Brave with Dr. Stephanie Lopez

Welcome to the show!  I've got a great guest and a great episode for you today.

Dr. Stephanie Lopez with me today.

Dr. Steph is a former NASA Psychologist and the founder of The BRAVE Method. She’s known for guiding women to break through anxiety, heal, and get out of fight or fight for good.

Broken to Brave Podcast: https://brokentobrave.buzzsprout.com

Free Training: www.brave-method.com/anxiety

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/drstephanielopez/ 

 

Interview Summary

In this interview, host Tracy Goodwin spoke with Dr. Stephanie Lopez, a former NASA psychologist turned healing coach. [04:32] Dr. Lopez discussed her unique perspective on anxiety, defining it as the mismanagement of emotions that resulted from a lifetime of being taught to suppress feelings and cut short the natural emotional cycle. [08:39] She explained how this suppression led to anxiety, people-pleasing, and perfectionism. 

[27:35] Dr. Lopez shared her personal journey, which began with a transformational workshop at NASA, and outlined her approach to healing, which emphasized increasing one's tolerance for feeling all emotions, understanding the somatic nature of emotional regulation, and breaking free from limiting self-identities. 

[10:07] The conversation also explored the mechanics of people-pleasing, the importance of a nuanced emotional vocabulary, and the power of experiential work in creating lasting change. [25:23]

 

Key Points

• Dr. Lopez defined anxiety not as a permanent condition but as the result of mismanaging emotions, specifically by suppressing them and preventing them from completing their natural cycle. [08:49]
• She argued that from a young age, most people were conditioned to "cut off" their emotions, which led to a buildup of unprocessed feelings that manifested as anxiety, ruminating thoughts, and even physical pain. [11:01]
• She stated that "overthinking is under-feeling," explaining that attempts to control every outcome were driven by an unwillingness to feel potential negative emotions like embarrassment or incompetence. [15:34]
• The key to gaining control, she proposed, was to increase one's tolerance to feel all emotions. [14:36] When one was willing to feel anything, external circumstances and other people's reactions lost their power. [14:36]
• People-pleasing was described as an attempt to control others' feelings to avoid one's own discomfort, which paradoxically could erode trust in relationships. [25:28]
• She emphasized that true emotional regulation was primarily a somatic (body-based) experience, and that intellectual understanding alone was insufficient for deep, lasting healing. [24:01]