How To Do The Work

by Dr Nicole LePera

When we don’t ask how we can contribute to our own wellness, we become helpless and dependent.

The reality is this: few of us have any real connection to who we really are, yet we want others to see through all of our layers of self-betrayal and into our core selves.

There is tremendous freedom in not believing every thought we have and understanding that we are the thinker of our thoughts, not the thoughts themselves.

I believe that our understanding of trauma should be widened to include a diverse range of overwhelming experiences or, as the neurologist Robert Scaer defined it, any negative life event ‘that occurs in a state of relative helplessness’.30

If parent-figures have not healed or even recognised their unresolved traumas, they cannot consciously navigate their own path in life, let alone act as trustworthy guides for someone else.

Trauma is part of life. It is unavoidable. Your very first experience on this earth – birth – was a trauma, possibly for both you and your mother.

We universally lean into something called negativity bias, in which we tend to prioritise (and therefore value) negative information over positive. This is why you can see a glowing performance review and forget it shortly afterwards, though you’ll never forget the sting of a colleague’s criticism.

‘I believe that this neglected, wounded inner child of the past is the major source of human misery,’

That’s how disagreements get ugly so quickly. That’s why no one ever listens to others. Because if what you believe is who you are, there is no space for conversation or contemplation.

since I’m a good person, I would never do it. 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.

One can be only as connected to others as they are to themselves.

Authentic love doesn’t feel like an emotional roller coaster; it feels like peace and an inner knowing that you are both choosing to show up from a place of mutual respect and admiration.

When we understand other people’s limitations, when we see pain and fear where we once saw cruelty, this is healing.

One of the major achievements of emotional maturity is learning how to be at peace with these misunderstandings or with being misunderstood.