelmed all of

the time. I would be lying if I said it wasn't kicking and screaming each and every day, right where I would set my alarm a little earlier, and I would keep that one small commitment to move my body for five minutes or do five deep belly breaths for you, however many seconds that takes. I had that all of

the reasons why not. Though. The shift that happened very gradually over time was as I became more conscious to all of those limiting beliefs, all of that reactivity, and as I remained committed even when I didn't want to, even when right I was continuing to convince myself it wasn't working so slowly. I was also empowering myself. At that same time, I was showing up in choice, which I think is where that true shift happens. Where yes, life will continue to happen around us. We're going to

feel some kind of way. We might even instinctually be compelled to react in a particular way. But the shift that I was seeing was built for me, and I think it for many of us is outside of those

moments of just explosive reactivity or blind habitual reactions. It was built for me and all of the moments throughout my day prior to that where I began to tend to and care for my body, become more conscious to what was happening in it, so that over time that did then translate to Okay, I can be more present with my upset, I can be more attentive to my habitual reactions and compulsions, and at the same time I now have a bit of space to make a new and different choice.

which that they were born. So when I hear that, which again I do get, I think it's a misinterpretation of I think a much more kind of surface idea or definition of the social structures that are one hundred

absolutely percent in place. Now. I see myself though always and often talking about it in the context of the trauma that has been passed through many of us in our lineages that are one hundred percent I mean anytime I'm talking even again holistically, it's our individual bodies interaction with the context and the world and the environment around us,

and what impact that that has. So again for me, it's just like a missing of I think, what is the larger scope of we are in relationship, like I said earlier, not only with ourself, but with the environment and the context and the world around us, as we're all of our ancestors, and all of that imprint is we now know scientifically right passed on epigenetically with how we learn how to deal with and tolerate stress, Which is why I'm still waiting for the unicorn that doesn't

have some of that inability in them. Bred into them even because of the socio political economic context in which all of most of our ancestors have been a part of.

about that? And do you see at all? Because I see trauma's big business these days, you know, And I think even just keeping people in a sort of victim and identity, trauma identity, you know, as though reducing the opposite of holistic, you know, like reducing an entire person to their past is actually big business in a lot of ways these days. But I was just wondering to get some of your thoughts in this well.

really unnatural to our human physiology. I mean even from growing up as you know, you and I from Philadelphia, growing up in a city living so I mean I lived on a major street. I would go to sleep hearing sirens at night, and that was like normal to me to hear what to our actual human body is quite dysregulating. A loud, blaring siren that we know means something, you know, catastrophic has likely happened. Is is not one's

nighttime lallaby. But yet for me it was. I lived on top of my neighbors, I was, you know, shared a wall. I could absolutely hear right from what was going on in the name aghbor's house. I lived in New York City for a decade, piled on top of you know, like when you're in someone else's apartment and with a bar down below. Me and hearing all of that, and was that Lower east Side, Lower east Side? It absolutely was. I was on Avenue B, I was the

second floor. I was now the six smoke coming in my window.

then outside of that, right, the culture, hustling working. I mean, in my opinion, we're at our core, we're creative beings. We're on a cycle of seasons, right, there's cycles of creation, just like you know when we plan, we plant things and they grow and then they die and then we sow.

It's not just nine to five, sometimes even earlier, sometimes even later, sometimes seventy hours a week where we're made to just push past our physical, emotional, and creative limits to do many of the jobs that many of us have to do to support the families living again with

increasing cost of living, and again just the unnaturalness of environments. Again, the celebration I think that many of us get when we're doing it all, when we're super parent or you know, the prestigious partner at our firm, because we never say no to taking time, are to overtime, and we never

take time off. I think it has set up a normalization of a lot that then gets kind of a band aid type prescription when people naturally have the symptoms of these unnatural environments, whether it's the physical exhaustion while we just drink coffee or take stimulants to wake us up, or the emotional symptoms of this disconnection from our creative being, and then we go down all of the pathways of putting the band aids on, whether it's the physical manifestation

of disease or the emotional manifestation of disease, oftentimes at the same time being celebrated and just trying to put the band aid on to continue to get us back in that productivity cycle and continuing to do or play the role that we're playing. So I think a lot about human and where we came from and our ancestry, you know, our lineage and what life looked like at

one time. And then I look outside and you know, it's not surprising to me that so many of us are feeling as disconnected as we are and are struggling emotionally to the extent that we are.

this book really reflect this opinion. Which is that it's less about going to the right place saying the right thing, and it's more about the inward journey of being in your own authentic self expression on learning all of the conditioning as we've been talking about, creating the safety and the security to be curious about who you are in terms of outside of the role maybe that you've learned to play very bravely, then making the choices to step

outside of that familiar comfort zone and the identity that comes along with all of our conditioning and quite simply being ourselves. And then as we go about life in general right being ourselves, then we open ourselves up to attract down to an energetic level these deeper, more authentic relationships. But that's not to say I do want to go

back to one aspect of your question. And it can be very lonely along the way as we get clear that maybe many of the relationships, as I know was the case for me, that kept me very active in terms of my social life, very disconnected from all of the feelings underneath for decades of my life. As I got really clear that they or I wanted to start making choices that were in alignment with my actual wants

and needs. The byproduct of that was separating, losing, ending some of those relationships that I thought I would keep for a lifetime. As I turned inward and got clearer and just spent time away it and mourned a lot of the identity that I was losing personally professionally again, as I wanted desperately to find people then that I could be emotionally or more authentically I should say, connect

it with. There was a period of time which was actually the biggest inspiration for me to even create the Instagram account back several years ago now, when I first put up the online shingle, if you will, as a holistic psychologist, it was really born out of not only a desire to share this new information that was so transformative in my own life and was transformative with the clients that I was working with more holistically at that time, it was also to find a group of people to

relieve the deep loneliness that I absolutely know comes from a lot of our journeys along the way.

feeling lonely, wanting that group of people. So I was learning and hearing about the importance of community from them, doing you know, kind of some research into how incredibly important communities are and can be. And I started to hear from a lot of people on the public account

that they were interested in a commun unity. Hey, do you have anything that's like not because by this point, you know, the follower count was growing, so people would know people, Oh, my partner's in this, and I don't want them to see what I'm commenting, or my mom or my dad. So directly, people were starting to ask is there somewhere else that we can go to be in community that's not on this very public social media platform.

So for me, it was just an alignment of all of these messages that I was getting from all of these different places. So I started to explore. Oh, I wonder what right a kind of community could look like? Can can I create something where you know? Every month of course, it's informationally driven where we roll out what we call course. So we have a new topic this

particular month. We're talking about Powa sympathetic practices, how to relax our body right, So there's information given in terms of power sympathetic nervous system, why it's important in some practices. We have workshops that happen throughout the month. I think now we have upwards of almost one a week where either I'm giving the presentation or because I think it's so important to expose just like I learned many different

types of thought. We have outside presenters come in. We just had a yin yoga workshop as one of the workshops given this month, So people in different areas coming in gifting us with their time and sharing kind of their mode of genius or their paradigm, if you will. And then of course there's the community aspect. We've now built what very much looks like our own social media platform,

though it isn't. It's on our private server where members have the opportunity to put up their own profile populated however, they want with pictures of themselves with pseudonyms if they

don't feel comfortable, and that's their opportunity. In addition to those live events where there's you know, chats and members show up early and have conversations while the workshop is happening, they have an opportunity to connect and begin to explore being themselves in a new way in the privacy of this platform, and to connect with others by doing it so so much. Actually today we're recording this on November first,

which is its anniversary. Three years ago today. It was birthed as our first enrollment cycle, so we are three years going strong. We actually still have many members that have joined from three years ago that are members to this day that are still a part of the Selcular Circle. So it's truly a living, breathing embodiment of all of the work in my opinion, of all of the concepts

at Yaril. You'll read about in how to Be the Love You Seek, which is the healing power of relationships, the importance of learning the safety and security to be oneself to find Funny enough, we've had actually people who've met partners, one of which is now a married couple that met three years ago in the circle themselves. So yes, well it's not a dating app in any sense of

the word. It is just a really cool place where people are with who they really are exploring I should say first, with who they are experimenting with being who they are and are creating really transformation, incredible transformation, not only for themselves individually, but for their relationships outside of the circle.

hundred and eighty countries worldwide. We have a member's map where members can drop in their you know, general geographic location, and I sometimes just blow the map up and get chills looking at all of the different places that people are joined from, are tuning in from, and it's it's so it's so hopeful for me, not only because it's an actual manifestation of an idea you know, that is now in full creation. It for me is just symbolic

of humanity. Humanity is desired to have these conversations to create these shifts, and again an embodiment of the incredible power that we can create electromagnetically, even right down to our heart space of being more and living more in attunement. Yeah.

tend or to serve another. It's really begins in my own kind of alignment, in my own connection to myself. So every time I see this, which I do think is also a very beautifully done tattoo, I'm like, right, that's my daily reminder, because again, all of my old habits are at the ready of putting the world before me.

Now that I have, you know, an endless opportunity for which I'm so grateful for to write books, to have a to do list, to have podcast engagements, I'm only as aligned and in flow as what I've probably done the several nights before, the several days before, how I've

tended to myself first. So those habits are for me at the ready of well, go jump in your email, Oh you have to do this thing, Oh you have an early start today, And I stay grounded in that empowerment space of consciousness to remind myself that to do all of those things, the capacity that I would like to be present to do all of those things, it begins with the choice to do me first, to have you know, an hour for myself to take care of my physical body, to be in my own presence so

that I can then be more fully present later in that day.

the early days of the Instagram account. I came to know her handle, as was the case I think several people on the account now I'm like familiar with because they've just been around that I'm used to, you know, their comments, and we've developed that type of relationship, and she absolutely was one of them. And so when We opened up the Circle several years after that account went live, and we needed help near immediately we crashed the server.

We had some technological issues. Lollie and I were trying to navigate all of the emails on our own, and it was very clear that we needed more than the two of us, and she seemingly having like felt the ping of need was in the inbox and I saw and that at this point the community was quite large. We saw her DM right away. She was affirming that she not only saw and kind of saw the vision for what it was that we were kind of doing

with the Circle. She herself was on her own journey and very much wanted to be a part of creating and you know, kind of running the community. So she joined in the context of business for lack of a better word, in the beginning, though very aligned business. And a year or two after, Lollie and I made our migration west for the sunshine and the lifestyle that you know, was a possible out west as opposed to where we were living in Philly at the time, and Jenna was

living in very near proximity. So now we started to log a lot of in person time together, more personal time together where we would quickly be spending birthdays and celebrations you know, around the business would be happening together.

And so flash forward in time, there came a bit of a rocky period where there was a lot of tension and a lot of stress around seemingly you know surface type, you know, irritations around you know someone not you know, saying the right thing in an email, or you know, little fights that we would have around something not being picked up to the store from the store

that the other person desired. And we started to have conversations from a business perspective of well, what's going on here, Like we're seemingly having a difficult time communicating and we're all very committed. We had now a team that was working with us in addition to the three of us. We're committed to this, this this work, this is all of our passions. So what is it that's going on?

And one day Jenna came and sat Lalay and I both down separately and shared that she had done her own kind of self exploration and was trying to like explore what her role in very much in alignment with the work that we were all doing individually in all this conflict was and she was coming to the realization that she was having feelings, romantic feelings for both of us, and wasn't sure herself what to make or do with them, understanding that we were at that time a married, committed,

monogamous seeming couple, not have any awareness and no anticipation of how we would even receive that, though, having been someone who's been very heart led on her own journey prior to even meeting us, knew for herself that she needed to voice that that she thought that part of the conflict was right, having all of these feelings on our heart that she wasn't able to really speak about, and had asked, you know, both Lolly and I to take time to just let it settle, sit in and

obviously explore how we felt, though affirmed that she remained committed to the work itself, even if that meant we would have to create some boundaries, some separation so that we could navigate if we'd weren't in kind of reciprocating those feelings, and Lolly and I now having evolved our relationship from very much trauma bond dysfunctional pattern, being very committed both to our own individual journeys and wanting our own self fulfillment, actualization and happiness and wanting that for

the other. We had a conversation together and we're both very quickly able to identify that that was part of what was going on for us too, both she and I, Lolly and I were having you know, feelings of attraction, curiosity. Oh, here's a person who's seemingly fitting in to our life,

like this is interesting, how could this look? And again not necessarily speaking it and so me being committed to wanting to explore it myself, me wanting her to explore it, And we made the decision to see never any three of us having had models for I mean, you know, I heard of the concept of open relationship polyamorous before, though we were really looking to evolve into three people in a committed relationship. So we, I think did what many of us that we went on line for a

little bit. We went to search and see is there any examples of this? Is anyone doing this? What's this even called? We saw very limited models or examples at that time though we were all again affirmed and secure enough on our journey that we were curious and we were going to see how it could look and what it would be like, and so very successfully we entered

into that type of relationship. And then it got to the point where publicly and even you know, putting it in my book, the fact that it is part of

my epilogue. Now, we were getting to the point where Jen and I were co hosting a podcast at that time, we run The Circle Together, which involves an event that we co host once a month, and we were both starting to feel like we were censoring a bit of ourselves right, having to be like, oh wait, who was that argument with I can't say right, and kind of limiting certain details that we were sharing, and it was starting to impact our own ability to just freely and authentically,

which is so much a foundational part of our journeys and that of which we teach. In addition to the fact that I was starting to become you know, much more publicly known, so moments where I would be out in public and people will come up, and I always celebrate when if you see me on public, come say hi.

I love saying hi to everyone, But I was starting to have a concern of not being you know, transparent as to what was happening and how I would have to begin to monitor myself not only in my presentations, but in my more personal life. So we made the decision to publicly share on Instagram, and then as I

was writing the book. While of course the book is by no means a book about opening your relationships, I do think it's so much a part of speaking whatever it is that you know as on listener's heart, you know, beyond attraction to someone else and interest in you know, opening or expanding a relationship, as we did. I think there's so many things that we don't say out of fear, you know, of what the person will think, out of what we think about ourselves, because of what it is

that is on our heart. That I do think can be a big, a big helpful component. And again is so much of the work in those pages, which is being connected to the heart, the power that it affords you. I think a lot of the conflict and disconnection that happens when we're not speaking or connected to what it is that is on our heart. And so to this day it's the Three of Us opera and with all of its beauty, all of its challenges in terms of

navigating a relationship. Now for me with two separate different individuals, and of course navigating the relationship that is now the three of us.

that then means. I kind of have a running joke that my family has had to now go through too, coming out of sorts with me back when I was nineteen or something, and I, you know, told them that I was a lesbian going to be dating women. And now what I'm like, Oh, and now I have this new relationship for you. And so it's been a very interesting ride, and they've been very supportive from the beginning of that piece of information. They did struggle with the

gayness one in the beginning for a bit. My mom in particular, though, it is it's a lot that you know is involved with listening, heating, and acting in accordance oftentimes with what is on our heart. So thank you for that.

It's the love that lives inside each of us that is the true source of all healing. Thank you so much, doctor Nicole for coming on my podcast today and gracing us with your love.