Overcoming Addiction and Finding Freedom from Rock Bottom | with Chris Janssen

Michael: Chris Janssen, welcome to the podcast, my friend. I'm so excited to have you to talk about this incredible journey of overcoming addiction, overcoming a lot of the troubles one may face in life through the past and even the present. But before we get into that, I'm curious, why should people listen to today's show?

Chris: I'm so happy to be here with you. Thank you, Michael, my friend. People should listen because if you're in an addiction or even the beginning of an addiction, it's so important to take the shame off of it share stories. And that's why I'm here to share my story and encourage other people to share their story and know their worth. You're worthy. If you're addicted, you're worthy. If you're not.

Michael: I love that. That is one of the biggest struggles that we battle as humans is this shame spiral. Obviously, we have people like Brene Brown that really brought that to the attention of the world a few years ago. And it's so funny because I was just looking, I have dare greatly right there on my library. And this morning as I was getting ready, I just happened to look at it, it caught my eye and I was thinking to myself, nobody's been talking about shame recently, really? Like it's not really something that is at the forefront. We sometimes have these fads in the world and in society where it's like here it is nonstop for a while and then it's gone. Why shame? Where does that exist in addiction? And why is that the word that came to mind when I asked you that question?

Chris: It, shame is useless. There's no place for it. I think guilt can be, there can be reason, if we have guilt, it's usually, we think we did something wrong. Shame is I am wrong. So guilt, yeah, we might want it. We might be there to tell us something. We might need to change course, maybe not. And I have actually assessment in my book to decide is this guilt helpful or not helpful? Shame. There's in my opinion, there's never a place for it. It's something that says you're wrong. You're a bad person. And it is. and it is, if we want to move forward in anything, we've got to understand how valuable we are not based on just because we were born with value and worth, not because of anything we did or didn't do to achieve it.

Michael: Yeah, let's extrapolate that. I want to go deep into it because a vast majority of the people who are listening to this show. As come from a tremendously traumatic background. And even myself for one growing up in childhood, I thought I'm not worthy. I don't matter, I'm not important. There was shame about being homeless. There was shame about stealing food to survive. Shame about the abuse I went through. Just shame, it's funny. ‘Cause there's this episode of game of thrones where like they're walking down the aisle and the old queen is shame. And I think about that sometimes and it's yeah, that's just, it's such a brutal, brutal experience where do you think is shame a by product of our own thinking or is that some kind of indoctrination from the outside world where this idea that we don't matter starts to become a narrative?

Chris: It can be both. If someone's yelling like in Game of Thrones or if somebody has a traumatic childhood and is actually being told by people they trust and want to love that they're not worthy, that's going to be your environment. I think. I do. I work with a lot of people. I'm a life coach and an author. And I think people that struggle with shame, I think that we just all have different personalities as well. Some of us, I say us because I'm one of these people, are very sensitive. We just were born more sensitive. They, we hold grudges. We don't forget wrongs easily. I love that Ted Lasso show and he, Ted Lasso, the coach says, be a goldfish. Forget things quickly, and that's a key to happiness. Some of us, it's not that easy, it's just not that easy. And so a lot of my coaching techniques that are in my books are how do we do that? We know it's a good idea to be a goldfish and not feel, we know it's a good idea to feel worthy and have self love. And then at the same time, how do you do that when you're not feeling it? So unpack where exactly it started, where it's coming from and change the narrative and then practice that new narrative. Because as we all know, it takes a long time to write a lousy narrative or a lousy story about our self worth. So it will take time to flip it have that new one become second nature.

Michael: Yeah. Shame often feels to me like this weird shadow that kind of sits over all the things that you do. And I've even had my own experiences and seen this and people I've coached over the years of the shame spiral occurring, even when good things are happening. Is that something that you see too?

Chris: I do see it and I do think part of that is a pattern that we need to break and Put effort into changing it, like intentional effort. So I think part of it, we just have so many stories and narratives running through our brains subconsciously. Some of them have been there since childhood. And so if we're an adult, maybe as a child, we did need to do a certain thing to survive, or we did need to, we did adapt a pattern where we shamed ourselves or really believed we had a belief system that we were not worthy, right? As an adult, no, not a lot of people are teaching us how to change that pattern. So it does take, it's not just a thought. Oh think, have self love. better about yourself. We have to be intentional, probably work with somebody else, in a supportive community or work with a coach or counselor who can help you flip that narrative and then intentionally condition with repetition the new narrative.

Because when we put something like that in place, the belief, like I'll tell my clients we're going to say it for now. The belief will come later. I know you might not believe this now. We're just going to say it and practice it. And the belief always does come later.

Michael: Let's talk about your experience with shame because I want to create a little bit of context. Where did that begin and what did that look like for you?

Chris: I was a perfectionistic child. Everything had to be done well. I think part of that was my environment. And part of it was just, like I said, my personality that I was born with. I think always been a growth oriented person. Achiever type, high achiever. I think there's a difference between a high achiever and a perfectionist. I think an achiever will do whatever it takes to get their goal. And a perfectionist is if I don't get the goal, it's trash, right? They if they're not going to get the outcome they want, they ditch the strategy on the way to the outcome. And that's the type of child I was. I just, I, it really came down to standards with me as a young person. I set, impossibly high standards were set me up for failure. And so I made happiness like tragically difficult to achieve and impossibly easy or very easy to not achieve, by the standards I set, because I was setting, we set these standards for what we want. And if they're outside of our control that is going to be impossible. It's because somebody says, Oh, I, my goal is I want people to like me. If the rule they have forgetting that is I should say, it's say they said, I want to be happy, but the rule they set for that goal is people need to like me, I need to be included. Now they've set a standard that's outside of their control, right? So if they change that rule to, to be happy, I need to work out, meditate, whatever it is. Now they set something within their control. So as a kid, I was always setting these impossible standards that were for me. impossible to achieve. And so as I got older, through puberty did that. I was an avid runner. I ran cross country track. I just ran and ran for miles and miles. And then I got an eating disorder. I just, I was trying to control what I could control because I was sensitive and I felt like my environment was out of control. And so I thought I could control the way I feel by the way I ate. And then when I got older and discovered alcohol, I used that for the same thing.

Michael: Yeah, which we're going to step into that here in a minute. But I'm curious because I, our environments, whether we like it or not, are going to be predictive indicators of success. One of the things that you see often is that your zip code is more indicative of success and childhood than almost anything in the world. And so you look at that and you may grow up like me in the hood, or you may grow up in an affluent area, or you may grow up middle class, but you can track that back over long enough timeline and see outcome the other very notable variable in these predictive outcomes are your parents influence. And so I'm so curious, like perfectionism, especially at that level. at that age. Historically, you see this input from parents where it's you don't get love, admiration, care, support, unless X. For me, it was, you don't get love, care, admiration, support, unless you are doing shit that is so incredibly bad that we have to pay attention to you. So it's an interesting spectrum. And so I'm curious were there parental influences on you that led down that path of perfectionism to the eating disorder, to the running, to the alcoholism.

Chris: That's a great question. I don't, I'm going to start by saying, I don't, I haven't cracked the code on that. I've spent a lifetime thinking about it. I think it's a combination. I think it's a combination of my personality and I grew up, I'll say this. I grew up with the best zip code, like a very admirable zip code. And I grew up not the typical. Me looking at me from the outside, you would not think, Oh, this is somebody that fell into alcoholism, And so that's what's that's what was hard for me to figure out is why am I doing all these things in my life? And I can't. Get this part, this perfectionism, this control, needing to control the way I feel all the time. Why, alcohol eating, why can't I get that under control? And so I think my parents did a wonderful job. They were very loving. Very, there were high standards. I don't know why I set such high standards on myself. I'm just going to leave it at that.

Michael: Sure. Yeah, I get it.

Chris: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, I get it. And look, there's what I'm always trying to expose in our human experience is causation and correlation, right? Like I, I tread my path and I look at being A very young child fending for myself, only getting attention when I acted out, and then that leads this path to straight Fs in high school, getting kicked out of high school three times, fighting, stealing cars, running from the cops, getting shot at, my best friends getting murdered, like just like literally living this insane lifestyle, and it all now, because I understand it deeper, it was like, I wish somebody would hug me. And so it's we seek these things in our life that are often predicated not even within ourselves. And for me, I started to play this really interesting game and I was cognizant of it. And the game was like, how much can I get away with? Like how far can I push the envelope before it actually blows up in my face? I would come to find that happened at about 25 years old and I just destroyed everything around me. And that's where I'm curious for you. For me, I got high for the first time when I was 12. Which is like an insanely young age to be doing drugs. But when I did, it is the most free, even to this day, it is the most free I've ever felt in my life. They talk about this idea that the first time you get high, it's like chasing the dragon after that. And that's what it was in that moment. I think all the things I chased beyond I was just seeking and seeking. Where did alcohol start to come into play for you?

Chris: I relate to what you just said so much. And if you take your story and go all the way to the other end of the spectrum, that was mine wasn't to get attention when I did something wrong. It was when you are in an environment that's very controlling, manipulative, and there's no privacy or really no feeling of kind of acceptance that you're just fine the way you are. People in your business. Do this, do that, wear this, wear that, look this way, don't say this, that type of thing. That is what I, it, I, of course, I didn't understand it at the time, but it drove me to need to control what I could control. And for me, I lived at home with my parents. The only, I didn't have, I couldn't go run around on the streets and get into trouble. I was very controlled. It was, the only thing I felt like gave me a sense of power was controlling, it started with what I ate and I became very thin and anorexic and it was like, In that case, what I didn't eat, and like I said, ran a lot. And then when I was older, could control the way I felt with alcohol. And I will say, I relate to what you said the very, I say this in the book to the very first time alcohol touched my mouth. felt, oh my gosh, everything was okay. I felt worthy. I felt like nobody was breathing down my neck. I felt like was just okay. Exactly who I was with, who I hung out with was fine. And you're right, it did become a chasing the dragon after that. And that I write about that in the book cheat, I, there's a chapter called that first hit feeling the terrible thing about, about using alcohol in a harmful way is that you're never it may be that last 20 minutes, you're never going to get that first hit feeling back, but we chase it and we go on benders trying to chase it. And it disrupts people's lives. And. That's the really, that's the sad thing. So I have an exercise in the book walking people through, okay, let's go through the costs of this. What are you actually going to gain? Is it going to be better than that first hit feeling, right? Let's compare that. Let's look at the costs of this and be honest yeah, that first hit feelings. Great. So, let's be honest about that. We don't want to not have great things in our life and not feel good. So, is there, are there other things that can give us that?

Michael: Yeah. And while you're in it, the answer's no. While you're in it and you're chasing that thing. The answer's no. And for me, and I've said this openly before, and the it's crazy to think about the amount of work it's taken to be able to look at life through a different scope. It was never actually drugs or alcohol or money for me. It was always girls like that was always the thing and that was the high that I chased and to change the narrative and perspective of that. What I actually learned in that process was letting go of these things that control you and then creating a framework for which you are in control is twofold. Freedom. First and foremost, because that's what we're seeking anyway,

right? That's why we do the drugs and the alcohol and the girls and the porn and the video games and the debt. And while a lot, you'll find this a lot in addiction studies, while men will go and spend money on porn, women will go spend money on Amazon or on clothing or on shoes on shopping. Yeah, exactly. And so it's look at life through anything less than the reality of one. We're seeking freedom through actually the thing that's killing us. And then two, it's really about learning how to love yourself. That's where the game starts to play. This as well as I do, that doesn't start to happen until you hit some really fucking Yeah. ugly moments. I interviewed Dr. Gabor Mate on this show a couple years ago when he spoke at Unbroken Conference, and he wrote a book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, and that book is entirely about this subject matter. And I've interviewed so many experts just like you, and we all come to the same conclusion. It's like you're going to have to be and the worst moment of your life to create change. However, before we touch that moment, Chris, I just want you to paint a little bit of a picture because I think it's really going to help people because I know who you are. And you've had some conversations leading up to this. What was life as an alcoholic actually like for you?

Chris: It was awful. It was, it, and nobody knew it on the outside. Again, I didn't it's important for people to know you do not have to be in jail, have a DUI, lose your family, lose your job, lose your kids. to know to hit a bottom. And so mine still looked pretty darn good from the outside. I was dying on the inside. I hated myself. I was, I had three babies. I have three kids all in their twenties now. So this was in when I got sober. So, before that, before I found a community, I tried and tried for years to quit drinking alcohol by myself I couldn't do it. And I thought I was. I really thought I was a monster, so there were some very dark, low times that probably people are hearing for the first time right now. But yeah, I didn't. There were definitely times. I didn't want to be alive. thought this will never end. and. That I'm going to say, and I say this in both my books, belief is such a big part of this. This is like my number one coaching tool is helping people with their belief. Cause that is what helped me get sober. That is like in an, the second I understood this, I was able to get sober in a community of sober people. So my belief was the fact was the same. The fact was. I couldn't stop drinking alcohol. 

Michael: The story I, and, Yeah. All right.

Chris: In general. And the belief became I am a monster. I just, it was just, I can't tell you, it was just running through my head all the time. I'm a monster. I'm unworthy. I hate myself, then when I found when I hit a bottom that my bottom was not like, I've hit some bottoms worse than the actual bottom, the actual last, last drunk. So the last drunk was just this is important for people to know, too. I was doing kids back to school paperwork and I was stressed out. That was it. I was stressed out drinking red wine and. blacked out, passed out woke up and decided this is enough. I can't do this anymore. And I just knew in my gut, I was going to die if I didn't figure something out. So I went to a support meeting. I knew no one who called themselves an alcoholic, no one in my family drank alcohol, my parents, their parents, nobody did. So I didn't really know who narrative changed because that moment, the fact was still the same. I'm addicted to alcohol. The story I attached to the fact now became loved and worthy of sobriety and recovery because I'm addicted to alcohol. So my whole belief system switched. I was no longer a monster in my head. And that was day one of my sobriety right there.

Michael: All that some people…

Chris: We can live for years with a terrible belief system that won't serve us.

Michael: One of the things that I was thinking about as you were talking about this is I know personally in my own life experience, having been a high performer yet trying to mask all of these addictions and seeing that also happening in other people who are high achievers, high performers, you wouldn't know. From the outside looking in, and I think one of the very difficult parts about that, and this was from my experience, I didn't really have anybody to pull me the side and smack me in the face and be like, what the fuck are you doing, man? And I'm just wondering What were the people around you saying? Is this just so hidden that nobody knows? Or are people trying to intervene with you? What's the relationship like with your children, with your partner? What was happening in that time? Because it seems to me like it would almost be impossible for people not to notice.

Chris: That's what was tricky. I had a lot of fun friends, right? Like I had fun friends

Michael: Yeah, sure.

Chris: As young parents drinking in, and this was back in 2007. So we didn't have mock tales. We didn't have all these sobriety groups. Nobody was talking about having, being alcohol free as a health trend. It was just, you're either a, you have an alcohol problem or you drink socially. And so that was really difficult for me to figure out like, why was I the only one that seemed like I couldn't do this and wake up and feel fine and just have fun with it like other people. And I even, I write this in the book, I even coached myself to chill out, take a sip. Don't be such a perfectionist, right? I was like coaching myself the opposite way. So I did. I asked my pastor about it. I asked my doctor about it. I asked a good friend about it. And all those people said, and I hired a therapist and asked that person about it. And they all said, Oh, you don't have a problem. Maybe a tendency, but not a problem. And so I don't know if I just was asking the wrong people, but it, my husband, I think it just didn't, it was about to show up in a big way on the outside. I think a lot of. Those very obvious things would have started happening. And by the grace of God my, my husband knew it was like, okay, yes, now I agree with you now. I finally agree. You do need to stop. And, but that was the only person. And because I was drinking at home while I was cooking for the kids. Nobody sees that. And so I would have these rules for myself if we were out with friends, like I would just have one or just have that if you're having trouble with alcohol, that becomes very hard to do it was a full time job, just trying to moderate my alcohol intake. Finding this community and knowing I never had to have another drink again was a huge relief for me. Some people enter recovery and hear, I never get to have another drink again, and that's fine too. We all enter when we enter, but for me it was, I don't have to because it was exhausting. And I was very relieved and willing to accept help and sobriety's been It gave me my life. So to this day, my kids have never seen me drunk. My they've never, they were babies, so they didn't know that struggle I was going through. Yeah, I got to raise my kids. I got all these wonderful things happened in sobriety. I started writing books. I went back to school and got my coaching certificate, it was great.

Michael: It's interesting me, it's interesting to me how addicts will do anything within their power to justify the thing they're addicted to, like setting rules. I had rules too for all of the crazy shit I was doing. It was like, there's a rule. As long as I don't break this rule, it's fine. Even though I'm destroying my life. And it's interesting because those are the same parameters of the rules that, that we interpret in childhood as who we are, belief systems, the indoctrinations, the enmeshments, the groomings of who we ultimately become. And it's there were rules in place that laid the track for you to become this. And I have this wildly insane realization. One day I was probably like 27, 26 or 27 and I was sitting in my room and I had just started doing the work. I'd had my rock bottom at 25 I was going to therapy but still bullshitting the guy and just paying him a bunch of money. Cause I was like, I don't know, it was better than nothing. I guess had not really told the truth to anyone in my life and I was sitting in my room and I was like, Having this crazy moment of realization where I looked at all of the chaos of my life, the chaos of my money, the chaos of my health, the chaos of my relationship. And in that moment, I realized I was like, Oh, you've just recreated your whole childhood. But the rules I put in place. justified it that's the thing that we do when we are people who come from, and trauma isn't always like what happened to me. Sometimes trauma is what happened to you, pressure expectations, not enoughness. And then you go and recreate that. Cause, because subconsciously we assess the environment that we create as normative and what do we want as human beings? We need homeostasis and normality so that we feel safe. The craziest part of that. And this is why I always yell at my clients when they say this is we believe that thriving in chaos is safety. And then one day you go, wait a second, that's fucking stupid. And so I'm just so curious cause I can't help but think about this. Like in these moments when you're having these conversations, was it really so cut and dry as I went to this support group, I had this awakening, I changed my belief and then everything was different. Was it that like cut and dry or was, cause for me it was a fucking war. The next four years of my life, I was like going to battle. So what was that like for you?

Chris: Yeah, the war happened for me before that meeting. I was at war. I was just battling by myself and asking people and wasn't really getting anywhere. So it, that belief that I told you about going from being a monster to being a worthy woman, does that deserving of recovery, that did change in an instant. It wasn't all unicorns and daisies after that, because of course your body's addicted to alcohol. So it's going to take time, right? For me, it was 90 days. I just remember that first 90 days being really I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin, but it, for me, it wasn't so much physically. I'm very active. So I like to, Run and stuff. I think that helped a lot. It was in my mind it and it was exactly what you said about this when we've grown up and normalized chaos like I grew up as someone who was constantly living in my head. I had no idea how to relax like all through college. My friends didn't understand how I'd have always been very social at a lot of girlfriends. They could. Wake up have their coffee relax. I was just wake up at six o'clock and hit the ground running I just didn't know, I got sober you hear a lot of the word serenity, right? So this people are talking to me about serenity and I am so confused I have no idea what that meant I started to feel really bored and I realized You I, it's not, I didn't just drink when I was bored. I did all kinds of things when I was bored because I hate being bored. I used to in the past, I hated being bored because didn't think it was normal. And so I would, Eat or run or drink alcohol or like lots of other things too, just to not feel my feelings. And they explained to me, I said, I'm bored. They said, that's serenity. So it was not, then I got it. I was like, Oh, okay. It's okay to normalize I don't always have to be creating chaos just to feel normal. And then my head freed up there was a lot of room for other stuff for I never understood why people drink tea. I drink espresso and I still drink espresso, but I didn't understand. I didn't understand yoga. I didn't understand tea. I didn't understand any of these things that my friends seem to be enjoying. And. After probably not right away, but after about a year of sobriety, I started understanding, downtime and I didn't get what self care was and then I was like, Oh, okay, self care for, cause I was doing things on the outside. Take, I take care of myself, but for me, self care now is my mental state. What am I taking time to be bored or to relax or to read a book. I used to feel guilty for reading books, was a big shift for me.

Michael: Yeah, I relate. The literal thought I'm having as you're talking about this just now. I'm like people who grew up in a high pressure situations, whether from parent parental or from environment, me, it was environment. If we don't make it through this, we die. Like literally there's. That's not that's not hyperbole. It's you got to fucking show up every day into chaos, or you might not make it. Some of my friends are proof of that. Some of my family are in prison for life and I cannot help, but remember these moments where it was like people like, dude, you are so fucking high strung all the time. Why can you never chill out? Why can you never relax? Why are you always running two companies? Why? And that might be true even today in some capacity, but much, much more Tone down, I will say, and I realized it was, I was sitting on a ferry crossing islands in Thailand when I was like 31 and it was the first time in my whole life. I felt relaxation. I was like, Oh, this is the thing that people are always talking about, ‘cause I didn't understand it either. I was like, you're reading books, you're fucking wasting time. Like you're taking a nap. What is wrong with you? Loser. And I would have these, I wouldn't say this to people, but I have this internal dialogue about it. And I came to realize no, the loser was me. Cause I wasn't taking time to be connected to myself to peace, to serenity, as you just laid out. And that's such a difficult bridge to cross and what's so interesting in the same way that alcohol is a depressant So is weed was always my drug of choice and it was like what is we do? If you're a high strung Overachieving multiple business running mom raising three kids chaotic environment running all the time. Blah blah blah It pulls you down It takes the edge off. And so it's yeah, if that's the thing we're seeking, going back to this idea of freedom, it's like the drugs, the alcohol, the orgasms, the money spent it all is in the seeking of that thing. But what's so interesting and what we're, what we've been talking about, obviously is there's like a price to pay for this. There are what I like to call the taxes and the taxes have to be paid like whether you like it or not There's something coming on the backside of every one of the decisions that you make and the decisions you are even making today are tied in directly to your future, whether you like it or not. And I know one of the things that you talk about that's so beautiful is that you have to choose commitment over this craving and the craving interject anything we're addicted to. We all got our things. I got my things too. But it's like you interject that. So how do you start to change that commitment, especially biologically from a chemical perspective, from a embodied perspective, like I am literally addicted to this. And then from the mental emotional perspective, what is the transition of this commitment and taking the cravings, putting them where they're supposed to be, not leaning into the impulse, but instead directing yourself.

Chris: Great question. Have a supportive community before that, though, the number 1 thing, and this is so fundamental fund fundamentals are key, right? This doesn't have to be coaching self help. It doesn't have to be rocket science. The having a why so know why you want what you want at this point in my sobriety, knowing why I want to. I don't want to drink is far more important than me figuring out why I did drink, I've already done that work. Great. I know some reasons I drink I get it. I need to constantly every day Read my why of why I don't drink. Okay. And so that is all that and a supportive community for support and accountability, letting people other people. You're not the only 1 and you can't. rationalize and talk yourself into things, those two things are going to get you through the cravings. Because even if you say you're just starting on this journey, it's going to take a while. It's going to take 30 days or 60 days or 90 days. It could take longer. Every body is different, right? So when that craving hits, if you don't know why you committed to who you want to become, then will win. Addiction is a beast. It will win 100 percent of the time. we're smarter than our addiction though. We're smart, I'm smarter than alcohol, but I just have to remind myself of that. And so I have to remind myself that vision of who I want to become. Who is the sober person? Why? Why am I choosing sobriety? And then when the craving hits, get in your community and remind you and know your why.

Michael: Let's say that someone has those things and yet they keep falling off and they keep making mistakes and they keep, they're so trapped in the shame spy spiral. And it's even though they're taking 1 step forward, they're taking a million steps backwards. That was my experience from 26 to 30. I was like, holy shit, dude, like you're doing all this work, and I kept just being like, for what? At 39, I have a very different understanding of the, for what, like it's very clear, oh yeah, that work eventually pays off. It's really hard to see the future in the present, and even though we're trying to pull the future into now, that's not where we're at. If you're looking at a 100,000 debt, 150 pounds overweight, being sick all the time, alcoholism, being an absentee parent, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on and on. It's really hard to see 14 years later, 10 years, five years, even a year later. So when people are making these commitments. And they're falling off. What do you give them? What is the mechanism? What is the framework or function that they can leverage to just keep going? Really, I guess is the question. Like, how do you just keep going?

Chris: Leverage is the key word there. So if it's too far out to, and I get that if it's too far out to see who you want to become 150 pounds later, or like day at a time is a great way to live right. One hour at a time. But the get leverage on yourself or have a supportive friend hold you accountable to having this leverage of, if you're not going to look at who you want to be, look at, ask yourself, what is the cost of not making this change, write it down, tell a friend, like condition that in your brain. And so we operate, at a On pain and pleasure. So associated with the pain, the cost of not getting clean or sober or losing the weight or whatever it is not getting where you want to go, because people change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. We constantly, I do, at least I constantly have to be asking, yeah, some like doing what we want to do and getting where we want to go can be really hard for us achievers. Sometimes it's fun and easy, so we don't think about it as much, but when it is hard, then we go, Oh yeah, I don't, this feels hard. So it must not be what I'm meant to do. This must not be my path. That's not necessarily too. So we true. So we want to ask ourself, what's the cost of not doing it and sit with that.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, no pun intended, a very sobering reality check. Because it's you, we can predict our future. Yeah. Like you show me your actions today I will unequivocally tell you what your future is going to look like. And you hear people say that, especially in this silly personal development world, right? But it's so true. It's like the work you're putting in the harvest that you will reap is going to be Entirely based on the things that you do today and one of the things I think is so interesting is and I want to go back to this for a second You were talking about this idea about rules of addiction And I'm like, okay, cool. So if we can set rules and addiction which we talked about because we both have done this and so probably many of the people listening, how do you create rules and standards for the life you actually want? That's for me where my life changed values standards like I don't want to get up at fucking six o'clock in the morning, 5:45. I hate it, but I do it. I don't want to go to the gym every day. I hate it. But I do it. I don't want to eat clean. Do you know my favorite thing in the world? Chris, my favorite, you don't know. Cause I never told you my favorite thing on planet earth. Is to sleep in till about 11, get high, eat some gummy bears, order a pizza, play video games, probably hook up with a stranger, or watch porn, go spend my money on shit I don't need, not talk to my brothers, don't go to the gym, eat ice cream and pizza again for dinner, go to the gym, Get high again, probably go out with my buddies for some drinks, wake up, rinse and repeat.

Chris: And I love that. I love that you are saying that I say that in the book and I work with clients like tell me I love how you just said that with no shame. You are there. You have no shame in saying that. And that's what I want people to know. Just because we want certain things. All that says about us is that we're human, right?

Michael: Exactly.

Chris: Just what I would like, what I work with people to do and where I'm going with the book is I also want people to take that a step further and say, Okay, great. Michael, I want you to be happy and have all the things you want. I want you to have the life you want. And I can see that brings you happiness. you do that the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day, where's your happiness level going to be then? And is that what you want? Probably not. So that is going back to getting leverage on yourself. pain and pleasure and asking, what is the cost of not doing this? And then walking people forward, like fast forward through the outcome. It, which one's going to be more fun? Probably having more like in the moment. Yeah. That's more fun as a lifestyle and a lifetime of fun. Which one do you think is more fun?

Michael: Yeah. And that, and what's so crazy is you've got to recognize you're chasing dopamine and oxytocin and all of these feel good chemicals in those moments. And it's instant gratification, which I would argue addiction is probably worse than it's ever been just because we're walking around with fucking addiction devices in our hands. And you think about this and that life that I just laid out, like that was literally my life. Go look at me 18 to 25. That was my life. That's how I ended up hitting rock bottom. And then really what you just laid out, I was like, is this who I want to be? Like, if I fast forward my life and my future on my deathbed, and this was before I was having these personal development things and self help wasn't really in my life. And I was just like, I don't want this shit. This is gross. You're not living up into any potential. And so my why initially was. See if you can just do it. Just see if you can change your life. That's where it all started. Just see what would happen. And then came the rules and the standards and those rules and standards. That was what elevated me. That's where life really shifted. If people don't have rules and standards in their life first, I'd love for you to define them. Cause I think that there are two different things. What is a rule? What is a standard? And then two, how do people create these or find them?

Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I used to make rules in addiction. Like you said, right? I had spreadsheets my drinks, right? 

Michael: Of course you did. Get a good high performer.

Chris: Yeah, for something different? And so these rules and standards what we just talked about, I call that the bigger one, right? Yes, I don't want to have pizza and gummies and all that same things you do, but I want ice cream. I would love to have ice cream every day. And I, that, so yeah, that's something I want. I don't want though, is, I also want, my bigger want is a lifestyle where I have energy and I feel good and I'm not, don't have brain fog and so it's not that I don't eat ice cream, but I don't eat it every day. As much as I want, right? So that's how you weigh the bigger one and the smaller one is what's the bigger want, right? It's we're going to want lots of things in life, but what do we want the most? What is the lifestyle we want? Who do we want to be? Who do we want to become? So that in mind, when I'm looking at rules and standards, I'm thinking of when I say rule, I'm thinking of when we set it. This bigger one, this goal for ourself what rule did I put in place for reaching that goal? So if my standard is, oh, let's say my standard is to feel happy. Let's just make it easy. My standards to, to feel happy and have a lot of friends. What is the rule that I made for myself for achieving that standard? If the rule is they have to be a certain type of friends. They have to be friends that maybe I've set these rules. Like these friends have to like me. These friends have to do X, Y, and Z. Now I'm making these rules and those rules are what? are important to look at because those rules have nothing, are not in my, within my control. Those are in the control of those other people, right? So I, if I set standards and the rules I have for those standards are outside of my control, then I've set a standard. I'm setting myself up for failure because I had set a standard I won't be able to achieve. Maybe I will, but that would be luck. It's a gamble. I work with people to have rules change the rules. I'm big on to the outcome and tweak the tactics. Tweak the strategy. Don't ditch the whole outcome. People, high achievers especially, will, if they don't get the outcome, they think That they wanted or that they set for themselves. They think, Oh, I wasn't meant to get it. And they'll ditch the whole thing when really we just need to take the strategy and tweak that it's like in rock climbing. You have my son's a rock climber and you get to the, you commit to getting to the top. the route on the way is called a problem. So you have the problem has to be reworked depending on the weather. physical ability, all kinds of things. And those are the rules that you have to adjust the rule, the strategy or the tactics to get to your commitment. Don't throw in the towel before the miracle happens though, as they say, right? Don't it before you get, because a lot of times it's just that two millimeter shift. It's just like you're 98 percent of the way there. And then a high performer will throw in the towel because they think, ah, of just tweaking the strategy for getting there.

Michael: And I, my thesis behind why that happens is because that shame starts to creep in. Oh, you didn't hit a home run, shameful. And I'm like, yeah, you might give it 90 days. Maybe give it 180 days. Maybe give it a year. Yeah. Because there were moments and times like I had raised my standard and set rules in my life at 26. Don't be a fucking asshole. Take care of the people in your life. Don't get drunk every day. Don't get high. Don't go cheat on your girlfriend. Don't. There was a lot of don'ts, right? There were some dues, right? There was like, go to the gym, do yoga, meditate, therapy. Personal development books, blah, blah, blah, work on the business, work on myself. And it was like, I would set these rules. I had these standards and I would fuck up. I'm like, I would just fuck up. I was just human. And I think one of the problems is so many people hold themselves. To the identity of the standard that when they lose it, when they don't hit that goal, when it isn't always a hundred percent, because it's not, and I wish people could learn to let go. Now they're less than they don't matter. They're back in the shame spiral. And now we're back at the beginning of the conversation, but there's something about the power of. In the letting go, which is a word that I'll use that I know that you use a lot in grace. And I think that is the thing that gives you ultimately above all that freedom, because I've come to realize, even though I would love to be the most unbelievably perfect in alignment, spiritual, great, unbelievable man that I believe in my head, that I am and that I most often will be. Sometimes I fuck up. Because I'm a person and sometimes I fuck up bad and sometimes I fuck up just moderately, but like it happens. And I've learned to leverage that word, that choice. Cause I believe it's a choice in a decision to give oneself and others grace. And that is why I can still keep going. So I'm wondering from your perspective, like what does grace mean? And if grace is this thing about favor and giving to oneself, how do you navigate grace in this conversation of these moments of learning while also navigating the shame that probably still exists for most people.

Chris: I don't think grace and shame can co exist. I think grace is unmerited favor. it is whatever your spiritual background or whoever's listening, whatever their spiritual background is for me, it's my creator has extended grace, meaning I am loved no matter what I'm loved at my worst, I'm loved. And I think once we work with that, like it, it, when you were just talking and you said, I'm doing this and then I fuck up. That, like it, I'm worked so much with people and the language, it just, it stung because I think says you fucked up? You're saying you fucked up. What did you actually do? Like I wouldn't be unpacking that and going is that a fuck up or are we just shifting the strategy a little bit here, right? So I think when we really understand grace that we are you have been loved from the time you were the womb. Okay. You were valuable. You're worthy. We all have different upbringings. Yours, yours was chaotic. There was a lot of stuff, a lot of things from the outside being thrown at you, telling you, you are not worthy. You're not valuable. And you're just a little boy. So how are you supposed to understand how, right? But now you're an adult and you, So it's not wrong that we had shame, it's not wrong that we thought these things, or that we did what we needed to do to survive and then acted out in the way we did. That is not wrong at all. Now that we're grown ups, though, and we know better, it's just we get to ask ourselves, is that what I want? Is that like we talked about? Is that the lifestyle I want? No, you've answered that for yourself. No. So now you're doing this shirt. Some of those little ones. Sure. It'd be great to have gummies and eat pizza and all that. But what your bigger want is the life you're living right now. So, you're doing it, you over time, as you grew up, came to learn that are valuable. You are worthy no matter what. And it's not because, became this man that you are now, you were, even if you didn't, even if you were sitting in jail or you passed away from an addiction, that doesn't make you any less worthy or valuable. It's just that once people understand that, actually, it's, we don't really want to be stuck in an addiction. We don't really want to wake up hungover. We don't really want those things. If we're really honest with ourselves, we just think we're not worthy of the life we want. So understanding grace, being able to accept it is fuel to go after the life we really want. And so did that answer your question? I could go on and on about grace.

Michael: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things and the reason I keep asking you to define what these things mean is because I'm a fervent believer in that words carry power, but that power is inherently based on our own definition of what that means. So you hear fucked up and you have this experience. I say it, I have a completely different experience, right? And so I think the biggest thing for people is to recognize this isn't ubiquitous, like we all have to choose what things mean and interpret their meaning and their impact into our life as the individual. And that's one of the things that again, ties to this idea of freedom, because you have to, in some sense, be a trailblazer in your own life, take the advice, take the information, do with it as you please, but ultimately it's you're the one in control, the way that you shape your narrative, the way that you decide who you're going to be to give yourself grace or compassion and set your rules and eliminate shame from your life and understand all of the dominoes that have fallen to this moment. That is the thing that makes you human. And I love what you said about knowing that you are loved and worthy just because you exist. Yes. It's And I will add an and as an asterisk to this just because this is my own personal experience. It's yes, because obviously, but it's also like a lot of self worth comes through the actual showing up. I don't know a lot of people who are down in their worst moment who feel worthy. And it, and for me, that didn't shift until I started showing up. And so I'm wondering, and I want to stay in this for a second, did worthiness shift for you in your own life when you started showing up for yourself?

Chris: That's really good. Yeah, that's what came first, the chicken or the egg. Do we figure out, yeah, do we figure out how to get shame off us and then show it all goes hand in hand. I, for me, it was back to that. When the shame flew off in that first meeting, when somebody said, it's not your fault. That for me in that moment was the shift where I could it was like a fit. Like I physically felt like before that someone had been pushing down on my shoulders. I just felt small. And in that moment, I felt like all of that lift off like, I do lots of hard things. I've had three kids. I'm raising babies. I do a lot of hard things. I can do this. wasn't it because I felt like I wasn't worthy of it or I felt like I just didn't think I could. I think but now. would never have happened if I didn't look that meeting up on the internet and showed up. The subtitles of both my books are how to show up for the life you want and how to show up for the sober life you want, because I'm huge on that. If we don't, you have to show up, not just when you want to, you have to show up when you don't want to, and then things happen. So I think it's a…

Michael: Yeah,

Chris: It's, there's, magic formula.

Michael: right. Which is why I'm doing a podcast with you and not playing video games and eating gummy bears right now. That said, thank you so much for this space and this time and it's been a very powerful and potent conversation and my hope is that people will take some gems out of this and recognize there's a path to this journey. Before I ask you my last question, where can everyone find you and especially learn about the new book?

Chris: chrisjanssencoaching.com is my website. I keep that updated with everything, all the things I'm offering and where to find me, how to get the books. You could buy the book right there. Also grace yourself. book. com is we've got a limited amount of VIP upgrade packages available, and they're available just between now and launch day. So I wrote a workbook, I'm doing workshops, I did a master class, all kinds if, I'm encouraging people to please pre order the hard copy. And if you pre order in bulk, you get all these other good things too. I can come, I can do a book club with your group. It's all detailed out on graceyourselfbook.com or my website, chrisjanssencoaching.com.

Michael: Amazing. And folks, remember, go to never said folks on this podcast. I have no idea why I just said that. Keep that in guys. Remember, go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com. Look up Chris's episode for that and more in the show notes. That must have been my Indiana coming out. We'll have to work on that in therapy. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Chris: I love this title and broken. I don't believe the second sentence of my first book is you are not broken and you don't need fixing. I just think we're whole people and shit happens and there's all kinds of stuff and that's what makes life and interesting. I don't know if always fun, but interesting for sure. and being unbroken is accepting that and knowing that and being a nation, as you call it, of people, of like minded people who believe we're worthy.

Michael: Yeah, I could not agree more. You are, there's a little bit of proving in there cause you got to, cause that's how we build confidence. But if you're willing to show up for your life, your life will show up for you. Thank you so much for being here. My friend, unbroken nation. Thank you guys for listening. Please share this with someone. If you found it impactful because you never know, it might change or save their life. Check me out at Michael unbroken on social. And of course, thinkunbroken.com to learn more about our weekly coaching community. Take care of yourself and each other.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends, Be Unbroken,

I'll See Ya.