The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

100. Healing from Trauma, Addiction, and Burnout with Nicola Beer

• Serena Low, Introvert Coach for Quiet Achievers and Quiet Warriors

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What if the patterns that keep us stuck in pain, overwork, or disconnection could finally be healed? I speak with Nicola Beer, an international relationship transformation coach who helps individuals and couples heal from trauma, addiction, and burnout. Nicola shares her personal and professional journey: how she went from struggling in her own relationships to guiding others through profound transformation.


We discuss the hidden emotional wounds behind workaholism, the toll of unhealed trauma, and how burnout is often a sign that something deeper needs attention. Nicola’s compassionate yet practical approach shows us that real healing is possible—and that it starts with self-awareness, self-compassion, and a willingness to rewrite the story we’ve been living.


We explore:

  • How unhealed trauma shapes our patterns in love and work
  • The connection between addiction (including workaholism) and emotional avoidance
  • Practical steps for breaking free from burnout cycles
  • Why self-worth is the foundation for lasting relationship change
  • The role of daily habits and boundaries in protecting emotional health
  • How to approach conversations about change with a partner
  • Stories of individuals who rebuilt connection and trust after years of disconnection


Whether you’re navigating a challenging relationship, recovering from burnout, or seeking a path to emotional healing, this episode offers both hope and tangible tools.


Connect with Nicola Beer:

  • Website: https://nicolabeer.com
  • Podcast: Relationship and Marriage Transformations

Subscribe to The Visible Introvert newsletter for insights, reflections, and resources at https://serenalow.com.au

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, I'm Serena Lowe. If you're used to hearing that introverts are shy, anxious, antisocial, and lack good communication and leadership skills, then this podcast is for you. You're about to fall in love with a calm, introspective, and profound person that you are. Discover what's fun, unique, and powerful about being an introvert and how to make the elegant transition from quiet achiever to quiet warrior in your life and work, anytime you want, in more ways than you imagined possible. Welcome. Hello and welcome. Today's guest on the Quiet Warrior Podcast is Nicola Beer. Nicola is a trauma-informed relationship therapist with over 20 years' experience helping people heal from childhood wounds, betrayal, and the quiet pain of feeling unsafe in love. She works with individuals and couples to release old patterns and build steady, connected relationships. Nicola also facilitates plant medicine retreats, guiding people to let go of stored pain and return to inner calm and clarity. She's the host of two podcast shows, the Relationship Revival Podcast and Healing with Psychedelics Podcast. Welcome, Nicola, to the Quiet Warrior Podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00:

Nicola, you mentioned childhood trauma and PTSD. Could you share a little bit about your background? What growing up was like for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, absolutely. So um growing up, I'm one of five, and um it was a very difficult childhood because my mother was constantly stressed and angry having four of four of the children. Um we were quite close together, so two years apart. And because of that, um my mum was just really unhappy. So some days she'd be screaming and shouting, some days she'd be lying in bed not wanting to get out of bed. My dad would beg her to go to the doctors and she didn't, and so she would take out a lot of her frustrations on us. And for me particularly, she would say that I'm stupid and that I'm as thick as two short planks, or lazy or selfish. She was just, you know, sometimes she would even say things like, She wished she didn't have us, or she hated her life, she hated us. Um, so it was really, really difficult. And I took from that, okay, I'm not good enough, I'm bad, and I make people angry. I really believed, okay, it's me. I'm the problem. I'm making my mum act in this way. And so it really shaped me as a person and my relationships, which is why I like working and enjoy working in the relationship field as well as helping individuals, because it made me not feel very safe in love, in connection, um, always kind of to be a bit wary of people and um and to go into my own world for a protection. Um, so yeah. And now she about 15 years ago, she was diagnosed with bipolar. So whether she's had it the whole time and she wouldn't get help, but um now, you know, thankfully she's having she's having the help, but that's a a long time later. Yeah. So I it was um it had a major effect on my self-esteem. And when I look back at my childhood, I could I just feel sorry for myself, really. Just think, wow, I just had so little attention, so little comfort. Um so yeah. And it's led me to have that drive to really want to help people because I know what it looks it feels like to go through that pain and to not feel good about yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And it's so often the case, isn't it, that pain becomes the purpose and gives us a new focus because we've been through something, we don't want other people to experience the same. We go into that field of helping other people who are like us. But I suppose at the same time, there's also people who because of the traumas they've been through, shy away from that or find it really hard to connect with other people because they felt so disconnected and unseen in their childhood. So, how did how did you make that um leap, perhaps? How did you become someone who now can connect with others safely?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it really came from the fact that I really needed help myself, and I I'm I've always been in and I'm also a lifelong learner and interested in growth and learning. And for me, um it was quite obvious that I needed help because I had multiple eating disorders for um a long time. It I used to control my food, control my body. That's how I kind of coped with it all. So um, you know, I would have people come up and say, What's going on? Why are you so thin? You know, things like that. So I had to kind of address it because it was visible. And I think that kind of was a blessing, but also an extra difficulty to it all. Um, but then I as I started getting help, I realized actually I really enjoy helping others as well. And I really am fascinated by the world of therapy and growth and how you can change your mindset and beliefs, and this can change your happiness and your energy and your motivation, and you can have peace. You know, one of the biggest achievements in my life for me is overcoming the eating disorders and being able to eat normally, which other people it's just so normal. Um, but when you you you use it as a an addiction, a habit, you create so many rules and layers, your mind is so fixated on all these different things, it was actually quite hard to let go of. So I think sometimes when you've got a lot of challenges, working through them then gives you that strength and understanding and passion to help others.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. You mentioned it as an addiction. What was the eating disorder trying to do for you?

SPEAKER_01:

What was it giving you It was giving me an element of control um in a such an uncontrolled environment where I couldn't control I didn't feel like I control everything, especially at home. Um it gave me um for a time, even if I had a really bad day, I could praise myself if I hadn't eaten much. So it'd be like a tick, well, you've had a bad day, maybe I haven't done my homework or haven't done um good enough at work, but at least I didn't eat much. So it kind of made me feel good. Um, so that was like when I was more towards the anorexic side. It I was diagnosed with an undiagnosed eating disorder, so it didn't fall into the box of that, but it was a similar sort of it was a game, it was a challenge, it gave me made me feel better for not eating, and then I managed to overcome that. Um, and then I had bulimia for a long, long time. So I would overeat, and then that would be an escape from emotions, a reward at the end of the day. But of course it's not a reward because then I would be sick and then tired, but it was an escape. And then the reason I called it an addiction is I've studied a lot of um Dr. Gabor Mate's work, and I've done his year-long professional training, and he was saying that when people are sick, um, when you vomit, you release dopamine in your brain. And this might have been the reason, obviously, emotional triggers as well. But if I'm getting rewarded for it, not only after I'm sick do I feel, oh, good, I've got those calories out of me. I'm not going to be fat because there's a huge fear of being fat. Um, but also I'm actually getting a chemical reaction. So that's why I see it as an addiction. And also the addiction of obsessing over it, planning it, thinking about it. Um, but it's all of you know, like all addictions, they're often distractions. We don't want to feel how we feel. And for me, my mum did used to say, Oh, your sister's your sister's older sister, she looked very different to me. Um, she had sort of really straight blonde hair. My hair was all really um curly and tight curls, which she my mum wouldn't even brush because it was so tight. And she would always say, Oh, look, your sister looks great, your sister's looking neat and perfect. And so I took that as I'm ugly. Um, I'm not good enough. So yeah. Um, so looks became an area which I felt I had to fix.

SPEAKER_00:

That makes a lot of sense when you explain it like that because you didn't feel good enough. You found other ways in your life to compensate, to see what can I fix, what can I make better, what can I perfect so that at least in these areas of my life I have control. Yeah. And what else did you turn to besides addiction? Because I know in our conversation you talked about workaholism as well as an addiction.

SPEAKER_01:

That that's been my biggest, um, my biggest challenge actually. And it's it's one that I'm constantly working on. So I threw myself into studies quite early on, and I got a lot of achievement from um you know being academics, being successful in that way. And then at work, I worked my first job. I worked in a culture where you're it was in sales environment, there was in recruitment, so you're only as good as your last month, so that pushes you, pushes you. So I learned just you know, if you worked hard, then you felt good. And then I just carried that on. So um I find it hard to feel happy if I'm not productive. I'm much better at it now, but occasionally I will still have the voice of when I'm taking time off, oh, you're being lazy. Oh, you're not achieving much. I tied myself worth to it to achieving. And the workaholism as an addiction is quite invisible because our society may even encourage it and may say, oh, that's great, you're working so hard, well done. But it really has consequences. It has consequences on your your health, your mental health, your physical health. It leads to burnout for a lot of people, which is a really scary time where they feel like that they don't know who they are and they're collapsing. And it can obviously impact relationships. You may end, you know, relationships may end, they may be negatively impacted, you may miss birthdays or milestones or important things because you're so focused on work as a security. And for me, growing up in a household where we didn't have any money, um, and the reason that my mum was so stressed was because we we didn't have money. The arguments between my mum and dad were around money. So it's for me, it was like I have to work, I have to work, I have to keep working because I never want to be poor, I never want to be in that situation. I took on their fears and really believed that the only way to feel peace is to just constantly push, push, push. But obviously, it's not a happy life if you're just pushing yourself all the time. So then I've been working on that and um I'm much better, but sometimes that critical voice can still slip in, even after years of working on it.

SPEAKER_00:

At what point did you realize the workaholism was a problem? How do you tell the difference between simply working very hard and when it becomes a red flag?

SPEAKER_01:

So for me, it was obvious a long, long time ago because um I red flags was when I would take time off and feel restless and unhappy, even low, just feel like um uneasy. Um, maybe there's a fear, okay, I'm not being productive, I'm wasting time, um, or a fear of okay, well, I don't work hard, then I might not have enough money. It's like all kind of sub subtle, subconscious. And also when I was dating for a long time and not really finding a good partner in relationships, but because I wasn't putting in the time, you know, I'd go on a date one night and it would be really nice, and then I might be a bit tired the next day, and then they'd want to meet again, and then I'd be, oh, you know, I've got to work, and then I'd keep putting it off. So it was just also sabotaging things. And what I really knew was when I said, right, I'm gonna stick to a schedule, I'm gonna take every other weekend off completely, or I'm gonna finish at this time, or I'm not gonna look at my phone for this amount, and I couldn't do it. I could have all these plans, and I really believed the plans, but when I actually try to do the plans, they don't work, and that was because I was trying to do it with my mind, but I wasn't healing it from a trauma perspective. I wasn't healing it from my, you know, my body, the emotions, the the deeper patterns that for me, I was when I looked at it more deeply, I was so attached to my work because I believed it was saving me. It was my savior, it was my help, this is what got me out of my household situation, this is what was there for me, this is what I could rely on, this is my stability. And so it was so hard to break away from it.

SPEAKER_00:

You make a good distinction between the mind and the body. A lot of therapies still focus more on the mind. But what happens when, as you say, if the body is not cooperating with the mind and each of them is going in their own direction, how do you bring the body on board so that it is part of this healing process?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, so it's so important to listen to the body. Another red flag, which I didn't actually mention, was that I was tired. So I'd I'd work really hard, and then I just have days where I just feel absolutely exhausted, and that's when the body says no. And if you don't listen to your body on a daily basis, then your body will stop you anyway. Eventually, the body will say no for you, and and so my body was giving me these signs saying this is too much, this is too much. And then eventually I got um a thyroid condition where I had an overactive thyroid. So I'd wake up and I'd feel like I hadn't slept, and it my body was just saying, like, change something here. And so you bring the body in because the body will will tell you and and keep telling you, keep giving you the warnings. And if you don't listen to it early on, unfortunately, you know, you may collapse, or you this is when people get burnout or or other things happen to them. So um it's it's it's combining them both, and the mind can tell you everything. You know, the mind isn't necessarily reliable because it's you know, it's not based on truth sometimes. We can get confused. What does this mean? What does that mean? Whereas the body doesn't lie, your energy doesn't lie. If you want to do something, you'll feel it in your body, you'll feel your energy, yes or no. I think this is really important for um introverts as well. I'm an introvert, and you know, we could we can think, okay, I should maybe I should do this or I should do that, but no, how do I feel about this? How does my body respond to this? Do I have the energy? Really tuning into ourselves is so important because most people will have the experience where you don't listen to your intuition, and it's normally a bad consequence, an undesirable consequence anytime we override our own intuition.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm glad you're mentioning this in the connection with introverts, because you are right. We introverts and deep thinkers and quiet achievers, we sometimes rise the intellect over the body's wisdom. We've been conditioned that way to look outwards for validation, for approval, to things that we can measure the achievements, the possessions, the status, other people's regard for us. But we alone have that bodily intelligence, and that is unique for each person. So nobody else knows how we feel or what our capacity is and how it fluctuates. Only we can notice and pay attention to those clues. So if we're not taking responsibility for that and not listening, then as you say, eventually it catches up and the body will make its presence felt very loudly and very strongly. So, what are some steps we can take as overthinkers to start with perhaps thinking less or relying less on the intellect and more on our intuition and our body?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think we can get into a routine of pausing and just asking us ourselves before we say yes to anybody, before we commit ourselves, even just for ourselves to do something, just close our eyes. I like to put one hand on my heart and one hand on my stomach, and just be like, you know, how am I feeling about this? Is this gonna be good for me? You know, just really pausing and taking that time to connect with yourself. And sometimes if you're not sure, then saying, Well, I'm not gonna say yes, or I'm not gonna do it until I'm sure. Um, so this is one way of doing that. And making sure that we are taking time to preserve our energy, to not just keep pushing or say, you know, give because I think often we can write a list of all these things. I really want to get all of this done today or all of this done this week. But it's just when you actually go to do it, it's not realistic. So it's like, okay, what's the most important thing that I want to focus on? Pausing, asking yourself, I like to close my eyes to go inward, it really helps me. And then waiting for the answer and then and listening to yourself. The more you listen to yourself, the more you're gonna build that trust in your gut intuition. And there's a big difference between um a message from the mind and a message from your gut intuition. The mind, it kind of has this flighty, anxious energy. It's kind of rushed and do this, do that, and what about this? You know, it's quite rushed. Whereas when you know something, it comes from the that gut intuition, it's calm and it's like I know that this isn't quite right for me. I know that this is what I need to do. It's it's it's much more strong and calm, and that's how you can know the difference. And for me, I like to write down all my thoughts all the time to get them out of my head because they're just they consume me a lot, so I'm always writing out my thoughts so then I can just be free in my mind. That helps me.

SPEAKER_00:

That's really helpful. So decluttering to make space in the mind and noticing the difference between your mind and your gut in terms of the the quality of the energy that they present thoughts to you. And that actually takes some conscious effort because the conditioning is to prioritize anything that's logical, rational, black and white, quick and intellectual that's from the mind. Whereas anything that's from the gut, we may think it's not as important. And you know, that's why we get disconnected from our feelings, and now we have to reconnect again and learn to trust those feelings.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I also think it's really important to question any shoulds. I mentioned that shoulds earlier. So shoulds often they're not coming from our gut or from what we want, they're coming from a judgment by ourselves, a critical voice by ourselves. I should have done this or I should do this, or they're someone else's expectations. So question anytime you say I should do this, according to who, is this really good for me? Do I really want to do this? Is it realistic? Is this authentic to me?

SPEAKER_00:

So, what you're saying is also to notice how we are speaking to ourselves, to be critical thinkers and not to just trust every thought that comes to us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, for me, for example, with my my mother being quite critical of herself and definitely critical towards me, I took on that voice. And as a coping mechanism of protection, I'd be very critical of myself so that if someone else is critical of me, it's not going to hurt me as much. So I'll put myself down. And that became like a coping mechanism. But then obviously, as you get older, and yes, it can motivate you to do things, but it also makes you miserable, and it can also ruin your happiness and your joy. So it's, but it sometimes it comes up and it's like talking to that critical voice in a nice way, challenging it, saying, Okay, where are you coming from? Why do I need to keep pushing myself? Why can't I do this? Like if you talk to it gently, you can realize do I need to actually listen to this or not? And it's far nicer, of course, to encourage yourself in a positive way, like you would talk to a friend. Um, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

It makes a lot of sense. In fact, I think that is a good rule of thumb to ask ourselves, how are we talking to ourselves? Are we talking to ourselves the same way that we would talk to a good friend? The same way that we would counsel someone else who is in the same situation that we are in. And I think it's a truth that we often find we are kinder to other people than we are to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, the amount of people when when we start sessions, they'll say, Oh, I'm so stupid because I did this, or I should have known better, or you know, like a con they just start with a self-judgment. And and it's this is going to lower your energy, it's gonna make you not feel good, and you wouldn't if I often say to some people, so if a friend was in the same situation, what would you say to them? Oh, tell them that they've done well and that they're doing their best, and you know, we'll say all kinds of different things. So, yeah, it's a really good question to ask yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting how we know exactly the thing to say to someone else. But when it comes to ourselves, we are un unseasonably harsh. And we think that we have to push, we have to be very firm, we have to use that discipline, that that critical voice, that that judgment in order to get us ourselves moving and motivated. Because that's the voice that we grew up with, and we've so we've become so used to it, even though as a child we hated it. We didn't respond well to being talked to in that way. And yet we would perpetuate the same and talk to ourselves as grown-ups that same way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, and it is so powerful when you change it, it's very life-changing when you change it, it creates a lot of freedom because the you know the the best way that you can actually love yourself is to stop criticizing yourself, is to say, I'm not gonna judge myself, I'm not gonna criticize myself, I'm only gonna speak kindly to yourself, then it makes such a difference. Um, because it's just the it's the it's the biggest thing that um affects our overall health, really.

SPEAKER_00:

And what would you say to people in relationships where one person is introverted and perhaps they are they have difficulty speaking up for themselves or speaking up for their needs?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so um it can be difficult for a couple of reasons. It can be difficult because often um introverts can abandon themselves by you know saying yes to things that they don't necessarily want to go to, maybe family gatherings or social events. And so when they do stand up for themselves, they can feel guilt because you know, society makes you think that being outgoing and really sociable is a sign of success. And it can also be because they don't feel comfortable because that they haven't stood up for themselves. They've always, you know, when when we start our first relationships with our parents, we go along with everything they say, we do everything they want, and then it can happen in a in a romantic relationship with an introvert where they go along with everything and they realize actually I'm I'm losing myself or I'm not I'm not happy or I'm I'm drained or whatever it is, it's it's impacting them. But it is so important to speak up. You know, studies show that when you don't speak up, again, it negatively impacts your health. And so it is so important. And the the different clashes that introverts and extroverts have, sometimes it's over like socializing, and then it's about communication. An extrovert will just want to talk and talk and resolve things there and then, they need to express everything. Sometimes they don't even know what's coming out of their mouth. Um, and then by the end of the conversation, they realize what they want out of it. Whereas an introvert is completely different. They need silence, they need to reflect, they need to think about what do I want to say and how do I say. So, for couples, I always recommend if you need space, you need to have that space, but always giving an extrovert a time and a place and letting them know look, it's really important for me. Uh, I know it's really important for you, sorry, to talk through these things. However, I just can't at the moment, please can we talk about it in an hour, or please can we talk about it the next day? So you're giving them a day and a time, but you're also giving yourself space because I don't know. For me, if someone's just talking and I'm trying to understand what they're saying with my partner, if he just keeps um talking, I I get overwhelmed and I just can't even think. And I feel sometimes I feel like I want to scream inside because I can't take it in. Or sometimes I need to work out, is it true what they're saying? So I'll need to go away into my silence, work out, is it true? Like I really have that individual time to process it and then and then go back and discuss it.

SPEAKER_00:

And that circles back nicely to what you said about the power of the cause. Because when tempers are high, when emotions are running very intensely, we don't have the ability to think clearly because we are ruled by our emotions in that moment. And if the introvert needs space to reflect and to process and to ask those critical questions, but the extrovert is insisting or pressing for a quicker resolution, then that's not going to work. So I like how you've made it that a form of self-advocacy, that formula, I guess, to be able to say, I need space, I need time. So how about this and how about that? Then that gives certainty to the other person, but at the same time, it creates space for the introvert.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And going back, you know, to to your partner and saying, Well, my partner, he's very high energy, wants to be chatty, so like very loud sometimes, and sometimes in the morning, especially, I just need to be quiet. I just so, but now he knows that I'll go and have my time, and then I'll always come back to him. So it's also just saying, look, if you leave me to just have my time, I will keep keep going back and interacting when I when I'm in the right mind frame, which allows you to be a lot more present, a lot more energized than kind of just sitting there and staying in it and then feeling, you know, all sort of uncomfortable feelings in yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's about communication, effective communication and not being afraid or feeling guilty about speaking up and saying what it is that you need.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly. And one quote, well, what one thing that I find really helpful is if you look up guilt in the English dictionary, it means intending to harm somebody. So unless you're deliberately intending to harm somebody, you have no reason to feel guilty. So asking for something that you need, you know, it's nothing to be guilty about.

SPEAKER_00:

And if there's any guilt about it, it's probably a false kind of guilt. Because, like you said, based on the meaning of the word, there was no intention to harm.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and exploring it. Okay, why do I feel guilty? Where is this coming from? Oh, I don't want to disappoint. Well, I also need to not disappoint myself. And you know, those kind of things, just asking where is it coming from? Because it could be coming from, as we've talked about earlier, our childhoods or other places, other relationships where we felt, oh, I have to do what other people say, but that's not kind to ourselves. And if we live like Like that, um, we're not gonna be having our full freedom, our full energy, our full enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00:

Could you tell us how you help your clients?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So I have different ways of working. So I work with couples a lot. And for those couples, I offer an action-based program. I don't believe in traditional therapy where you just go over problems and talk through this happened or they did this or they did that. I don't find it works. So every what I do is more coaching and it's structured on um looking at each partner's needs and then an action plan for that, communication, clearing negativity and resentment, and healing past wounds. So that's kind of like the relationship work I do for couples, um, which is online. And then I do a lot of trauma healing, which is where we go into the body, and again, I do this online where we feel into our emotions and we feel into the body and we release things, and often memories will come up from childhood, from other relationships, and often what we're experiencing in the present is just um a similar situation of what we haven't resolved from the past. So it always, we always kind of it always ends up going much back, and what we're annoyed about in the present, like, oh, they forgot my birthday. It could, for me, you know, that could cause a whole meltdown one year in a relationship where I realized, oh, it's because I had three or four really bad birthdays before. So how we react now often has is only to do with 10% of the situation, it's 90% of the the other situation. So I do trauma healing in that way, and then I also um because it really helped me now offer psychedelic plant medicine retreats in Asia. And this I really fell into because with the workaholic pattern, I understood everything intellectually. I understood why I do it, why I've got these attachments, why work's important to me, what benefits it gives me. I understand I need to take a break, I need to rest, but the patterns were so ingrained, and I love exploring the deep world of myself and what's important to me and things like that. So I went on two different um psychedelic retreats. One was a mushroom um retreat, private one, one was a San Pedro, which is a cactus, and both of them really were life-changing. And so now I offer that work, and it's very rewarding helping people in a much deeper way with the medicine, because the medicine has a lot of powers for um healing and helping people to really find their authentic selves.

SPEAKER_00:

And who would be the right kind of people to say yes to those sorts of retreats? The plant medicine ones.

SPEAKER_01:

People that are looking for, they understand things intellectually, but they say still maybe have the same patterns. They maybe where talk therapy, they're not really growing anymore. They understand things and they want to change. Sometimes for couples, where you really want to cement and a deeper connection and remove some of the masks that we wear. The people that are looking for or at crossroads on life, they're not sure whether to change job, change career, change country, change relationship. It can be very insightful in those cases as well. And for those who just feel like, okay, I've achieved a lot. And is this all there is? You know, they're just looking for that next thing. So these are the kind of people that I tend to attract and tend to be drawn, drawn to this work because it's a lot deeper. And it's so amazing the way that the plant medicines work. They calm the default mode network, which is our overthinking, our critical thoughts, us, so that you can then um have really deep insights from your unconscious mind. It can release buried memories for you to process that you weren't aware of. It can help you to express your emotions, which a lot of healing comes from, feeling your emotions and expressing them. It also increases neuroplasticity, your brain's ability to create new neural pathways. So you can let go of old habits and patterns and behaviors, thinking patterns that don't serve you. Um, it also calms the amygdala, the fear center. And these changes, they've been scientifically proven, aren't just in the session. They can't, that they can and they do last for many participants years later. And that's what I think is so great about this. You it really can you can go really a lot deeper and it can be a lot more long-lasting. So, and it a lot of people really aren't feeling their emotions. And it's not that the psychedelics are making them more emotional, it's that they're removing the fear to really express and to feel all these different emotions, and that can be really powerful for some people.

SPEAKER_00:

I can imagine that would be very freeing for someone who has not been able to access their emotions and who has lived primarily in their heads to suddenly be able to name how they feel and feel how they feel in a safe container, in a safe space, and to be amongst people who are doing the same kind of work, to feel that support and that sense of community. So, thank you for this amazing work you do. And how do people find you and connect with you to ask more?

SPEAKER_01:

So, to find me, or um listen to my one of my podcast shows. I've got the relationship revival podcast, which talks about relationship topics and then the healing with psychedelics, which talks about all the different ways that people are using psychedelics for creative thinking or depression or trauma. And um I have my two websites, which is uh Nicolabeer.com, and the plant medicine one is called plantmedicinepower.com.

SPEAKER_00:

Fantastic. We'll make sure to have the links to the podcast as well as your website in the show notes so that people can find you. So thank you so much, Nicola, for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today.

SPEAKER_01:

Great. It was a real pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

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