What is the main message of How to Do the Work?

Discover the power of healing through self-awareness and take control of your emotional well-being.

How long does it take to read How to Do the Work?

Reading time for How to Do the Work varies. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is How to Do the Work a good book? Is it worth reading?

How to Do the Work offers valuable insights and practical tools for self-improvement. It's definitely worth a read.

Who is the author of How to Do the Work?

Nicole LePera is the author of How to Do the Work.

How to Do the Work Summary of Key Ideas and Review

Name: How to Do the Work
Rating: 4.5 (661 reviews)
Author: Nicole LePera

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Learn how to do the work of SelfHealing.

Dr. Nicole LePera was getting serious warning signs from her body that something was wrong. She suffered from chronic gut issues, constant headaches, and had even fainted for no apparent reason. She also suffered from brain fog and constant anxiety.

She took antidepressants and popped paracetamol, but treating these conditions with medication and traditional therapy just wasn’t working. LePera embarked on a journey to heal herself that involved completely expanding her practice as a psychologist, incorporating physical and spiritual elements and becoming truly holistic in her approach to health.

Do you also want to learn how to heal from burnout, trauma, and dissociation? Then you’ve come to the right place.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how childhood trauma affects how we behave;
why boundaries are so important for creating loving relationships; and
how our gut health affects our brains.

Key idea 1 of 8

Dr LePera hit rock bottom, and realized that something in her life had to change.

We often hear of spiritual awakenings happening on mountaintops. Or in ashrams, temples, mosques, and churches.

But for Dr Nicole LePera, awakening came in a seemingly mundane way. She started crying over a bowl of oatmeal, and just couldn’t stop. She’d gone on holiday with her girlfriend, and instead of relishing the peace and quiet, it just made her realize how burnt out she’d become.

LePera had a very successful life. Or it looked successful from the outside, at least. She had her own psychology practice, a loving partner, and a great home in Philadelphia. But on the inside, she felt awful. She woke up exhausted, and felt detached from herself and the people she loved. She was frustrated and irritable at work. And her physical health was suffering – she experienced persistent brain fog and problems with her gut. She realized that something in her life just wasn’t working.

The key message here is: Dr LePera hit rock bottom, and realized that something in her life had to change.

What was it? LePera had spent years trying to heal herself and others as a clinical psychologist. But she’d long been missing something in her practice of mainstream psychology. It felt too limiting. She realized that to truly be able to heal herself, she needed to take a more holistic approach – to embrace a practice that allowed her to heal her body, mind, and soul simultaneously. Because, in fact, these things are all connected.

The author started to tackle her physical well-being, working out every day and eating well. She also embraced regular sessions of breath work and meditation. At first, keeping up the routine was a hard slog. But after a few months, her body began to crave it. LePera also started dealing with her childhood trauma, learning to process negative emotions from her past and starting to heal her inner child.

The results of all her hard work were that she felt better than she had for years – emotionally and physically strong. Via Instagram, she started to document her journey as a “holistic psychologist.” As thousands of people started following her account, it became clear that she was tapping into a much greater need. Today, over three million people follow her work, and identify as SelfHealers.

Key idea 2 of 8

To heal our minds, we have to heal our bodies, and vice versa.

Imagine being given a pill and told that if you take it, all your feelings of depression will disappear.

You take it and start feeling better, only to discover later that you’ve been taking a sugar pill all along. This is a common experience that has been termed the “placebo effect.” Experiments have found that people experience dramatic improvements in conditions ranging from Parkinson’s disease to depression just by believing that they’re receiving treatment.

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Key idea 3 of 8

Become aware of your thoughts.

Jessica was about to marry her longtime boyfriend. Sometimes she felt sure that this was the right decision – lucky her, to end up with such a wonderful guy! At other times, she decided he was a jerk, and couldn’t stand to be around him. Jessica lived on a rollercoaster, blindly believing whatever her thoughts were telling her.

Like Jessica, we all have thousands of thoughts racing around in our heads every day. As soon as we open our eyes in the morning, we start worrying, planning, and reflecting. Our thoughts can be savagely critical or serenely content. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these thoughts. But we need to remember that they’re not always true, and they don’t constitute who we are.

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Key idea 4 of 8

We need to identify childhood trauma in order to heal.

When the author tries to remember her childhood, she comes up with lots of fuzzy half-memories. She doesn’t remember a lot of key moments in her life, and struggles to identify faces.

She now knows that this is because she was dissociated for most of her childhood and young adulthood. That means that though she was physically present, she was mentally completely checked out. She couldn’t tap into her own emotions or tune into what she was feeling. People become dissociated as a coping strategy when they feel overwhelmed and powerless. So what exactly happened in LePera’s childhood to make her feel this way?

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Key idea 5 of 8

We must learn to disarm our survival systems.

Imagine you’re a rabbit in the wild, being chased by a hungry fox. Your heart is pounding, and you’re running as fast as you can.

Animals have what is known as a fight, flight, or freeze response when they perceive a threat to their survival. Adrenaline surges through their bodies, their heart rate speeds up, and their breathing becomes shallow.

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Key idea 6 of 8

Reparenting can reprogram our core beliefs.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I don’t matter”? Or “nobody cares about me?”

These are examples of core beliefs – formed in childhood – that come to define how we see ourselves and our lives. Our brains are powerful engines, filtering information and stimuli from the outside world. When we have a negative core belief, our brains select evidence that supports it. This is known as confirmation bias.

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Key idea 7 of 8

Cultivating strong and loving boundaries will improve your relationships.

Susan felt like a doormat. Her friends called her at all hours to dump their emotional drama on her without ever asking how she was feeling. Her family also barged into her home whenever they felt like it.

Susan had no real boundaries. She was so desperate to please everybody that she’d lost touch with who she was and what she wanted. She traced the dynamic to her childhood. She’d grown up with an emotionally-controlling mother who invaded her privacy by reading her diary. She realized that in order to save herself – and her relationships – something needed to change.

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Key idea 8 of 8

SelfHealing allows you to surround yourself with a loving, supportive community.

As humans, we’re wired for connection. Our well-being depends on the support of our communities.

That’s why embarking on a healing journey is so scary. When you change the status quo and challenge how things have always been in your relationships, you risk being ostracized by family and friends.

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