Nicole: Hello and welcome back to Heal Out Loud. And today's episode is going to be part of segment one, Solo Life Lessons. This episode was inspired by conversations I had this week. So Heal the Pattern six week challenge is starting soon. And I started meeting the members of Heal the Pattern six week challenge. And I realized that there was a common trend, a common pattern. I know you say that you do not want to repeat the past, that you do not want to repeat your childhood, that you do not want to become like your parent because you know that the way you were raised and the way you were brought up was not the best way. So of course you do not want to repeat the same mistakes with your kids. But you say you do not want to become your parents and I used to say that too. And not even a few hours would pass by that I would find myself acting exactly like my caretaker and my mom, knowing that I do not want to act that way but not being able to stop myself, not being able to control myself, not being able to calm myself down during a trigger and immediately just snapping into this version of me that I didn't really like. So what we're going to be talking about here today is how I managed to shift from saying that I do not want to be like that to actually living. in a different version of me, in a different version of that Nicole that I did not want to be. So, buckle up, listen to this as many times as you need and obviously do not just listen to this, but ask yourself, how can I embody this? How can I apply this into my own life? Because that's the way we see change happening, not by just reading about something or listening to something. Imagine you're just every single night before you fall asleep, you're watching how perform a squat exercise. Just because you're watching it doesn't mean that your glutes are going to grow. You literally have to go to the gym and actually perform the squat exercise. So the same goes to your brain. Your brain is adaptable to change. Your brain is created with lots of neural pathways and there's neurons in the brain and these can be changed, these can be rewired. This is called neuroplasticity. So We have a saying in Maltese, I don't know how to translate it exactly to English, but basically it's something like, if you cut the pig's tail, he will still remain a pig. And I fully disagree with that. Like, of course he was to remain a pig, but I fully disagree with the meaning behind that saying because in reality, if you put in the work, you can change your neural pathways. And if you change your neural pathways, you will change the way you think, you will change the way you behave, you will change the way you feel, you will change the way you attract. things into your life. Change is possible. We would like, as humans, sometimes we would like to believe that change is not possible because that makes it mean that, okay, then this is not my responsibility. There's nothing I can do about this. This is just who I am. If you don't like it, leave. But that creates a lot of disconnection and we're human. We're all interdependent. We rely on one another. You can say as much as you want that you do not want a partner. You can say as much as you want that you do not need family and friends, but we do. because we were created in a world that is run because we were created in a world where we're part of an ecosystem and we need animals, need friends, we need family, we need money, everything. I always hear Dr. Joe Dispencil say and I've written on his books, your personality becomes your personal reality and that's so true. If you are a human that's waking up every single morning expecting the worst to happen. Feeling sad because you hate your job, feeling sad because you had a huge argument with your partner, feeling sad because you're not on good terms with your family. What's going to happen throughout the day is that you're going to see more negative things happening. So your personality literally creates your personal reality and I'm going to dive deeper into this very soon. However, I want to talk about a time where Growing up, think I was around four years old and I remember this clearly. So my family told that I, at the age of four, I didn't understand English because I didn't speak it. So they told I didn't understand it, but we used to watch cartoons in English. So of course I did. And I overheard them having a conversation in English. And in that very moment, I remember looking at some of these family members and saying, this is definitely what I do not want in my life when I am an edit. And I was so sure of that. was so sure I did not want to be an alcoholic. I was so sure I did not want to be a drug addict. I was so sure that I did not want to rely on others. I was sure that I did not want to be a depressed woman. I was sure that I did not want to feel unhealthy, eat unhealthy food, consume a huge tub of ice cream in one go. So with all that was happening around me, I started realizing who I wanted to be and who I did not. want to be. So I had a very clear picture of what I did not want to be. And until I was around 10 years old, I think I was not that person. But then there were my teenage years, there was my little sister who was dependent on me. So I was like a mother figure. And I started noticing a lot of similar patterns to those humans that I used to look at and say, I definitely do not want to be. like this. And for a long time I promised myself that there will be no slamming doors in my house, will be no swearing, no shouting, no lying down in bed for three whole days, no closing all the curtains and just having blackout like full pitch black in my house. I always promised myself that there will be food on the table, that there will be a stocked fridge, that my mood will not affect the other people's moods that I'm sharing a house with. that no matter what I will try to be positive and to put a smile on my face so that the energy in the house is always peace? Of course I know that life can never be constantly positive but I wanted peace to be the main feeling to be felt in my house. However, although that is what I wanted, so from my conscious brain, from my 5 % conscious brain, that is fully what I wanted. Unfortunately, that was not what I was creating. I was recreating my childhood. For a while my house was full of shouting. For a while my house was full of swearing. For a while my house was pitch black with all the curtains and blinds closed. For a while I did spend three days in bed crying and feeling sorry for myself and just wishing that all of this would end. For a while there was no food on the table because I had such a bad relationship with food that I didn't want to eat anything. For a while there was me. getting very sick from the negative thoughts that I had and making myself so sick that I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. For a time, there were slamming doors, shouting, swearing, bad looks, negative vibes. For a while, my house did not feel like a home at all. For a while, there was me eating maybe not a whole tub of ice cream, but I binged. When I couldn't feel anything and I wanted to feel something from outside of me, I binged so much and then the next day I would feel so guilty and restrict myself. whole three days. I had promised myself that my car would never smell like cigarettes because I hated when my grandpa, my mom used to smoke, but for a while it did. And after my mom passed away, I had what I'd like to call the dark night of the soul. A few months later, where I realized that I realized why my mom acted the way that she did, why my grandma used to act the way that she did. And all of a sudden, I could see the image very very clear in front of me that all they were craving for was love, all they were craving for was acceptance, all they were craving for was attention. However, the way they asked for it both was not in a way that you would want to give it to them, it was in a way that you would want to run away from them. And all of a sudden it really clicked, it clicked that I was doing the same thing, that I craved love, I craved connection, I craved to be held, to be seen, but in reality I had built a wall so high to protect myself that love could not go out and love could not come in. So although I craved connection, although I craved love, although I craved to be held, to be seen, I was pushing that very love away, just exactly like my caretakers were doing. And that is how I started recreating the same things I did not want from my childhood in my adulthood. That was how I pushed love away. That was how I had my house pitch black for a whole three days. That was how I didn't want anyone near me when I was sad. That was how I deleted all my social media when I was having a downward spiral and my friends would not hear from me. I would spend three days, nobody knows what happened to me. And that is exactly what my mom used to do. But of course it was because she was on drugs. But for me, I wasn't on drugs, but I was so shut down. I was in so much pain that I didn't want anyone near me. And like that, I could feel even more sorry for myself that, you see, you're alone, nobody loves you, you're not good enough, look at you. So I was so sure of what I did not want to create because I lived it. I lived it in my childhood and I know how badly it affected me. Yet, I found myself repeating the same patterns in my adulthood. So what was really happening here? from my 5 % conscious brain, I did not want to recreate the same pain I felt in my childhood. But my 95 % subconscious brain had beliefs stored inside it, had programming stored inside it that I was operating from. So I had limiting beliefs like, you're not good enough, there's something wrong with you, nobody loves you, you will always be alone. No matter what you do, you're never going to succeed in life. Love is not for you, you're not lovable. There's no space for you here, you do not fit anywhere, you're so weird. And these beliefs created my programming. So what was happening was that although from my 5 % conscious brain I didn't want to live a life like that, my 95 % subconscious brain couldn't not live a life like that because that's all it knew. That was the programming. If a computer is programmed to act in a certain way, That's how it's going to act unless you change its software. So my 95 % subconscious brain had this programming and therefore I kept on living from these limiting beliefs that nobody loves you, there's something wrong with you. So what happened was I pushed everyone away without me knowing subconsciously, unknowingly, because it happened from my subconscious. And by pushing everyone away, people left, obviously, because you're pushing them away. And then in return, I could feel sorry for myself and say, see, everybody leaves, you see, I'm not good enough, you see, there's something wrong with me. If my mom and dad didn't love me enough to stay, who will? And that became my self-fulfilling prophecy. And I started living from my own self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is why you keep on recreating the same pain that you felt in your childhood. This is why you keep on recreating the same patterns that you've gone through in your childhood. This is why you act like your mom and dad even though you don't want to act like them. This is why you became them. So you pray that you would never be like them, but you actually became them. And this is exactly why. Because your subconscious is programmed that way. And once I heard a story of two brothers who lived with their alcoholic dad and one of the brothers became an alcoholic and the other brother was not an alcoholic. And when they were interviewed and The alcoholic was asked, why have you become an alcoholic? His reply was, because of my dad. And when they asked the other brother, his reply was, I am not an alcoholic because of my dad. So two humans lived in the same household, had the same dad, and obviously just because they had the same dad, they did not live the same experience with their dad because even twins live a different experience in a household. But they both chose a different path because of their dad. And I used to think that I was like the non-alcoholic brother because I was not a drug dependent person like my mother. I bought my own place, I got my degree, I got my masters, I achieved so many things in my life, I travelled, I took care of my body as much as I could. So for me, I used to think that I am not recreating the same patterns. I am not following my mother's footsteps, but I was so wrong because I actually was. Just because I wasn't drug dependent, just because I wasn't a crack addict, it didn't mean that I wasn't creating the same pain and the same patterns that my mom lived through. In fact, my mom wrote a book and when she passed away, I read her book and when I was reading through her book, all I could realize was, my God, me and my mom felt exactly the same. The pain my mom carried and the pain I carried and the- The limiting beliefs my mom carried and the limiting beliefs I carried were exactly the same. My mom used drugs to numb the pain and I used, I guess, achieving lots of things to numb the pain and other things of course, but never crack or heroin. So this was a big realization for me that although I wasn't an addict, I was still recreating the same pain. I was still following my mother's wounds. I was still living from my grandmother, my great-grandmother's wounds. I was still living from those limiting beliefs. I was still carrying all that generational trauma. And for my house to be peaceful, for no more slamming doors, for no more shouting, for no more swearing, for no more pitch black three days, for a whole three days curling in a ball like a literal baby, like a snail. and not wanting to get out of bed from deleting social media for a whole three days to actually showing up on social media and working on social media from not eating for a whole three days or bingeing for a whole day to actually having a much healthier relationship with food to having a stocked fridge all the time and eating whole foods and to not smoking anymore to really taking care of myself in the best way that I can in this very moment for that to happen. I had to change my limiting beliefs. I had to rewire my subconscious brain. I had to rewire the neural pathways that were created in my childhood. And I'm not saying that it's going to happen in a few weeks, but of course, even after the second session of inner child healing, subconscious rewiring, you're going to feel much, much better. And the way to rewire the subconscious brain, the way to change these neural pathways, the way to shift from slamming doors, shouting, cars smelling like cigarettes, maybe your home smells like cigarettes, from binging, from procrastinating, to living the life that you truly want, to living the life that you envision with your 5 % conscious brain, you have to rewire your subconscious brain. And if your subconscious brain was created in your childhood, then how do we rewire the subconscious brain? Through rewiring what happened in childhood, through reparenting the inner child, through healing the inner child. Through giving the inner child that lives within you and within each and every one of us what he or she did not receive as kids. To reparent, literally to reparent your inner child and you do not need to have had a traumatic childhood. To need to reparent your inner child. Everybody in this day and age should reparent their inner child. The more you're going to reparent your own inner child, the less your kids are going to need to reparent their inner child. The more you're going to repair into your inner child, the more abundance you're going to see in your life. The more peace, the more gratitude, the more joy, the more happiness, the more love that you're going to experience. trust me, I lived this firsthand. My clients have lived this firsthand. I went from literally, as I explained earlier, slamming doors, shouting, swearing, crying, throwing my phone, breaking my phone. And from this really toxic environment, even saying it. I can't believe I used to live it, but yes I did, to living in such a peaceful environment, to coming inside my home and literally feeling safe and literally feeling at peace. And this is a feeling that I never thought that I would be able to experience. Growing up, my life looked something like police banging on our doors, police slamming our door open and doing a full raid in our house, people setting our house on fire. Whilst me and my grandma were sleeping inside, my mom crying and swearing, going through lots of withdrawals and sickness, asking for money and banging on our doors and crying, and my mom overdosing inside the house, ambulance shouting, screaming, me and my mom fighting a real lot. Me and my grandma also arguing a real lot. So yes, coming home was never peaceful. And I remember when I was in secondary school, as soon as it was like 3pm, or it was our last lesson, and I know we're soon gonna go home, I used to start literally feeling like I was gonna pee myself. Because I used to feel so anxious, I used to not know what I was going to find when I arrive at home. Maybe I'd find my mom and my grandma fighting a lot, maybe I'd find my mom passed out. Maybe I'd find my nanna going through one of her depressive moments, so the house would be pitch black. Maybe I'd find my mom very paranoid on crack and she would make me crawl on the floor because there's people looking from outside the windows. Yes, it was insane. Even saying this out loud makes me think like, well, well girl, that's bad. and we're never gonna go back. And funnily enough, I did go back to that. I did have people in my life who slammed my doors, who had same issues like my mom, who created so many arguments, so many fights. And of course, this is always co-created, ⁓ so I'm not blaming any fingers, but there were moments where I created this with people, there were moments where I attracted people into my life who were exactly like my mom or like my grandma. There were moments where... I used to argue with my sister because I wanted the house spotless. I wanted everything to be perfect. We couldn't live. I feel like there was a period in my life where I lived inside my home like it was covered in plastic. Like it was a museum. Like even friends coming over used to be afraid where to sit down. And I remember one time my cousin was drinking and she put her glass on my island without putting a coaster. And she was looking at my sister like, bring me a coaster. and I made everyone feel so uneasy, so uncomfortable and that's not who I wanted to be anymore. I wanted to spread love, to spread warmth, especially for my sister and for myself and for little me because little me deserves that too. So I am saying all of this because for a while, even when I was doing my own healing journey, felt uncomfortable because I was not used to peace. I lived a childhood where it was full of adrenaline rush, even though that adrenaline might have been coming from bad outlets. That's what I was used to, constantly being on this fight or flight, like constantly being, like looking over my shoulder, constantly having this, my nervous system on fire, constantly having these alarm bells in my head, this fire alarm, this constantly being on alert, literally, because There was a time where I couldn't even have social media when I was growing up because everyone knew I was my mom's daughter. I lived a very intense childhood and therefore when I was healing and I was living in peace, I didn't enjoy that peace because that's not what my subconscious was used to. Actually, my subconscious was not used to that at all. So there were moments where I... didn't like that piece and I created my own drama without me even knowing from my subconscious brain. So you can shift from not being your parents anymore to becoming you, to becoming your own person. You can break the cycle. You can stop this generational trauma. Definitely you can. I'm not saying that it's going to be easy. I'm not saying that it's going to be quick, but you will see immediate results. You will start feeling lighter, will start feeling more at peace, will start feeling more happiness, more gratitude, more love, more connected to the universe, higher source, God, whatever you want to call it, and more connected to yourself and doing things that you truly deserve rather than beating yourself up, rather than recreating what you do not want to create. And trust me, most of my clients did not have the intense childhood I had. I have clients. that did go through really, really, really painful childhoods. And it hurts me so much when I hear those stories because those stories happened because their parents did not do inner child re-parenting because their parents loved their kids through their own wounds. And it doesn't necessarily mean that that was the love that those kids needed. So I have clients who have big trauma and I have clients who on paper you would say, wow. They had an amazing family. In fact, they come to me and they're like, Nick, I feel exactly like you, like what you share on your social media. But I didn't go through what you've gone through. My mom loved me so much. My mom was always at home cooking for us. My dad was always hardworking. My siblings and I had an amazing relationship, so I don't understand why I feel this way. And then we start the inner child re-parenting course and we start diving deep and we start realizing that the mother maybe was very critical. or the mother was in her own way very protective that made the kid feel that they're not good enough, that they're not capable enough, that the dad being constantly at work made that kid feel that there's something wrong with me. Why doesn't my dad ever spend time with me? He's always at work, then he comes home in a bad mood and then he's just watching his TV and eating. And why doesn't my dad play with me? Why doesn't my dad come to my parents' day like other kids' dads? And as kids, you never make your parents seem wrong. kids you always blame yourself. As kids you always make yourself smaller. As kids you make it mean that there is something wrong with you. And then maybe there's the birth of your siblings and even though you love your siblings so much, when your parents are focusing more on the baby because of course they have to, you start feeling abandoned and that's where the abandonment wound starts being created. And as an adult you're like, no, I don't have that, but it's stored in your subconscious. Also, maybe you had a depressed mom or a depressed dad, or maybe one of your siblings needed more attention. Maybe they had autism or ADHD or dyslexia and they needed more attention when you were doing your homeworks. Maybe they needed extra care from your parents and all of that builds your subconscious brain. Maybe at school you were bullied, maybe you were always the last one that was chosen in groups. Or maybe you are the most popular one and you felt that you had to keep up an appearance and that you had to keep on giving them lots of sweets and make them laugh and that's how you will only be loved when you're giving. All that happened in your childhood created your programming that's stored in your subconscious that is creating your adult life. So if you want your adult life to change, you have to change your subconscious through inner child re-parenting because that's where the programming all was created. So I hope that this episode this insight into my own solo life lesson from being very honest and transparent and vulnerable with you that, listen, there was a period where there were slamming doors in my house. It wasn't always this peaceful. And I've worked so hard to get to here and I'm still working so hard because we're human and we will never reach a level of perfection, but it is possible for you to stop being your mom. It is possible for you to stop being your dad. It is possible for you to stop recreating the same pain that you felt in your childhood in your adulthood and that is through rewiring your subconscious brain through inner child re-parenting.