Wiring the Mind for Love: Melding science and faith with neuroscientist Nicole Tetreault

The Babblery

[00:00:00] Nicole Tetreault: The hunger we have inside for the quest for the truth and knowledge. And that’s kind of a big driver that has been pushing me in my life, trying to really understand how things work together, and thinking about it in a way that isn’t necessarily a conventional path and being completely open to what calls me.

Segment 1: Neuroscience and the learning brain
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[00:00:58] Voiceover: This is your host Suki Wessling. One of my particular interests is the way the trajectory of our lives can change due to life experiences. Those experiences can be professional or personal, of international importance or so inconsequential that no one else notices them.

[00:01:15] Such changes, wrought by experiences in the personal sphere are particularly common for women, even those of us who have never sought a traditional feminine role of caregiver.

[00:01:25] Today’s guest is a great example of a woman with a curious mind, following where her experiences led her. Our conversation begins with her work as a neuroscientist and advocate for children with learning differences. In part two, we delve into how being a woman, a daughter and a mom intersects with her work. Finally, we explore her discovery of meditation and the science behind it and her current drive to help others learn how how ancient techniques can help them thrive in our modern world.

[00:01:55] Nicole Tetreault: Hi, I’m Nicole Tetreault. I’m a neuroscientist, meditation teacher, and a speaker and an author. And I love helping people wire their minds for love and talking about what it is to be a gifted woman and navigating in the world.

[00:02:10] Suki Wessling: I came to know you and your work through the gifted education world. I’m a teacher of gifted children and I wanted to ask you, how did you get interested in the mind? Do you know where that interest came from? And how that led you to be interested in non neurotypical people.

[00:02:33] Nicole Tetreault: Well, that’s a great question. Thank you for being a gifted educator. That is a huge role that you play in, in helping people discover who they are. So for me, um, there are a couple of threads. I think first and foremost, when I was 18, my mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which is a neurodegenerative disease.

[00:02:57] And I was, um, entering college and I was in a space where I was trying to decide whether or not to go into neuroscience, medicine kind of deal. And it wasn’t really even neuroscience. It was medicine and writing. Those were kind of my two passions. And when my mom was diagnosed, I had been, a runner so I kind of knew what diet and exercise could do for your mental health.

[00:03:26] And when we went to see the doctor, I said, is there anything we could do to reverse or kind of, you know, postpone the progression of her disease, you know, through diet and exercise? And he looked at me and he said, Nope, there isn’t anything you can do. It’s neurodegenerative. And being 18 years old and being hopeful, I said baloney.

[00:03:50] And I decided that I was going to prove him wrong and get a PhD in neuroscience. And before that, um, you know, school for me was always challenging, and I didn’t know why. So, I was never formally diagnosed with any learning difference. I was not diagnosed with being gifted, until I was 22 and I was in college in an organic chemistry class.

[00:04:22] But prior to that, I really didn’t read a book until I was in high school. For example, I was like the kid in the classroom when you had to read out loud. I was preparing my paragraph before, you know, and I was almost like, please God, let it just be only a sentence, not like three sentences, because reading out loud was like an anxiety inducing experience because I was undiagnosed having dyslexia.

[00:04:50] And so coming fast forward when I was in college, part of what I wanted to do was sort of neurochemistry, and I wanted to design novel medications. And, um, being in the organic chemistry class, I was tutoring people before the exam. And what happened was I got to the final exam. Um, and I had basically, not finished it.

[00:05:17] I left a 40 point problem empty, which was like a stoichiometry problem where you identify a molecule. I ended up getting like a 53 on the exam and I was devastated. The class average happened to be like a 50. So the professor was like, oh, you passed. And I was like, no, something’s really wrong.

[00:05:39] Something’s wrong. And I called my mom and I was crying and I wanted to drop out of school. And she said, I think you need to get tested for a learning difference. And then that’s what opened the door for me to realize like, oh my gosh, um, something, you know, I, my brain learns differently. I learn differently.

[00:06:00] And then when I was tested, you know, I had an auditory memory in the 99th percentile, but then my ver, my written, memory was in 40 percentile. And so that’s where the giant discrepancy was.

[00:06:14] Suki Wessling: And so what you found was something that I think a lot of people find in retrospect, which is that a lot of times performance doesn’t have anything to do with potential, intellectual potential. That performance is often based on other factors.

[00:06:32] Nicole Tetreault: Absolutely. When I was at UC Davis, I worked in a, um, laboratory where I was looking at how basically neurons of dopamine and serotonin grew in the eye where ultimately I want to understand how it worked in the brain for Parkinson’s where dopamine cells are affected. And I was in that lab, I actually won an award for being kind of a an innovative student, you know, I won the chancellor’s award my year I graduated with my capability and research. And it’s so funny that you say that because my professor at the time, Leo Chalupa, said, Nicole, I don’t get it.

[00:07:19] Why is your GPA what it is? And here you are like a superstar in the lab. And I said, well, I wasn’t identified as being dyslexic until. Six months ago. So that’s why my, um, GPA sucks. And he said, well, if you want to just come and get a PhD here, you are more than capable. So I think the point you’re really making is that what we need is we need mentors and teachers.

[00:07:46] And educators and parents to see the potential beyond what a external measurement of a standard grade is. And when we think about, um, you know, multiple intelligences, and we think about how people could have specific gifts and areas, that’s really where we to be looking at potentiality, and not limit kids, not limit adults. And for me, I think I stumbled upon people who thought outside of the box. I mean, I think in academic science and research, they naturally do. And so I was really gifted with the ability to pursue that.

[00:08:30] Suki Wessling: It sounds like you had a really close relationship with your mom. What was that like as a kid? And did she have any role in supporting you? You said that that school was hard for you.

[00:08:44] Nicole Tetreault: Well, believe it or not, um, my mom was a, a preschool teacher’s aide, so she had five kids of her own, and by the time I was shipped off to school, she decided I want to be a, um, preschool teacher’s aide. And really, my mom’s gift was seeing people. Like, she could really see the best in all people. And so, when it came to her guiding me, there was never, so it was kind of interesting, there wasn’t a serious academic pressure on me from my parents because she could tell, I thought, very differently and very deeply.

[00:09:25] And then my mom also, what was amazing, just by chance, she happened to be a remarkable typer. Um, you know, she was of the generation of like, you go to school and you’re, you know, a secretary and you’re going to learn how to type, da da da. So she was an exceptional typer. And so I would have, you know, chicken scratch of stories I had written, projects I wrote, and my mom would type them for me.

[00:09:54] And so, she was my first editor and my first, you know, where she could see the potential in my writing and my capabilities. So, um, now I have professional editors who help me.

[00:10:08] Voiceover: You’re listening to the Babblery and we’re speaking with neuroscientist and meditation teacher. Nicole Tetreault. Nicole started her career as a neuroscientist, interested in exploring intelligence and its many facets.

[00:10:20] Suki Wessling: What you’re talking about is your mom instinctively seeing that even though you were showing certain types of brilliance, she didn’t have to expect you to be at the same level. in everything, which is something that I feel like people, adults are only just now finally coming to this idea that, you know, the what to, what to expect idea, what to expect at one year old, what to expect, whatever, and up to the whole thing of grade levels and saying in first grade, here are the skills that you will master and not being able to integrate kids who are behind her ahead.

[00:11:00] So could you talk a little bit about the experience of kids, in the early years, as far as what they might experience from people’s expectations and what people could do better.

[00:11:13] Nicole Tetreault: When we talk about expectations and, you know, I think when we think about the education system, so much of the time we have common core standards, right?

[00:11:25] And a lot of it, unfortunately, is driven by companies who do testing. It’s driven by, um, basically standards for performance, um, to pay educators. And I think we’re stuck in a system that really isn’t working. Because what’s happening is that the standards are getting exceedingly harder for children to meet.

[00:11:56] And I think they’re getting harder for educators. When you think about, you have 30 different minds out there. And so when we think about expectations, you know, I think that we need to think about the money stream of education first and foremost, where, I mean, educators need to be compensated at the level that, um, you know, a lawyer would be, I really feel.

[00:12:23] And I feel that we have, because in general educators have been women, um, that there was a lower standard of pay. And I think that that gap needs to change. So educators can have the ability, the financial resources, the capabilities to take care of themselves so they can look and be more available with into an awareness and not have burnout.

[00:12:52] You know, I feel like when you’re thinking about an educator who is so supposed to be on from 8 a. m. till 3 p. m. with very minimal breaks. that is, I mean, I don’t know how many times I would personally melt down. So, um, you know, I think that when we think about standards, I think that there has to be, you know, I think in education, when you’re in gifted land, there’s a lot more flexibility to have an openness for those asynchronies. You know, I think that having classrooms where they’re set up for multiple learning types, you know, if you have auditory learners, they’re kind of grouped together. If you have visual learners, if you have, um, you know, kinesthetic worldly learners that they’re kind of grouped, or you could group them individually in a group where you have one type and they benefit and help each other.

[00:13:54] So I think that when you’re thinking about classroom and design, I think that In a way, if you, if educators can offer space for the asynchronies for kids to help each other work it out, you know, um, for example, my son when he was younger, was very, he’s extremely visual and he can, you know, he would read book after book after book, and he had classmates who had a, a challenging time, you know, looking up books in the library.

[00:14:26] And he was, you know, the kid who would help people find books in the library, because he was very good at that. And simultaneously, you know, his same friends were on the basketball team, and some of them were very athletic. And so they would set him up so he could make a, you know, shoot, you know, shoot a hoop and, and, and get that point.

[00:14:48] And so I think that when we create systems where there’s an ecosystem of a collectiveness of seeing individuals as a whole, working individually with their strengths, that’s where you can build a classroom where people feel safe to fail, safe to make mistakes, safe to be kind of out of alignment with certain things, you know, and I think that’s thinking outside of the box where if you have a child who can’t sit still, you know, giving them the space to go, uh, run around outside for a second, come back in, get realigned.

[00:15:31] I always remember being in school and we would have weeks where, you know, you get to share and you do the show and tell. And I think that, you know, we would only do it for a day, but really if you give children the wherewithal to make decisions, and let them be the class leader, you know, in one area for a week, it could really boost their confidence and self esteem and things that they’re capable of.

[00:16:01]

[00:16:01] Voiceover: Nicole Tetreault is a passionate advocate for children who learn differently, which it turns out is not a small minority.

[00:16:08] She advocates for an educational system that focuses less on numbers. And more on the children who arrive at school every day. She describes the complexity and difficulty of teaching as a profession.

[00:16:19] Nicole Tetreault: And there’s so much that you give that I think people don’t see or understand. Like, you could be going to bed and thinking about one of your students who’s struggling, you know, and a conversation you may have had with a parent. And I do think that’s the other thing that you’re saying that’s really important is that educators are the next parent, you know, in a lot of ways.

[00:16:48] And for my son, for example, in his second and third grade, being at recess and in the library or, helping the teacher correct papers was sort of his downtime. When he was overstimulated by his classmates. And so, when I think about that, it, it’s really important that parents learn to partner and not, see the educator as the other or difficult, but say, where can we meet?

[00:17:20] And, and I think there’s also an element of where’s the responsibility? When you’re dealing with children, especially, um, in the culture that we’re dealing with right now with anxiety, we have these smartphones now that are causing, you know, mental drain, distraction, you know, over activation, that parents really need to partner with the educators and they need to do their part. Especially just because you have a child who’s asynchronous, I’m not saying like, Oh yeah, they could just scream and lie on the floor and it’s all okay. They’re going to get through it. It’s like they have to learn skills for emotional regulation.

[00:18:06] They have to learn skills. You know, I always talk about how you know, we can have high levels of sensory processing you know, and that could be in all five senses. And for example, if, you know, fluorescent lights activate nervousness, you know, and I talk about how basically fluorescent lights increase inflammation naturally.

[00:18:32] And in some kids, fluorescent lights can be stimulating, over activating, and then, you know, they could have an emotional dysregulation in relation to that. I also say, you know, by the time they’re adults, they can’t walk into a board meeting and say, you know, you need to shut off the fluorescent lights or else I’m gonna lose it.

[00:18:55] You know, you have to learn abilities to habituate and regulate your nervous system, and power through, you know, just as me not being an out loud reader and how I would get nervous and anxiety, now I love reading out loud. because I practiced, but only because I practiced that muscle. So practicing how to read is similar when you practice emotional regulation.

[00:19:24] It’s a skill set where you can develop skills of an inner refuge and really ground back and know that you’re safe. And it has to be a muscle that’s practiced day in and day out, especially with these kids.

[00:19:39] Voiceover: When we return neuro atypical learning, neurodegenerative disease, and opening the mind to love.

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Segment 2: Neurodegenerative disease and the mind-body connection
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[00:20:22] Voiceover: I’m your host Suki Wessling. I originally asked neuroscientist and author Nicole Tetreault to speak to me for an episode about gifted girls and women. But when I saw what she was doing now. I wanted to explore more deeply. In the first segment we explored her advocacy for neuroatypical learners. Now we move to exploring Nicole’s own experiences that underpin both her early career and her more recent work researching and teaching meditation. We start when Nicole is entering college.

[00:20:54] Nicole Tetreault: For me, I always felt like I was kind of trapped in a box. I felt like I was so, inside, I felt and I knew I was smart and I had a lot of potential. And I felt that my test scores never matched that. And I felt trapped. And I felt, I felt a lot of the time people treated me, or it was in my perception, like, oh, she’s a smart blonde, you know, a blonde, you know, not too smart.

[00:21:30] And that’s how I felt. And I, and I, it was always sort of like, oh, she’s nice, too. And it was this, you have to be nice, and, you know, happy, and, and there was this intellectual curiosity inside of me that would not change. And once I dis, I discovered I was dyslexic, it was like fireworks just blew up for me because I always naturally just wrote, um, and I didn’t worry about my spelling.

[00:22:10] I didn’t care. I never thought it mattered, to be honest with you. And so I also felt that there was a disconnect in what I was being judged about. Like, I was like, read the content, not the spelling. And then now that’s kind of what educators are teaching. Kindergarteners is just free write. And so, um, there’s a part of me where I feel like I was always ahead of my time in some ways, not in everything, but in some things.

[00:22:39] And I felt like I can accept who I was a lot more and feel comfortable with who I was and actually know I’m smart and that my brain really does process things differently.

[00:22:53] Suki Wessling: Mm hmm. And you mentioned your physical presentation and, um, if anyone goes to your website or mine, they’ll see that you are a beautiful woman. And this is something that interests me also is that once women get to college, our physical presentation in the world interacts in ways that we might not be aware of, or maybe we’re too aware of, with the, the options we’re given, with the way that professors respond to us, the way that fellow students respond to us.

[00:23:28] How do you feel that you personally, knowing that, you know, There was the dumb blonde stereotype out there, and knowing that people might have that, did you do anything in particular to work against it, or did you just say, well, I’m just going to ignore that, or how did you deal with that?

[00:23:45] Nicole Tetreault: Actually, for me, it was the opposite. It was really going through elementary and high school where I went to all girls Catholic high school, um, and the concept of God was a she, so it was very alternative. And so there were inclinations that you don’t have to just be this one dimension. But still there was that stereotype.

[00:24:14] Actually, when I went to college, it was quite the opposite, especially when I was at UC Davis, I was not seen that way. I was really seen for my mind because especially in my neuroscience classes, I would go to office hours and female and male professors would see that in me and they would see this passion and drive and that outweighed everything else. And so I was never presented, I was never presented with any of that really at Caltech or UCLA or at UC Davis. I was always seen for my intellectual capabilities and that was really huge. that was a, that was a game changer for me because so much, you know, when I was growing up, we were, I feel like, um, videos, um, of songs started to come out and I felt like women were hyper sexualized almost to a point where that was really incongruent with my experience. And so a big part of me wanted to own being feminine and, and holding onto that and enjoying what it is to be a woman, and simultaneously using my brain. And in college is where I felt I could do that.

[00:25:39] Suki Wessling: I love that, that embracing the feminine. Because a lot of times I think that women, especially in the sciences, feel like they can’t do that. Um, I know that I’ve interviewed young women scientists who say that they still get commentary from professors about, you know, don’t dress like that. No one will take you seriously.

[00:26:03] And so making the, the choice that women, women making the choice to say, I’m going to celebrate my femininity and I’m going to be okay with that is, I think, important.

[00:26:14] Nicole Tetreault: Yeah, and I think that there’s a, there’s a differentiation to, um, in terms of being feminine and versus being, choosing to wear something that can be, I would say, provocative. And I think that for me, there’s a very clear line in that. And so I think that regardless, even if a woman is wearing something that can be provocative, it’s really the male’s responsibility to control their own mind and their ability to see what somebody’s saying.

[00:26:50] Um, and at the same time, I’ve also, you know, I have three older brothers. So when I was growing up, I developed really early. And one of my brothers, I remember I was wearing spaghetti straps and he, I was 13 and he said, Nicole, you can’t wear that outside. And I said, what, what are you talking about? You know, I’m 13 years old.

[00:27:11] And it, it didn’t really dawn on me until later that he didn’t want his baby sister being hypersexualized. And so, for me, I have always had the awareness of, sort of wearing uniforms, so to speak, in, in different circles. And so, um, for me, you know, what feels appropriate, what feels comfortable, um, matters in the sense where I feel like I could be presentable and be taken seriously.

[00:27:44] And I also do know what you’re talking about. I had a, a friend where she was, we were in grad school together and, you I think, you know, she had lifted her arm and, and I think her top went up and showed her stomach and, and I think one of the professors, you know, said, oh, you can’t do that. You’re too distracting.

[00:28:03] Suki Wessling: it’s interesting how women can be held to these standards that really don’t make any sense even to the people who are enforcing the standards once you point it out to them.

[00:28:13] Like, yeah, we all wear shirts where if you raise your arm high, it might show a little bit of skin. We all have skin on our midriffs. That’s part of being human. And it’s, it’s not an intentional, intentionally sexualized gesture to raise your hand. And so I would hope that in the 21st century, that these sorts of things are, are you know, working themselves out and the, the women are feeling more comfortable knowing that line.

[00:28:45] Nicole Tetreault: And, you know, the question is, would they have said that to a male? You know, if, if a male showed his belly or, you know, a piece of it. And so I think that, Um, you know, being a woman, it, you, there are a lot of rules, you know, and there was always the stereotype of, of the female scientist with no makeup, the bowl cut, you know, you wear suits, and I just said, I’m not gonna ascribe to that.

[00:29:16]

[00:29:17] Voiceover: Nicole Tetreault hits on something that affects every woman’s life, whether she notices it or not.

[00:29:22] I suspect by the way that almost all of us notice. It, but we decide whether or not to acknowledge it. Women in serious disciplines are asked to balance their physical presentation between projecting a serious demeanor and not being too serious. We’re asked not to dress in a manly way, and in fact, people really notice when. When a woman does dress in specifically masculine clothing. But we’re also asked not to be too feminine and definitely not too sexualized.

[00:29:51] But on top of this is the fact that many of us don’t even know when we are responding to social conditioning and how we view women’s clothing. Many of the people who try to enforce gender rules when called out are surprised to realize that they did it. These ideas are deeply ingrained.

[00:30:07] Besides being a scientist who made a conscious decision to present in a feminine way. Nicole found herself. Herself different from other students in another way, as a grad student, she was also a mother.

[00:30:19] Nicole Tetreault: I would say one of the areas that for me in graduate school that was really asynchronous was I had my son, when I was in graduate school, I had a one year old. And, um, for me, that was really different because basically at the time, all my professors who were in their 40s were having kids.

[00:30:39] So literally the, that was an area that was really different for me because my provost at Caltech, his son and my son were best friends and I was in graduate school and so there was a very big discrepancy where, you know, at the same time, um, You know, I remember I was in charge of getting lunches for our, our group meeting for graduate schools.

[00:31:10] And, you know, one of the professors said, oh yeah, just take the leftover pizza and have a party with all your classmates. And I was like, I’m going home to my son. And so it was just, I also had a really asynchronous experience where I was a mother, in graduate school. And so for me, I was maybe more serious about everything, um, to a level where, you know, I had to go get my stuff done and then go and be a mom.

[00:31:39] Suki Wessling: How do you think being a mom changed you and your view? I’m interested in this because you said that you got interested in neuroscience because of your mom and then you’re becoming a mom as you’re studying neuroscience. How did it change your perspective on the brain to raise a child?

[00:31:57] Nicole Tetreault: For my son, it was really letting, learning to let him be who he is and lead the way. And, you know, I was gifted with that with my mom. And with my son, I feel that, um, he was so self driven. Um, and at the same time, just such a unique thinker that, you know, there was this one time I was, I came and I picked him up and he had just this deep awareness about him, um, and it was right after my mom passed away and I was, I kind of looked wrecked and he, And I was starting to write a book about her and he, I picked him up and he said, Mom, how was your day? Did you write something pretty intense? You know, and he was maybe 12 where he could tell like the emotional heaviness that was inside of me.

[00:33:03] So, um, I feel that in some ways. It was, I, I feel like, I hope I did a good job with him, you know!

[00:33:17] Suki Wessling: That’s, I think you just said what, what all mothers say when their kids grow up and it’s like, Oh, I did as, I hope I did as good a job as I could do. It’s, um, it’s hard. That’s one of the things that I think my mother taught me when my first kid was two and I told her, I feel really bad. I’ve been so cranky today to, to my son.

[00:33:39] And she said, if that’s the worst thing that happens to him in his life, that is one lucky kid. I thought, okay, well, there’s a good perspective to have. We do our best with what we’ve got.

[00:33:54] So you study neuroscience and how, in relation to your, to your mom’s Parkinson’s, how did you feel once you, you said that, that the doctor said there was nothing that could be done?

[00:34:11] And I, you said that and I heard that thinking there’s a follow up to that, of course. Things have changed greatly for, for people with Parkinson’s. Can you explain what you learned and where Parkinson’s research went after you’re losing your mom and, and being a graduate student learning about neurology?

[00:34:34] Nicole Tetreault: So for my mom, yeah, you really picked up on the fact that what happened was five years later, you know, fast forward, I was in, uh, graduate school at UCLA and you know, there were scientists literally studying how diet is neuroprotective for Parkinson’s Disease, how exercise was neuroprotective and, you know, the concept of practicing and wiring your body and mind to really, um, be in tune and, and, in ways that you can, you know, not necessarily reverse the progression, but you can have these elements, um, in your diet and in the way you move your body that can be neuroprotective.

[00:35:25] So my mom lived for 23 years with Parkinson’s Disease. Eventually, you know, um, the disease does cause global degeneration in areas of the brain. A bigger part really about the relationship that I felt In terms of neurology and what you’re talking about is in my mother’s case, her Parkinson’s was really not the canonical Parkinson’s that people have.

[00:35:57] She had, um, symptoms where she had, um, this akinetic form where you have, uh, a delay in movement rather than tremors, which is dyskinesia. And so hers didn’t present the same, first and foremost. She also suffered from a lot of anxiety and depression. So there was a lot of mental health in relation to it.

[00:36:22] And my mother was also, um, a candidate for, um, innovative therapies like deep brain stimulation, having an akinetic form where you put a, um, an electrode in the brain and it pulsates in the subthalamic nucleus, which projects to the, um, uh, area for neurons in, in the frontal cortex to release dopamine.

[00:36:48] And so basically she had this innovative, um, deep brain stimulation, and that worked for several years, um, and it allowed us to travel around the world together, to have years of, um, really special moments together. So, um, there was a lot that was at the brink of science that, um, really made a difference.

[00:37:14] Um, my parents also tried innovative stem cell therapies. and so there was a lot. My dad and mom were willing to try anything and everything. And I think that’s what was, we were blessed with the financial resources and with good insurance to be able to do certain things, um, which is huge and the biggest thing, though, was the mental health issues that were related that steered me into the world of understanding my own mental health in relation to, um, the anxieties I suffered with in, in depression that I suffered with having a parent with a disease that was neurodegenerative.

[00:38:03] And so that’s what kind of led me to alternative practices and leading me into yoga and meditation, which I find can help, in dealing with elements of discovering truth.

[00:38:18] Voiceover: When we return.

[00:38:21] Nicole Tetreault: Fear is a normal part of our life. It’s not going to ever not exist. And at the same time, we can have the awareness of how we interact with it.

Segment 3: Spirituality and the physical brain
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[00:38:30]

[00:39:32] Voiceover: I’m your host, Suki Wessling. Nicole Tetreault started out her career as a neuroscientist. She was inspired to learn more about the brain by her mother’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, but but she had an instinctual reaction to what was lacking in her mother’s treatment.

[00:39:47] At that time, no typical doctor would have promoted the idea that the progress of a neurodegenerative disease could be slowed by such practical, physical remedies such as diet and exercise.

[00:39:57] Such recommendations, however, are common now for a range of neurological conditions. What changed? In Nicole’s case, nothing. When she brought her whole self to the job of understanding the brain, she knew that our physical bodies were not separate from our brains and our spiritual selves were not divorced from our health.

[00:40:16] In recent years, new research has exploded our models of how the brain works and Nicole’s intuitions have been validated by the numbers.

[00:40:23] Let’s. Let’s return to Nicole’s roots to hear why she felt such a strong calling. To unify brain research with spiritual practices developed thousands of years ago.

[00:40:35] Nicole Tetreault: Growing up being raised Catholic, I ha always had a high level of spirituality, um, in relation to, you know, like I had mentioned, I went to an all girls Catholic school and it was up against the mountains. And so for me, I felt like I could connect to the spirit in the mountains. I could see spirit in nature.

[00:40:57] And when I went into academic science, I definitely felt that there was a hard divide because scientists are materialist. They want explanation. They want things to be, how do you measure a miracle? How do you measure, you know, an intuitive dream you had? And so, uh, for me, it was almost like I had to have my world crash on me.

[00:41:26] When I was at UCLA, I was, my mom was in the middle stages of having Parkinson’s disease, Spencer was two and I was diagnosed with cancer myself. And I went in to go see a psychologist and I was saying, I think I need to drop out. I have no motivation. And, you know, I can’t connect with my husband intimately. And, her response was like, drop out of school, have sex all day, or you could go see a psychiatrist.

[00:41:58] And it was like, there was no empathy. And I was sort of like, what is happening? And she was saying she thought I had bipolar disorder. And then I went to go see the psychiatrist and, you know, they did the whole, you know, here I am, I did this whole makeup. And she said, Oh, honey, no wonder. You’re dealing with your own survival and your own life and you have a son and you’re in graduate school and you have a mother.

[00:42:28] Everything you’re experiencing is absolutely normal. I could prescribe you sleeping pills to help you sleep. or, I can tell you that you need to start doing yoga. And they had the UCLA mark, um, at, you know, to start meditation and, and I started doing my first body scans and yoga. And that was really my doorway into finding peace and finding that it was going to be okay and it didn’t need to be of the material world to tell me it was going to be okay.

[00:43:04] Suki Wessling: I’m pretty certain, but you can tell me if this is correct, that you come across people who say, Oh, I would rather take a pill. Why do you think there is a resistance? And I’m, part of it I think is a trust in Western medical science that, that people are brought up being told, here, take a pill for that.

[00:43:22] And they get better, and they think, okay, there’s just going to be a pill for this. And something like yoga and meditation is a long term commitment that doesn’t work like a pill. How do you get over that, when you talk to people who are resistant or do you not find that resistance?

[00:43:38] Nicole Tetreault: I think it’s highly individual. And so I think that when people are in extreme circumstances, I think a pill and pharmaceuticals and medications can be a temporary relief. And in some cases, it could be ways to help people to move through anxiety, to move through, um, Um, really challenging times. And so I’m not in opposition to pharmaceuticals at all in the sense that these have been medicines given to us, um, through almost, you know, a, a divine gift.

[00:44:19] Now, when it comes to the practice of yoga and meditation, that’s highly individual. And it’s, we could get into the idea of, it’s really alignment and timing. You know, like, we are all different trees, and some of us need more sunlight, some of us need to be in the desert, some of us need to be in a deep forest.

[00:44:46] And so, it’s really, each tree is going to have its own botanical growth and timing. And so the way that I think about it is, at the time I was ready. There was kind of nothing else I could do but surrender and say, okay, I’m going to give yoga a try. And for me, the very first yoga classes that I did were yoga dance classes.

[00:45:17] And the gift of that was every time I danced, I thought about the gratitude I had to move my body when simultaneously my mother was bound to a wheelchair. And it shifted my perspective of the gift of life, of wherever it was at. And so I do not think less of anybody who has to take a pill. Or who needs to, or it’s, it’s a, you know, done in, in a temporary relief, or even if it’s lifetime.

[00:45:55] I don’t have a thyroid gland. because I had thyroid cancer, and I have to take thyroid medication every single day, or else my metabolism doesn’t work. So just like that being an organ that needs a little stimulation, some people need a little help. you know, especially if you have ADHD, there could be medicines that can help, um, release the dopamine and help, you know, kickstart your brain.

[00:46:22] Not in all cases though. And so it’s highly individual.

[00:46:26] Suki Wessling: Can you talk a little bit about some of the most interesting science that has come out that really supports using, different modalities in conjunction with the, uh, the sledgehammer of modern medicine, which is, you know, yeah, if you don’t have a thyroid, you need to take those hormones, but at the same time, there’s also other things that you can do for long term health, both physical health and mental health.

[00:46:51] Nicole Tetreault: When we think about how these ancient practices of meditation have been around for thousands of years, scientifically, we absolutely know um, there’s been over 16,500 papers showing how meditation practices can wire the brain and allow for new neuronal growth, um, allows for us to have enhancements in the frontal cortex.

[00:47:24] So you develop a larger mass, um, in the frontal cortex, which allows for emotional regulation allows for greater intuition, um, in tune communication, compassion for others. And it reduces, um, the activity in the amygdala, which is our natural fear state. The way that I feel that these practices really work on the mind is that it shifts us out of the traditional fear state, negativity bias mind state.

[00:48:03] We are inundated with thousands of negative experiences throughout the day. What we can only do is control how our mind responds to that. We can’t stop what’s coming at us all the time. But we can make the choice and have the awareness of how we interact with it. Simply enough, we have close to 60, 000 thoughts a day.

[00:48:32] So even that, we can internally begin to shift our awareness about what our thoughts are. If I’m having a negative thought, like, Oh, you just said something really stupid. I could harp on saying, Oh, you keep on, you know, you did that, you did that. Or I could say, yeah, or I don’t have to engage with that and be like, that was in the past. And so, you know, how do we cull our mind in the idea of rumination? How do we break patterns and habits? And so the only way we can do that is through practicing. When we use these different practices, all we’re doing is training our mind to shift into greater awareness and greater compassion for ourselves.

[00:49:18] That doesn’t mean that things aren’t going to be hard, that suffering is going to be completely eliminated, but it’s really our interaction with that. And so when it comes back to the story of my mother and how I learned these practices could really shift my awareness was that with her, I was so nervous all the time trying to control the outer world to give her what I thought she needed internally.

[00:49:51] And what she only wanted was me to be in presence with her and sit with her. And it wasn’t until this one time that I was nervously getting food together, and she said, come and sit with me. I know it’s hard. And that’s when getting off the cushion and being in presence with her, that was the meditation.

[00:50:16] You know, you could sit on your cushion and have a thousand thoughts and they could all be positive, negative, whatever it is, but it’s how are you interacting in a day to day life with others and with yourself? And where can you soften and bring in more compassion? Looping in the gut brain interaction is that when we think about these practices, when we practice in meditation, we’re reducing our stress levels. The gut has close to 7 million neurons in it, the size of a cat brain. We have 100 billion neurons in our brain. We have close to 50 percent of our dopamine is regulated and released out of our gut, 90 percent of our serotonin, the feel good chemical, the way we feel connected with each other.

[00:51:10] So when things are dysregulated, when we’re anxious, that dysregulation happens between the gut brain interaction. When we meditate, when we do these practices, we reduce our anxiety and we allow for the microbiome, we allow for things to work more harmoniously. And when you start to see your body and your cells as something bigger than just you, it’s such a beautiful teaching, that self care isn’t just for yourself, but it’s for the whole.

[00:51:41] Suki Wessling: Neuroscientist Nicole Tetreault melds her scientific training with her understanding of. Traditional modalities.

[00:51:47] Voiceover: She founded an organization called Beyond the Cell to help incarcerated women heal from trauma and ready themselves to rejoin their community.

[00:51:56] Nicole Tetreault: Beyond the Cell, um, was started when we were in the pandemic and I was awarded from Caltech an alumni award to start a non profit which was the intention to teach neuroscience, meditation, and expressive writing originally, but it turned to be the arts, for women who were transitioning out of prison.

[00:52:21] And it happened during the pandemic where I wasn’t able to go into prisons, so I worked with girls in a group home. And what I was working with was designing different types of meditations, focusing on how to deal with trauma. Because again, when we’re talking about individuals who’ve been in juvenile hall, they can experience high levels of trauma.

[00:52:47] Suki Wessling: So how do you open up to these practices and feel safe? And what I found was often with these young girls, they really appreciated um, starting with the arts and doing, uh, meditative expressiveness through the arts. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about what you see the future of neuroscience, now that someone like you can be saying, yes, it’s not incompatible for someone who’s a neuroscientist to also be meditation. Where do you think we’re going to go from here?

[00:53:21] Nicole Tetreault: when we think about what we have seen scientifically showing, for example, when people are in spiritual experiences that you have the parietal, lobe being activated and when people experience oneness, I think that, Okay, what’s happening in the brain? You’re getting brainwaves and you’re getting energy showing an activation of a conscious awareness of oneness. Does the oneness necessarily need a mind correlate vibrational frequency to be told you that there is oneness? I think for some people they want that material information.

[00:54:06] And at the same time, oneness is just there. It’s not something you can measure. So it’s experienced. And so, uh, when we think about these things, and when we think about the potentiality, I mean, the whole point of what a miracle is or what grace is, is that they aren’t things that can necessarily be measured, that they just have to be experienced with faith.

[00:54:34] Really wiring our minds for love is moving out of these fear states and moving into these trust states. I mean, fear is a normal part of our life. It’s not going to ever not exist.

[00:54:46] And at the same time, we can have the awareness of how we interact with it. You know, especially being raised in a culture and a world that sells us stuff, sells us everything based on fear of never being enough.

[00:55:04]

[00:55:07] Voiceover: Most interviewees don’t ask me much about myself, but I wasn’t surprised when Nicole ended the conversation by turning it to what motivates me and how I care for my own rather busy mind.

[00:55:19] I told Nicole that I feared I’d never be able to meditate. She told me to dig more deeply into the things that I already do, swimming and music, for example, in order to wire my brain, as she says, for love.

[00:55:31] Nicole Tetreault: Swimming is a meditation. Walking is a meditation. Music is a meditation. Meditation really is coming into presence, into the present moment.

[00:55:52] Voiceover: Thanks to Nicole Tetreault for sharing her life and wisdom with us. You can learn more about her work on the episode page at babblery.com.

[00:56:00] Crazy for Love by Carsie Blanton is courtesy of the freemusicarchive.org.

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Wiring the Mind for Love: Melding science and faith with neuroscientist Nicole Tetreault

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