E303: Mental Wealth, healing and breaking free of Trauma | CPTSD and Trauma Healing Coach

---- What does it mean about compassion and kindness with Kaylor Betts ----

Michael: For you, what is compassion mean in your life and kind, Kindness for yourself on this journey?

Kaylor: Yeah, I mean that's a great question and the first thing that comes to mind is compassion for yourself, you know, I mean, obviously having compassion for other people is quite honestly, most like pretty easy for most of us. I think for most people, it's easy to be compassionate to others. I think we still need way more of that. Trust me, I understand if some people are even mad at me saying that but I think for most of us, especially with a growth mindset or compassion, what we really need and what would help others and the others around us is if we add more compassion for ourselves. I have a little bit of a different take on compassion in that the first thing that comes to mind when you asked me about how I have compassion for myself, is when I think of self-love.

Let's say, that's the buzz term that everyone's talking about self-love, which I'm okay with. I like that. We got to love ourselves but I think of it, the question to ask if you love yourself is What would you do at this moment? If you truly love and care for yourself and your body and your spirit, what in this Moment is going to serve and align with that the most? Sometimes that's picking up a book and I think we have a really good innate Instinct of, like, what we should be doing in any moment that will serve our highest quality of life. I just really have the instinct to know that what you've chilled for the last hour. You should be reading a book or listen to a podcast or doing some prospecting or doing something in your business. That is a revenue-generating activity, you know. Then I think you have to just really have that conversation with yourself like, okay you know, and this is why self-awareness is so important. You've worked for the last four hours, you're getting a little brain fog, your brains a little tired, your eyes hurt.  You know you have a little bit of a tight feeling in your chest like that's when I know like okay it's time to go do some breath work and some cold shower and some meditation. Then I also know that there are some times where it's like, when's the last time you took a day off? Now it's time to do whatever the fuck you want today. Whether that's watching Netflix eating ice cream, whatever. And I have those days too. But I think that it's easier than we think to know what to do in every situation. We just have to have that reflection and ask ourselves, if you love yourself and have compassion for yourself, what would you do at this moment? That's going to serve your highest quality of life and include all factors and experiments. If you're having trouble with that, the best strategy, I think is to get outside yourself and say if you were your best friend if you were someone that you love, what would you tell that person to do right now?

---- How do you step into awareness? (Dr. Kjell Tore Hovik) ----

Michael: And it's so important to take it seriously, especially if you're dissociated, and especially if you're triggered, especially if you're in crisis. How do you do that? Like, as a baseline? Like, how do you actually really step into awareness?

Dr. Kjell: Well, let me say two things. One thing is we're very open about and we describe this in the book that the book is actually written as a self-help guide. So, it's for people that feel that they're somewhat in control in their lives, many people will work their way through crisis on their own and that's great. Some will need some help. And that's really what the book is for. Others, they maybe can, you know, read and think about it, but they're not able to make the changes in their lives that are necessary. And we're open about that these people in that situation are going to need to have maybe the help of a therapist or have someone that can guide them and help them become aware of their own situation and help them also find the right steps to take or the right directions or the right changes in their everyday behavior. But one thing I use, just to your first question, how do you get that presence is with sports athletes, because I’ve often worked with athletes at quite top levels and for them to get focused and being in the present is quite important is often just simply to try to get them to answer the question. How are you feeling right now? And trying to put words on how are you feeling? Thinking about, what are you thinking about? What are in your thoughts? What are you feeling? What is your mood? What sensations Can you feel? Can you feel your fingers touching each other? Can you feel the muscles in your arms, we can even go through different, let's say, relaxation exercises, again to get the focus and concentration away from tomorrow, away from the disaster that happened yesterday, away from the argument that happened yesterday or earlier in the day? And just to get into the present and to focus on that, and it takes training. So, it's not something that can be just done automatically. It's like, it's like an athlete, right? They need to train, train, train, train. And so, when they're trying to, you know, perform at their peak, they need to have that training, they can just go into it in an automatic way. So, there's no easy, quick fix of it. But that's one way to start that process is to really just maybe try to Michput oneself in a quiet area, right? So that there's not so many, there's not so many lights, there's not so many sounds, there's so much noise and all these things, and then trying to then just feel like, how do I feel right now? And then maybe go through different elements, and especially the senses to try to get into touch with really where you are at that very, very moment.

---- Take a break without beating yourself up. (Dr. Kjell Tore Hovik) ----

Michael: How do you give yourself permission to take a break without beating yourself up?

Dr. Kjell: It's a good point. And it's interesting, you know, that you're discussing this with, you know, you want to change a million lives. And it's, again, I would say I would think in that context really simplifying it in the senses, what is it that you're trying to do, and I’ve heard your podcast, Michael, and they're just brilliant. And I just so respect what you're working and what you're doing. And what you're doing is you're trying to help people, right? So, the way that I think about it is that I don't do podcasts, I'm just working as a therapist, but I want to try to help one person at a time, right? And if I can help that one person, then maybe they can be positive influence for some other person, right? And if I can just do that one person at a time, then maybe that's going to grow something that's going to be worthwhile over time. So, I try to then simplify it. That's the way I do it for myself, really try to simplify down into something a little more specific, a little more concrete, not larger numbers, not larger amounts of anything, but just one thing at a time having focus and giving it my all for that one experience or what that one opportunity.

---- Step into choosing yourself.  (Grace Juba) ----

Michael: Talk to me about the journey and what that's been like, to step into choosing yourself, and what was practical for you along the way to be able to actually do that.

Grace: Great question. So, choosing myself, man, for the entirety of my childhood and even my young adult life. I was always choosing my family and I was just choosing, what school should I go to? What career should I step into? How should I act?  How should I talk right? And I was doing all of that by all but also causing myself so much pain because I'm like I'm living for these people that have damaged me so much, we're at one point, I never knew if I was ever going to be able to come back. So, I started really contemplating that I'm like, why am I living for people that have hurt me? And if I'm not living for them, who am I going to live for? And I really was only left with myself and at first, that was scary because I think coming out of my own experience, I was definitely a little codependent, right? My identity, kind of was dependent on them and who I am, but when I was really only left with myself, that's where I saw that I really just have to choose myself, and there were many times within the past few years and where I was just like, well, who am I? And at first, I could be scary, right? Because you feel like you aren't anyone, you don't know who you are, but that's also the beauty because you get to create who you are, and once you start creating who you are, you start really getting just a very narrow focus on what it is that you want and something I've learned, and I really I stick to very well is if something comes up in my life and it aligns with what I want, then I go for it, if something comes up in my life and it doesn't align with what I want, I do not go for it and so that could be people, places, hobbies, thoughts, ‘thoughts’ is a big one. As you know, you always talk about mindset and that's another thing I think that that's very powerful. But yeah, choosing yourself is just going to provide massive value for your journey.

---- Take Control and Be responsible. (Paris Prynkiewicz) ----

Michael: talk to me about what that was like, for you to finally, like, take control and be responsible for your mental health, though, you know, and especially with something bipolar its chemical, like you have zero control over it, but you have to have control. What's that juxtaposition like for you?

Paris: Yeah, I love that you bring that point up because I was actually talking to someone else about the things in life that you can control and things that you can't control. And right? So, you know, having that diagnosis and having that imbalance is something that I just can't control. So, but you what you can control is where you go moving forward with that information. How are you going to respond to that? What are you going to do about that? Or what do you, you know, what's the next step, right? So, I have control over that, you know, I don't have control over having the diagnosis and all these experiences that I had but now I can do something about it, today. So, what I decided to do and, honestly, out of everything I've ever done, you know, there are be medications, all kinds of different things or whatever it is. You know, “the biggest thing that has made the difference for me is actually working on myself, working on my mindset, working on the dots and reconditioning that, and the way that I speak to myself, right?” So, working on this inner critic of myself versus like this inner cheerleader and trying to choose that more, choose that. More side of positivity, rather than focusing on the negative.” So, it would be almost so common for me every single day to wake up and my feet, hit the ground, and I just go to, like, everything that sucks. Like, I do, I have to go to this place that I don't like or, oh, like I have to deal with this person. I'm gonna fight with, you know, what, someone about this, and it was all it just turned into like this snowball, spiraling effect of everything that was wrong and then everything that could potentially go wrong for the day.

So, that's the mindset that I started all my days. That's so what I had to do was, you know what, I'm going to stop this, this is an issue. So, I started to recognize that and I started to recognize patterns that I had as well and different behaviors that I had that were hurting me and hurting other people. So, I said, what can I do about this to change this? What can I do to make this, to make this go away, and to substitute something else, and it's placed that will benefit myself and benefit other people and keep me in a better state of mind. So, what I really started doing was just reading a lot of personal development books, listen, and you're listening to a lot of podcasts journaling, gratitude was huge for me. And I used to think that was I literally when I was struggling, I used to think that was so dumb. What is it going to do for me to sit here and write down three things, I was grateful for and that was because at the time I had a very, very hard time, even identifying one thing that I was grateful for because I was so focused on everything that was wrong, everything that could go wrong. That I couldn't even see the blessings that I had. I couldn't even see the things that I did accomplish because I was so focused on all of this stuff that it literally consumed, all of my thoughts. And I said you know what, I'm going to start looking at the things that I have, the things that I'm grateful for the things that I'm looking forward to and doing that all of that stuff, the gratitude, the journaling, changing how I speak to myself, those things were really, really got me to this place of now.

We're now when I start my day, and I end my days, I started on the best foot possible because I'm going into it with a mindset of appreciating where I am right here in this moment instead of saying, you know, all you know, I'll be happy once this happens or you know, and then once you get that, then it's well once this happens then I'll be good. No. And so saying that you can create that and “we can manufacture our own happiness within ourselves and that's the biggest thing too.”  Is that to notice is there are little things we can do every single day that can become habits, that can help us “be in a good place and stay in a good place, you can continue to learn and grow.” And that's really what I love. Honestly, is just every single day continuing to learn more things. Discovering new resources, you know, related to mental health and like having more of these conversations connecting with people, you know, whether that be through social media, or in person, and just having more of these conversations and figuring out what we can do to really make this a thing. We're talking about mental health struggles, which is going to be as common as talking about the weather. So, it's not even, it's not even a thing where it's weird anymore. It's just like it's completely normal and I think honestly if we were able to eliminate that stigma once and for all then that would actually have a huge ripple effect on many things. Like so many different things that are going on in the world. Of course, when you turn on the news, you see all kinds of things like you know, like shootings killings all these different things, people in and out of jails, in and out of treatment centers, in and out of hospitalizations. And what can we do to really work on that? And I think kind of the root of the problem, maybe mental health and you know, overcoming unresolved trauma and making these conversations possible to be had without leaving people feeling like they can't talk about it or else, you'll be judged, you'll be called a week and I actually think it's a lot, it's harder to have these conversations in the beginning, because of course, you're vulnerable, you're putting yourself out there, you're exposing your own stuff that maybe you don't even feel comfortable talking about yet. But that, but the power in doing that opens up so many doors for you, really to just move forward and lift that burden out from under you, I think.