Dr. Nicole LePera

Before I even questioned whether it was me or not, what I felt earning accolade after accolade, degree after degree, success after success, even relationship after relationship, what I felt first was empty.

And if I have to admit, I did feel a bit shameful.

Like, who am I to, quote, unquote, have everything?

In a lot of ways, I was even reminded of how easy things for me in childhood were because I seemingly excelled academically and athletically.

And I then had a string of...

Good things, things I've achieved, yet internally it wasn't mapping on to how I felt about my life because how I felt about my life was very detached, very unfulfilled.

And so what I've come to learn, all of that anxious energy in childhood from a very attuned stance became very channeled into this.

the things that I saw earned me attention and praise from my caregivers, my mom in particular.

So I became the very prototypical, overworking, overachieving, overstriving person who, while I was getting everything, it didn't really land.

And that to me, once I kind of understood that,

That or questioned, I should say, what was driving me in action.

Then I got to the question that you're very wisely posing, which was, well, who am I if I'm not all of this?

Right.

If I'm not everything I'm doing.

Right.

Who am I kind of behind all of it?

So what I was even kind of laboring over, and I'm writing a book about inner child healing, yet I can't not talk or even ground this conversation in relationships or attachment.

Why?

Because they are so foundational to who we come to be and ultimately who we know ourselves.

And for some of us, the identities that we continue to repeat, even if you're like me, they're not creating fulfillment or even they're creating outright dysfunction or suffering in our life.