Transforming from Within: Embracing Change, Self-Love & Authenticity – with Nancy Levin

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I am bringing you Nancy Levin, who is not only a life coach not only has written some badass books, but she has such a beautiful heart, and a magnetic spirit, I will tell you, you’re gonna fall right in love with this woman and feel her energy come through your ears. If you’re watching this on YouTube, hopefully, you’ll see the beautiful smile that she has. But she also has so much wisdom to offer all of us. So I met Nancy at a Hay House conference a few months back. And we started talking about some of the books that she had written. And one of them was called The Art of change. And the other one is called boundaries, we’ll set you free. Two principles that I know for me, I need to learn better. And I know many of you are experiencing and stepping into this redesign of yourself into this new version of yourself and are looking to set better boundaries are looking how to navigate change. And so I wanted to bring her to all of you to talk about how we do that. So in this conversation, what you’re going to hear is her story, and it’s jaw dropping. Her transformation story is should be inspiration to us all. And I so grateful for her authenticity and sharing this. But what I really also wanted to pull out of her was not only inspiring us, but how do we take what she learned in her own transformation, and start to apply it to our lives? Are there steps to change? Are there steps to setting boundaries? How do we know where the truth of our own life lies? How do we create a vision for our life? These are questions that we deeply discuss in this episode. So wherever you sit in your life, I hope that Nancy’s words will help become a catalyst for you to become not only the best version of yourself, but to create a life that you deserve to live in. So Nancy Levin, this is a real treat. And I’m really excited to bring it to you. So as always enjoy a Dr. Mindy here and welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy. I have to start off outside of the fact that I’m pretty sure we would have this conversation if we were sitting down to a meal together. But outside of that, I just want to welcome you to my to my other home the reseller Podcast. I’m so happy you’re here, Nancy,

Nancy Levin  

I am thrilled to be here with you.

Dr. Mindy  

So before I dive in, I have to tell you, because the topic we’re going to talk for everybody that’s listening, that I really want to dive into your brain on today’s change. And I want to tell you that I was thinking about this this morning, how I like to change is I like to get little intuitive hits that I should change. And I like to resist them. And I like to ignore them. And I like to wait until those little whispers turn into massive screams. And then I change kicking and screaming like a little toddler. And then I get on the other side of change. And I go oh, that was so great. I should have done that earlier, is that most people approach change?

Nancy Levin  

Yes, most people wait for a crisis. Most people wait for something heavy enough to force them to change. And I’m a big proponent now of rock your own foundation before it rocks you. Because

Dr. Mindy  

when weary though, that’s so scary.

Nancy Levin  

It it can be it also can be really freeing, empowering, liberating, and ultimately it’s the way we take responsibility for our own lives.

Dr. Mindy  

Hmm. Okay to dive into that a little bit more because the other thing that I in the conversations I’ve had with you that I really want everybody listening to understand is you went not only went through a massive change in your life, which in my opinion, your massive change makes you an expert, but you had some I think you called it the A team of spiritual masters guiding you through this change. So that makes you even more of an expert. So talk a little bit about that because it’s really impressive how you are guided through change.

Nancy Levin  

It is I mean, I look back on it, and I am in awe of the, the gift I was given by the people I surrounded myself with. And so the massive change you’re referring to is really ultimately me blowing up my marriage, which came in the form of my then husband reading my journals to discover that I’d had an affair eight years earlier. Oh, wow.

Dr. Mindy  

This is why I don’t have a journal either.

Nancy Levin  

So the day after the discovery, I destroyed over 70 volumes of my personal journal. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, my God, you burned the house down

Nancy Levin  

pretty much. And the way that this all occurred was that I was the event director at Hay House at the time, a position I would hold for 12 years. And I was on my way home from one of our events that I had been producing. And I had heard, I had seen actually, as I had gone through security, a voicemail had come in, and I listened to the voicemail. And all I heard was, I read your journals, you better get your ass home, there’s hell to pay. And so I got myself home somehow. And I found myself in my condo with him holding up pages of my journal saying, I’m going to copy pages and send them to your friends, your co workers, your family, so that they can know who the real Nancy is. Because, oh, I had expended all my energy. Living by the motto, never let them see you sweat. I had been projecting an image of perfection to the world, I had been managing the perception of others, I only wanted to be seen through the lens I wanted to be seen through. And while my marriage had been crumbling behind the scenes, it was certainly never anything I wanted anyone to know. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was in an abusive marriage. I didn’t want anyone to know the truth. And really, quite frankly, I didn’t want to know the truth. Yeah. Yeah. And what happens is when we avoid the truth, we create chaos. And so I know that the part of me that wrote in my journal about the affair was setting a bomb to detonate eight years later, because I didn’t know how to get out at that time.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, I have so many questions before we go on. Right, guys? So the first one is, how do we know what the truth is? I mean, this is literally something I’ve sat with him my whole life, like, where is the truth? Where’s the truth on many different places? Yeah. I don’t know how you access that other than keep asking yourself questions. So so I’d be curious, your opinion on that? Yeah.

Nancy Levin  

And so what I’ve come to believe, is that the truth is a moving targets sometimes. So there’s a there’s a line in a poem that I wrote that says, A remembered truth is a dead thing. And I think about that a lot, because what might be true today, may or may not be true tomorrow, I have to make the inquiry again. And I do think that that’s how we discover what is true. We need to be in a self connective practice, whether it’s journaling or meditating, or whatever it might be, that has us in connection with what’s true for us. And to remember that it may shift or change or more as we evolve.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so if I just take, you know, we’re gonna geek out on words here since Yeah, I write books. I’m like, I have a I have a wall in my office where I take words that I think are really interesting. And I just write them up there. And I’m like, I don’t I don’t know where I’m going to use that. But I think that words really interesting. So I’m geeking out on the word truth. Because here’s where my brain goes, is wool. If I’m looking at information, information, I’m gonna get really like woowoo here for a moment information looks different, based on who you are in the moment. And I’m not even sure that that this reality is always the same reality there are like, you know, infinite numbers of reality of the of the person called Mindy Pelz. Right. So I have my perception Given that I’m using when I’m looking at the fabric of my life of that, that who I am, I can only look at things through the lens of who I am. And the fact that reality is a moving target. So what really is truth?

Nancy Levin  

Yeah, and I think that what’s important here to is to distinguish the difference between fact and truth. Yeah. Oh, good. Go for it. You know, just, you know, I think, because somewhere between fact and fiction is truth.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, well, that’s, that gets us in the ballpark, baby.

Nancy Levin  

Yeah. Because I think things, you know, there are things that are facts, that still may not ring true or may not resonate. And so we also have to be curious about how we are relating to what we hold

Dr. Mindy  

as true. Yeah. Right. That’s what I was thinking. I was thinking so truth in this scenario, and in the scenario that I want to, like, morph, this conversation into around change is, truth would mean being congruent with yourself. Yeah. Being? Yeah, yeah. So what I just heard is that there was somewhere along your marriage, you were not being congruent with the soul? No, that we call Nancy.

Nancy Levin  

Exactly.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. And so if we were to take that you’re not being truthful and congruent to yourself? Is, is there an IT? How is that inner knowing have a sense, have has have a quality to it? Like, you’re tense all the time, you’re quick to react, you’re not sleeping, you’re people pleasing? Like, are the all of those symptoms of not being truthful to your own souls journey?

Nancy Levin  

Check, check, check, check, check. And, and, you know, for me also, it was, it was, you know, I, the way I have chosen in my life to numb out is through work. workaholism. Yeah. So I, I really dove into my job, I really dove into a place where I couldn’t feel any more, I kept myself so busy, I kept myself so in service of others, seeking external validation chasing all the gold stars thinking all of that external stamp of approval would resolve something inside of me. And of course, it does not

Dr. Mindy  

that and I just want to pause and say, I know you know this, but that’s so many of us.

Nancy Levin  

Absolutely, absolutely. That and we have that we will pleasing the peacekeeping, the conflict, avoiding not wanting to rock the boat. All of that keeps us a distance from our truth. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, it’s and this is something I would say that even now in my 53 year old journey, I’ve been really like thinking, like coming back to what do I want? How do I want to live my life? What is my voice telling me? And in that asking that question, I realized I’ve never I don’t even think from the day I landed on this planet. I’ve asked myself that.

Nancy Levin  

Right? Because so many of us are oriented toward others. So we are living an other referenced life. We are we have our attend our antenna focused on what do they think, what do they need? What do they want? What do they feel? And the first invitation here really is to start tuning into what do I want? What do I need? What do I feel? What do I think? And for so many who have really been in that people pleasing, peacekeeping, conflict, avoiding place, and over giving over achieving? We, we tend to be devoid of connection to our own needs. And in fact, you know, I’m sure many people listening can relate to what I will say I prided myself for ages and having no needs. I am self sufficient. I am independent. I have no needs. I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I will do everything all by myself all the time. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. And that I just want to point out those of you listening, I know so many people that listen to this podcast resonate with that, including me. Yeah, it’s like, it’s so so that. So that is a way to push away like we’re pushing our ourselves further away from our own souls, cries,

Nancy Levin  

yes. And the more we meddle in someone else’s experience. What we’re really doing is lowering the volume on our own. So I don’t have to deal with me. Because I’m going to get all up in your business. And this is really one of the one of the ways we cross our own boundaries. First and foremost, we start, you know, mucking around in someone else’s experience someone else’s emotions, thinking that we can somehow control their experience, and we cannot.

Dr. Mindy  

So, I mean, I resonate so much with that, if I go back to the other word you said, that is really interesting to me is chaos. So can we look at when our life gets really chaotic? The first thing we would have to say is, okay, I created the chaos, which is something that is a huge step for a lot of people onto its own, on their own. But I can tell you, I’ve been in chaotic states of my life before with like my head in my hand going, I know I created this, but a why why would I create this, this kind of chaos? And be how do I get myself out of it? So if we like go back to your story where you weren’t living the truth of your soul’s journey? So you created chaos that allowed your ex husband to read the journal? Yep. So chaos is a catalyst.

Nancy Levin  

Chaos is definitely a catalyst. It definitely is a catalyst. But like I said, and we were saying at the beginning, I think the idea is, we don’t want to wait for the chaos to catalyze us into act. Right.

Dr. Mindy  

Right. You know, I’m still I’m still muddling on that one dancing.

Nancy Levin  

Like, no, it’s not. It’s not it’s not easy, because so many of us feel like we just need that push, we want to stay. We are, you know, we want to stay complacent. People fear change, change of the unknown. I think people we fear the unknown. We want to know, if I’m going to change. I want to know what what’s next. And so what am I don’t know, right? We get we get scared. But really, the unknown is where possibilities live, the unknown is where more options are available to us. And the other thing is, we can always course correct. Well, but not

Dr. Mindy  

in that situation. If you left your you know, if you were wanting out of your marriage, like course correcting that would have been a little more difficult, I guess. Wow, love.

Nancy Levin  

Right. I mean, right. There were many circumstances involved that had it so that there was no, there was no way to move for us to move forward. It took about two years. I’ll tell you, from that moment, yes. Oh, I was so dedicated and devoted to not wanting anyone to know the truth. And I was so devoted to being the picture perfect, you know, husband and wife. And so I did every single thing I could to, you know, keep the keep the ball underwater. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So I know that there are people listening right now that are in that situation, whether it be a marriage or a job or a you know, house they’re in or a town they live in. I mean, there’s so many places, then I see in this world that we get stuck. Yep. So once he made that phone call, once he he left you that message and you got home? What did change start to look like? Like, how did you go from that moment of what I would call an awakening to being able to get yourself to where you are today? Yeah,

Nancy Levin  

you know, so for me, it was recognizing in that moment that I had a choice. I could either go back to sleep, and keep pretending and stay numb and avoidant. Or I could buck up and tell this tell myself the truth, first and foremost, because any betrayal, so you know, yes. It was a betrayal of my marriage vows. However, it was also first and foremost a betrayal of myself. Yeah. Yeah. So I had to first get true with what’s really going on here. And then I had to realize I, this is the moment in time, if I don’t, if I don’t choose something else now, everything will stay the same. Yeah. And so that was the moment.

Dr. Mindy  

Do you think because people also I’m thinking, you know, I’ve seen a lot of people. They struggled to change in their health and I mean, this is I would say, definitely a path that I’ve watched millions of people. And they they justify where their health is at. So they’re like, Oh, I’m not that overweight, I’m not that sick. You know, it used to be worse. So we justify to allow ourselves to stay in situations that don’t work.

Nancy Levin  

Yes, so one of the concepts in all of my work is around underlying commitments. So the way this works is, whenever there is a discrepancy between what I say I want, and when I’m actually experiencing, there is an old outdated underlying commitment in the mix. So even if it’s as simple as you know, I say, I want to, you know, change my relationship to my health. But what I’m experiencing is not getting off the couch and eating shitty food. Right now. Yeah. Right. This

Dr. Mindy  

is yeah, this is the reality I want with every day. Exactly,

Nancy Levin  

exactly. What we have to start looking at is, the choices we’re making and the actions we’re taking, that take us away from what we say we want, and that are in line with what is actually happening. So we start looking at understanding, even though I say I want to, I want to change my relationship to my health and live a healthy life, I’m actually more committed to comfort, I’m more committed to struggle, I’m more committed to whatever it might be, I’m more committed to being invisible. So we have to look at that and that that old, outdated commitment served us when we were young, it served us in childhood at some point, or else, we never would have made this promise to ourselves, you know, I might have decided, I’m going to commit to being invisible, because that will keep me out of trouble. You know, so we, we have to honor that we made that commitment at one time. And then we have to acknowledge that commitment that we made as a child is now the seed of our self sabotage, as an adult. The very thing that kept us safe when we were young, at one time is now pulling us down.

Dr. Mindy  

Are there questions you can ask yourself to get to because it’s interesting, it’s sort of the reverse of what I do with people when I’m trying to get them to the why they want to be happy, or why they want to be healthy. It’s like, give me your why. And what I’ve learned over the years is that you give me somebody with a big enough why to be healthy. And I can get them well like that, like so. So easy. The but if you give me somebody who says they want to lose weight that says they want to be healthy, but they can’t tell me why from an emotional standpoint, I actually know I’m in trouble that we are not going to move forward with that person’s health.

Nancy Levin  

Yes. So this is where I would say I’ll bring in what I have coined my transformation equation, change equals Vision Plus choice plus action. Okay, so I would say the vision piece correlates with the why. And the and the what of what life do you envision? Or how do you envision your life being different? If the change you make is in relationship to good health? You know, what do you envision what becomes possible for you? What is what’s available to it might the why parts might be still, you know, being strong and healthy to see my grandchildren or whatever it is, you know, but to really be able to hold the vision of what becomes possible when this change is made.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, if you don’t know that you’ve never been healthy. You don’t know that feeling. If you’ve never been in a positive, loving relationship, you don’t know that feeling. So what I’ve a tool I’ve used in my own life when I’m trying to make change, and I can’t get a hold of why I want to do it, is I go to the opposite of it. And I think well what happens if you’re not gonna do it? That’s right.

Nancy Levin  

That’s right. Exactly. Same, exactly. Because every single choice we make and every action we take does only one of two things serves our vision or sabotage set. So when we’re looking at the vision that we’re holding, you know, every choice we make is going to have consequences in one direction. Should or another. So it’s similar to what you’re saying, if I make no changes, what does my life look like in five years? If I make the changes I want to make what does my life look like in five years? Right? So our vision, and you know, when I’m talking about vision, I like to get really, I like to hone in on something specific. It doesn’t have to be the vision for your whole entire life. It can just be,

Dr. Mindy  

right? It’s like a big chunk of life and figure it all out. But go ahead,

Nancy Levin  

right? I don’t I like, I like something that feels like manageable. So I like a slice of my vision, as it relates to my health, and then being able to see the capacity expand for what’s available. But then that vision becomes the gauge by which I make my choices and take my actions. So if I’m really holding around the vision, or the why, like you said, then, because we’re making choices every single day, we’re taking actions every single day that will impact our health. Every, like every minute, a day, many a day. Yep. So do at least stay conscious to that. Like, if I make this choice, what’s going to happen? If I make that choice? What’s going to happen? If I take this action? Am I getting closer to my vision? If I take this action, am I moving farther away from my vision? And so we get to in each moment of choice and action? Consider the vision, let that engage?

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so that’s what I’m thinking is, are and I’m just, you know, reflecting back to you, what I’m hearing is that where change starts is in the vision of what you want in your life. Yeah, and if you and this is where, as somebody who loves to vision, I’m like, oh, okay, I can get behind this. Now. I can think about, okay, I want this is what I want life to look like, on a relationship level, on a money level on a health level, like on a family level, like, I can easily spout off all of those. But where I think I might fall, my my ability to change falls apart is when on a day to day, if I come up against something that doesn’t match my vision, I have to first say, like, be aware that it doesn’t match my vision, like having dessert at nine o’clock at night doesn’t match my vision of how I want to go into a fasted state the next day, right? So I have to be aware of it. And then I have to make the bold choice.

Nancy Levin  

That’s right, that I might change. That’s right. And that’s the thing, because so many of us are running on autopilot. So many of us live detached from our own experience. You know, we all have these avoidance strategies, many of which are food, alcohol, drugs, or work or exercise or shopping, or, you know, there’s can be anything. Yeah, but really all that avoided, though, they’re all the same in that it’s what what am I? What am I doing so that I can avoid feeling or dealing? You know, so if I’m just putting my head down into work, because I don’t want to feel or deal with whatever is sort of knocking at me. That is the indication of I need to take a pause. I need to address what is knocking? I need to have a look here. I’m not just going on autopilot and the same. You know, it’s like reaching for the fridge. stop, pause, pause for three minutes or five minutes, even journal. What do I not want to feel or deal with right now that’s having me want to numb out in some way.

Dr. Mindy  

So with the fridge example. One of the things that I have seen about food is it often is filling it’s filling in emptiness inside of us. So when we stand in front of the fridge, and we have committed to maybe go into I mean, this is so much of what I’ve seen with fasting Yeah, we’ve committed to go and do like a 15 hour fasts and like 10 hours and and we’re looking at the fridge and all the emptiness is coming up. Yes. And we don’t have anything to feed ourselves to just quiet those empty feelings. That alone can be almost too humanly difficult to handle. Yes, depending how deep the how far down the hole of emptiness that goes. So yeah, what do we do in that moment? Is there are there little like Band Aid strategies if we Become aware of that, oh, wow, I want to go eat because I want to fill this void inside of me. And when I look at what the void inside of me is, it’s big. And I don’t know how to deal with it. So so what do I do in that moment?

Nancy Levin  

Yes. So this is really the place where the self connection, the self love, needs to be able to be contacted. And this is why I think about, you know, the, whatever practices of self connection we have, we really need to build these muscles. Because as I was saying, Before, you know, when we’re chasing something external, it’s never going to fill that internal void, we feel, we think food will fill it, or we think, you know, work will fill it, or we think shopping will fill it, but nothing’s going to fill it. In fact, it will make us feel ultimately more empty, or it will have us turn on ourselves. And so the cultivation of the relationship with ourselves, I believe, is at the heart of all of this, I believe, we have to be able to rely on ourselves. And, again, this can be cultivated by really listening to how am I talking to myself? How am I avoiding what feels true? How am I beating myself up myself up? You know, what is that inner critic crawl that’s just running through me at all times? And how can I begin to shift that? And so, for me, what I know is I used to be someone who woke up in the morning, and my first thought was, what do I need to worry about today? Oh, yeah. Then everything changed. When I began to shift my thinking to what is the most self loving action I can take today? What is the most self honoring choice I can make today? So I can begin myself with my attention on me.

Dr. Mindy  

What if you don’t I mean, you still I’m just trying to go down to places that I that I know so many women have been at, and I’ve been there myself where it’s, I don’t know what that action would look like, because I got this 10 different things on my schedule, people need me to show up do this that people need to take care of them. So I don’t know what self nurturing and love would be in that on a day like that.

Nancy Levin  

It can, it can be small. So I’m all about micro action or micro choice it can be today, I am going to spend five minutes with my coffee looking out the window. Before I do anything else, it can be that small. Yeah. And it may feel impossible at first, it may feel challenging at first. And the truth is that once you give yourself a taste of that, you will want more. Hmm. Okay. And I’ll say two things right here because I always hear something like this around now. For anyone listening,

Dr. Mindy  

right, because 10 things in my brain?

Nancy Levin  

Because really, what I’m ultimately talking about is can you give yourself permission to consider your own needs, at least as much as you’re considering the needs of others, baseline at least as much. And for those of us who have been extreme people pleasers that is a challenge just at least as much. That’s then are you willing to give yourself permission to consider your needs? Even more than you’re considering the needs of others? And then are you willing to consider your, your needs first, before you consider the needs of others? Now, I’m nowhere in here did I say don’t consider the needs of others. Just bring yourself to the forefront. And you know, I often will hear well, isn’t that selfish?

Dr. Mindy  

I was just gonna say. I was like, I’m gonna ask that question. So I’m glad somebody else has asked it before me.

Nancy Levin  

Oh, yeah. Right. I’ll tell you I am on the bandwagon to reclaim selfish. I think selfish has gotten a really bad rap. i We praise and pride ourselves on being self less. And right there in that word. No self. We disappear. Hmm. And here’s the deal. Yeah, it’s not either or it’s not we’re one or the other. We are both we are every single quality. So I am selfish, and I am selfless. And both are true. And I believe selfish self care and self love are three sisters whose job it is to support us in honoring ourselves. Hmm. Like, and then often the next thing I’ll hear is, Well, I feel guilty. When I left, right.

Dr. Mindy  

I was actually one thing I was thinking is Yeah, I know those three sisters. They’re not in my family. They’re actually my second cousins. That’s the first thing I thought I was like, yeah, they’re not my sisters or my cousins. Those three? Yeah, I’d like to bring them into the family a little bit more.

Nancy Levin  

Yes. So you know, I, I look at guilt in this context, as good. Guilt is an indicator you’re on the right track. Guilt is the signal that you are paying attention to what you need.

Dr. Mindy  

Wow, that is that is profound, because guilt is something that that is a deep emotion. I feel daily. Yep. And I and I, and then I try to, like I catch it. And I go, Oh, what are you feeling guilty about? I’m guilty that I’m sitting on the couch. I’m guilty that I’m not spending more time with my assert a friend or a loved one. So what Yeah, and then I try to rectify the guilt. But what you’re saying is it tells you you’re on the right path to taking care of yourself taking

Nancy Levin  

care of yourself, and you know, even what you said, you know, sitting on the couch, you know how quickly we want to beat ourselves up for, you know, I know for me, a big, disowned quality of mine was lazy. You know, I’m not lazy. And in fact, I overcompensate by being an overachiever. So there’s no existence of lazy and me. And like I was saying about selfish. I am lazy, and I’m an overachiever. We have to own all these pieces of ourselves instead of pushing parts of ourselves away.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Yeah. And this will be a total side note on the direction of this conversation. But I have to bring it back to the surface because my own brain is curious. Sure. What’s your what’s your Enneagram? Number? Again? Three? I thought so. Yeah. Yeah. So because I, you know, when you talked about not wanting others to see, you see the pain that was going behind? I was like, Oh, I bet she’s a three. And those of you that don’t know, the anagram? Well, we’ll do another episode on the Enneagram. Totally, but but the lazy part’s really interesting. Because my, my, at the core, I’m a nine on the Enneagram, which is required, and I’m a Libra. So, like, piece is really important to me. And so I have come into this place in my life where I’m like, okay, when people are upset around me, when situations are in chaos, there is a lot of discomfort, physical discomfort in my body. And I think, you know, whether, you know, the anagram or not a lot of women specifically have that is like, Oh, God. Now if I don’t go fix all these situations, I have to sit with the discomfort in my body that almost makes me want to throw up right now.

Nancy Levin  

Yeah, I know it very well. I lived, you know, four and a half decades of my life like that. Yes. And a big shift came when I learned how to sit with my own discomfort that my own discomfort is not going to kill me. And to hold others capable. I’ll say more about that. Yeah, you know, so I’m just going to sort of go, I’m gonna go all the way back to the beginning for me, which is that when I was born, I had an older brother, who had been severely disabled. And so I, aside from being you know, born from swimming, and my mother’s fear, anxiety and neurosis. I also really quickly realized that his needs are more important than mine. So better I take care of my own needs. He died when I was two, and he was almost six. And then the imprint on me right there was if I am imperfect, like he is, I will die.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, wow, Nancy, that’s huge. Yeah.

Nancy Levin  

Huge. And then, and my parents and I’ve had adult conversations about this, but then I went into this, wanting to heal a grief in my parents that could never be healed. And I expended a lot of energy wanting to heal, fix, save and rescue. Yeah. And then fast forward to the man I ended up marrying, it was literally as if on day one, he said to me, hi, I’m broken. And I said, Well, I’m Superwoman, I will fix you.

Dr. Mindy  

So many women have been there, right?

Nancy Levin  

Of course. And I felt like double down on it, because I couldn’t save my brother. I couldn’t save my parents. Well, I’m gonna save you. And obviously, the truth is, we cannot save fix rescue anybody. And what happened, though, was that in the the wanting, and the devotion to fixing, saving and rescuing and healing, I lost myself. And, yeah, that’s, you know, so, so much of this. And I think especially, you know, at this age and stage of our lives, this is a reclaiming of our life. This is a reinvention, in that we are returning to the essence of the truth of who we are, before we packaged ourselves to be digestible to everyone else around us.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, I got so much to say on that. For starters, I just, I just want to honor your authenticity and your vulnerability and your willingness to share that. Because there will be people listening to this that just are sobbing right now, because it’s a reflection of what they’ve gone through. So thank you for doing this course, that here’s where I go to and I always have to look at it through the menopausal lens. Of course, this is this is because I am a menopausal woman. But this is a big premise of the book I’m writing right now is that when we look at our hormones, we have about 40 years where these hormones are up. So between like 15 to about 55, we’re at what I call locked and loaded with our neuro chemical armor. And it’s not just estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, but it’s also dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, like it’s all those neurotransmitters. And I feel like now looking back at my life, that those that neurochemical armor blocked me from dealing with the truth often, and when that neuro chemical armor came down somewhere in my mid 40s, as it started to shed the truth could not be held back anymore. And then I got aware recently, like in the last year, that what a blessing that was, and that there’s another 40 years of me there’s a 53 out of 293 I’m I plan on living over 100. So there’s another 4050 years of me without that neurochemical armor. So what if I looked at menopause as actually a redesign a moment Italy, to redesign myself to be the woman I want to be at the back? 40 years? That’s what I just heard you say?

Nancy Levin  

Yes. Because, you know, and I don’t, I feel like, I feel like I talked to you about this when we talked another time. But what I’ve been exploring lately is that there’s a part of me that knows that my teenage self had it right. I was a loner, I liked to be very much on my own, I like to be with my books and my journal and do things, you know, in a in a way that just wasn’t quite acceptable for my mother at that time. And, you know, then I sort of went out and did all the things. And then now here I am my 58 year old self, really doubling down on how much I love to be with myself, how much I enjoy, how much how much more I appreciate myself, single than partnered, how much more I need and want the space that I can give myself. And so it’s almost like this through line and, and, you know, sort of puberty to menopause, right?

Dr. Mindy  

Look at this. It fits the hormonal trajectory. One was you were coming into your hormonal, you know, glory, and one is you’re exiting out and this is, you know, again, you and I’ve chatted about this, and my audience hopefully knows this, that this is part of what I’m trying to the conversation I’m trying to crack open for women is that these hormones do dictate the way that we behave, they dictate our relationships, the decisions we make, and when they’re there, they they we operate in one way and when they’re gone, we operate it another way but it’s the in and out those transition points that can be really the most vulnerable for us. So, talk a little bit about were community connection with other women, you definitely have to share some of the spiritual masters that helped you just because I was impressed. It gets counsel from some of the people, you know, so,

Nancy Levin  

yes, yes. So, you know, I often say I always had a front row seat seat and a backstage pass to all of the events I was producing at Hay House. And it wasn’t until I was in my own crisis, that I was really able to absorb all the teachings. And what I also recognized is, you know, going back to me saying, you know, I wanted to uphold that image of perfection and never let them see me sweat. You know, I also learned that the people I feared revealing myself to the most are the ones who rallied around me the fiercest. Oh, and, you know, like, like I’ve said to you, my a team was Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Carolyn mace, Marianne Williamson, Cheryl Richardson, Debbie Ford, read Tracy. You know, like, these were the people who were the scaffolding around me, holding me while I rebuilt myself.

Dr. Mindy  

I really resonate with what you’re saying, especially knowing the traits of a three how hard that had to have been. But what does it look like to make that first step? To ask somebody that you deeply respect? How do you make what’s that first step to just say, hey, like, how I’m hurting, I’m struggling? My my shits falling apart here. And you’re wise, I need your help. What does that first step look like?

Nancy Levin  

Yeah. So first, as I mentioned before, I had to admit to myself the truth that I already knew, then I had to be willing to admit the truth to someone safe. So it didn’t even begin, as it morphed for sure into asking for help. Which was its own hurdle at the beginning. For anyone else out there who has trouble asking for help. But it had to first began with being able to entrust something and trust someone was something I had never shared before. Who do you go to first? I actually at that time, I went to Cheryl Richardson, she was a very close friend. And I let her know what was happening. And I actually called her in the car as I was on my way back to my apartment, after I’d heard the voicemail. And she had said to me, go get yourself a go get go book yourself into a hotel, she knew the hotel, a couple blocks away from my house. She said, Go book yourself at the St. Julian, and then go home, and just know you have an exit strategy and somewhere to go. And that changed everything for me.

Dr. Mindy  

So as one person, it just takes one started. I literally

Nancy Levin  

it started out one person. Yeah. And I, you know, started with one person. And then the next morning, I did end up coming back to my place, seeing him and then leaving the house that night. Went to the hotel. And the next morning is when he said if if you don’t if you’re not home and a half an hour, I’m calling your parents and your sister. What was so what was your thought with that? I got on the phone right away and called my parents.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, that’s what I would do. I’d be like, well, let

Nancy Levin  

me beat you to it. I did. And so my parents, you know, they both got on the phone and I said, you know, it’s highly likely we’ll be getting divorced. And my mom said, what happened? And I said, Well, I got home last night, and he read my journals and discovered I had an affair eight years ago. And my mother said without skipping a beat. I’m so sorry. You’ve been carrying this around all by yourself for eight years. And I will tell you that the dissolution of my marriage was the great healing with my mother. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, that’s a that is fierce mother love. That is Mother Love. I would hope that most mothers would have that kind of response. Yep. That is. That is the fierceness of Mother Love. Yeah. That’s profound. Massive. Yeah. Wow. So if you’re, if you’re listening to this conversation, obviously. Obviously, you’re listening to this. And you’re stuck and some people are gonna hear this and they’re stuck in marriages like yours, and some people are stuck in jobs and some people are stuck in health challenges. Help us understand what that first door out is because I think we’ve given a lot of room really interesting, you know, you can get some vision, you can take some self care, you can find a lot, you know, a loved one. But let’s really speak to that person right now. Like, how do we help them move in a new direction? And just get some momentum in a new direction? Yes.

Nancy Levin  

So, along with visioning, you know, comes this idea of wanting and needing and desiring, which we get really turned off to, on some level at some point, that it’s not safe to want, or it’s greedy to want. Or, you know, like I was saying, I prided myself on not wanting, and there is this correlation between the wanting and the receiving. And most of us also still have this idea that life is a zero sum game, if someone else has, I can’t have I’ll go without, or if I have someone else we’ll go without, and it doesn’t work that way. No, right? Right. So we really start at, you know, I’ll always come back to this some way to connect in and contact, a small, simple desire, even a small wanting a small, or a small piece of the vision to hold in us to help us to really it’s like to help conduct us toward and away from what will move us in the direction we want to go. And this can be, you know, going back to what I was saying before, recognizing when my impulses to go into what do they need? What do they think, what do they want to pull it back in right there? What do I need in this moment? What am I feeling in this moment? What do I want in this moment? What do I think, just to begin pulling it back in so that we’re not outsourcing our thinking, we’re not outsourcing our feeling, you know, that we really are in charge of what’s happening inside of us. That has to be the beginning point to take that responsibility. And not not give it away. Because when we give away our power, you know, that’s when we can go into blame and victim and all that. And we can blame someone else for why our life isn’t the way we want it to be. Yeah. But the bottom line is our life isn’t the way we want it to be. Because we have not taken the stand for ourselves in this way. Hmm.

Dr. Mindy  

Wow. You know, I resonate so much with what you just said. And I’m realizing that there were moments like for me in the last last year, you know, everybody I was telling a friend the other day that everybody talked about the crisis they had in the pandemic. And I’m like, Really, my emotional crisis was after the pandemic, when life returned back to normal won’t let me do air quotes. Right or moral. Right, or, you know, full transparency. Half my clinic was gone. That and, you know, pulling them back in was hard. I had a whole new world that was emerging in my online world. And, and a team members had made a decision, they didn’t want to live in California anymore. And so they started, they moved out. And my children were out of my home. And I, I was literally one day sitting on my couch crying, going, where did my life go? What happened? And all of a sudden, I realized in that moment, that I could choose what I wanted for dinner. Yeah, I could choose what time I wanted dinner at. I can choose if I didn’t even want dinner. Like I took dinner as like my, my North Star, because so much about dinner was about the family was like What time are the kids gonna be home from from their activities? What did everybody want? Like? It was so focused on everybody else. And I realized in that moment, I’m gonna take PAC dinner. And I had, I told my husband, I was like, I don’t You’re on your own for dinner. You know, this is what time I’m going to be eating dinner. Like, if you want to join me, we can chat about it. But for the most part, I’m going to own dinner for myself.

Nancy Levin  

I love I love this because this is what I’m talking about. It’s something micro it’s something tangible, it’s something concrete. And you know, and you get to be with all of this you get to want something or not want something Yeah, you know, you get to make it happen. Whereas, again, just using dinner I use this example all the time, even in terms of wanting most women I guarantee most women listening, if the question is posed to you, what do you want for Dinner. Your responses? I don’t care. What do you want?

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Or how many times as women? Do we go? Like, Hey, let’s go to lunch together. And then we’re like, where do you want to go? I don’t know, where do you want to go? Because we don’t know. Because we haven’t trained ourselves to know.

Nancy Levin  

Exactly. And so part of this even on the smallest, you know, the smallest scale, that when you are asked, Where do you want to eat? Or what do you want to eat? To just pause? What do I want? Do I want fish? Do I want tofu? Do I want, you know, what am I in the mood for? And instead of outsourcing our desire to someone else?

Dr. Mindy  

So profound, I know you all I know your people are resonating with this, because I’ve sat with so many women who can’t find that center truth. So and you know, honestly, Nancy, I could sit here and chat with you all day, like at some point, I’m like, oh, yeah, we’re on a podcast, we should pay attention to that. So before people click off, I really want how how can you help? How can your wisdom help anybody who’s listening at this moment, that needs to now have a Northstar and find their way out?

Nancy Levin  

Yes, the quickest and easiest thing is to go to Nancy levin.com/free. And you can download my transformation equation guide that will guide you through this way to be able to make meaningful and sustainable change. So Nancy levin.com/free, and on my website, all the other goodies are there.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, well, that’s amazing. And people still don’t click off. Because the next question I have for you is the one that we always finish up every episode with but it ties into everything we’ve talked about here and maybe really helpful for people who are needing change. And that is, do you have a self love practice? I feel silly, almost asking you this is a daily self love practice? And what is it? And then there’s a second part to this question. Okay. I really want women to start owning that what they’re great at. So what’s your superpower that you bring to the world?

Nancy Levin  

Oh, okay. So my self love practice is actually fairly, fairly in depth and has steps.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, I love it. Oh, go for it. This is why I was like, Oh, this is gonna be such a good question for

Nancy Levin  

Okay, before I go to bed at night, I put my phone in airplane mode. So I don’t wake up to any notifications whatsoever. As I’m going to sleep, I do a meditation, that in which I send love to a loved one. And then I have the loved one in my mind’s eye move aside and the love I’m sending out rebounds into me. And I’m able to take that in. And so that’s how I’ve got asleep. When I wake up in the morning, I meditate. And I journal before I ever turn my Wi Fi back on. So the big the the last part of my day, and the first part of my day is all about me. Beautiful, beautiful. So that yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

you know, just I just want to make a comment on that. And again, because you’ve been with all the spiritual masters, Bruce Lipton actually taught me that. When I interviewed him on my podcast, I asked him, Okay, how do we change these subconscious patterns, and he said, You have to protect your brain and the unput that comes in as you go to sleep. And as you come out of sleep, and I started actually researching that and realizing that you are you know, you go from beta, we’re in beta wave right now. Then you go to Alpha Theta, and delta when you got into sleep, so there it’s those mid waves were subconscious repatterning can happen. So that’s that’s a brilliant routine.

Nancy Levin  

Yeah, I mean, I It’s really changed so much for me. I’ve been doing it for many years now. And it has made a big difference.

Dr. Mindy  

Amazing. Yeah. Okay. superpower.

Nancy Levin  

Who, you know, it’s it’s interesting, the first superpower that comes to me and I would and I say I would say this is so in line with everything we’ve been talking about today. I think my superpower is to be able to hold for myself and others. What’s true in the moment, so that if you share with me something today, that is true. And tomorrow you share something else swith me. That is true. I can hold that with you, instead of judging you on what was true yesterday.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, that is good. Nancy, you are a good friend

Nancy Levin  

that I do. I think that is my superpower.

Dr. Mindy  

Ah, and I think it’s a superpower we all should take on. Because how many times have we gone to somebody and like barfed our problems all over that. And then the next day, we, you know, we say something completely different. And they don’t know how to handle those two things, because they might be an opposition. Yep. Wow. Well, I know, you know, this, but I am sure whether it was through the conscious or the subconscious. Being in charge of all those events, even though you’re probably in a high beta state, like trying to make sure the event didn’t fall apart. You absorbed a hell of a lot of wisdom that I just learned today. Yeah,

Nancy Levin  

I really did. I mean, I feel so it was my dream job until, until I knew I needed to make a shift. But it was it was everything to me. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

amazing. So again, I’m just wondering, how do people find you, you have this incredible free quiz like, but how do people find you if they want to dive into your work?

Nancy Levin  

Sure. My, my website, Nancy levin.com. And if you just add the slash free, you’ll be able to download my transformation equation guide. Everything’s on my website, social media, my podcast, my training academy, all the things amazing. Well, thank

Dr. Mindy  

you. You know, I think I think it’s one thing to go through painful moments in your life, and come out victorious. And then it’s another thing to go through painful moments in your life, come out victorious, and want to turn around and teach others. And, you know, in my heart, I call that from pain to purpose. And you are a living example of that. So, thank you so much for bringing your wisdom to us today. This was a real delight.

Nancy Levin  

Thank you, Mindy.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.