E342: I wish I would have taught my younger self this | CPTSD and Trauma Coach

I remember when I was younger, I used to stare at the clock and beg for it to slow down because the scariest thing in my life was having to go home. Now, today, when I look at the clock, I beg it to slow down so I can get more accomplished.

What's up Unbroken Nation. I hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today.

I was thinking about if I could reframe one thing, one singular truth that I could share with my younger self that would change everything. What would it be? And a lot of people will say, don't marry that person. Don't date that person, don't do that job, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I think that sure that probably applies to a lot of people, but for me, I was thinking actually the truth, the very thing that I would tell myself that if I were younger, if I could have that conversation would be, do not underestimate what you can do in a decade.

So often we get tied up into the future in a way that is actually counterproductive. And what I mean by that is we think about all the things that we have not yet done, and we get paralyzed by it. In my experience in childhood was very much that it was like I've, can't imagine a life in which I can actually be happy and fulfilled and have empathy and grace and compassion and love myself as a child, I never could have imagined that. And so, that's why this is the thing that I come to if I could teach myself one thing as an adult, to my child self, to my younger self, it would be to be okay, knowing that things take time.

This journey, isn't an overnight journey. Nobody great has ever done anything in a week, it takes a tremendous amount of effort, energy, time and patience to ultimately be able to find success in your life, in any capacity however, it is that you define success. And when you hold yourself to this idea that it is now or never, I think it's a very dangerous statement to make to yourself.

For a long time when I was a child, I would just simply be like, I need it now, I need it now, I need it now, not having patience. And it's not necessarily that this is a platitude for patients, just more so like thinking about the truth.

If I rewind my life to 27 years old, a decade ago, I was really just about a year and a half into this healing process. I was starting to touch some yoga, I was starting to journal a little bit more, I was reading more books, I was learning a little bit, but I was still making massive mistakes in my life. Fast forward to today and connect all the dots between that moment to today. Personal development, conferences, writing books, podcasts, so on and so forth.

My life is so incredibly different and unrecognizable that when I look back at a decade ago, it just doesn't even feel real. And when I look back 20 years ago, at 17 years old, in the throes of really the beginning of the chaos. And let me rephrase that in the throes of the beginning of the self-directed chaos, it's an entirely different world, it was drugs and hooking up and stealing stuff and breaking houses and you doing all kinds of illegal things like that to me, even when I tell my story being a guest on podcast all the time, I'll tell this story about my journey and it just doesn't even seem like that was a thing. And then I go 30 years ago, 30 years ago was hard for me, 30 years ago it's seven. My mom had married my stepdad and he was really stepping into his own as a massively abusive person. My mom's drug addiction was really starting to take hold of her. And this is right before some of the real massive chaos of my childhood kicked in.

And now look at that 30 years ago, when I think to myself, I've come a long way. We get caught up in this idea that if we don't have it now, if it's not different now, if it's not fixed now, if life's not what we need it to be or want it to be, or expect it to be now, then it doesn't count. And if I think like deeply about that conversation with a younger version of me, whether it's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years ago, the one thing that I would tell them, which is the thing that I'm really starting to hold true that is becoming more self-evident every single day is that when you leverage time against a time horizon, that's so far down the line with a massive amount of clarity about what you want and you just move towards that every single day eventually you can have it. And that's happiness, sustainability, love, peace, whatever it doesn't matter what it is; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, intimacy, relationships, career, business, everything like, I've said this before, you can have everything, but probably not right now.

When I think about the mission of Think Unbroken to end generational trauma in my lifetime through education and information – lifetime. I'm measuring myself against this incredibly long and arduous period of time, which I don't know when that's up like I don't have a countdown clock for the end of my life. I might get 50 more years, I get might get 50 more seconds, but I operate with the clarity of moving towards that thing on the long timeline with short timeline actions. What can I do today? Is it make a podcast? Is it write a chapter of a book? Is it be a guest on a show? Is it create another free program? Is it tell somebody on social media? Is it coach a client? Whatever that thing may be. And so, when you start getting into this and you looking at life from these longtime horizons, what will start to happen is you'll realize my hope is that you'll realize the same thing that I have come to realize that the things that you do today, they start to stuck. And the more that you stuck, the more that it actually catapults you forward and starts to build and create momentum.

And when I was younger now, not necessarily at seven, but definitely around 17, like the need for the immediacy of everything was so fucking intense that literally I would have a mental breakdown if I couldn't get the thing. This is why I always tell people like causation and correlation is everything in this journey. You have to understand how you got to where you are. So, I understand where my relationship with time became fractured.

I've shared this story on the show, I think only one time ever. There was a fifth-grade class trip on a Saturday to go and see toy story. And when we arrived, turns out we were at the wrong theater. And so, once my mother had figured that out and we got to the right theater, the movie was halfway over and I was devastated like I was so used to my mom letting me down that when it came to things around time, I knew we would be late. Fine. I knew we probably would not get treats and snacks, and it'd be the last kid in the. Okay. Used to it, but this particular day, because I so desperately not only wanted to see that movie, but be in connection with the other kids and have that shared experience.

When we got there late and I sat there, it hurt in a way that really took a long time to remedy and it created this thing where what started to happen was, I was like, okay, you have to be eight minutes early, five minutes early on time is late. Show up, get up like blah, blah, blah. And it actually started controlling my life and worse, what happened is I started judging people really hard about being late.

And I started touting them as lazy, irresponsible that they don't care about me. Now think about this, causation and correlation, how do you get to that place? I look at this experience with time and a lot of people have this experience when coming through traumatic experiences. And so, changing that relationship with time now, I like, honestly, when I think about it and you've heard me say this before, when I go to a restaurant and I put down my name and next to my name, it says time I write now that's because I'm very much interested in being in the present. Being right now where I am in this moment while, and this is the juxtaposition, right? This is the dichotomy of it is like looking at the time horizon and the goal and the mission and instead of getting tied up and being like, oh my God, I need to end generational trauma now, which is incredibly impossible and unlikely like I cannot fathom a single intervention that we could apply where I could do that right now in real. And so, it becomes a stacking of doing this little thing over time. And in these moments of the day to day, trying to be present, letting go of the need to so desperately control that thing, that element, which is actually manmade, time is simply a measurement for us to understand days and cycles of calendars and harvests, it is practical, right? I won't get into it ‘cuz then it'll get too high flute and then I'll actually probably confuse myself. But what I've come to conclude is that if I were to sit in a room with and a younger version, whether it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. The one thing that I would tell myself without question, it wouldn't even be that one day you'll heal and you'll change people's lives and stuff like that, wouldn't be that it seriously would be like, be okay with changing your relationship with time and watch how everything around you changes because one of the things, and this was for my journey. The thing that probably kept me handcuffed more than anything is this concept. And now being able to find some freedom in it to just be like, no, it's just time. It's fine. We will have more, we will have less, it will always fluctuate, but it doesn't matter if it was yesterday or tomorrow, because the only thing that's important is this next breath, is this single breath, the breath that I'm in the moment of time that I exist in.

And I think that my younger self would actually probably hold, take heat of that. And it would be a forewarning of saying, hey, if you don't let go of your obsessive control around time, it's going to hurt your relationships, your friendships, your career, your body, your health, your mental, emotional, physical capacities. And I really think that I would take heat of that because it's easy to tie into, one day you'll find a great therapist and one day you'll find a great husband or wife or one day you'll do that thing that you always wanna do fucking climb Mount Everest, so I don't know, people often go to that.

And for me, it just, that didn't feel so true when I sat down and I wrote out what I wanted to talk about today. The thing that felt true was if we can change our relationship with time, and understand that healing is not linear, it's not A, B, C, D it's A, F seven negative 4, 26, Z like that's healing, it's all over the damn place all the time. And if we can reconcile that and just be okay with knowing that it's not linear, but instead it's this journey of ups and downs and peaks and valleys, and a lot of in the middle.  it really does bring a sense of freedom.

We hold ourself to this idea that it's not working.

We hold ourself to this idea that shouldn't, we be healed.

We hold ourself to this idea of oh my God, I've been to therapy a million times. And I've said this, and I'm a person who have said this. I'm guilty of saying this, but in the release of this idea, that time is the most important factor in life has just brought a tremendous amount of freedom to me and made me realize yes, in the mistakes it's okay. I will learn. Yes, in the accomplishments, that's great. I will learn. And just the continuation of wanting to go forward and towards the idea of who I can be every single day in the space of just an allotting existence and presence is the greatest thing that I've understood that I believe would've been beneficial for my younger self.

That said I'd love for you to think about what would be beneficial to your younger self? What is the lesson that you've learned today that you feel like a younger version of you would hold onto?

And I want you to share that with me. If you'll message me on Instagram @MichaelUnbroken, I want to hear from you. I want to know what your revelation from this is because I think that we can go a lot deeper in this conversation, not only as a community here with the Unbroken Nation, but all the things.

So, my friends, thank you so much for being here, it means the world to me.

And Until Next Time.

Be Unbroken.

I'll see ya.