E75 How to really create the life you want after Trauma and Abuse | CPTSD Podcast

Hey, what's up, Unbroken Nation, Michael Unbroken here — author, speaker, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. I hope you're doing well, wherever you are in the world.

Today, I will come to you and share something that honestly is a game-changer for me and my life. And the way that I think in the way I have thought and all of the moments in time that had led up to this conversation, and that is this idea of change. We are often exceptionally acted as trauma survivors of change, and that comes from this place, at least for me, and I'll share my insights, in my opinion, because that's my podcast, and that's what I do.

And that's why you listen, and that's why hopefully you want the truth about why I think the way I feel about things and change is scary, but change starts with first acknowledging, and acknowledging is about coming to this place in our lives where we can look at and assess the world that we live in the world that we have effectively created or been put into and understanding when there are something that is, in our way be at our roadblock, a relationship friendship, a business decision, a life decision, a, you know, whatever that thing may be starting to create a framework to how we move through it.

You see change as often terrifying because we don't know what's going to happen on the other side of it. But change only actually happens when you make change happen. You've heard me say this a million times. But how do you really make change happen? This is something I'm constantly juggling and thinking about and assessing and creating a framework around so that I can have these granular precise, and incremental movements towards change.

Starts with acknowledgment, right.

The first thing that we do when we have to create change in our lives to acknowledge, you know, maybe we need to make change many of the people who come into my coaching programs, the start of that place where they look at their life, and they say, I need to change many people who step into the six-week in-depth program have looked at their life and say I need change. But before that action comes in, they thought about it. You guys hear me all the time say, mindset plus action equals self-actualization, and that change only happens when we make change happen.

"But the precursor for all of that is this idea, which is understanding that what we think becomes what we speak; mindset is everything. What we believe becomes what we speak and what we say becomes our actions, becoming our reality.

And what that means is it's this cycle of momentum that begins with the words that we say to ourselves. We are the stories that we say to ourselves; we are the stories we tell ourselves.

And so if we tell ourselves a certain story, then when we reflect, and I look at the actions that we have in the world, then it would hold that those stories and facts now have become our reality. I know that sounds complex, but it's really not, and why is it not? Because the things that we think about become the things that we move towards and create energy around and thus have momentum with. And so, the further of that you go into this place of thought, the more that you noticed that that is the way that you act on the world. And when you sit in it, and you get to this place of self-actualization, which means to realize who you are to understand the truth of your power, your potential, your ability, who it is that you become through your actions because of your thought. Then what you understand is that everything begins with the Catalyst of what you think.

Now, if you're constantly thinking, I'm not good enough. I'm not strong enough when that capable enough. I'm a self sabotager. I'm a liar. I'm a cheater. I'm a thief. I'm not good enough to breathe; whatever that thing is, we've had them all. And look, then I'll be honest with you. Everyone has negative thoughts. I have negative thoughts. Every client I work with has negative thoughts. People have been in my programs for six weeks or 16 weeks, or six years. I don't have anybody at six years, but you get my point, the people who are in my programs, they have those thoughts. The people who are leaders, in everything, have their thoughts. My own coaches and mentors have those thoughts; every at one time or another will succumb to those thoughts.

Those negative things, those negative inklings. I don't say things because of thoughts these momentary chasms, in our process that suck as in and suddenly we're in that place, we call the vortex right, and not show up for yourself, you're procrastinating, you're not making the hard choices, you're in that autonomic behavior that self-soothing because you've been thinking about it.

One little misstep often derails the whole ship was — In fact, that actually should be utilized and leveraged as a data point, so that when you do misstep, let's say this, let's say you're on the road, you're driving and you have a GPS and that GPS is telling you go straight. But for whatever reason, year on your way and you come across this Crossroad and you turn left. Well, that's going to happen. You're going to turn left; sometimes it's just going to happen. It's human nature. You're going to make a mistake. You're going to do something outside of your character. You're going to do something, even outside of your own values, your ones your need, your interest, your boundaries. It's going to happen because we're humans we fuck up, right? It happens, first off, it's okay, but as you're on this path, and you're driving and you're eventually, I promise you on a long enough time line going to come past this impasse again, this does this junction in the road and you're going to have to look at it and say I know I'm supposed to go straight.

And then you decide to go straight as opposed to going left, that's choice and that's action and that leads you to a different outcome because you take that data point of what you've just understood and you look at that direction, and you go, I'm going straight. I know what left does already did that, and you pull that, which becomes an action because you've learned through that.

And so this place that we often leverage us, failure, which leads us into this cycle, which steps has into the Vortex, which puts us in a position and we're what we're thinking becomes what we're speaking and what we're speaking, what we do and what we do becomes our reality. Suddenly, you start to understand that sometimes you have to hit the pause button and acknowledge. Okay?

I made a misstep life's little to the left right now. I feel a little off. I'm not showing up for myself. I'm not doing the things that I said I was going to do. I'm not going to the gym. I'm not eating, well I'm not moving my body. I'm not being kind to myself and you can do this with Grace. “You can do this with compassion, you can do this with kindness, but you can also be aggressive at the same time and tell yourself that you are going to move forward.”

And then you slowly start to pull yourself out of that because again - “set plus action becomes self-actualization.” And so you have to continue to reinforce this idea that you are. In fact, good enough, strong enough, capable enough, you are willing and determined and able, you are capable and deserving. You are all the things that you want to be. And the more that you tell yourself, the more that you will move towards that through the actions on the choice.

That you take in your day-to-day life through showing up for yourself, through doing the hard things, do moving through the discomfort to create change and then on the other side of it, you'll sit in your paws and you'll look in your breathing, your success, and your establishment and you'll understand something really beautiful. And that's that thought that you had that led to those actions that you took has now become your reality. And that's what's so crazy about life. If you remove the notion that somehow magically your life is going to get better because you do one thing one time or you read one book or do one thing you are going to give yourself an incredibly immense amount of freedom.

Because what happens you start to think about the truth of life and that's that if you believe something and you are willing to put in the work that it can become your life. That's a secret they don't tell you in school, right? Because I want you in the box, that's a secret they don't tell you in your workplace because they want you to perform, that's a secret that they don't tell you, most of the time until this moment where you recognize, wait. I'm allowed to be great. I'm allowed to have potential, I'm allowed to seek what I want, what I need, what I'm interested in. Yes, you are as long as you think it, and then you act upon it, and on a long enough timeline, it can come to fruition. I'm not saying it will be overnight because chances are it won't; chances are it's going to take you 25 years. But how bad do you want it? How bad do you want? The life that you want, and what are you willing to do to have that life?

At 26 years old, I looked at my life, and it was a disaster. A decade later, it's very different. And I have clients all the time where they step into coaching with me, or they pick up a book, or they listen to this podcast. And it might be you right now, listening to this hearing this consuming, this wondering about what happens next. How do you get there? How do I create the life I want to have? How do I become a hero of My Own Story?

Well, first, you have to acknowledge that you need help getting there. No one great has ever done anything alone, and yet you're sitting here trying to figure it out by yourself; talk about the definition of insanity. And so, when you acknowledge that, you can't do it alone.

And look. Whether you ever do a program with me or coaching with me? I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. The only thing that I care about is, are you going to make the right decision to live your life? And the way that you want to live your life in accordance with your values, your ones your need your interest in your boundaries and if I can give you one thing, one thing that you can execute on take away with you and carry on in your life from this moment forward forever, forever, forever and ever.

It's that mindset plus action equal self-actualization. I really want to hit this home today, and I know I've talked about it. I even have another episode of this podcast titled “This Exact thing”. But I want to go deep here in this with you today, for you to carry something important, look at anything that you've ever done in your life that you would consider to be successful that you're proud of. And, and I know that sometimes it's hard to name that thing, but there's got to be one. And so you got to spend your day figuring out what that one thing was.

And I want you to reverse engineer that thing back. Go back through all the actions that you've taken in all of the moments. All The pain, all the suffering are the turmoil, all the doing it, and grinding, and again, and again, and again and again and again and go back even further.

Go back to the first time you set allowed. This is the thing that I'm going to do and put yourself in that moment and that position and remembers what that was like and then go back even further to the first time you had that thought. “I can do this. I believe I can do this. I know I can do this. I'm going to do this and then replay all that, and this is to prove the really important point is that you have been capable of doing great things in your life many times over, and you can do it again. But it all starts with what you're thinking.”

My friend, I just want to say thank you so much, as usual for being a part of this for being a part of my mission and my goal to end generational trauma to be Unbroken.

And I appreciate you, and I'm proud of you, and I believe that with your mindset and your actions, you can have the life that you want to have.

And I'm going to ask you to do me a favor.

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And until next time. 

My friend, Be Unbroken.

-Michael