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Therapy is more popular than ever thanks to social media! Dr. Nicole LePera is one of the psychologists at the forefront of this trend. She has been making content on IG and TikTok that makes terms like attachment styles, narcissism, trauma, and intuition accessible to millions. She joins Ricki in today’s episode to talk about listening to our bodies and how our past traumas affect our relationships and attachment styles.

Follow Dr. Nicole LePera on Instagram @the.holistic.psychologist and on TikTok @TheHolisticPsychologist.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Ricki Lake, Dr. Nicole LePera

Ricki Lake  00:02

This is The High Life with me, Ricki Lake, where we get to find out how my guests crack the code to living a full and vibrant life, so that you can too. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk all about therapy. So I personally was introduced to therapy when I was just a 24 year old, brand new talk show host, my executive producer, Garth Van Cyr, suggested to me so I could become more in touch with my own past trauma and become a better listener. I have to say, it was such a gift. At that time, therapy was rare. Think back, it was 1993 at least. I didn’t know anyone else doing it. It definitely wasn’t as accessible or widely accepted as it is today. But times have sure changed. My next guest is leading the charge on Instagram, normalizing therapy. It’s an honor to have Dr. Nicole LePera here today. She is a clinical psychologist with degrees from Cornell University and the new school. Nicole LePera Is the New York Times best selling author of How To Do The Work. Recognize Your Patterns, Heal From Your Past, and Create Yourself. But she is also known as the holistic psychologist on Instagram with over 8 million followers, I am so excited to learn more from Dr LePera about how therapy has entered mainstream popular culture and how it affects how we speak about mental health, especially between generations. Welcome, Nicole. Oh, can I call you Nicole?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  01:18

Oh, please do, and thank you for having me. Ricki. I’m honored to be here.

 

Ricki Lake  01:21

We start our show with the same question for everyone, where are you getting your highs from right now? What is bringing you joy these days? Can be anything.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  01:30

Thankfully, now, I have highs in just being able to be present to life. I spend so much of my life distracted, always focusing on the next achievement, the next thing to do. So even now, whether it’s the beautiful weather that I’m very grateful to live in throughout the majority of the year, small things are really the place where I can find high highs.

 

Ricki Lake  01:50

Oh, that’s beautiful. I agree. So what motivated you to become a therapist in the first place?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  01:56

I think you know, as is the case with a lot of us therapists, wanting to understand, at least for me, it was wanting to understand myself so that then I could help other people. As far as back I can remember, it was really fascinated with the human mind. What made it so powerful, what made other people think and act differently than myself and so as long as I can remember, it was really that fascination that then intuitively right, sent me down the trajectory of, oh, well, I’ll become a psychologist not only aimed at helping me understand myself and my like, life long struggles with anxiety, but obviously, my hope was to gift the clients that I would work with with that understanding and awareness. And so for me, it’s it was a really big shift when several years into my practice, I wasn’t feeling as empowered in my own personal journey and in the practice that I had imagined, I wasn’t yet being able to help people, I think, utilize the insight that we were coming to the conclusion around session after session. So for me, as I think is the case for a lot of us, even my shift in the way I now work was really informed by my own personal struggles, and, of course, the struggles that I saw mirrored in the clients that I was working with.

 

Ricki Lake  03:06

And you’re the holistic psychologist. So what is holistic psychology? Specifically?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  03:11

Yeah, so kind of shifting the focus from this all powerful emphasis on the human mind and really including the body in the conversation. So holistic was really kind of expanding the spotlight, if you will, beyond just the mind and including the body, the nervous system and lifestyle choices that any and all of us really can begin to make, to create the shifts and changes that we’re looking for. If we really want to simplify it, we’re talking about the nervous system that is housed in the physical body. And if we really want to simplify the physical needs that we all share universally. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like, kind of where you’re tuning into this podcast, we all need the same things to sustain physical life. We need nutrients. We need to rest and restore our energy at night, just as much as we need to expend some of our energy in the daytime. We need peace and safety.

 

Ricki Lake  04:03

I was just going to say, I was just going to add safety, because in a relationship you can’t really have without safety and trust, correct?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  04:10

Yes, and that is the foundation, and that really Ricky is, I think, what joins us universally as individuals coming from past generations who don’t yet have that deep rooted safety and security that we needed. And of course, many of us were raised by very well intentioned parents, by individuals committed to not continuing the patterns that caused themselves suffering in their own childhoods. Yet we are all destined to repeat, and the reality of it is because of lack of information, because of lack of resources. We didn’t have parents who could calm their own bodies down to then be present to our dysregulated bodies, and that’s why so many of us see kind of throughout our generations, these cycles that thankfully we’re empowering ourselves to break, because we can really change and rewire at any age.

 

Ricki Lake  04:58

So is that why you chose to kind of be a public figure in this area. I mean, because I think back like my show, it really was like modern day therapy, where we would give these marginalized people a platform to be heard. I respected everyone who came on my stage. I mean, craziness ensued, of course, but for the most part, I feel like people walked away feeling either better about their situations, or they, you know, made choices that you know were not serving them. I mean, I do think that there was some some good that came out of having that platform where people didn’t have that one on one engagement with a therapist.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  05:33

I couldn’t agree more. I mean, what you were really gifting the world with was normalization of things that we think were the only ones struggling with. And then you put on a television show and you hear someone who is describing a similar, you know, issue that you’re struggling with. And that’s a gift, right? Because in those moments, we can feel a little less alone, a little less broken, a little less unworthy based on whatever it is that is happening. And so my decision to become public in the way that I am now really again, was a part of my own healing. Because as I started on the personal side to discover this holistic world, if you will, to learn about the body, the nervous system, neuroscience and everything that I now speak about, I started to change. I started to be able to finally break habits. And so I was really at a crossroads in terms of okay, here is a big truth of my journey, not only that, I was struggling with anxiety, but now I actually have some tools that I’m finally starting to see some shifts and get some relief. So my decision again to go online was just as much of a desire to, of course, share this information with the world, but it really was a practice in me. Can I be someone who is able to speak openly and honestly? Can I share my individual struggles? Can I talk about this holistic world, which, at that point, several years ago, right, was a little bit out of the scope of traditional psychologist?

 

Ricki Lake  06:56

Yeah, when was that? When did you sort of make that decision to sort of come out with your own story and go in this avenue of being this, this public figure on Instagram. Was it just Instagram, or was it also other areas?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  07:09

It began on Instagram, I would say it began probably a year plus ish, into my own kind of healing journey doing it behind the scenes, maybe a bit two years and probably about six years ago now, but it was very much hand in hand with me beginning to restructure the way I was working, kind of transitioning my practice from a more traditional talk therapy only focus to utilizing these more holistic based tools, and then again, at the same time seeing a very real need for increased accessibility right, beginning to see individuals and hear from individuals on the great power that is social media, tuning in, signing in from around the world who didn’t have access to this information, didn’t have access to the therapist or the medical insurance that would give them the treatment that they needed. So for me, it was can I share my story in a way that, of course, allows me to work on being more authentic, and of course, can I do so in a way that can benefit those of us that are desperately looking to create change.

 

Ricki Lake  08:10

Were you surprised at, like, how many people came like, the floodgates just opened?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  08:15

Yeah, I was very I was surprised in to the extent of how many of us were struggling, I was surprised at how many clinicians I was hearing from that had had similar kind of, you know, reevaluation moments in their own practices, and were kind of working in a much more holistic way. And again, I had that little part inside of me that I referenced earlier that believed I was the only one struggling in the way that I was. So for me, the surprise, I think, was coming from that place too. Oh my gosh, I’m not the only one that is suffering in this way or struggling or repeating these habits.

 

Ricki Lake  08:50

What are some of the tools that you offer in this new approach to therapy?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  08:55

The basis, or the foundation, is really in self empowerment. And I believe change, if I really want to simplify, it comes into two steps. The first step is really becoming aware, aware of the habits and patterns of that autopilot that is kind of cruising us through our life. You’ll hear me talk a lot about building a practice of consciousness or mindfulness, really learning how to be a present participant, and not just someone who continues again to repeat habits and patterns, because for all of us, that autopilot is strong. We prefer the familiar, the predictable, even if those patterns don’t serve us. And that’s, I think, what causes the kind of Canyon rift between insight and action that I was seeing in the clients I was working with.

 

Ricki Lake  09:41

Wait, can you give me an example, like an example of a client that had some issue and you gave them the tools talk me through it.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  09:49

I mean, how many I can give a very common example, right? We want to stop conflict. We don’t want to be someone who screams and yells at the moment that there’s conflict, or we don’t want to be someone who runs away and avoids it. Next time someone brings up a difficult opinion, right, that I don’t agree with or that I want to scream and yell or avoid this conversation because it’s too uncomfortable. But I want to do differently, right? I want to do some deep breathing. I want to calm down. I want to be able to be grounded in my response. Logically, those are all good ideas until we put those ideas into action, meaning until I tune into my body as my heart is beginning to race, as my muscles and maybe my jaw and even my fists are beginning to clench in a stress response. Inevitably, what’s going to happen next? If I don’t calm my body down, I’m going to start screaming and yelling, or I’m going to run out of the room and avoid the conflict. We have to make the different choice. When I notice the tension increasing in my muscles, I notice my heart rate beginning to race. And for many of you listening, this might seem very simple, but in those moments, what your body is telling you is it is becoming stressed and overwhelmed, and it’s getting ready to rely on those old habits, the things that it typically has learned to do to keep itself safe in those moments, which, for some people, is screaming and yelling to overpower or to fight the threat, and for others, it’s by placating, by just saying yes, or by avoiding the threat entirely. So until we quite literally, begin to calm our breath down, slow our body’s movements, maybe roll our shoulders, down our back and release some of that tension. It is only then that we’ll have access to that calm, grounded choice or statement or communication that we want to make.

 

Ricki Lake  11:32

I have so many more questions for Dr LePera, but let’s take a quick break first.

 

Ricki Lake  11:44

I want to get back to like this, your social media presence with these millions and millions of people that are following you, are there challenges in working in this way, as opposed to one on one clients.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  11:55

Anytime you are sharing, whether it’s you know, in a public forum of social media, whether it’s within your family and your friend group anytime, right? We share ourself and our opinion. We do open ourselves up to other people’s opinion and perception and misunderstanding often. So that is the case and continues to be, honestly, I think that the it has been a gift, and for me, kind of transitioning from the one on one work that I now no longer do, to the more community based work, whether it’s through all the free, accessible platforms of social media that we’re very much committed to in terms of putting out these tools, these resources, nurturing the community. Because, like I said, most of what we’re suffering from is loneliness, is feeling like we’re alone in our suffering. So even just within the comment section, watching individuals, sharing of their stories, and connecting with other people, and then, of course, the gift that that is then turned into really thinking about and working and creating a virtual kind of supportive community, I think, has had just benefits for me too, as a human who’s now surrounded by other individuals who can relate to the different things that I share on my own journey.

 

Ricki Lake  13:04

Yeah, I mean this, this social media piece that, you know, I mean, it’s so we’re still so new with it. It’s been going on, what, a decade or little more than that. But like the loneliness piece and this, this, this feelings, false connection that we have with people. I mean, there’s so many breakthroughs that with technology, but there’s so many downsides too.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  13:23

Yeah, I think it’s a tool. It’s a new thing, and it’s a thing, right? It really, in my opinion, comes down to the meaning that we’re assigning to it, to the way we’re utilizing it, right? And I do think that it is very new for a lot of us. And so again, I all of this goes back to, in my opinion, the need for each of us as independent individuals to be an empowered user of the technology or whatever tool or resource that it is, understanding that not everything that we’re going to hear online will apply to ourselves and really for a lot of us, even as adults, teaching ourself how to tune into that deeper place of intuition and use discretion and kind of filter out that which applies to a sudden that doesn’t, yeah, discernment, exactly. I think a lot of us struggle, and we outsource our discernment, right? We hear things from especially certain groups of people, of course, you know, having the title of a doctor, I too, have for a long time deferred to people in certain titles, and I have now learned that, you know, there’s different, there’s a spectrum of people.

 

Ricki Lake  14:30

Yeah, how do we navigate? I mean, I feel like I, you know, I’m so susceptible. I just recently started on Tiktok, like, started really, like, understanding the obsession and the addiction that that is, it’s just, it’s really hard to kind of know what’s true, what’s good for my brain. You know, how does one and you know, these people that say they’re therapists on these things, quote, I’m doing air quotes. How do you navigate that?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  14:55

I think this kind of, almost is a full circle moment in a lot of ways, because. Right. When we even think of intuition, right, we want to. A lot of us will locate, locate it right. Where is intuition? How do I know? And in my opinion, at least, intuition is, is not something that kind of we know from the outside. Intuition is something that it’s a felt sense. We feel right, the truth of something, or we feel the lack of truth in something when our body kind of clenches and maybe moves away from or we kind of turn inward. And so there’s all of these different sensations that, again, are constantly occurring in our body that are our evolutionarily granted kind of way that we’ve learned to assess our environment. The issue for a lot of us were not connected to our physical body because we were abused, because we were neglected, because we were never taught, you know, appropriate self care habits that allow us to exist in a nervous system that can be regulated. Even fewer of us were taught about our emotional world. I mean, a lot of us came from a generation where, much like my parents, they were taught children can should be seen and not heard. There was never any conversation of emotional needs, of the reality that children can’t regulate or just can’t cry it out and be put in a room to calm themselves down. We all need another nervous system to calm ourselves down so as we become aware, right and create habits that allow us to regulate, then what can happen, ideally is we read something online, and we do hear our body speaking to us. For me, I know I get I get chills or goosebumps when my body is in favor or is in agreement with something, and I get that kind of cringe or that inward description that I was kind of sharing earlier when it doesn’t like something. And of course, each of our markers and the way our body talks will be different. But in my opinion, the important takeaway here is intuition comes within the body. Discretion, like you and I both agreed, is very much needed, comes when we can feel safely grounded in a body that is that is more accurate than not in terms of interpreting the safety or lack thereof in our environment, and we can do that again, regardless of how dysregulated we are, regardless of how neglectful we are in terms of our own physical self care. If we create some of those habits that I was talking about earlier, if we learn how to calm our body down when it is stressed, and the more time we spend in connection with our body, the more we will be able to discover those deeper internal pings that are existing in each and every one of us.

 

Ricki Lake  17:32

Hang on for one second. We’ll be right back with Dr Nicole LePera.

 

Ricki Lake  17:45

Okay, we talk about some of the trending therapy talk that we find online, and what you have to say about it. So what exactly are attachment styles?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  17:54

So attachment styles we learn not only how to relate to other people, we learn how to relate to ourself in our earliest relationships, and ideally, if we had safe and secure connections, an individual who not only met our physical needs was there to soothe us when we were upset, was there to be curious about who we are as a separate individual, then we can very simply say that we’d have secure attachment we know who we are we’re Exploring who we are as we develop and age, and we feel confident, secure in being who we are. The large majority of us, in my opinion, fall into the insecure attachment when things didn’t go as they needed to, when we didn’t have physical or emotional safety, or we didn’t have parents who believed we were different than them and just treated us as little you know, many parents, many individuals are kind of really dictated what they needed or wanted from us in terms of who we were to be in the world. Then we say that we didn’t feel that safety and security, and we have one of the different types of insecure attachment. But again, important takeaway here, who we are, in my opinion, in adulthood, is not often reflective of that deeper kind of innate right, who we are, self expression, or the authentic self. A lot of us, because we learned who we had to be, yeah, in relationship with someone else, it’s really those earliest attachments or connections and all the different ways we’ve had to modify who we had to be that really determined who were showing up as now.

 

Ricki Lake  19:25

Yeah, gosh. I mean, it brings up so much with my own childhood, because I I was that kid. I mean, I my parents, I was the good girl. I was molested as a very young age, and it was never talked about like it happened. It happened for a while. I can’t even pinpoint how long it went on, but weeks, months, and I finally told and this is in the late 70s, and the guy was just that got rid of him. He was someone that worked for my family. You know, I wasn’t rich, but he was a gardener guy, and he was just removed. And it was never talked about again, like, like, never got therapy, never. Or, you know, talk through it. It was just pushed under the rug, and I was this happy go lucky kid. And I guess that was like, who I, you know, just became, you know, out of it. It’s just like, I didn’t want to make waves, I didn’t want to cause problems, I didn’t want attention drawn to me. And years later, I mean, I turned to food and got fat and, you know, I mean, my I became who I am, partially from that experience and how it was handled, right? So that attachment stuff, I mean, it’s like I was, I was the kid that that they needed me to be. And I don’t necessarily look at it as like a bad thing. It’s just the thing.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  20:34

Thank you, Ricki for sharing. And I yeah, I do agree. I think, you know, for me, I discovered there wasn’t like the thing necessarily that happened, but there was the lack of emotional support and attunement and comfort that had happened. So I think the reality, and this is why I put most of us in that kind of capture of an insecure attachment, is we did get children are so attuned and adaptive. They are constantly taking in and absorbing all of the messages direct and indirect from the outside world, because that connection someone showing up in service of keeping their physical life sustained right there that dependent infants are, that they will compromise, and we all will compromise. And I believe we all have compromised ourself in some way, given what either happened or didn’t happen in those early circumstances, and that’s what we live with, right? That dysregulation in our body, those suppressed emotions, maybe that deep rooted shame. A lot of us, all of us as children, will assign a personalized meaning when our needs aren’t met. Meaning simply when a parent didn’t show up as we wanted or needed them to, we will assume that we are the cause of that we did something or didn’t do something that caused their behavior. Now, no children are ever responsible, right, for their parents behaviors, but that is the meaning that we will assign even more so depending on how overwhelmed we were in childhood, some instances of abuse, especially physical and sexual, will overwhelm our nervous system to the extent that we actually go into a shutdown state where we either shut down and we can’t get up and run and flee the attack, Whatever it might be that it’s happening, or because we’re very savvy, we might go along with it. We might placate it. We might act as if right, we’re right there, right for whatever is happening to us. Yeah. So now, not only do we have the shame of being the cause of the abuse or neglect, a lot of us are carrying the shame of not fighting back, of not saying something sooner, of just like you did, we took the cues in our environment. We knew not to say something, but now we carry the shame totally right of having reacted in a very natural way to that overwhelm, and again, that’s what we then live with. It’s deep rooted for a lot of us. We have all of these coping habits like you described in food, where we’re maybe buffering ourselves, putting literal protection, between us in the world, we have all of these other addictive habits sometimes, like me, they’re celebrated ones. Oh my gosh. She just does a million things. Look at all these accolades performance, right?

 

Ricki Lake  23:14

So you were like, the overachiever. You were just.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  23:17

I was the overachiever. I learned very early that for my mom in particular, who was completely shut down with her own chronic pain and something I then discovered later in life, near addiction to pain medicine. So she was very shut down, though, when I was doing well in school and doing well at sports, because in my mom’s mind, that was my way of succeeding in life of her feeling of security.

 

Ricki Lake  23:42

Right? And she’s a good mother. She’s a good mother because look at my daughter and what she’s doing.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  23:47

She because look at my right? So she would show up in celebration, and any and all of those moments, and I capitalize on it. I made those many moments. I pursued academics up until the PhD level. I pursued athletics. I played throughout college, right? And then I, lo and behold, became the person who just kept searching and seeking until I, like I said, I kind of near exhausted myself entering my 30s. Was wondering why I felt so empty. And then, thankfully, kind of went down this rabbit hole of truly understanding what had been going on for me behind the scenes, and then seeing how it can and as it does apply to I think the large majority of us.

 

Ricki Lake  24:22

Yeah, and how did that impact your relationships, like your your intimate relationships?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  24:27

Well, in the beginning, it impacted that. It changed them, kind of foundationally, though, in the beginning, the change for me. So one of the major things I discovered in me trying to be right who I needed every or who I believed everyone needed me to be. I saw all of the ways I didn’t have the appropriate boundaries in relationships that I needed. I didn’t pause when someone needed something of me to determine if I had the emotional bandwidth to answer the phone, if I had the time in my schedule to go home and be there for. The event, I just said yes. So as I saw that, was kind of back to those two steps of change, right? I had to see my own pattern of not having boundaries, of just being there for anyone, anytime they needed me. I, at that point, was living the byproduct or the outcome of that. I was feeling exhausted and resentful and like no one was taking care of me in my relationships. So then I stayed committed to creating boundaries, which were very difficult points of separation, where no, I had to learn to say, No, I don’t have the ability to be there for you. I need some time, and I need some space. So feeling guilty, shameful, worrying about what you know and how and if the other person would be on the other side of it. I took a lot of distance from core relationships that then, of course, on the other side some, of course, I think we just kind of went our separate ways. And others, I’ve been able to rebuild more authentic relationships where I’m actually able to show up in confidence and understand that. You know what? Sometimes it’s okay to disappoint other people. Yeah, sometimes other people will disappoint me. Sometimes that means wanting someone to be there and hearing no from them. And just as much as sometimes it means someone else wanting me to be there, and for whatever reason, me having to be the one to say no. And of course, I simplified a whole journey of learning how to utilize new boundaries, but that, for me, really allowed me to create more authentic and closer feeling relationships.

 

Ricki Lake  26:25

Okay, why do you think therapy has grown in popularity now versus a few decades ago? Is it social media? Is that the piece that’s bringing these generations together to talk about our feelings and our relationships in a better way?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  26:38

I think that, generally speaking, just each generation generally does different, right? A little different. And I think now for some generations, we’ve started to see inclusion of emotions, right? They’re starting to be talked about. I think accessibility, right, therapy itself is being destigmatized. Like you said, it was once a place for only a type of person that needed it, and now more people. So of course, I think social media where people are sharing their journeys, but I think that’s happening naturally, just in our social circles, where there’s just an increased comfort and a normalization like we were sharing about earlier, that is happening with people that are just becoming more aware of their emotional worlds and prioritizing them. And so I think the byproduct of that, of course, for some is, I do think it’s joining people together, it’s facilitating conversation, and I think it is, it’s becoming a point of connection as opposed to a point of separation.

 

Ricki Lake  27:36

Yeah, I think there’s way more good to come out of, you know, this platform and offering mental health, you know, suggestions, and feeling like we’re part of a community, that we’re not all alone. I think it’s there’s more good than bad, but we like, as you said earlier, we need discernment, and we need to, you know, take what we’re seeing with a grain of salt. I think, can I talk about generational changes in therapy? Because I know you work with all different ages, but you know, what do you have to say about these different generations? Like, like our parents? You know what they grew up with, with thinking about therapy?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  28:08

Yeah, so a lot of us have parents who are confused at why emotions and why we just can’t get over it, and what’s the big deal anyway? And it happened decades ago, and can’t we just move past it? And so they’re not even locating emotions right within their world of importance, let alone truly understanding because it’s only been within the past decade that we’ve expanded our definition of trauma right beyond right. Okay, some parents might have an awareness that, yes, there’s certain categories of things that check a box of trauma, like sexual abuse, you know, physical abuse, you know, kind of the big things that could happen. But it’s been into the more recent that we now have language understand, like, my experience was that there’s other things in this emotional world that could cause that same experience of overwhelm in our body. Like, what emotional neglect, right? Not having that point of attunement, not having the safe parent that when we’re a child and overwhelmed with upset, that can calm ourselves down, not having a parent who’s interested or who invalidates our internal world of thoughts, ideas of emotion. There’s so many you know, kind of things that happen, and of course, this isn’t on one occasion, right? This isn’t a parent who comes home and is unavailable or has an unsavory reaction in one or two occasions. But when it’s the consistent lack of safety and security, then it translates to that same feeling of overwhelm in our nervous system that results in trauma, because that’s really what trauma is.

 

Ricki Lake  29:43

Okay, so what advice do you have for people interested in one on one therapy? Where do they go?

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  29:49

I think the number one thing I will say, and I get asked often, like, do you have recommendations? Who do you suggest? They’ve now researched time and time again, trying to figure out right what will define. Define whether or not you’ll have a successful or supportive experience in therapy versus not. And clinicians, researchers really land on the fit between the individual and whoever it is the therapist, the coach, right, whomever it is that they’re going to for support. And so my suggestion, again, goes back to discernment, right and kind of feeling your way into what is right for you. So I could, you know, if I even had though I don’t right, I could give a list of people that I like, right or resonate with, so you could hear them or connect with them, and you might get that feeling in your body that I was talking about earlier, like this is just not someone who you feel safe talking to because that’s what’s most important in any therapeutic or supportive experience, is that you who are going in there right to talk about what you’re struggling with, that you feel safe enough to do that. So my suggestion always is, is to find the people right, whether it’s going online and using databases like Psychology Today, where or social media, where most therapists now do have some presence, where you can maybe hear a little bit about what they think you know, kind of get an idea for the type of work that they’re doing. But it really is going to come down to you. How do you feel right? Calling this person up, sitting in their room and having a conversation. Of course, they’re in the beginning of any I think new relationship, right? There might be slow going. There might be uncertainty. It’s like dating, right? It’s like, right? You might be trying to try this person on for size, but are you moving toward feeling safe enough to begin to talk about the things that you need to talk about? And again, I can’t, you know I can’t know that only you can. So that is, I think my number one suggestion is to trust yourself, right? Is to maybe go online and give yourself an option of different people and kind of get an idea for kind of how they are and who they are and and then see how you feel working with them.

 

Ricki Lake  31:57

Great advice. Dr Nicole LePera, thank you so much for this time, it really has been a pleasure.

 

Dr. Nicole LePera  32:03

Thank you, Ricki, thank you for having me and thank you, of course, all for listening amazing.

 

Ricki Lake  32:09

My conversation with Dr Nicole LePera was exactly what I needed today. She was so insightful and made me realize how important it is to trust my body and listen to what it needs. You know, therapy has always been a big part of my life, but it was not something I had access to when I was younger. It was a relief to hear how that has changed generationally and become a part of so many people’s lives now. Now you can find Dr Nicole LePera on Instagram at @the.holistic.psychologist, and on YouTube at TheHolisticPsychologist. To learn more about Dr Nicole LePera, go to theholisticpsychologist.com. Thank you so much for listening.

 

CREDITS  32:47

There is much more of The High Life with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like rapid fire questions with Dr.Nicole, subscribe now in Apple podcasts. The High Life is a production of Lemonada Media. Isabella Kulkarni and Kathryn Barnes and Isaura Aceves, produced our show. Our mixes by James Sparber. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Additional Lemonada support from Rachel Neel and Steve Nelson. You can find me  @Rickilake on Instagram. Follow The High Life with Ricki Lake, wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.