CAN YOU REALLY SELF HEAL?

Stuck in unhelpful behaviours, relationships or thinking? A new book offers a road map to self-healing. But is working on yourself the right therapy for you? Brigid Moss finds out more…

CAN YOU REALLY SELF-HEAL? Brigid Moss finds out

You know when you find an Instagram account where every post you read, you think, ‘Yes! I recognise that! That’s true!’ The account of @the.holistic.psychologist is exactly that, a series of aha moments. Psychologist Dr Nicole Lepera talks your truths – and those of the 3.3m people who’ve started following her account since July 2018.

The rise in followers isn’t surprising, as the past year has triggered a mental health crisis for a lot of us, or at the very least, a dip. ‘Not only has this year been about change, which feels uncomfortable, but this has been further complicated by very real fear, loss and insecurity,’ says Lepera. ‘And any time

feel under threat, our nervous systems go into activation. On top of that, those of us who already have traumas have had those activated, too, by being forced to stay at home and be in relationships that may be complicated.’

So her new book, How To Do The Work (out 11th March), couldn’t come at a better time. It’s a practical guide to understanding why we are stuck in behaviours, relationships and unhelpful thought patterns, as well as nervous system overload – and how to make the shift. You could call it a road map to self-healing.

We meet on Skype, from Los Angeles, where she moved just before lockdown. She’s wearing a beanie and a sunny smile. Having trained as a clinical psychologist, Lepera became interested in more holistic therapies beyond the therapist’s usual remit. ‘I made a point to learn all the different tools and ways we can heal, seeking outside my programme,’ she says.

Why? When we use words and/or therapy only, we’ll understand what we’re doing and why, but we may not be able to change it. This is what she saw in her practice as a therapist. ‘I felt like it was Groundhog Dog,’ she says. So many of her clients could see their patterns but felt hopeless, unable to change them.

Like so many people who heal others, Lepera’s journey began with her. Having been a nervous child, she’d became an anxious adult, often being incapacitated by this, even as she worked as a therapist. She put her recurring anxiety, lack of energy and digestive symptoms down as a fact of life – until she began to faint, repeatedly.

That’s when she put into practice what she’d learned about the mind-body-spirit connection. Her new routine, which she still follows is: early to bed, around 9pm; waking up naturally at 5am or 6am to do her own Future Self Journalling technique; some yoga or weights; meditation or walking meditation; and breathing exercises to calm the nervous system throughout the day.

Her approach isn’t for everyone – you may feel better with the support of a therapist in person. It definitely involves thinking outside the usual therapy box and that makes it controversial. How do you know if her programme might be right for you? ‘Our bodies speak to us in a multitude of ways,’ says Lepera. ‘All our systems can be affected.’ So while her ‘stuckness’ showed up as anxiety and zero energy, it can also show up as brain fog and/or feeling overwhelmed, emotional reactivity and disconnection. Or simply feeling unsatisfied, like every day feels ‘meh’. ‘You might always be on edge, have a racing heart, feel as if you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop,’ she says. ‘Or it may be that you can’t turn off and go to sleep.’ Or your digestion may be suffering: either constipation or IBS.

So far, so radical in this holistic way of tackling mental health. But what is really revolutionary about Lepera’s method is the principle of self-healing. She’s not talking about a ‘cure’ but doing The Work does mean moving towards feeling better (though you may feel worse in the short term, she warns).

This sounds familiar to Eleanor, 40, who has been following Lepera for two years. What really changed things for her, she says, was Lepera’s Future Self Journalling

technique. The first step of Future Self Journalling is about raising consciousness. You do this stage in order to become aware of how you are thinking and feeling, and to practise bringing your thoughts back to the present moment. It can last a few weeks or a few months. After this, you can journal for any of the areas that are relevant to you – from trauma and beliefs to boundaries and your ego – but this first stage is key. It’s called Future Self Journalling because, by bringing your attention to a certain issue, you are creating your future self. You start the day writing, using specific prompts, depending on the area you’re working on. This is the basis of The Work, and so, of change. You’ll find the first prompt on page 161. ‘Some days, I’ll write a few words. Others, I’ll do pages,’ says Eleanor. ‘The commitment to journalling changed me. You are keeping a promise to yourself, consistently building self-trust. And I’ve had more revelations than I’ve ever had in therapy.

‘I used to use food and shopping as coping mechanisms. But now, when I feel an urge, usually along with an uncomfortable emotion, I think, “Is this in line with my future self?” I started to see that underneath both is a pattern: “There is not enough for me”. I rewarded myself as I thought no one else would reward me. Little by little, I’ve paid off my debts, something I’ve never been able to do before. I’m still working on the food thing, although I’ve let go of judging myself. If I want chocolate, I eat it.’

If Lepera’s Instagram account is full of aha moments illuminating the inner workings of your psyche, the revelations in the book are more like a full firework display. The chapter on how your childhood can leave scars is a case in point. Lepera says, as small beings, we can be crushed by our parents. In fact, we can be traumatised by ‘good’ parents, even if we haven’t been abused or neglected.

‘Trauma is an event where we are chronically denied our authentic nature as children and are left to cope with our emotions without guidance in how to process them,’ says Lepera. That might be a parent who denies our reality, or does not see or hear us, or tells us we should not be sad or angry. The same goes for a parent who uses us to make up for what they lacked in their own childhood, who is overly focused on appearance or who cannot regulate their own emotions. The end result? As adults, we may be left with low self-worth or feeling unacceptable, or anxiety, or depression… and feeling stuck. We may also be left with an ‘activated’ nervous system, which leads to a lot of the physical symptoms mentioned above. Or we can get stuck in the opposite state: underactivated, where you feel flat and exhausted. So, a lot of the programme is devoted to ways of learning how to self-regulate, for example with yoga or singing, regular doses of nature, cold showers and, most of all, breathing exercises done throughout the day. You will find Lepera’s key calming breath exercise to the right.

Another concept lots of people are surprised and relieved to learn about, says Lepera, is emotional addiction. This is where you are so used to feeling a certain way, you seek it out, however negative. It becomes your emotional home, if you like.

When Lepera was stressed, she says, ‘All you would have heard was me screaming from the rafters, desperately seeking a moment of peace.’ But when she had a chance to be calm, she couldn’t be. ‘I’d either feel so agitated that I’d get up and tick around to discharge energy. Or if someone was around me, I would agitate interpersonally and before I knew it, I’d create myself into that stress response that I was so used to.’

Left to move through us, says Lepera, emotions will last 90 seconds. But instead, we ignore or disconnect from our feelings. We distract ourselves with substances, relationships, eating or overthinking. ‘Or we spin stories around the emotion, then rehash it so it can last for weeks, even months.’

That’s why she believes Future Self Journalling works. Awareness and then repetition is how we can break our long-term conditioning, unlocking what’s been stored long term in our subconscious, leaving space for better neural habits. After all, it is repetition that, until now, has kept us stuck, so it can change us, too. ‘Healing is a daily event,’ says Lepera.

‘THE COMMITMENT TO JOURNALLING CHANGED ME’