What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
Break Trauma Patterns With Nervous System Regulation
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Your body can react faster than your values, and that gap is where regret lives. We’re joined by Nima Rahmani, creator of the Trigger-Proof methodology, to talk about what actually changes when you stop trying to “think” your way out of pain and start working with your nervous system, your attachment style, and the younger parts of you that still believe love has to be earned.
Nima shares his raw shift from a validation-driven identity to a trauma-informed approach built on accountability, somatic experiencing, and real emotional regulation. We unpack why so many fights are never about the surface issue, how couples slide into codependency and co-dysregulation, and why “same person, different haircut” keeps showing up until we heal what the pattern is trying to complete. If stable love has ever felt “boring,” we explain the difference between trauma-bond fireworks and the security of a warm cup of oatmeal.
You’ll also leave with practical tools: how to pause when triggered, what questions to ask to bring your adult self back online, and why stillness, play, and movement can be the most effective daily practices for nervous system healing. If you care about emotional intelligence, relationship repair, inner child work, shadow work, and leadership that doesn’t extract validation from others, this conversation will land.
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Cold Open And Big Question
SPEAKER_01I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up, so I can shoot for the stone.
SPEAKER_00I hear a voice like everybody, another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcast, because I'm biased. What if it did work? Welcome back to What if it did work? Now when we challenge old beliefs, ask better questions, discover what's possible, when we stop settling and start growing. Today's guest is in the wheelhouse. He's the definition of what if it did work. He's someone who has dedicated his life to helping people break free from emotional patterns that quietly sabotage their relationships, careers, health, happiness. Dr. Neima Rahmani, former chiropractor, turned trauma-informed educator, speaker, creator of the trigger-proof methodology. His work focuses on emotional regulation, attachment styles, nervous system healing, and helping people stop reacting to life and start responding with intention. If you ever found yourself saying something you immediately regretted, repeating the same unhealthy relationship patterns or wondering why success doesn't always bring peace, this conversation is
Meet Nima And His Mission
SPEAKER_00for you. Dr. Nima, welcome to the show, brother. Thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_04So good to have uh to be here. So good to have myself here, if I may uh be so egotistical. Uh no. Uh one little topic of correction. The the regulations have changed in British Columbia, where I had my license for chiropractic. So when I did not renew my license, I no longer am permitted to use the title doctor, even though that's been my training and I have the diploma. Technically, it's NEMA now. So, which is interesting because I've been going through an identity shift, which is what I help guide people through is an identity transformation. So I used to really lean on the doctor thing for credibility and for you know validation and approval.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but that's just validation, self-validation, brother. Yeah, like what the Buddhists would say, that's not who you are, that was just a title, regardless. So you now it's Nima are Nima. So regardless, brother, hey, you earned it, whatever you want to. I'll definitely call you my kindred spirit, my brother. So welcome, brother.
SPEAKER_04So good to be here, Omar.
SPEAKER_00I I gotta ask, man, tell us about the journey from chiropractor to the emotional healing expert.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Um, I went into chiropractic after I got adjusted at the age of 13 years old, and I I loved the way I felt, and so it just kind of like pivoted everything, and my focus was get my chiropractic degree because with my hands I can help transform people's nervous systems. And I really want to make a long story short. Um, the long story is that chiropractic was an amazing way to get validation because you're a doctor, you come in, people come in in pain. Within five minutes, they walk out like sometimes in tears, feeling so good. So, chiropractic is probably the greatest profession. Uh, if you uh really want to get your ego validated, because people call you magic hands, they call you God. What I didn't know at the time was what was driving my uh direction in career and in relationships and in love was this paralyzing insecurity of unworthiness. And so maybe if I can get the title, maybe if I can get the success, uh, then I would feel like I was enough. So going through chiropractic, uh, and then I, you know, wanted to teach people about how to become their own medicine because it was an amazing way to help them uh get better outcomes, because people who are just looking to me to solve their problems without doing their own work, they didn't get as great outcomes.
The Wake-Up Call And Accountability
SPEAKER_04And it wasn't until uh I made that leap out of chiropractic into teaching at the same time when I was in a I went through one divorce, I was married, got divorced, and several failed relationships leading up to this one that happened in in that ended in 2018, 2019, that it got volatile, that all of the personal growth and tools that I was teaching and trying to live, I wasn't embodying because I was in publicly teaching about emotional regulation. But privately in my personal life, the relationship was super volatile. We would argue, we would have crazy arguments that got super volatile, and then we would have crazy makeup sex. So it was this push and pull dynamic. Didn't know what codependency was at the time, didn't know what a trauma bond was at the time, but on March 11th, 2018, it got super volatile. After a five-hour argument, I just snapped and I slapped her. And in that moment, everything froze. And I was like, how does somebody who's a chiropractor treat his partner that way? So I had to answer how did I get here? How do I make sure this doesn't happen again? And uh how do I have what I've never had before, which is a healthy relationship? So I studied poly, I stopped working as a chiropractor, I stopped coaching, I stopped doing anything to distract me, whether it was women, whether it was making money, and I just focus and I discovered somatic experiencing. I integrated and understood my shadow parts of me, learned how to regulate my nervous system from the inside rather than just talking about it from the stage. I learned how to embody it. And then I did what I never was able to do, which was to have a healthy relationship. So I found this amazing partner, Diana. We have a beautiful son who's now five years old in the recording of this conversation. But a week after he was born, I was arrested for assault, essentially, where my ex retroactively went and kind of filed and began this journey of trying to separate from the past and break free from that trauma bond and kind of like move forward and do the necessary work of untangling and taking accountability for uh my part in a in a toxic dynamic. So now my mess is my message, and everything that I teach is really about breaking these cycles of intergenerational trauma so that my son doesn't grow up in a in a household where there's so much conflict, where repair is not moderate, is not uh model to him. So he he repair is model to him. The the home is a sanctuary, not a battlefield. And he he's being raised with with parents by parents who are teaching him how to um connect to his authentic self rather than through shame and through expectation uh imposed upon him, that uh disconnects him from his authentic voice. So becoming trigger-proof, helping people break cycles of intergenerational trauma, learn the art of rupture and repair, and heal from intergenerational wounding is my jam now.
The Childhood Wound Behind Validation
SPEAKER_00Now, earlier, I want to revisit this. You said being a chiropractor is a great way to seek validation. And I know we're gonna be discussing childhood trauma and whatnot, but what validation were you seeking?
SPEAKER_03Whose validation?
SPEAKER_04Great question. Um through this process of going through uh my healing journey as well as through with plant medicine as well, which has been super useful and helpful. At the age of two, uh when my parents uh we were two years old, there there was a conversation of the uh uh uh the revolution happening in Iran. And my parents, who are we were raised as Baha'is, were like, we gotta get the heck out of here. And so having two-year-old twins doesn't make it easy to travel. So my mom came to Canada to explore immigrating, and she could only bring one of her children with her. Which one do you bring? So she brought the more difficult one because she could keep an eye on him, and me being kind of like easier, less fussy, I stayed back with my grandparents and my dad. Now I was two years old, Omar, so I don't really remember it. But can you now that I have had a two-year-old, when my wife leaves for to uh walk the dog, when she would leave to walk the dog around, um he would like start crying, mommy, mommy. So I just started seeing, holy crap, imagine being away from your mother for three months at the age of two and not really having the language to talk about it or understand it. Or yeah, I had love around me. My grandparents were there, my dad was totally a necessary move that they had to do. But my nervous system it decided at that moment that that the feminine, that love was not always present. That's the choice that my two-year-old self made. And so this disconnection from the feminine, from love, created this sense of unworthiness, this belief that I uh was not loved. And so that it created an identity that became super duper extractive. Like, hey, I'm not loved, so how do I get it from the from women? So whether you become super charming, whether you become a chiropractor so that everybody loves you because deep down I'm not loved. I found strategies which served me and served the world. I mean, I was a fabulous chiropractor. I was really, I'm really good at what I do. And two things, it was all built on that wound. So chiropractic became the perfect job, just like any profession where you're getting validation, like acting, performing, any type of a performance, chiropractic was the ultimate because I could help people, but then also get that. And so there's nothing wrong with that. It was just I was doing it unconsciously. So that's that's where it all comes from.
SPEAKER_00Now, with you doing it unconsciously and your brother having a completely different, the opposite experience. Did you growing up, were you guys close, or was there just like some resentment?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because it's definitely sibling, there's definitely would be sibling rivalry, twins. We didn't get along that well. Like we get along now better than we ever have, of course. As in many siblings, which the rivalry is there, we were twins, so we loved each other. We would fight a lot, but then we would bury the hatchet without even repairing. It was just like soon as it was done, there was no conversation or repair. We were just good, which was par for the course of our family system. Repair wasn't really done. We just the fight was done, and then we didn't speak of it again. But there was a lot of love there, but we've never been closer than we are now. We're both 50 years old at the recording of this um episode.
SPEAKER_00Now, was that the defining moment that you realized something deeper needed healing, or was there other trauma that was unresolved?
What Trigger-Proof Actually Means
SPEAKER_04I didn't know it at the time. Uh uh Oh, you mean uh after after the incident happened with my ex, I uh yeah, I was like, okay, so how did that happen? And it sent me down a path. I realized that all the personal development work I had done from before that was all cognitive based. It was all mindset work to try to avoid feeling stuff. And I realized that all of the my personal growth work was a way of bypassing all of that unworthiness and shame. So I realized, holy cow, like I've been in my head the whole time. And that's when I started to study somatic experiencing and shadow work because it was a whole different type of education that I hadn't become aware of. I didn't know that I did not have a good nervous system capacity to hold, for example, shame. So without a good capacity to have to hold on to our shame, what we do is we get defensive. Criticism comes to us, and because of the shame is so powerful, we then respond by dismissing it, denying it. And so it shows up in many ways, which kind of looks like narcissism, where somebody feels injured by uh feedback. That's critical. This paralyzing need to be accepted by people, uh uh super duper sensitive to other people's opinions, um, uh perfectionism, inability to really just sit still without numbing, you know, like it was just go, go, go all the time. So, like you fill up your schedule because it protects you from having to sit in quietness and having to be with all of the voices in your head that told you that you're not enough. Right. So, what I discovered is if you're not right with silence and those voices, then you will tolerate a less than ideal relationship. In other words, this toxic relationship that I was in was far better than being alone with the voices of that not enoughness, that inner critic and that shadow that was happening in my head. So I I stopped working. I couldn't work. I stopped working and I stopped doing all the things that quieted down temporarily that that shadow voice. So by making money, by being a chiropractor, by getting up on stage, by getting standing ovations, by having a lot of women, it protected me from actually listening, hearing those voices. So after that incident happened, I couldn't hide anymore because I couldn't work, because I was so like I was in this like shutdown state. I was dissociated, I was numb, I was frozen. So I had to sit and realize that oh my God, I have built my entire identity, this Dr. Nima character, on the heels of a wound that felt like I was enough. I wasn't enough. So who is Nima without the title? Who is that guy without all the validation and patients that want to come see him and all that stuff? And so I had to figure who that was. And the concept of becoming trigger-proof was born by alchemizing all of that shame.
SPEAKER_00So then that's what trigger-proof actually means.
SPEAKER_04Trigger proof basically does means you don't get, it's not that you never get triggered. It's that I can sit in the discomfort of this activation that this person is bringing up, whether it's my son, whether it's my wife, whether, you know, somebody who's interviewing me and asking rude questions, which you're not, by the way, but if that were happening in the spur, you're not. It's great questions. I love this conversation. But if this was an activation, it doesn't mean I don't get triggered. It means, and I love this little Hoberman sphere, it's an expansion of your capacity to sit in the discomfort and stay and move through it without being swallowed whole by it. So it's a it's self-mastery. Trigger proof is about self-mastery, it's about uh containing your emotions without suppressing them, containing your sexual energy, which is a big, big thing, especially for men, because we never you had a father, you didn't have a father that actually taught you about this sexual energy and how to contain it. Um I just, you know, lots of sex with lots of different partners, and sex becomes the form of validation. So it's really about containment. The word is about uh trigger proof is about learning how to contain these dysregulated parts of you without suppressing them and numbing and sedating them away.
Grief After Losing The Title
SPEAKER_00Now, losing the the title though of Dr. Nema, did you feel like that that was a literally you had to expand who you were because for like the longest time you said it. This was who you thought this even though it was a title, uh you literally became this character. Correct.
SPEAKER_04Dr. Nima. It was a lot of grief, Omar. Like when I when I say grief, uh what I discovered becoming trigger-proof, it means really expanding your capacity to feel the grief of letting an old identity go. So it's like I get this email that says, yeah, you you can't use that, you have to take it down. And my my website since 2003 was drnema.com. All my social media, everything, it was like who I was. And now they're saying if you uh either you get reinstated into chiropractic profession, which I I didn't want to do, I didn't want to build a chiropractic practice, and plus, if I'm part of the uh association or the college of chiropractors, then they can tell me what I can say on social media. And I'm like, fuck that. I don't want to be told what I can and can't say. Kind of like Dr. Jordan Peterson let go of his licensing to practice in practice psychology in Ontario because they didn't like what he said about COVID or whatever. When you're part of that association, they can say what they can tell you what you can say or not. So I had to make that decision. They were like, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna let that identity go. And to let that go wasn't great. Like I went through a period of maybe a a week or two where I was there was a lot of grief. There was a lot of tears. Trigger proof doesn't mean you don't have those feelings, it means your relationship with those parts of you, those emotions changes where you allow, which at one time you would shame yourself or numb them or suppress them and say, real men don't cry. This is really about making room for all of these aspects of you to come. So I had a lot of grief in letting go of that title for sure.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I completely 100% understand. I had I had a similar situation. I was an entrepreneur for 20 years, I was a franchisee of the of a smoothie franchise, and I was red tagged, me and my my ex-wife, and like for the longest time, I I mean, I thought, I mean, I literally went into like a self-destructive mode. What do you mean? What does red tag mean? Red tag means they um in the United States as well as Canada, you don't own like if you own the McDonald's, they can literally uh find any little reason to take away. Okay, yeah, yes. Well, I've built yeah, we built five stores, and then you know, overnight I went from being an entrepreneur and I would thought I was like the blend master, I was this, I was that. Uh okay, you have to you have to sell everything within 60 days. So it became, and this is I'm I was just like you, a guy, per master of personal development and business development. But sometimes when you go go through trauma and and the trauma that I you know it took me years uh of self-reflection. I mean, my my mom and dad were divorced before I was even born. So it felt like you know, I wasn't worthy, and this was it. And then somehow, not only was that pulled, then the 20 years of service, it was like, okay, well, we don't want you here anymore. And and I I went through self-destructive patterns of everything.
SPEAKER_04That's like an abandonment wound right there. It's like a rejection, a rejection, abandonment, and your body remembers that it's probably completely stuffed from from childhood.
SPEAKER_00Childhood trauma, completely. And that's why I literally, when your publicist said, you know, on childhood trauma and emotions, I'm like, I gotta I gotta have news. I got it. Tick, tick, tick, got it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
Reframing Self-Sabotage As Protection
SPEAKER_04So Omar, what what the thing is is that we all have it and we can't predict when it's gonna be activated, but we can actually learn skills to be able to practice and adopt so that when difficult experiences happen, you get through them. And then people like my clients will say, Holy cow, I just had my family over for a week and I've been dreading it. But because of the work I've been doing here over the past couple of months, it went great. Uh, or another person would say, Yeah, I got into a conversation with my mom and she started to try to shame me like she usually does, and she's hypercritical. But because of those things that I integrated, I was able to just respond to her without a reaction. So every time you do the practices and becoming trigger-proof has kind of three parts it's regulate your nervous system, integrate the shadows that get popped up every time you get triggered. So we, you know, in the franchise red uh red tag that you had, uh red listed or whatever. This is going to bring up a younger part of you. Imagine being able to know exactly what part and being able to uh reparent, being able to bring Bring those parts back into safety so that you could your recovery time is like a fraction of the time from what it would be if you didn't have these skills. Because when you went through these self-destructive patterns, they're not actually self-destructive. They're actually your nervous system's attempt to regulate yourself, if you could believe it or not. So I want you to put the framework of all of the behavior that you did after that that you label as self-destructive, it's it's your nervous system's unconscious attempt to regulate yourself.
SPEAKER_00So that's what's happening inside the brain and our nervous system during any.
SPEAKER_04Protect you from what? Protect you. I'm gonna I'm gonna reject myself by beating myself up because I get to take control of it rather than have you do it. I'm gonna push away all of my friends. Wow, how is that protective? Because I'm gonna reject them and take control of it before I feel rejected, because deep down I don't feel worthy. So part of the recovery process is learning how to reframe these behaviors from self-destructive or self-sabotaging to getting curious about them to understand them. How are how are these how are these behaviors meeting my needs for safety? Ah, okay. They're they're doing that because my I'm unconscious. So when I make it conscious, now I can meet those same needs of regulation differently through community, through practices, through physical exercise. Like there are so many better ways to self-destruct your life than to self-destruct your biceps by getting into the gym and channeling it into conscious and healthy ways. So it's really trigger proof, is really about learning how to relate with these parts of you differently without shame, without labels of of self-shaming.
Co-Regulation Versus Codependency
SPEAKER_00Well, is that why some people just seem emotionally reactive while others are just like on a plane and they can just stay calm?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the goal here is equanimity. Equanimity means that you don't get too up, you know, like you don't get too uh up, which is another way of getting out of your center, uh, or you don't get too down. And when we do, having the capacity, it doesn't mean calm all the time. Regulation means having the capacity to go in from activation back into safety, having to go from you know, dissociation back into connection, having flexibility is the goal, right? It's not about being flat, it's flexible, right? Um, some people don't have that uh skill of emotional regulation because they never learned. Ideally, when you're a child, you have a parent who is they themselves has that skill and is able to what's called co-regulate with you. So it's like co-regulation means hey, you have an ability to regulate, but my calm presence is going to be a calming presence for you, and vice versa. That's co-regulation. Codependency, which is how we normally do it when we don't have a strong, healthy co-regulator uh as a parent. Codependency, then we we go looking for that thing that was missing from our parents outside of us, and we look for it through teachers, through friendships, through partners. And so we then assign parental duties to the person that we marry. There were we we assign them, hey, my mom and more or my dad did did not were not able to give me meet those needs emotionally. So you're the one that's supposed to do it instead. And we unconsciously project that unrealistic expectation when we get married. And then lo and behold, after the honeymoon phase is over, we realize that wow, they didn't do their job the way that I covertly expected them to. Uh, and now we are co-disregulators because of that expectation that you're supposed to keep me safe, when you, your nervous system and your wounding gets activated and you become reactive, that causes me to become reactive. And now instead of co-regulating, we are co-disregulating. In other words, if you've ever been in a situation where you walk into a room and the the person's presence actually causes you to become stressed, that's a and vice versa, that's a co-disregulating relationship. So the whole idea is to really understand the difference and then become become skilled in self-regulation, which means being able to regulate those younger parts of us. So it's co-regulation with a younger part of ourselves. And then once we learn how to master that, now we become more skilled in working through relational dynamics that have rupture and repair. Like my wife and I, we got into a little bit of an argument last night. And then I was able to separate, go into my little man cave, and then go through my trigger-proof process of regulate, integrate, and communicate. And the third piece communication, once I was able to do that, bring my adult self online and then go and have a chat with her and say, babe, I'm sorry that I reacted that way. That wasn't about you. I was um projecting on you. And I was able to see that, own my part, and boom, the old version of me would have been resentful and created tension in the home for two to three weeks, and how much wasted energy with this process you have a rupture, but then you can repair because you can get to emotional maturity a lot faster.
Why We Repeat The Same Partner
SPEAKER_00Now, speaking of relationships, I always say this it's always same person, just different face, different name. Why do you, in general, we keep choosing the same unhealthy partner? Same person, different haircut.
SPEAKER_04I had a client who uh who finished, she got she got a divorce, she's in another relationship, and just all of a sudden she's like, What the heck? And I was like, Is it the same person, different haircut? And she starts laughing. She goes, My husband had a great set of hair, great hair, and this one is completely bald. So that is so accurate, but they are the same person, but different hair. Um, why is that? That's a great question. And so I'm gonna my my response is a little bit um off the off the wall, but I'm convinced that this is what it is. Growing up, let's say you had a father or a mother that was checked out, that wasn't present, that was disconnected. You're always feeling like there's this uh unhealed part of you that didn't get their needs met. So there's this deep drive to get mom's love. Okay, is this deep drive to get mom's love? And um so it's there, and that experience of of longing for it feels very familiar. Okay, feels very familiar. Uh and and we've now associated longing for mom's attention with love. So this familiar feeling is even though it feels shitty, it actually it's the familiarity is safety. So when I go out and I start dating, what I start to notice and get pulled into are women who I I feel an attraction to, but slowly get into this dance where I find myself longing for love, longing for attention. I'm like, oh, that's familiar. Because the girl right there, the other girl that I'm dating, who's fabulous, who's amazing, whose like personality is so much better, but she's showing up for me. And so I don't have to long for her. She's there, she wants me. So there's no longing. My nervous system goes, uh, that's boring, or uh, there must be something wrong with her. The one there that I have to chase and long for, now that's familiar. That's the one that I'm going for. Why? Because maybe if I finally get her, there's an unconscious part of me that says, if I can get her, then I've earned my mother's love. And so there's this weird game our ego plays of trying to complete what was incomplete. And we choose partners that are going to bring up that same familiar pattern. And the partner we choose that's going to bring up that same familiar pattern, we are that pattern for them that's unhealed. Talk about a mind fuck. Both of us are entangled in this unconscious dance where we're trying to complete what was incomplete and we're unaware of it. All we know is after the honeymoon phase is over, we go through this horrible push and pull dynamic of a power struggle, completely unaware that it's our little children inside that are trying to complete what was incomplete and it's never gonna work. So people stay in that power struggle dynamic for for for years until they finally break up, uh, or they they decide to do the work to try to to to kind of transcend into the next level, which is mature love. So this immature power struggle dynamic will continue and continue. Um, and so the good news is that you can break that cycle when you stop looking at that person as the problem. And instead of divorcing them, before you divorce them, you divorce from your parents, the the parent that that that brought all this up for you and get complete. Because if you don't do that, you can divorce this person, the very next person you go to without having done the healing work, boom. Same lesson because you haven't integrated it. And so after my last relationship ended, and I was like, why is the same pattern? And I saw same person, different haircut, same dance where I didn't want to commit. They kept pushing, I kept pushing away, they kept pulling, I kept pushing, and finally the volatility happened and I woke up and I'm like, I want to be in a healthy relationship. How do I do that? So I did the healing work of becoming trigger-proof. I healed with my mother, with my father, where it was really coming from, where those buttons were installed in my nervous system. Now, um, when we get into arguments, I mean, like I'm all fully committed now because I've transcended and gone to mature love, which doesn't mean that you never argue. It just means that you can get back to your adult self a lot quicker.
SPEAKER_00Well, is that why like emotionally healthy relationships, they all sometimes just feel boring to people who've experienced all this trauma, is because it's like the carrot with the horse-drawn carriage, you're like, Yes. I so familiar.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god. Yeah. Um, when I first healed and then I got into this relationship, oftentimes when you're doing healing work and you're so used to the chemicals of chaos, with it's very trauma bonds, especially in codependency, is very run by dopamine and intermittent reinforcement. Like, hey, they're sometimes hot, they're sometimes mostly cold, and you're just waiting for the the next hit of dopamine where there's excitement and there's drama and your nervous system has now normalized the chaos. Once you do the healing work and you meet the right person, it's like, wait a second, is this even is this even the right person? I'm not feeling anything. And I'm and then when I'm working with people, I'm like, that's actually a sign that um that this is actually healthier. Because uh uh I tell people, I say a secure relationship instead of like fireworks that you're looking for, which is a sign of like codependency and a trauma bond, want you to think more warm cup of oatmeal. So instead of fireworks, think warm cup of oatmeal. That's stable, secure love. And when you were so used to fireworks and you've assigned that as love, then at first you feel the safety of the oatmeal, it must be there must be a mistake. This couldn't be love because it's there's there's no like there's no anxiety around it. And so we've we've we've kind of we've associated love with anxiety, but secure love doesn't have any anxiety, or secure periods of it. It has periods of it, but you're more of you're more like there's a safety in that that's unfamiliar to most people who haven't done the work.
SPEAKER_00Now, what's the biggest mistake though couples make that during conflict?
Conflict Is Never About The Thing
SPEAKER_04Oh the greatest mistake couples make is assuming that it's about the thing they're arguing about. That's the biggest mistake because it's never about what it's about. In the middle of a conflict, two nervous systems are flooded in fight or flight. And when you're looking at one another, you're not looking at the adult version of them, you're looking at their child, uh, the child version of them that didn't get their needs met, that is now angry and bitter and frustrated and entitled to getting that met by the other person and blaming the other person for the feelings that they're having inside. And so, in order to heal that, we have to first really, really just get to the presence of something very difficult that it's not about what they just said. Right now, in this heat of the moment, they are bringing up a younger self, a younger wound, part of you that feels unworthy, not enough, uh, which is eight years old. And if we don't address that part of it first for you, you will forever keep pointing the finger at them, expecting them to change so that you don't feel that pain. And so the thing is, is that in that moment of conflict, what couples get wrong is that their wounding causes them to feel like the victim and disconnect from any empathy to understand the other person's pain. But if you're willing to do the work, become trigger-proof, you can take care of that wounding that has you feeling like you're not enough, and then you can see what's going on with them and now humanize them and see their wounding and understand their pain. And now you can initiate a repair. And the cool part about it is when you repair from a conflict, the relationship gets stronger on the other side of it. Whereas a trauma bond is hot and heavy at the beginning and it fizzles out. A true, secure relationship builds like strength after each conflict. So, for example, every relationship that I've ever been with started off hot and heavy and then fizzled and it was toxic by the end. This in my marriage now, my relationship with my wife. We've been married six years, is stronger now after six years than it was after year one because of all of the ruptures that we've repaired from.
SPEAKER_03That's what's possible.
SPEAKER_00But first, we have to def deal with that childhood trauma.
SPEAKER_04First, we gotta pick put down the magnifying glass and yeah, put pick up the mirror instead. You're right.
SPEAKER_00I mean, our our self-worth is literally developed during the childhood. Our childhood.
SPEAKER_04Our sense of self. Yeah. Who we are, who we believe we are, is kind of like implanted on us by parents who haven't often examined who they believe they are.
SPEAKER_00And that that feeling that that just not enough that it can either create us into high achievers or the guy that's sitting in his underwear drinking uh on his sofa.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. Like uh like an incel who just plays video games and doesn't go out and uh interact or make anything of themselves, right? So it it's it's the same wound, but um uh it's displayed differently, not good enough, right? So we can use it to uh to push ourselves, or we could we could use it as an excuse to to kind of like sit and do nothing.
Confidence Versus Embodied Self-Worth
SPEAKER_00No Nima, what's the difference though between confidence and genuine self-worth?
SPEAKER_04Confidence uh is a byproduct of genuine self-worth. A genuine self-worth to me, from my experience, it's a feeling in the body. It's an experience, and it the the two the two are very are very overlap, these the these words, but uh it's it's this experience where I'm there's a stillness to it. There's a uh when I'm out of that self-worth, I'm leaning forward and I'm chasing and I'm in a place of extraction. I'm more manipulative when I'm outside of self-worth because if I don't have worth, I need to use things, people to extract worth from. Uh, where when you truly are embodying self-worth, it's a confidence where you're feeling very comfortable with yourself. It's like the most, it's like there's a stillness, there's a relaxed sense of ease in your body uh where it's not performing. So confidence and self-worth, uh, genuine self-worth is an experience where you don't feel like you have to perform. There uh a lack of that, there's a lot of constriction and tension in the body. True self-worth is is very relaxed. There isn't constriction, there's a porosity in the voice of, you know, a melodious tone. There's an openness in the eye contact. Uh, you know, the the fit you look in the body, the body will tell you because um self-worth is is an embodied state where you are not seeking outside because you own who you are from the inside. And confidence is the same thing, but confidence is often, hey, be confident, right? If if you have to, if you have to be, if you have to perform confidence, it's not actually genuine. But once you embody that you are worthy, like self-worth, worthiness, it comes from like you have kids, right, Omar? Two. So do you remember the first time that you heard their heartbeat when they were in utero?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, completely.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So I remember that moment where I heard Dominic's uh heartbeat, and I just my heart, my my eyes just started watering, my heart just exploded because I heard his heartbeat for the first time. And this is the first time I loved something that didn't do anything for me. And I realized, I was like, why do I like I this is a weird feeling? I've never had that feeling before for anything, right? Usually, if I love something, it's because they did something for me, but he didn't do anything for me. And then I started getting puzzled at that. I'm like, why? Why do I love him? And I'm like, oh, it's because he's a miracle, and just because by virtue of the fact that he exists, he's infinitely worthy of God's love and grace. And and because he's infinitely worthy just for his existence. And then I had another thought. I was like, wait a second, I was that heartbeat one time, and so what happened from like me being infinitely worthy just. Because I just for existing, from that awareness to feeling worthy only if I'm performing and I reach a certain, you know, it's conditional upon my performance. So I was like, hmm, I guess my work then of becoming trigger proof is really to embody that sense of worthiness just because I exist and not because I have made a certain amount of money or I have attention or got all these followers. And so I had a huge lesson in self-worth from that. And so confidence usually is more performative, but true, genuine self-worth is that awareness that I am infinitely worthy simply because I exist, not because I did anything to earn it.
Stop Chasing Validation With Inner Child Work
SPEAKER_04That's the word now, Nima.
SPEAKER_00Being trigger-proof, how do we just stop seeking validation just from everybody?
SPEAKER_04How do we do that? Is through this is what the practices and the work is shadow work, inner child meditation, these are all modalities to help us get to that place uh of really know like connecting to the parts of us that we are most ashamed of, that that believe that we were unworthy. And we as adult selves turn towards those parts of us, those childlike parts of ourselves, and give them what we're looking outside for. So it's a matter of getting high off your own supply of validation, is really seeing, you know, like, what is it that I want from people? Well, I want them to say that my work is really great. I want them to say that I'm handsome. I want them to say that uh I make a difference, right? Why? Because there's a part of me that doesn't believe that I am and I do. So my work then is to find those parts of me. They're usually younger of younger age, and turn towards them. I want you to imagine, Omar, this younger version of Omar that made up a story and made the choice based on all the shit he went through that he wasn't worthy of love and is now seeking it externally, which is what normal children who believe that will do. And so um finding those parts of you, using your physical body, seeking them out, noticing when you get triggered, when they come up, and then taking the time and the spaciousness to feel into them, to connect with them, and then really like if Omar, imagine closing your eyes right now, putting your hand over the part of you that believes that he's not worthy unless other people say he's great. He's looking for that validation from mom or dad. And I want you to imagine that version of you while you put your hand over that area. And then I want you to imagine your child, your son, for example, believing that his sense of worth comes from other people telling him he's worthy. Take a moment and imagine that. Superimpose your son's face over your younger self's face, and that's who you're talking to.
SPEAKER_02And what would you tell him? What would you say to him?
SPEAKER_00It's hard. I don't have a son. I only have two daughters.
SPEAKER_04I think imagine if you have a daughter that believed that same thing. It doesn't matter, son or a daughter. I was just imagine if your daughter you found out she comes to you and says, Dad, I don't think I'm good enough as long as other people tell me. You take a moment and imagine how young she is when she's saying that, and then that's you. What would you tell her?
SPEAKER_00I would tell her, I completely emphasize with you. I lived almost 50 years of my life like that. It gets tiring. It's uh you're on like a hamster will it keeps going and going and going, and it gets tiring. And the more you do, it gets up to the point that you feel like you have to cure cancer, that you have to find the fountain of youth, that you have to find and that you have to do something so extraordinary.
SPEAKER_04But the problem is you're describing how tiring it is, but that's not resolving it for her because she still in that moment believes that she is.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. But I would tell her. I would literally tell her, yeah.
SPEAKER_04You would hold her and you would say, I want you to know all the things that I love about you. And as you're saying that, I want you to imagine saying that to eight-year-old Omar. And so that's the answer to how we stop seeking it outside of us, because the seeking of it is because deep down we have we we don't know how to connect to those really hungry parts of ourselves that are looking for it, so that we could be the one to give it to them to ourselves.
SPEAKER_03Amazing. That's that's the work.
Leadership Without Extraction Or Ego
SPEAKER_00And let me tell you, just imagine anybody, the practicality of it, especially being an uh an entrepreneur, especially being a leader. I mean, yeah, we need emotional regulation. You know how everybody the majority of people always focus on you know that knee-jerk uh reaction based off of their emotions instead of sound, you know, thinking.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, as a leader, Omar, as a leader, it's even more important because if we're not doing the work as leaders, then from the stage or from whatever place that we're leading, we are using our audience or the people that we're leading as a covert way of regulating ourselves. And it's kind of like extracting from rather than really embodying that we're leading. So leadership then becomes, you know, this kind of like a cult where you're trying to extract from uh your uh audience because of your insecurities, rather than truly leading. So if you look at the leaders of the world right now, the psychopaths that are running the world and driving, you know, division and all that, this hunger for power comes from a wound. So if you're leading from a wound, then you're not uh you're not doing your uh followers a service or the your your clients or whatever. You're not serving them, you're extracting from them. Interesting. No, Nima, and we can and we can feel we can physically feel those leaders that are those the ones who are. Oh, yeah, completely we can feel the difference of a leader who is leading from a place of extraction, of validation and power versus from their hearts and enrolling people into their visions, which is what true that would be leadership is really inspiration. That's what the work gives you.
What To Do When Triggered
SPEAKER_00If someone listening gets triggered today, what should they do first?
SPEAKER_04Which they will always uh first and foremost, don't shame yourself for it and understand and change your relationship to the trigger as wow, this is an opportunity. Uh, even though it feels painful, it's an emotional pain, it creates anxiety. This is an opportunity for me to find what this is really about. And you put your hand over the area that's activated and and you ask yourself, you know, like, what am I making this mean about me? What's happening? You know, the the client didn't call me back, or the client uh didn't want to work with you or whatever. Well, what do you make it mean? I'm not good enough. And how the next question, you want to kind of create that that pause. This takes practice. So our clients, you know, over three, four months, they're like, oh my gosh, I'm getting it. So you you create that pause and you ask the question, you know, how old does this part of me feel that I'm not good enough? And now you sit back and you wait and you sit there and you now go, oh, this is my eight-year-old self. So the fact that you have now identified what you're making it mean and a younger version of you, it's called the victory of awareness. You have made a victory of now bringing your adult self partially online, and it now starts the process of separating you from the identity of that little child, that victim. So that's the first step, and that's what everybody can take away right away. And you're, you know, further than seven, like 95% of people out there. Most of us have those sensations that the trigger comes up and then we feel ashamed about it. So then we either avoid it or then we fight back. But if you're able to pause and then give permission, it's safe to feel that. It's okay to feel that. I'm allowed to feel that. I have permission to feel that. Give yourself permission to feel what's arising and sit with it and then ask, what am I making it mean? How old is this part of me? You're now starting to bring your adult self back online just from that awareness.
SPEAKER_00Neema, what's one exercise everyone should practice daily? Is it meditation?
SPEAKER_04Meditation's got a bad rap. Um, it's the practice of stillness. Um it's the thing that most entrepreneurs avoid. And we we can keep creating more offers and doing more stuff, and there's just we can go, go, go like non-stop. And so my practice as of late has been stillness uh and uh dancing. Actually, I just before this call put on a music with my five-year-old, and we were like dancing. There's a song called Bloodline by Alex Warren, and he talks about intergenerational healing, and it's such a very powerful song, it's got a great beat. So I turn it on and I'm dancing with my son. And so uh a practice that's amazing for your nervous system, instead of like trying to discipline and oh, I mean, definitely go to the gym, take time for stillness and to be with your sensations in your body. I teach a kind of like a form of this type of meditation. Um, but really taking time to sit and feel what's arising, especially in those shadow parts without running away from them. And then putting play and dancing and connecting in your schedule, that's probably the most important thing is play. How do you know you're really embodying it? Is that you're there's a light life force energy that comes into your system and you can you're you're playful and you're able to have fun and enjoyment and presence. So uh, you know, I'm if you're not putting play into your schedule and connection time, then you're missing out on an opportunity to really help regulate your nervous system.
Stillness Play And How To Find Nima
SPEAKER_00Neem off Rahamani, the trigger-proof creator of the trigger-proof methodology. How do people find you? And how do people is this a group classes that you do or one on a group classes?
SPEAKER_04The best place I have a uh uh for people that are really keen. Um, there's one every month on the 25th of this month. It's called the trigger-proof experience, where you come in with a specific conflict that's been plaguing you. It's been really creating a thorn in your side and it's been bugging your ass. And I take you through a process. It used to be a three-day course, it was like two grand. Uh, people would fly in and then COVID hit, and I had to cancel all of them. And I said, I wonder if I could turn this into a one-day or a six-hour course, six-hour class on Zoom. And it worked and it totally hit and it was amazing. And so from noon Pacific time to 6 p.m. Pacific time, once a month, I take people through, people who are really keen through this process where you take the biggest conflict that's been challenging you, that's been triggering you the most, could be your mother-in-law, could be an ex, could be something you haven't fully healed, or you pretend that you have, but you're still holding on to resentment for. And I take you through the neuroscience of that trigger. And by the end of that, you are radically in a different position where you're seeing it from a whole different lens. Your nervous system feels safe, affect like you understand yourself at a deeper level. You understand all the states of the nervous system, how to recognize where you're at and how to move up to that ladder of autonomic ladder into safety. Uh, and I take you all through all of that, and it's all under 500 bucks. Wow, that's amazing. And that's through your website, correct? Through the website, absolutely, the trigger proof um experience. Um there's a link that I uh my team will give you. Make I'll make sure to follow up. Uh, it's called the attachment style quiz. And um what it does is that you do this quiz and it's very, you know, really honestly answering these questions, and it gives you your kind of like leadership attachment or relational attachment style. And it's a baseline of where how you react to stress, right? What is your archetype in how you react to stress as a leader, especially relationally as well? And it gives you the trainings on what to do about it, and it's all kind of like free in your uh inbox to get the results of all of that. And then um if people have, you know, I love reading people's backstories. If what I'm sharing is bringing something up, and you get that email and you see what your results are, and you hit reply and tell me what what your backstory is, then um I read all of them. So if you have any questions, I'm always here to to provide answers.
SPEAKER_00Awesome, brother. Thank you. Thank you for being in service. Yeah, and you know what in my book, brother, you're always gonna be a doctor because you're a doctor of the trigger-proof method. You're you're creating better people. Healing, healing is priceless. That that's something that we all need to do, man. So thank you for the doctor. Doctor means teacher. Doctor means teacher. So I I that's the title is complete respect, brother.
SPEAKER_04I appreciate that. I'll take that.
SPEAKER_00Maybe up north, in my head, in my heart, in my soul, you are a doctor, brother. You always will be one. Thank you for the time, thank you for the opportunity, and brother, loves you open invite for you 24-7, brother, to be back on the show. Thank you.