Dr. Nicole LePera

Again, back to our breath.

Back to our body and time and space, back to the movement of the tasks that we're engaging in.

So I think those are kind of really foundational, helpful habits.

And of course, whatever else we're noticing and seeing with awareness, we can then individualize our journey, right?

Create the opportunity for change, move toward connection.

Tell ourself and our body, create safety in our body if connection wasn't always available so it feels unfamiliar.

Separate from connection if maybe we came from too enmeshed of a household and we make everyone else's problems our own problems, right?

If we notice that habit...

awareness, now we can start to create boundaries or separation, right?

Acknowledging that we are different.

We can feel for someone, right?

Attune, like we began the conversation, but we don't maybe have to take over responsibility.

Like a lot of us people pleasers, appeasers, and caretakers immediately do.

So with awareness, right?

That's a brain area where we're not super stressed, where old reactions and identities and roles are going to take over.

Again, we're noticing that that also happens in our mind.

We're narrating our life.

We're kind of inserting old beliefs in new circumstances, even where they don't apply.

And then we can make those new choices, whether it's simply just refocusing our attention away from something that's unhelpful in our mind, or again, refocusing our attention to our body, asking our body what we need in that moment, and then making those choices, shifting how we're then relating to someone else.

And what a powerful question for those of us who never were considered, were asked, who maybe had very well-intentioned parents who...