Rejection to Redirection: How Suffering Shapes Your Growth
Episode 261
In this episode of Integrative You Radio , Dr. Nicole and Dr. Nick take a deep dive into the transformative power of suffering and how it can be leveraged to create a life of alignment and fulfillment. They explore how past adversities often shape our passions but can also hold us back if we remain tethered to them. The discussion emphasizes the importance of recognizing when passion, rooted in suffering, has reached its limit and how to transition into a state of inspiration. Through relatable stories, practical insights, and thought-provoking reflections, they guide listeners on how to make decisions from a place of inspiration rather than desperation. This episode is a must-listen for anyone committed to personal growth, self-mastery, and creating a life that feels truly aligned with their higher self. #IntegrativeYouRadio #VictimToVictor #InspiredLiving #PersonalGrowthJourney #AlignWithYourValues #OvercomeSuffering #PassionToInspiration #MindsetShift #TransformYourLife #SelfMastery 3 Key Takeaways: Leverage Your Past Adversities: Understand how your past suffering has shaped your relatability and success, but also learn when it's time to let go and move forward. From Passion to Inspiration: Discover why passion, often rooted in pain, can lead to stagnation and how to elevate into a state of inspiration for deeper fulfillment. Aligned Decision-Making: Gain tools to make decisions that resonate with your values and intuition, creating a life that feels authentic and aligned with your purpose. Quotes: "Your passion is created from your suffering, but true healing happens when you move beyond it and step into inspiration." – Dr. Nick "When you align with your values, you stop making decisions out of desperation and start creating a life that inspires you." – Dr. Nicole Find Integrative You Radio On: Website Youtube Apple Spotify 2 Doctors Committed to Innovating the Healthcare Experience. Integrative You Radio is hosted by husband-and-wife duo, Dr. Nicole Rivera and
Topics: suffering, passion, inspiration, integrative, past, values, life, unknown
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Rejection to Redirection: How Suffering Shapes Your Growth
- Leverage Past Adversities:** Understand how your experiences of suffering have shaped your perspective and capabilities, but also identify when it's time to move beyond them.
- From Passion to Inspiration:** Discover the limitations of passion born from pain and learn how to cultivate inspiration for greater growth and fulfillment.
- Aligned Decision-Making:** Develop the ability to choose paths that resonate with your core values and intuition, leading to a more authentic and purposeful life.
- Suffering as a Catalyst:** Recognize that while suffering can fuel initial passion, true healing and evolution occur when you transcend it into inspiration.
Pull quotes
And this was something, as we were talking about it, I could relate to very much.
And I asked her this question primarily because we get to a place where we are...
We've, we've leveraged what we know, we've leveraged our experiences, the good and the bad, and we've allowed it to create something for ourselves. **Unknown:** Let's call it a certain level of success.
Transcript
**Unknown:** Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Integrative U. We have Dr. Nick here, and, uh, he's gonna really be taking the lead on this one because, uh, he's, he's very passionate about this topic.
**Unknown:** But I'm gonna just kinda give you an idea of what we're talking about and actually why it came about, because a lot of these topics either come from deep conversations that Dr. Nick and I are having privately, or it comes from working with our clients. And this one specifically came out of a value session that I was doing with one of our clients and, uh, you know, we were deep in the conversation, and I said, "You know, I, I wanna ask you a question, and I really want you to pause and think about it before you answer." And she is running a nonprofit, so she essentially, you know, has her own business. And, um, she was talking a little bit about, um, you know, some of the situations that she feels like she gets in with, with some of her, her clients and conversations that unfold, the good parts, the, you know, the parts that stress her out, et cetera.
**Unknown:** And I asked her, "Do you feel like your past health experience, essentially an aspect of your suffering and your sickness, makes you relatable to your clients?" Because essentially what she was telling me is that, you know, she ends up talking to individuals that are struggling with certain health ailments, and she's able to connect with them in a very deep capacity because she knows what it's like to be in their shoes, and she's able to then, you know, mentor them in order to try to get past it. And this was something, as we were talking about it, I could relate to very much. And I asked her this question primarily because we get to a place where we are... We've, we've leveraged what we know, we've leveraged our experiences, the good and the bad, and we've allowed it to create something for ourselves.
**Unknown:** Let's call it a certain level of success. And then we start to feel a little imbalanced. We start to feel like, "Is this it?" You know? Like, "I- is this really what I want?" And we don't really know how to interpret what we're feeling.
**Unknown:** We're just calling it a feeling, and we think, "Oh, it'll just pass," but it doesn't pass. And so essentially, she leveraged her health adversities to create this business, to create clientele, to connect with certain people, to build a certain level of success. And then she started to feel like everyone was coming to her, it was an unfair exchange, and there was a lot of victim doom and gloom conversations that were honestly starting to affect her in her personal life because it was very draining. And again, I related very much.
**Unknown:** And I said, you know, "Has it really occurred to you that potentially your previous health adversity is been making you relatable?" And she kind of, like, paused and had a holy shit moment. And I'm like, "Now you have to ask yourself the question of, 'Is that what I want to continue to happen? Or do I want to actually be looked at as the victor, not the victim of my circumstance, but the victor to my old health adversities, and now I help you go from victim to victor?'" I don't know where to start right now. Well, I, I think that we can...
**Unknown:** What I... I would love to hear your, your thoughts on this because... And, and some people might get triggered by this idea because no one wants to think of themselves as a victim, but we have to be honest with ourselves when we're frustrated, we're overwhelmed, we're, we're not, you know, happy in the moment. And, you know, w- we all kind of do it.
**Unknown:** We feel like, "This is happening to me," et cetera, et cetera, which is a victim mentality, and that's not- Yeah ... to get down on yourself about it. And we tend to attract more of these conversations with other people that are also in a victim mentality. But- Like attracts like.
**Unknown:** Exactly. And, you know, I got to a certain point in my career that I was so fucking drained from that, and I, and I didn't know how to process it. I didn't know what to do. And I realized, it took a while, and it took your help, but I realized that it's not that I wanted nothing to do with the victim mentality.
**Unknown:** I wanted the person that was maybe like, "I feel like a victim to my situation right now. I don't understand it. I don't have the data. I don't know what's wrong with me." But at the end of the day, the deeper want, the deeper desire, was to be the victor, to overcome it.
**Unknown:** And once I had that knowledge, I was able to be very specific in who I could work with successfully-And who it was not gonna be a successful exchange because they were, they were leveraging their, their victim situation. And I think that's what we, you need to talk about, is when you leverage your circumstances- Yeah, so- ... because you can. I wanna start out with one thing that's, um, highly important that a lot of people don't talk about, is it's first acknowledging that you're, you're holding onto these things because it's benefiting you.
**Unknown:** And you get to the point where, you know, is this it? Hence, now it's not benefiting you as much. But initially, that, you know, back to the story you talked about, is being relatable, having that connection. Well, if, if I don't have this sickness, then I'm not gonna have that connection.
**Unknown:** I'm not gonna be as relatable. So it was a tool, and it was a great tool, and it served you, and it served other people. And it's being able to whatever, what- whatever the pain point is, whatever the suffering is, it's to acknowledge that it was good. It wasn't just all bad.
**Unknown:** There was good to it in that you used it. And that takes you up to a certain degree of suffering, and what's interesting is, you know, our voids create our values, but a, a lot of our pain points and our suffering, our, our biggest suffering creates what we're most passionate about. But when you really study, hence one of our previous podcasts we talked about you wanna have a coach, you wanna have a mentor that has more awareness than you, s- suffering is the root of passion. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** So what you're passionate about, uh, your passion is created from your suffering. We, we don't want to live and work and be in a state of passion because that's, that has, like as you mentioned, that has the ball and chain, the shackles holding you back to your suffering. We, we want to overcome our suffering. We wanna step above being passion and into being inspired.
**Unknown:** And when we're inspired, we're... and we're grounded in self-love. And we can't give something we don't have. So you have to learn how to overcome your passions.
**Unknown:** You have to overcome your suffering. And then that's when healing, uh, really occurs, is wh- when you're grateful for those things in the past and hence you can use those now, leverage that information, have more awareness to make better decisions to serve you. And a lot of those, in this case, health adversities, you know, we, we judge that for happening, but, you know, you look, you look at energy, and energy's, you know, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. So we, we want the pleasures of life without the pain, but it's actually the pain that creates the pleasure.
**Unknown:** So we have to go through these painful points, whether it's a health issue, whether it's a mental issue. You know, it could be a divorce, could be bankruptcy, could be whatever it is, a, a loss. We have to go through those pain points, and that initially creates suffering, but then it's our job through increased awareness to go back and balance out the good and the bad within those pain points. When we do that, there's no more suffering.
**Unknown:** Suffering is literally just, uh, a re- a creation from an imbalanced perspective. So once you can go back and balance out the perspective out, there's no more suffering. You have a greater level of consciousness and awareness to be able to use that initial circumstance to leverage that into what? Serving what's most important to you.
**Unknown:** And that's when life gets really joyful and fun. Well, based on what you just said, I think initially, sometimes it's really hard for people to understand the, um, how suffering can, can serve them. And I think that the, the phrase that helped me a lot in, in that understanding was the idea of, like, rejection to redirection. And, you know, there...
**Unknown:** Rejection, uh, I think across the board, if you, if you talk about rejection, and that could be rejection from a job, rejection from a partner, rejection from a friend, rejection from family, most people are going to unanimously say, "Rejection sucks. Rejection is painful. Rejection is suffering." And really, when you look at rejection, it's a redirection. And so you can...
**Unknown:** You're getting redirected no matter what, and if you either... You could l- surrender and lean into that redirection because there's a higher source that's telling you exactly what you need or, or showcasing the way, or you can fight it tooth and nail and potentially perpetuate your suffering. And so I love the, that phrase because when something, still to this day, you know, it feels like a rejection, I'm always like, "Where am I being redirected? I'm not, I'm not gonna f- I'm gonna surrender to something guiding me to something better." Yeah.
**Unknown:** And when you think about, like, failures, quote, unquote, re- rejections, it's... Those things happen because we think that's what was gonna best serve us- Yeah ... but we have blinders on. We're like the horses going through, and w- we can't see all these other possibilities that are actually better for us.
**Unknown:** So, you know, rejection hurts, but it's, it's actually occurring because we could have gone down that pathway, but it would've wasted a lot of time, energy, money, resources, et cetera. And it-At the end of the day, we would've had a bigger pain point from creating a bigger snowball, putting all that time and energy into it, and then having to redirect after that. So, you know, the, the redirection, I always look at it as like, you know, if a door is closing, well, in that exact same moment, there's an equal and opposite, so there's a door opening. And if the door shut, it was because that wasn't the right door for you to be in in that moment.
**Unknown:** And we tend, as a society, focus, you know, because we feel it, and our awareness, our consciousness tends to go towards what we feel. So it's... It takes a little bit of time and practice, but once you can actually, um, strengthen the mind to be able to step out of the pain, to disconnect from that, and then search for that open door, that's when the magic really happens because that's when you're actually rec- able to receive. You know, it's kind of like the story that, you know, you're always knocking on God's door, but He's not opening it.
**Unknown:** Well, it's, it's like you could be knocking on the wrong door, man. So, so- This is- ... step back and- It makes me think of, um, uh, I thought of myself first, but people that wanna control, you know, the, the idea of, of control and, and people that call themselves, you know, control freaks, or they're always trying to control outcomes. Like, what you just said is so significant to the downsides of control because most people that are trying to control everything in their house, in their family, in their business, in their lives, you know, one, they're so fucking anxious.
**Unknown:** You know, they're the most- So that's just- ... stressed out, anxious people ... that's, that's living in your, in your lower ego. Well, yes.
**Unknown:** And eg- ego doesn't wanna die, so... But it's... I tried to control so many things, and as you said before, is you have the blinders on. You're trying to control, thinking, "This is the exact way this should go.
**Unknown:** This is the best route," but you can't see what you can't see, and it creates pain, it creates suffering, it creates a lot of wasted fucking time, wasted energy, wasted resources, money. And, you know, that was the story of my life for, for so many years, and, and especially when it comes to, like, the pain of time, energy, and money loss. When you're running a business, when you're running a big business, and you're trying to control everything, and it's like, "Do this, and do this, do this," and it's like the Whac-A-Mole game, you know, you can sit back and be like, "Holy crap, I feel like I have been grinding, working, you know, expending so much of my energy and time, and I feel like the hamster on the wheel, and I've actually lost a shit ton of money in the process." Like, "Ooh, this sucks." That's perfect because that, that literally just goes back to what we were just talking about is, you know, going back to these, these struggles, these pain points. And initially, um, if, you know, we had the time, we could go back and, and see you taking control over things and not having other people control them benefited you.
**Unknown:** But then you relied and you held on that control too much, and that led into actually not control. That, that developed into an attachment issue. Mm-hmm. And you had an attachment to how things needed to be done to be able to get the results that you wanted to achieve.
**Unknown:** But when you really realize that every single person is unique and has their own zone of genius, that somebody else could, if you let go of some of that control so that it was actually in a state of balance, and then you allowed that person to use their zone of genius, they could probably receive and achieve those results even quicker than you. It... But the journey to that would be uncomfortable because you had an attachment to how that was supposed to look, instead of just having, quote-unquote, "the faith" that it was gonna get done the way, uh, eventually it needed to be achieved. This is why, uh, frontline employees in big companies, they think that, you know, the CEOs just have it made, and, you know, they're, they're just...
**Unknown:** Because they... Like, a really, really good CEO that is not trying to control, that is, is actually leveraging a lot of the things that we're talking about here, you know, they look so chill, calm, and collected on the, on the surface because they're, they're trusting the process. But- Well, they also hire A-team players. I mean- Well, yes, of course.
**Unknown:** There's multi- it's multifaceted, but they're just constantly thinking, and reflecting, and, um, and trusting, you know, where they're being redirected, opposed to the, "That's not supposed to happen this way. Control, control, control." So it, it's a very interesting thing about this idea that I wanna go back to from what you were just saying, is suffering creating your passion, and then passion, because it's rooted in the suffering, essentially results in a plateau. And then it's really an invitation to inspiration. A- and I wanna just kind of, like, break this down for people to really, really absorb it because this is so significant and so important, especially if you are a person that is committed to your own personal growth.
**Unknown:** You're committed to even better for your life, for your business, for your family. And-One, I, I want you to know that it, it's okay to hit that plateau. It's just an invitation in order to surpass it. And, you know, and, and don't sit there and go into that analytical mind and say, "But on paper my life is good, and so, like, I should be happier." If you don't feel fully aligned or something feels off, even if you can't fully articulate what that is, that's the invitation to l- to go more into inspiration in your life.
**Unknown:** Because exactly what you said, Dr. Nick, is, you know, there are a lot of things that we experience as children, um, you know, in our developmental years that creates a certain level of pain, a certain level of adversity, and a lot of us can use that. Like, I know that I used it, and it's one of the reasons why I became an entrepreneur. It's one of the reasons why I had no fear of failure, because having the same life that I observed around me, poverty-stricken victim life, that was way fucking scarier than, than making risky business moves.
**Unknown:** It... So I was like, I, I used it. I used it, and then you obviously saw it firsthand, is on paper, had the office, had the business, had XYZ, you know, that people could say, "Life looks good for Nicole." And then internally it was like, "Something is off. Something doesn't feel right.
**Unknown:** I'm being called for more. I don't know what it is. I don't know what this means." And it was the, it was the feedback mechanism to say, "You exhausted this. You exhausted this.
**Unknown:** You, you had your suffering, you turned it into passion, you turned it into a mission, and now you have an invitation to take your life up a notch and to now live a life that's more rooted in your values, that's more inspiring." And you could tell me if you agree, but the way that I think about this is when you, you stop making decisions out of desperation, the have tos, the need tos, or shouldn'ts, and you start to make decisions out of inspiration. Um, 100%, honestly. I'll, I'll just explain it in a slightly different way, is that the... 'cause your passion is coming from your past pain points and suffering.
**Unknown:** If you're constantly making decisions and actions that are connected with that, what... you're tied back to that. You're always gonna be held back 'cause that's your foundation. But intuition and inspiration, that's all connected with, uh, the Greek, um, word telos.
**Unknown:** You know, just in your DNA you have telomeres, which is the endpoint on your DNA, which has your genetic age. Not your biological age, but your genetic age. So somebody could be, you know, 50 years old but have a genetic age of 30, and somebody could be 50 years old and have a genetic age of 70. So y- it's the endpoint.
**Unknown:** But that's what telos is, is with the end in mind. So when you look at being inspired, you're looking at the end of your life, the legacy you wanna live, and that's a completely different connection than your connection with your passion. Your suffering. Your suffering.
**Unknown:** Yeah. No, it's... And, and for someone who's looking for the practical application of this, and, and I know that if you are an avid listener here, you've heard me say this in different ways on, on different podcasts. But, you know, when we are still rooted in, in leveraging our, our past pain, our past adversity, our past suffering, and we tend to make more decisions out of desperation.
**Unknown:** And so, you know, what i- what does this really look like? It's when you have an intuitive feeling to say, "Uh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure about this person. I'm not sure about this job.
**Unknown:** I'm not sure about this business move. I'm not sure." Just something doesn't sync 100%. It doesn't feel exciting or inspiring. And so then now you go to the drawing board of your pros and cons list, and you, you look at everything, you go into your analytical mind of like, well, okay.
**Unknown:** You know, like, let's use a, uh, a, a romantic partner as an example. It's, "Okay. Well, well, he's nice. I like his family.
**Unknown:** You know, we live close by. Um, you know, he's got a good job," this and that. And then on the flip side, intuitively you're like, "I don't fucking like this dude." But because the pros list logically makes more sense, I'll give him a chance. And, and some people, based off of, you know, their personality, some people will go and, and spend time and say, "All right.
**Unknown:** No, I was... I, I, I should have never done this," and, and move on. Some people will marry the guy, and they will have a life of pain because they keep going back saying, "Well, technically I should be happy because we have the nice house and the nice car, and he's got a good job, and he's nice." And so the goal is, is that you have the ability, you have the tools-You have the knowledge of who you are at your core. You know who your character is.
**Unknown:** You know what your values are. You know more about yourself so that you can make decisions that are out of inspiration, and inspiration is not just about a pros list or a pros and cons list. Like, this is about your energy. This is about how you feel intuitively.
**Unknown:** Like, it's syncing all of the pieces together for you to make decisions that are, are just truly aligned with what's going to best serve you and the outcomes you're looking for. I think, uh, an easy way to maybe see it, you know, slightly polarized, but, you know, inspiration isn't always gonna make sense. You know- Yeah. That's a good way to put it.
**Unknown:** You just wrote the pros and cons and like, "Well, this makes sense. I should do this." But that's not who you are. We're all unique. You know, if you look at somebody that everybody knows that's basing pretty much every decision of his life on through inspiration is Elon Musk.
**Unknown:** You know, "I'm gonna make a car company." Well, go take it back to PayPal. Like, "I'm, I'm gonna create, uh, a payment structure that's not associated with a bank." That's-- that doesn't make sense. Like, banks do that. "I'm gonna make a car company that doesn't use petroleum." That doesn't make sense.
**Unknown:** Every other car company is using petroleum. "I'm, I'm gonna create SpaceX." Like, we have NASA for that. Why, why the fuck are you creating a space company? But, you know, it wasn't about a space company.
**Unknown:** It was about telecommunications and connecting the world and all these things. You know, noth-nothing made any sense on paper, but he was inspired and he was being authentic to himself. And when you do that, guess what? The universe provide, provides for you.
**Unknown:** Yeah. The, the door is open. But if- But he was also solving problems that were bigger than most people could see. And, and so, you know, that's, that's kind of a, a different topic for a different podcast but, you know, I, I think that what you said is so, so significant.
**Unknown:** Uh, yeah, it doesn't alway-it doesn't always make sense and, and sometimes it's hard for people to trust that. So trust yourself, even if it doesn't make sense. If it resonates, feels like love, you're inspired with it, if you feel that in your heart, not your gut. Your heart's where you're feeling inspiration.
**Unknown:** Your instincts, your impulses is in your gut. So connect with yourself, gain that awareness, and then if it doesn't make sense, still trust it. And for my, for my logical people that are like, "What does that mean?" Values. Values course.
**Unknown:** We have a online values course. You can go and actually do the work, determine your values, and that is the compass. That is the compass to lead a life that you're able to make decisions out of inspiration and not desperation. So there is a, a logical, logistical component to this, is, you know, if you feel very disconnected with yourself and you're like, "I don't even know what inspires me.
**Unknown:** I don't know how to make decisions that are aligned," that's okay. You know, we've all been there at certain points. And for me, because I'm very analytically and logically minded, it was the values helped me understand more about myself so that I could start making decisions out of inspiration and stop making decisions out of desperation, which essentially always blew up in my face. All right, guys.
**Unknown:** We will make sure to put the link below so that you can access the values course and, uh, get started on starting to understand more about who you are and make more decisions out of inspiration.
Related episodes
- Comfort or Growth? Choose Your Challenge Wisely — In this episode, Dr. Nicole and Dr. Nick unpack what it really means to “choose your challenge wisely” in your health, family, and business.
- Overcoming the “Why Me?” Mindset — In this episode of Integrative You Radio , Dr. Nicole and Dr. Nick explore the concept of overcoming the "why me?" mindset that many of us e
- Why You're so F*in Tired — In this episode of Integrative You Radio, Dr. Nicole Rivera tackles the pervasive issue of chronic fatigue and its deeper implications. Shar
- My 3 Regrets as an Entrepreneur — In this inspiring episode of Integrative You Radio, Dr. Nicole dives into the lessons learned from years of entrepreneurial experience. “A b
About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
Further reading
Listen and read the full episode →