Finding The Courage To Start Again: The Queen of Reinvention Ft. Tracy Matthews

• Full Transcript

  Finding the Courage to Start Again: The Queen of Reinvention

  Farya: So, there is a version of every woman who arrives in my world that I never, ever forget. Particularly because of who she is on the edge of becoming. And when Nicole walked into my space a few years ago, she was already an accomplished and exceptional psychologist. Brilliant, deeply devoted to her clients and her work, but I could feel something even more powerful sitting with her.

  So, this was a woman who was building her entire life from an identity that was just too small for her. I could spot that straight away. And I knew instantly that this is where your current self is running the show for you. However, your bigger self is already knocking.

  And then in the following years that followed, through our work, through her courage, through every internal expansion that she said yes to, I watched Nicole outgrow her past identity and step into the founder, the leader, the CEO who built Journey.

  And today, you're not just meeting a guest. You're actually meeting a living example of what becomes possible when a woman stops negotiating with her old self and finally becomes the one that her future self requires.

  Narrator: Welcome to From Trauma to CEO: The Psychology of Transformational Success with Farya Barlas. This is a space for cycle breakers, leaders, and visionaries who are ready to rewrite old patterns and rise into their fullest potential. Each episode explores the emotional, psychological, and identity-level shifts that turn lived experience into lasting, meaningful success. And now here's your host, Farya Barlas.

  Farya: Welcome to From Trauma to CEO.

  With that said, let me formally introduce you to Dr. Nicole Nasr. Hello, firstly!

  Nicole: So honored with everything that you just said. I'm like, I'm processing it.

  Farya: Well, I'm not done yet, because I'm going to formally introduce you. So, Dr. Nicole Nasr, she is a brilliant counseling psychologist. She is the founder and CEO of Journey and the host of Journey podcast, and Nicole actually created a platform that, in my opinion, fills a very significant gap in the support and wellness industry and space. And she has built a platform that not only will help the clients find the right support and the therapeutic support that they need, but also it gives therapists and coaches a home to be able to showcase their work, to receive ongoing training, and expand their skills. And most importantly, connect with a community of other practitioners who refuse to burn out in isolation. Definitely my kind of community. And also, she has been my client and mentee for several years, so I had the front-row seat to her transformation. So, welcome with that said, I'm just going to welcome you, and I'm so excited that we are finally getting to do this, because I know we've been doing this all the time just for ourselves, but I think it's a different setting when we are actually talking about it in this particular platform. So, welcome.

  Nicole: Thank you, Farya. Thank you so much for these words. I was listening to you and I'm like coming from you seeing me from this light and describing me in this way, I felt like you summarized so well how my growth has happened over the four years now that we've been together. And so, thank you so much for this.

  Farya: No, that's my absolute pleasure. So, for people that haven't had the privilege of hearing about you or knowing what you do, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and and just generally what it is that you do, and then I will dive into your journey of becoming?

  Nicole: Yeah. So, I moved to the UK 12 years ago, and I grew up in Montreal, Canada, moved to Beirut for 6 years, then moved to London where I did my whole training. So, coming from background of just moving around a little bit and meeting different people at different stages of my life, I always think that everybody and every experience that I've had has built upon the next one that came. I trained as a counseling psychologist. Becoming a therapist was a no-brainer from a very young age. You and I have talked about this at length, how being the person that I am and feeling things at the depth that I do meant that there was no other choice for me but to become a kind of healer, you know? And I trained here and worked in private practice for almost a decade now. And around 2-3 years ago, I would say around a year after you and I started working together, I found the courage to start this company.

  But what I think is very important to say is that I never had this idea from before. It's not that I was scared of doing it or that I had been sitting on this startup idea for years. Actually, the idea wasn't there because I feel like I was too busy dealing with a lot of insecurities that I was having, a lot of traumas that was very much at the surface, and the work that you and I have done together—and I'm sure we'll dive more into it as we continue our conversation—is that you removed a lot of the fog that was surrounding my my mountain. This is usually how I describe it. But yeah, anyway, I found the courage to launch Journey, and we've been at it now for around 2 years, we're a community of 150 practitioners. We have started somewhere and we pivoted midways, I love where we're at at the moment, and as you said, it's a community of like-minded practitioners that want to grow together, they don't want to burn out, they want to feel a need for community. And I'm very proud of this work.

  Farya: Well, I would say you should definitely be very, very proud of this work, because as you know, we spoke many times, this is exactly that gap that the wellness space needed. So, yes. All of the work that you have done, everything that you had to overcome, it was always leading you towards this, right? And this is what happens, as you know, with many people, we get caught up in okay, how are we going to do this, right? How are we going to build this? How am I going to take the next step, how, how, how? And then, well, first of all, that's asking the wrong question! And secondly, that moves you away from who, you know? Who is going to take the next step? And a lot of the work that we do, and one of the most important aspects of this podcast is around that, is around how trauma takes away—it gives you a lot of stuff, but it also takes away your ability to connect with you. So, you know, the same you that knew that you were always going to be a CEO, right? So, even when you were small, you knew that, but then going through, I mean, you know, trauma, different kinds of programming, then we move away from that, and actually, the work, really, is to connect these two back together again.

  And I know that the word trauma is a big one, and there is a real resistance, but of course, we're not talking about something drastic, we're talking about every time that you had to betray yourself and move away from who you authentically are in order to belong, in order to feel loved, and this happens time after time that becomes your go-to what some people like to call personality, but of course, it's just a trauma response. So, I want to hear whether this has also been your ongoing experience, because this kind of work, the more you expand, the more you want to step into the next level, whatever that expansion looks like for you, another layer might come up. So, does this land with you, the blocks that programming brings up and it moves you away from well, essentially, your purpose, which then leads to success, abundance, and everything else that comes as a result of being aligned with your purpose?

  Nicole: I actually am so appreciative of that reflection because when we're building our businesses and when we're doing all these things, we don't realize sometimes even give ourselves or even aware of what we're doing. And I actually had a very similar thought to what you just said to me when I was away in Costa Rica for 2 weeks. One was holding my own women's leadership retreat, which goes deep without going deep, and is something spoke to me about that because I had other facilitators and it was an amazing retreat, but for me, I got a lot of out of it in the sense of what I do isn't what everybody does. And I don't mean that in a way of like, I'm amazing, because that's definitely not...

  Farya: Please mean—please mean that as you're amazing, because this is what exactly this is—you know that, I know it, we see it all the time, this is a trauma response, right? We don't need to minimize ourselves, actually take ownership of how amazing you are, because you are.

  Nicole: Well, yeah, so I'm going to take ownership. And I really recognized that in the last 2 weeks, being with 70 or 50 other women at the second retreat, it was the first time—because I was coming off my own retreat that went really well and I I felt good, there was a lot of deep work happening, wasn't the plan, it just happens, I can hold that space, and I was recognizing not for the first time, but I was really like anchored into that coming into this, so I love that you reflected that back to me actually, because what I do is a bit different, even as I'm marketing my retreats, I'm like, "These aren't just a retreat." Like, this is an experience, and I am solid and anchored into to hold pretty deep, deep healing work like, and I'm sure, you're right, that's from 30 years of working in a hospital, in being with people when they're passing, being in an ICU when someone comes in, dealing with the family, so I've already had this and now I've taken it into a different way. And I don't think, you're right, I haven't really been giving myself but I really realized that these last 2 weeks in Costa Rica, I'm anchored into what I do, I can hold deep, deep, deep healing space for people, I can hold some of their deepest, darkest stuff, and I can be totally solid with that. And I feel good after sessions, which is the other thing I've noticed, when I'm done doing sessions, I'm not drained because I'm so rooted in and anchored in. And I'm almost a different person when I'm doing that work, my voice is different, I am so like Zen and solid. And yeah, I need to start just owning that, so I love that reflection, and I'm going to receive that reflection because I just started to realize that literally in the last 2 weeks, and I've been doing this work for a while, but sometimes my protectors are pretty they're pretty tight, too.

  Farya: No, no, of course. I actually recorded an episode a couple of days ago, it was very interesting because it got me reflecting on that very thing, that when I was younger, I grew up in a community with my cousins, it was like that, we grew up as families in communities together. And I had two cousins that were older than me, they were not adults yet, but they were just older and older enough for me to think, "Oh my god, they know everything and they’re just so amazing." And as a tag-along child, I remember every time I would learn something fascinating or amazing, I would go to them and they would be like, "Oh, we already know that. Oh, you didn't know this? You didn't know that word? You didn't know how to read that?" So, I never linked that with much until I started realizing that for everything for the longest time, especially at the beginning of my training, I was always holding stuff back because I was like, "Well, everybody knows this, like it's obvious, why would I want to say this? Why would I want to write this?" And then as it turned out, every time I would talk about something, people would receive it and it would, you know, move something, and then obviously later in my work as well. So, it got me thinking that okay, this must be a very universal experience, because we all grew up in environments where there are other kids, go to school and there's always a know-it-all child at school or in your family, and I was thinking this is not even considered trauma by any—but it's something that repetitively, when it happened, it meant that I had to constantly minimize and make myself small. All over and over and over again, because then I didn't want to experience that shame, especially in front of other kids, if there were other kids involved, that was like the end of me, I would be so embarrassed. And then I completely forgot about, because this is—this doesn't even sound like a traumatic experience as such, right? This is just kids growing up together and playing, and it was—they were not being horrible or anything, it was just that they genuinely thought, and now looking back, of course, it would have appeared stupid to them. So, I carried that, and sometimes, believe it or not, I have to check in with myself even today, when I'm about to do a training, or speak to an audience, I have to check, and then over time, I get evidence against it, which helped me a great deal, it stayed with me all the way to my adult life and to when I started university, and it was only when I would whisper my insight or whatever to—to the person next to me and they would be so impressed that I felt a little bit safer, a little bit more brave to start voicing my opinions. But you see, it's like some—the smallest thing, something that found its way in our psyche, in our programming, and it just stayed there, and we never visited until we had to expose ourselves in a way. So, thank you for mentioning that, and I love that you mentioned about the breathwork session. I love to hear a little bit about what you're saying about that and how you integrate that with the work where people are let's say they know they want to achieve more, they know they want to expand and grow more, as a person, it doesn't have to be necessarily business or work, just as a person to grow, and how breathwork can connect people a little bit more to their bodies. I'm asking you this because I'm always saying to people that breathwork please like it's great, but you need to actually do it with a professional because I had a client a while ago and she came back to me, she said, "Farya, I did a breathwork session after our conversations," although I don't know why she went rogue and she thought that she should do that, and then she had an episode of like hyperventilation because of her history and her past, and that wasn't taken into account in how the breathwork was going to impact her or so, I love to hear a little bit about that and how you ensure that's the right step for people.

  Nicole: Yeah, it's interesting, and there's so many types of breathwork, so yeah, when I found breathwork, I first found meditation. And it's interesting because when I look back at the person that really got me into meditation, she did a lot of breath in it, but just in a different way. And it used to irritate me almost because I was like, "Why is she breathing so much?" because I wasn't into breathwork then, and so I was almost like, "Why is she breathing so much?" It was like almost like this resistance, this weird resistance I had, which now I really know about all my resistances and why I'm not open to things sometimes. But so for breath, it's such a wide range, right? And there's so much hype around it now. I love it, and it can be good, and it can be done inappropriately, right? Like sometimes when you see like these big events and there's like a hundred people breathing, and then like I always think like, "Where are they going to go now?" because they've just been screaming and releasing and all these things, right? And I just wonder like, "Are they following up with somebody? Is there an after-follow-up with someone? Are they going to integrate?" So, the way that I do breath, and I just really, honestly, this past week I was in Costa Rica with a group of entrepreneurs, I had my own retreat and then I was attending a retreat, and someone said to me, "Oh, you trained under the certain person, I don't like their breath, that's not for me." Normally, I would have probably got defensive about that, my old pattern would have been to been like, "Oh, what does she know?" and stuff like that, but instead I said, because I'm really solid in my breathwork and I said to her, "I really wish you were going to be here for this later part of the retreat to be in my session, because I think you would think differently about that breath pattern." Because there are different types of breath patterns, right? Some are very activating, some are less activating, the reality is activating, non-activating, it's really coming from the person's system, right? And so we are activating their nervous system in a way that we can't possibly know everybody's history, right? Normally you would take a history, they fill out a form, they sign a release, right? But I even in my sessions have had people that there was something that I didn't really think of, in one case, someone had had a blood clot in the past, so just the breathing alone brought them back to when they couldn't breathe and they were in the hospital, right, so you can't possibly figure everything out, but now I ask that question because I've experienced that, where she was a bit triggered by it. And I think the trauma information, the trauma-informed sense of consenting people and also asking them and letting them know that their body is actually in charge, right? It isn't about pushing them, it isn't about them getting to the next level. Can people have psychedelic experiences in my breathwork? Yes, and they do every time. They have visits from people that have passed on, they have beautiful, blissful events with people that are no longer with us, they meet their inner child, they solve problems when they're breathing, but I am informing them the entire way about it is their body, it's their sovereignty, I am just guiding them, I'm asking them to start to listen, and part of my teaching when I am doing breathwork because I think now that I have encountered a lot of other people's breathwork, I talk a lot in my breathwork, but really what I'm doing, Farya, is I am infusing all the modalities I have learned, I'm bringing in a little inner child, I'm bringing in a little NLP, I'm bringing in some anchoring, I'm giving them consent throughout, I'm reminding them throughout, listen to your body, so even if their mind isn't completely with me, their subconscious is, I believe, and so they know, that lady that time with the past blood clot, she knew to stop the breath and go back to the first breath or go back to her natural breath because our body is intelligent, right? I said it so many times that she was like, "I got nervous, but then I just went back to my regular breath and I was okay, but I just wanted to share that with you." So, I actually just recently was realizing because I was marketing my somatic breathwork, but there's a lot that goes on in my sessions and it is, I believe, very trauma-informed and people have amazing results. I've also been trained in hypno-breathwork, so I'm doing a little hypnosis during it and I'm bringing them in and out of different situations, but in a way that they are always in control of. And to me that is very important, our choice and sovereignty has been taken away a lot, especially where I live! So, as a woman, I don't want to be this guru coach who you have to do it my way and this is the only way. What I have found in these healing arts, because let's be real, we leave these places that are not making us feel good and we can experience that in this genre of stuff, too, right? So, I don't want anyone to come to me because I have all the answers, right? We want them to connect with their body, so they may not get the answer they want from me right away because their body has a lot of protectors, so even with breathwork, if I'm trying to create a safe space within their body for them, I always say to people, "Listen, sometimes we can go right through the front door, but sometimes we have to go through the basement window, and it's slow, and it's tedious," but that is what this work is. It isn't like you do this one thing and it gets done, and we've solved your traumas and we've energetically cleared them, and it's all over, this is slow work. And I think that's where we are missing the mark with the breathwork, I think it's a phenomenal way to heal, but you have to be with the right person.

  Farya: Definitely, and if you don't mind, I'm just going to correct you because right at the beginning, you said, oh, like it's to do with asking the right questions, which by the way, it has a lot to do with that and getting the history and all of that, and that once or twice, maybe you were not aware, and then through experiencing that, you became aware that these are the questions to ask. These are all valuable and valid arguments, however, I'm going to go a little bit further because I think it's not just to do with asking the right questions, it has to do with who you are as a facilitator, right? And then you actually went on to, in a way, correct yourself because you are bringing in years and years of experience of sitting with people, holding people through a difficult period, in whatever capacity, it doesn't have to be necessarily breathwork or coaching, so you are very, very familiar with, taking away your own experience, but actually sitting with people, experiencing different kinds of trauma or having had experienced traumas. So then your work as a breathwork facilitator is not a breathwork facilitator, you're bringing in all of you into that session, you're applying the breathwork, but you're bringing in your wisdom, your experience, your trauma-informed approach, your coaching approach, everything. And that is exactly my point, that with something just comes out, just go and do like a little small course or whatever in breathwork, great, good for you, but then that's very different to being holistically trauma-informed and bringing in everything and that's the reason why you were able to hold people in even if something goes wrong during the breathwork, you're still solid because you're grounded in being trauma-informed, you're grounded in experience. And I'm so glad that we are talking about this because this does annoy me from time to time when people are talking about they read a book or whatever and then they're suddenly trauma-informed, and I'm saying, no, that first of all, I'm glad that you're becoming aware of this word, but it's a lot more complex than that and it requires a lot more of you and most importantly, it requires the facilitator to be very anchored in their own selves, their own body, to know their own trauma and how they're going to respond or project or whatever it is, right? So thank you for mentioning that. And I love that you mention about the breathwork session. I love to hear a little bit about what you're saying about that and how you integrate that with the work where people are let's say they know they want to achieve more, they know they want to expand and grow more, as a person, it doesn't have to be necessarily business or work, just as a person to grow, and how breathwork can connect people a little bit more to their bodies. I'm asking you this because I'm always saying to people that breathwork please like it's great, but you need to actually do it with a professional because I had a client a while ago and she came back to me, she said, "Farya, I did a breathwork session after our conversations," although I don't know why she went rogue and she thought that she should do that, and then she had an episode of like hyperventilation because of her history and her past, and that wasn't taken into account in how the breathwork was going to impact her or so, I love to hear a little bit about that and how you ensure that's the right step for people.

  Nicole: Yeah, I actually am so appreciative of that reflection because when we're building our businesses and when we're doing all these things, we don't realize sometimes even give ourselves or even aware of what we're doing. And I actually had a very similar thought to what you just said to me when I was away in Costa Rica for 2 weeks. One was holding my own women's leadership retreat, which goes deep without going deep, and is something spoke to me about that because I had other facilitators and it was an amazing retreat, but for me, I got a lot of out of it in the sense of what I do isn't what everybody does. And I don't mean that in a way of like, I'm amazing, because that's definitely not...

  Farya: Please mean—please mean that as you're amazing, because this is what exactly this is—you know that, I know it, we see it all the time, this is a trauma response, right? We don't need to minimize ourselves, actually take ownership of how amazing you are, because you are.

  Nicole: Well, yeah, so I'm going to take ownership. And I really recognized that in the last 2 weeks, being with 70 or 50 other women at the second retreat, it was the first time—because I was coming off my own retreat that went really well and I I felt good, there was a lot of deep work happening, wasn't the plan, it just happens, I can hold that space, and I was recognizing not for the first time, but I was really like anchored into that coming into this, so I love that you reflected that back to me actually, because what I do is a bit different, even as I'm marketing my retreats, I'm like, "These aren't just a retreat." Like, this is an experience, and I am solid and anchored into to hold pretty deep, deep healing work like, and I'm sure, you're right, that's from 30 years of working in a hospital, in being with people when they're passing, being in an ICU when someone comes in, dealing with the family, so I've already had this and now I've taken it into a different way. And I don't think, you're right, I haven't really been giving myself but I really realized that these last 2 weeks in Costa Rica, I'm anchored into what I do, I can hold deep, deep, deep healing space for people, I can hold some of their deepest, darkest stuff, and I can be totally solid with that. And I feel good after sessions, which is the other thing I've noticed, when I'm done doing sessions, I'm not drained because I'm so rooted in and anchored in. And I'm almost a different person when I'm doing that work, my voice is different, I am so like Zen and solid. And yeah, I need to start just owning that, so I love that reflection, and I'm going to receive that reflection because I just started to realize that literally in the last 2 weeks, and I've been doing this work for a while, but sometimes my protectors are pretty they're pretty tight, too.

  Farya: No, no, of course. I actually recorded an episode a couple of days ago, it was very interesting because it got me reflecting on that very thing, that when I was younger, I grew up in a community with my cousins, it was like that, we grew up as families in communities together. And I had two cousins that were older than me, they were not adults yet, but they were just older and older enough for me to think, "Oh my god, they know everything and they’re just so amazing." And as a tag-along child, I remember every time I would learn something fascinating or amazing, I would go to them and they would be like, "Oh, we already know that. Oh, you didn't know this? You didn't know that word? You didn't know how to read that?" So, I never linked that with much until I started realizing that for everything for the longest time, especially at the beginning of my training, I was always holding stuff back because I was like, "Well, everybody knows this, like it's obvious, why would I want to say this? Why would I want to write this?" And then as it turned out, every time I would talk about something, people would receive it and it would, you know, move something, and then obviously later in my work as well. So, it got me thinking that okay, this must be a very universal experience, because we all grew up in environments where there are other kids, go to school and there's always a know-it-all child at school or in your family, and I was thinking this is not even considered trauma by any—but it's something that repetitively, when it happened, it meant that I had to constantly minimize and make myself small. All over and over and over again, because then I didn't want to experience that shame, especially in front of other kids, if there were other kids involved, that was like the end of me, I would be so embarrassed. And then I completely forgot about, because this is—this doesn't even sound like a traumatic experience as such, right? This is just kids growing up together and playing, and it was—they were not being horrible or anything, it was just that they genuinely thought, and now looking back, of course, it would have appeared stupid to them. So, I carried that, and sometimes, believe it or not, I have to check in with myself even today, when I'm about to do a training, or speak to an audience, I have to check, and then over time, I get evidence against it, which helped me a great deal, it stayed with me all the way to my adult life and to when I started university, and it was only when I would whisper my insight or whatever to—to the person next to me and they would be so impressed that I felt a little bit safer, a little bit more brave to start voicing my opinions. But you see, it's like some—the smallest thing, something that found its way in our psyche, in our programming, and it just stayed there, and we never visited until we had to expose ourselves in a way. So, thank you for mentioning that, and I love that you mentioned about the breathwork session. I love to hear a little bit about what you're saying about that and how you integrate that with the work where people are let's say they know they want to achieve more, they know they want to expand and grow more, as a person, it doesn't have to be necessarily business or work, just as a person to grow, and how breathwork can connect people a little bit more to their bodies. I'm asking you this because I'm always saying to people that breathwork please like it's great, but you need to actually do it with a professional because I had a client a while ago and she came back to me, she said, "Farya, I did a breathwork session after our conversations," although I don't know why she went rogue and she thought that she should do that, and then she had an episode of like hyperventilation because of her history and her past, and that wasn't taken into account in how the breathwork was going to impact her or so, I love to hear a little bit about that and how you ensure that's the right step for people.

  Nicole: Yeah, it's interesting, and there's so many types of breathwork, so yeah, when I found breathwork, I first found meditation. And it's interesting because when I look back at the person that really got me into meditation, she did a lot of breath in it, but just in a different way. And it used to irritate me almost because I was like, "Why is she breathing so much?" because I wasn't into breathwork then, and so I was almost like, "Why is she breathing so much?" It was like almost like this resistance, this weird resistance I had, which now I really know about all my resistances and why I'm not open to things sometimes. But so for breath, it's such a wide range, right? And there's so much hype around it now. I love it, and it can be good, and it can be done inappropriately, right? Like sometimes when you see like these big events and there's like a hundred people breathing, and then like I always think like, "Where are they going to go now?" because they've just been screaming and releasing and all these things, right? And I just wonder like, "Are they following up with somebody? Is there an after-follow-up with someone? Are they going to integrate?" So, the way that I do breath, and I just really, honestly, this past week I was in Costa Rica with a group of entrepreneurs, I had my own retreat and then I was attending a retreat, and someone said to me, "Oh, you trained under the certain person, I don't like their breath, that's not for me." Normally, I would have probably got defensive about that, my old pattern would have been to been like, "Oh, what does she know?" and stuff like that, but instead I said, because I'm really solid in my breathwork and I said to her, "I really wish you were going to be here for this later part of the retreat to be in my session, because I think you would think differently about that breath pattern." Because there are different types of breath patterns, right? Some are very activating, some are less activating, the reality is activating, non-activating, it's really coming from the person's system, right? And so we are activating their nervous system in a way that we can't possibly know everybody's history, right? Normally you would take a history, they fill out a form, they sign a release, right? But I even in my sessions have had people that there was something that I didn't really think of, in one case, someone had had a blood clot in the past, so just the breathing alone brought them back to when they couldn't breathe and they were in the hospital, right, so you can't possibly figure everything out, but now I ask that question because I've experienced that, where she was a bit triggered by it. And I think the trauma information, the trauma-informed sense of consenting people and also asking them and letting them know that their body is actually in charge, right? It isn't about pushing them, it isn't about them getting to the next level. Can people have psychedelic experiences in my breathwork? Yes, and they do every time. They have visits from people that have passed on, they have beautiful, blissful events with people that are no longer with us, they meet their inner child, they solve problems when they're breathing, but I am informing them the entire way about it is their body, it's their sovereignty, I am just guiding them, I'm asking them to start to listen, and part of my teaching when I am doing breathwork because I think now that I have encountered a lot of other people's breathwork, I talk a lot in my breathwork, but really what I'm doing, Farya, is I am infusing all the modalities I have learned, I'm bringing in a little inner child, I'm bringing in a little NLP, I'm bringing in some anchoring, I'm giving them consent throughout, I'm reminding them throughout, listen to your body, so even if their mind isn't completely with me, their subconscious is, I believe, and so they know, that lady that time with the past blood clot, she knew to stop the breath and go back to the first breath or go back to her natural breath because our body is intelligent, right? I said it so many times that she was like, "I got nervous, but then I just went back to my regular breath and I was okay, but I just wanted to share that with you." So, I actually just recently was realizing because I was marketing my somatic breathwork, but there's a lot that goes on in my sessions and it is, I believe, very trauma-informed and people have amazing results. I've also been trained in hypno-breathwork, so I'm doing a little hypnosis during it and I'm bringing them in and out of different situations, but in a way that they are always in control of. And to me that is very important, our choice and sovereignty has been taken away a lot, especially where I live! So, as a woman, I don't want to be this guru coach who you have to do it my way and this is the only way. What I have found in these healing arts, because let's be real, we leave these places that are not making us feel good and we can experience that in this genre of stuff, too, right? So, I don't want anyone to come to me because I have all the answers, right? We want them to connect with their body, so they may not get the answer they want from me right away because their body has a lot of protectors, so even with breathwork, if I'm trying to create a safe space within their body for them, I always say to people, "Listen, sometimes we can go right through the front door, but sometimes we have to go through the basement window, and it's slow, and it's tedious," but that is what this work is. And I think that's where we are missing the mark with the breathwork, I think it's a phenomenal way to heal, but you have to be with the right person.

  Farya: Definitely, and if you don't mind, I'm just going to correct you because right at the beginning, you said, oh, like it's to do with asking the right questions, which by the way, it has a lot to do with that and getting the history and all of that, and that once or twice, maybe you were not aware, and then through experiencing that, you became aware that these are the questions to ask. These are all valuable and valid arguments, however, I'm going to go a little bit further because I think it's not just to do with asking the right questions, it has to do with who you are as a facilitator, right? And then you actually went on to, in a way, correct yourself because you are bringing in years and years of experience of sitting with people, holding people through a difficult period, in whatever capacity, it doesn't have to be necessarily breathwork or coaching, so you are very, very familiar with, taking away your own experience, but actually sitting with people, experiencing different kinds of trauma or having had experienced traumas. So then your work as a breathwork facilitator is not a breathwork facilitator, you're bringing in all of you into that session, you're applying the breathwork, but you're bringing in your wisdom, your experience, your trauma-informed approach, your coaching approach, everything. And that is exactly my point, that with something just comes out, just go and do like a little small course or whatever in breathwork, great, good for you, but then that's very different to being holistically trauma-informed and bringing in everything and that's the reason why you were able to hold people in even if something goes wrong during the breathwork, you're still solid because you're grounded in being trauma-informed, you're grounded in experience. And I'm so glad that we are talking about this because this does annoy me from time to time when people are talking about they read a book or whatever and then they're suddenly trauma-informed, and I'm saying, no, that first of all, I'm glad that you're becoming aware of this word, but it's a lot more complex than that and it requires a lot more of you and most importantly, it requires the facilitator to be very anchored in their own selves, their own body, to know their own trauma and how they're going to respond or project or whatever it is, right? So thank you for mentioning that. And I love that you mention about the breathwork session. I love to hear a little bit about what you're saying about that and how you integrate that with the work where people are let's say they know they want to achieve more, they know they want to expand and grow more, as a person, it doesn't have to be necessarily business or work, just as a person to grow, and how breathwork can connect people a little bit more to their bodies. I'm asking you this because I'm always saying to people that breathwork please like it's great, but you need to actually do it with a professional because I had a client a while ago and she came back to me, she said, "Farya, I did a breathwork session after our conversations," although I don't know why she went rogue and she thought that she should do that, and then she had an episode of like hyperventilation because of her history and her past, and that wasn't taken into account in how the breathwork was going to impact her or so, I love to hear a little bit about that and how you ensure that's the right step for people.

  Nicole: Yeah, I actually am so appreciative of that reflection because when we're building our businesses and when we're doing all these things, we don't realize sometimes even give ourselves or even aware of what we're doing. And I actually had a very similar thought to what you just said to me when I was away in Costa Rica for 2 weeks. One was holding my own women's leadership retreat, which goes deep without going deep, and is something spoke to me about that because I had other facilitators and it was an amazing retreat, but for me, I got a lot of out of it in the sense of what I do isn't what everybody does. And I don't mean that in a way of like, I'm amazing, because that's definitely not...

  Farya: Please mean—please mean that as you're amazing, because this is what exactly this is—you know that, I know it, we see it all the time, this is a trauma response, right? We don't need to minimize ourselves, actually take ownership of how amazing you are, because you are.

  Nicole: Well, yeah, so I'm going to take ownership. And I really recognized that in the last 2 weeks, being with 70 or 50 other women at the second retreat, it was the first time—because I was coming off my own retreat that went really well and I I felt good, there was a lot of deep work happening, wasn't the plan, it just happens, I can hold that space, and I was recognizing not for the first time, but I was really like anchored into that coming into this, so I love that you reflected that back to me actually, because what I do is a bit different, even as I'm marketing my retreats, I'm like, "These aren't just a retreat." Like, this is an experience, and I am solid and anchored into to hold pretty deep, deep healing work like, and I'm sure, you're right, that's from 30 years of working in a hospital, in being with people when they're passing, being in an ICU when someone comes in, dealing with the family, so I've already had this and now I've taken it into a different way. And I don't think, you're right, I haven't really been giving myself but I really realized that these last 2 weeks in Costa Rica, I'm anchored into what I do, I can hold deep, deep, deep healing space for people, I can hold some of their deepest, darkest stuff, and I can be totally solid with that. And I feel good after sessions, which is the other thing I've noticed, when I'm done doing sessions, I'm not drained because I'm so rooted in and anchored in. And I'm almost a different person when I'm doing that work, my voice is different, I am so like Zen and solid. And yeah, I need to start just owning that, so I love that reflection, and I'm going to receive that reflection because I just started to realize that literally in the last 2 weeks, and I've been doing this work for a while, but sometimes my protectors are pretty they're pretty tight, too.

  Farya: No, no, of course. I actually recorded an episode a couple of days ago, it was very interesting because it got me reflecting on that very thing, that when I was younger, I grew up in a community with my cousins, it was like that, we grew up as families in communities together. And I had two cousins that were older than me, they were not adults yet, but they were just older and older enough for me to think, "Oh my god, they know everything and they’re just so amazing." And as a tag-along child, I remember every time I would learn something fascinating or amazing, I would go to them and they would be like, "Oh, we already know that. Oh, you didn't know this? You didn't know that word? You didn't know how to read that?" So, I never linked that with much until I started realizing that for everything for the longest time, especially at the beginning of my training, I was always holding stuff back because I was like, "Well, everybody knows this, like it's obvious, why would I want to say this? Why would I want to write this?" And then as it turned out, every time I would talk about something, people would receive it and it would, you know, move something, and then obviously later in my work as well. So, it got me thinking that okay, this must be a very universal experience, because we all grew up in environments where there are other kids, go to school and there's always a know-it-all child at school or in your family, and I was thinking this is not even considered trauma by any—but it's something that repetitively, when it happened, it meant that I had to constantly minimize and make myself small. All over and over and over again, because then I didn't want to experience that shame, especially in front of other kids, if there were other kids involved, that was like the end of me, I would be so embarrassed. And then I completely forgot about, because this is—this doesn't even sound like a traumatic experience as such, right? This is just kids growing up together and playing, and it was—they were not being horrible or anything, it was just that they genuinely thought, and now looking back, of course, it would have appeared stupid to them. So, I carried that, and sometimes, believe it or not, I have to check in with myself even today, when I'm about to do a training, or speak to an audience, I have to check, and then over time, I get evidence against it, which helped me a great deal, it stayed with me all the way to my adult life and to when I started university, and it was only when I would whisper my insight or whatever to—to the person next to me and they would be so impressed that I felt a little bit safer, a little bit more brave to start voicing my opinions. But you see, it's like some—the smallest thing, something that found its way in our psyche, in our programming, and it just stayed there, and we never visited until we had to expose ourselves in a way. So, thank you for mentioning that, and I love that you mention about the breathwork session. I love to hear a little bit about what you're saying about that and how you integrate that with the work where people are let's say they know they want to achieve more, they know they want to expand and grow more, as a person, it doesn't have to be necessarily business or work, just as a person to grow, and how breathwork can connect people a little bit more to their bodies. I'm asking you this because I'm always saying to people that breathwork please like it's great, but you need to actually do it with a professional because I had a client a while ago and she came back to me, she said, "Farya, I did a breathwork session after our conversations," although I don't know why she went rogue and she thought that she should do that, and then she had an episode of like hyperventilation because of her history and her past, and that wasn't taken into account in how the breathwork was going to impact her or so, I love to hear a little bit about that and how you ensure that's the right step for people.

  Nicole: Yeah, it's interesting, and there's so many types of breathwork, so yeah, when I found breathwork, I first found meditation. And it's interesting because when I look back at the person that really got me into meditation, she did a lot of breath in it, but just in a different way. And it used to irritate me almost because I was like, "Why is she breathing so much?" because I wasn't into breathwork then, and so I was almost like, "Why is she breathing so much?" It was like almost like this resistance, this weird resistance I had, which now I really know about all my resistances and why I'm not open to things sometimes. But so for breath, it's such a wide range, right? And there's so much hype around it now. I love it, and it can be good, and it can be done inappropriately, right? Like sometimes when you see like these big events and there's like a hundred people breathing, and then like I always think like, "Where are they going to go now?" because they've just been screaming and releasing and all these things, right? And I just wonder like, "Are they following up with somebody? Is there an after-follow-up with someone? Are they going to integrate?" So, the way that I do breath, and I just really, honestly, this past week I was in Costa Rica with a group of entrepreneurs, I had my own retreat and then I was attending a retreat, and someone said to me, "Oh, you trained under the certain person, I don't like their breath, that's not for me." Normally, I would have probably got defensive about that, my old pattern would have been to been like, "Oh, what does she know?" and stuff like that, but instead I said, because I'm really solid in my breathwork and I said to her, "I really wish you were going to be here for this later part of the retreat to be in my session, because I think you would think differently about that breath pattern." Because there are different types of breath patterns, right? Some are very activating, some are less activating, the reality is activating, non-activating, it's really coming from the person's system, right? And so we are activating their nervous system in a way that we can't possibly know everybody's history, right? Normally you would take a history, they fill out a form, they sign a release, right? But I even in my sessions have had people that there was something that I didn't really think of, in one case, someone had had a blood clot in the past, so just the breathing alone brought them back to when they couldn't breathe and they were in the hospital, right, so you can't possibly figure everything out, but now I ask that question because I've experienced that, where she was a bit triggered by it. And I think the trauma information, the trauma-informed sense of consenting people and also asking them and letting them know that their body is actually in charge, right? It isn't about pushing them, it isn't about them getting to the next level. Can people have psychedelic experiences in my breathwork? Yes, and they do every time. They have visits from people that have passed on, they have beautiful, blissful events with people that are no longer with us, they meet their inner child, they solve problems when they're breathing, but I am informing them the entire way about it is their body, it's their sovereignty, I am just guiding them, I'm asking them to start to listen, and part of my teaching when I am doing breathwork because I think now that I have encountered a lot of other people's breathwork, I talk a lot in my breathwork, but really what I'm doing, Farya, is I am infusing all the modalities I have learned, I'm bringing in a little inner child, I'm bringing in a little NLP, I'm bringing in some anchoring, I'm giving them consent throughout, I'm reminding them throughout, listen to your body, so even if their mind isn't completely with me, their subconscious is, I believe, and so they know, that lady that time with the past blood clot, she knew to stop the breath and go back to the first breath or go back to her natural breath because our body is intelligent, right? I said it so many times that she was like, "I got nervous, but then I just went back to my regular breath and I was okay, but I just wanted to share that with you." So, I actually just recently was realizing because I was marketing my somatic breathwork, but there's a lot that goes on in my sessions and it is, I believe, very trauma-informed and people have amazing results. I've also been trained in hypno-breathwork, so I'm doing a little hypnosis during it and I'm bringing them in and out of different situations, but in a way that they are always in control of. And to me that is very important, our choice and sovereignty has been taken away a lot, especially where I live! So, as a woman, I don't want to be this guru coach who you have to do it my way and this is the only way. What I have found in these healing arts, because let's be real, we leave these places that are not making us feel good and we can experience that in this genre of stuff, too, right? So, I don't want anyone to come to me because I have all the answers, right? We want them to connect with their body, so they may not get the answer they want from me right away because their body has a lot of protectors, so even with breathwork, if I'm trying to create a safe space within their body for them, I always say to people, "Listen, sometimes we can go right through the front door, but sometimes we have to go through the basement window, and it's slow, and it's tedious," but that is what this work is. And I think that's where we are missing the mark with the breathwork, I think it's a phenomenal way to heal, but you have to be with the right person.

  Farya: Definitely, and if you don't mind, I'm just going to correct you because right at the beginning, you said, oh, like it's to do with asking the right questions, which by the way, it has a lot to do with that and getting the history and all of that, and that once or twice, maybe you were not aware, and then through experiencing that, you became aware that these are the questions to ask. These are all valuable and valid arguments, however, I'm going to go a little bit further because I think it's not just to do with asking the right questions, it has to do with who you are as a facilitator, right? And then you actually went on to, in a way, correct yourself because you are bringing in years and years of experience of sitting with people, holding people through a difficult period, in whatever capacity, it doesn't have to be necessarily breathwork or coaching, so you are very, very familiar with, taking away your own experience, but actually sitting with people, experiencing different kinds of trauma or having had experienced traumas. So then your work as a breathwork facilitator is not a breathwork facilitator, you're bringing in all of you into that session, you're applying the breathwork, but you're bringing in your wisdom, your experience, your trauma-informed approach, your coaching approach, everything. And that is exactly my point, that with something just comes out, just go and do like a little small course or whatever in breathwork, great, good for you, but then that's very different to being holistically trauma-informed and bringing in everything and that's the reason why you were able to hold people in even if something goes wrong during the breathwork, you're still solid because you're grounded in being trauma-informed, you're grounded in experience. And I'm so glad that we are talking about this because this does annoy me from time to time when people are talking about they read a book or whatever and then they're suddenly trauma-informed, and I'm saying, no, that first of all, I'm glad that you're becoming aware of this word, but it's a lot more complex than that and it requires a lot more of you and most importantly, it requires the facilitator to be very anchored in their own selves, their own body, to know their own trauma and how they're going to respond or project or whatever it is, right? So thank you for mentioning that. And I love that you mention about the breathwork session. I love to hear a little bit about what you're saying about that and how you integrate that with the work where people are let's say they know they want to achieve more, they know they want to expand and grow more, as a person, it doesn't have to be necessarily business or work, just as a person to grow, and how breathwork can connect people a little bit more to their bodies. I'm asking you this because I'm always saying to people that breathwork please like it's great, but you need to actually do it with a professional because I had a client a while ago and she came back to me, she said, "Farya, I did a breathwork session after our conversations," although I don't know why she went rogue and she thought that she should do that, and then she had an episode of like hyperventilation because of her history and her past, and that wasn't taken into account in how the breathwork was going to impact her or so, I love to hear a little bit about that and how you ensure that's the right step for people.

  Narrator: Thank you for listening to From Trauma to CEO: The Psychology of Transformational Success with Farya Barlas. Check out the show notes for more information on how to continue this work or explore more of Farya's teachings. If this episode resonated, please follow, review, and share it with someone who needs this message. And we'll see you in the next episode.

Episode Summary

In this special conversation, Farya Barlas sits down with Dr. Nicole Nasr, counseling psychologist, founder of Journey, and one of her longtime clients, to explore what it truly takes to reinvent yourself. Nicole shares how she moved beyond an identity shaped by insecurity and self-doubt to build a thriving business that supports both practitioners and clients. Together, they discuss the courage to outgrow old patterns, embrace authentic leadership, and create lasting transformation from the inside out.

What You'll Learn

• Discover why personal growth begins with expanding your identity, not simply learning new strategies or working harder toward your goals.

• Learn how unresolved trauma and self-protective patterns can keep you connected to an outdated version of yourself, even when you are capable of much more.

• Understand why healing professionals and leaders must do their own inner work before they can safely and effectively guide others through transformation.

• Explore the importance of trauma-informed breathwork, why every nervous system responds differently, and why choosing an experienced facilitator matters.

• Learn how owning your strengths, instead of minimizing them, creates the confidence and clarity needed to step into leadership and make a greater impact.

Resources

• Free Diagnostic: faryabarlas.com/diagnostic

• Method™: faryabarlas.com/services

• Book call: faryabarlas.com/book

• Journey Platform & Podcast: Mentioned throughout the conversation as Dr. Nicole Nasr's community for therapists, coaches, and wellness practitioners.