How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self

by Nicole LePera

Healing is a conscious process that can be lived daily through changes in our habits and patterns.

We navigate through the world running on blind autopilot, carrying out automatic, habitual behaviors that don’t serve us or reflect who we fundamentally are and what we deeply desire.

Some things will resonate, others won’t; the objective is to use the tools that work best for you.

There is comfort in knowing exactly what your life will look like, even if that reality is making you sick.

To truly actualize change, you have to engage in the work of making new choices every day. In order to achieve mental wellness, you must begin by being an active daily participant in your own healing.

Emotional addiction is particularly powerful when we habitually seek or avoid certain emotional states as a way to cope with trauma.

By assigning a genetic cause, we naturally imagine our sickness to be part of who we are. When we become a diagnosis, it decreases incentive to change or try to explore root causes.

We are not merely expressions of coding but products of remarkable arrays of interactions that are both within and outside of our control.

The message we learn is this: we are totally at the whim of our bodies, and the only way to feel okay is to put our health into the hands of clinicians, who have the magic bullets that can make us better, who have all the answers, who can save us. But the reality is that we get sicker and sicker.

our life experiences alter us at the cellular level.

When our body expects to get better, it sends out messages to start the healing process. Hormones, immune cells, and neurochemicals are all released. The placebo effect provides proof that when we believe we are going to get better or feel better, we often do.

He had, it seemed, overdosed on his own negative thoughts and wishes.

Small and consistent choices are the path to deep transformation.

Do you often find yourself unable to keep promises to yourself, attempting to make new choices or create new habits but always falling back on your old ones?

Constantly!

chronic anxiety and her need to please others, all of which manifested in high-achieving perfectionism.

If that ain’t me lol

We don’t have the practical tools to understand how to create the changes we seek to make. We can’t expect others to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

Typically, as children, we are in touch with this spiritual Self-knowledge and have strong instincts. As we grow older and fall under the influence of others, we tend to become disconnected from our intuition.

Most of us are stuck in subconscious programming; in fact, some brain scans reveal that we operate only 5 percent of the day in a conscious state;22 the rest of the time, we are in subconscious autopilot.

Our brain actually prefers to spend most of its time coasting on autopilot—it is best able to conserve its energy by knowing what to expect. This is why our habits and routines feel so comforting and why it’s so unsettling and even exhausting when our routines are disrupted.

Learn how to spend time alone, to sit still, to really hear your intuition and witness your entire Self—even, and especially, the darkest parts you’d most like to keep hidden.

Find one to two minutes in your day when you can practice being focused on and truly present in whatever you’re doing.

Such events are life altering, splintering a person’s world into a “before” and an “after”—as

what happens in childhood, especially when it was a highly negative experience, stays with us for a lifetime.

Our perception of the trauma is just as valid as the trauma itself.

Many of us never stop to think: Is this really me? How many of us find ourselves celebrating holidays the same way we did in childhood without even imagining doing it a different way? How many aspects of your life have you actually chosen—and how many have you inherited?

adaptive coping requires effort and a conscious acknowledgment of the discomfort.

Trauma is part of life. It is unavoidable.

Trauma may be universal, and it’s also individual, affecting each whole person—the nervous system, immune response, every part of their physiology—uniquely. The first step toward healing in mind and body is knowing what you’re dealing with—identifying the unresolved trauma.

people with unresolved trauma get sicker and die younger.

Stress is more than just a mental state; it is an internal condition that challenges homeostasis, which is a state of physical, emotional, and mental balance.

Once our immune system gets the signal that we’re living in a near-constant threat state, it repeatedly sends out chemicals that cause inflammation throughout the body. These chemicals act as a kind of fire starter for a wide array of symptoms of imbalance and dysfunction, increasing our risk of developing autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, and other diseases ranging from heart disease to cancer.

There is no part of your universe that stress does not mold.

When we feel safe, it is reflected in our eyes, our voice, and our body language. We are fully present, and there is a lightness and ease in our manner. This sense of safety is passed on to others in a process called co-regulation. When others are reassured that you are not a threat, they, too, will feel safe and enter the same social activation mode that sets them at ease. Our energies and states are transferable. We feel better and calmer around certain people because our nervous systems are responding to theirs. Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, flows, helping us to bond emotionally and, in the case of romantic relationships, physically. The sense of security creates a cospace of comfort. It’s a mutual exchange of connection.

if my body could learn dysregulated ways of coping, it could also learn healthy routes to recovering.

90 percent of the neurotransmitter serotonin, commonly referred to as “the happy hormone” (though it is also involved in sleep, memory, and learning), is made in our gut.

As we take on deeper and more taxing postures, our vagus nerve learns how to control our stress response and return more readily to the state of calmness and safety where healing happens.

The yoga practitioners did not distract themselves from the pain, as the nonyogis did, but actually leaned into the sensation and found ways to focus on and channel the pain as a way to get through the sensation—the essence of a resilience exercise.

Belting out your favorite song will help tone your vagus nerve in many of the similar ways that breathwork, yoga, and play do.

One of the most effective places to look for midfrequency music? Disney movie soundtracks. So yes, put on that Lion King opening and belt it out to your heart’s content.

A belief is a practiced thought grounded in lived experience.

Once a core belief is formed, you engage in what’s called a confirmation of bias; information that does not conform to your beliefs is discarded or ignored in favor of information that does.

Or you may, as I did, receive awards and recognition without doing too much active work, which made you internalize a belief that I enjoy only things that I’m naturally good at and will quit anything that challenges me or is not immediately easy. This used to be a central part of my core belief: I wanted to play only if I was going to win.

You don’t need to have the answers; just start to listen to the questions.

The overachiever. Feels seen, heard, and valued through success and achievement. Uses external validation as a way to cope with low self-worth. Believes that the only way to receive love is through achievement. Dear Little Overachiever Nicole, I know you have felt you needed to do some things perfectly to make others or yourself feel happy, proud, or loved. I know this makes you feel not good enough as you are. You don’t have to do this anymore. You are allowed to stop pushing yourself so hard to do things perfectly. I promise you are more than enough exactly as you are.

The yes-person. Drops everything and neglects all needs in the service of others. Was likely modeled self-sacrifice in childhood and engaged in deep codependency patterns, much as the caretaker did. Believes that the only way to receive love is to be both good and selfless. Dear Little Yes-Person Nicole, I know you have felt that you have to say “yes” whenever someone asks you to do something for them, such as hang out, loan your favorite shirt, or do a favor. I know this makes you feel like a bad person if you really want to say “no.” You don’t have to do this anymore. You are allowed to say “yes” or “no” based on how you feel and what you want to do. I promise you can say “no” and still be loved.

This is why judging others is so addictive; it relieves us from the ego’s internal struggle with shame. When we identify the faults of others, we can ignore our own and even convince ourselves that we are superior.

A healthy relationship provides space for mutual evolution. This is the essence of authentic love, when two people allow each other the freedom and support to be fully seen, heard, and Self expressed.

we were engaged in family “groupthink” (We do this, not that. We don’t like those people. We are this kind of family.), we often weren’t given the chance to express our authentic Selves.

LOOSE Engages in compulsive people pleasing Defines self-worth by the opinions of others Has a general inability to say “no” Consistently overshares private information Is a chronic fixer/helper/saver/rescuer