Dr. Nicole LePera

I was training and working, though I seemingly excelled easily.

And so yes, the message that I got was, in those moments, I'm worthy.

When I'm bringing home the A's, when I'm winning the softball game, when people are celebrating how good I am at those things, again, with the goal being security in adulthood, I'm seen.

I'm good enough.

I'm worthy.

And I got very adaptive as we all do at very quickly identifying the things that I wasn't immediately good at and not pursuing those.

So I did have this implicit learning while it wasn't spoken to me that there are gifts and talents that I have and some things that I'm not good at.

And I just kind of filtered life, staying on the path of comfort, excelling the way that I knew how.

But I think what's important for all of my work and the understanding that I want to give listeners is

All of that was a beautiful adaptation.

Of course, the path I picked of achievement, excelling, perfectionism, so to speak, happened to be a path that was quite celebrated in society and in many ways did map on to opportunities that I was then offered

Though we all have that part of us, I call it the inner child, it doesn't leave no matter how old we are, how beyond our childhood, how much we don't want to look back or maybe do, it impacts us.

For many of us, it's in reactions, it's in identities, it's in our way of being that at one time was our best attempt at safety, security, or connection and worthiness in our earliest environments.

Absolutely.

And I think that that's an important takeaway that I want people to have is that a lot of these adaptations are of benefit.

I mean, they benefited us in childhood and many of them continue to benefit us.

But I think what is really important and actually, if I'm honest, my journey began in a therapeutic office when I was a private clinician and I wasn't, in my opinion, making impact.

I had clients who were very insightful, very wise, very even committed to relieving the suffering in whatever area brought them into my treatment room.

And I felt, even though I had all these accolades, I had the letters after my name, I had the practice, I had the partner, I felt very empty and unfulfilled.

And much like my clients, I felt stuck.