Nicole LePera

And we would sit in this group therapy experience once a week, every week, where our goal would be just to experience each other in a very analytic fashion, share our experiences of each other with each other.

And I had this colleague that I respected so greatly.

And one day I was on the hot seat and she said, Nicole, I want to share something with you.

You have a I forget how she described it, but it was almost like a removedness about you.

And I was like shook again because I had a ton of feelings happening all of the time.

And it brought me back to that teenage moment.

And I'm like, what is going on here?

Why can no one attune or why does no one else have an awareness as to what I'm feeling?

And it's because I had that separation, that stoic that I'm fine now.

I still struggle to be vulnerable and tell people when I'm struggling and I need help and I need support.

Again, all going back to that very well-intentioned childhood, a very present mother, but a very disconnected mother who could not tolerate sitting with me in my emotion.

So I separate it from them as a protection.

I mean, that's exactly what we're talking about is all of these different kind of moments of conditioning where sometimes they're very direct.

I didn't necessarily get all of those direct messages.

I got indirect ones.

I don't know if you or listeners have ever gotten the look, right?

Where my mom didn't have to say a word, but I knew when she gave me a look across a table, across a room, that that was an indicator.

And that's in childhood what I'm often describing.

Things aren't verbal.

We don't have words.