Stories of Overcoming CPTSD Through Self-Forgiveness And Growth

Practical Tools to End Suffering and Create Momentum with Jordan Harbinger

Michael: Yeah, that's super powerful. And I think part of it also is perspective and I've heard you say that perspective is a cure-all for anxiety because, on a long enough timeline, you're asking yourself if this is actually going to matter, and if you're doing that, are you measuring progress against day-to-day organs, the long term, you know, with this and especially scenarios like this now, newly happening in your life. What kind of role does perspective play for you today?

Jordan: Tons, man. I know exactly where you're going with this. So this is a combination of sort of two ideas. One, you're thinking about sort of the action and suffering, we can get to that in a second but the other idea on this is zoom out far enough on the timeline and like none of this crap matters, you know what I'm saying, so like okay, kid crumples up photos, zoom out on a timeline, we don't know how far could be two minutes where I just go, I'll straighten them out and then when I scan them, it's a photo of a pyramid and a camel, I don't even care about this, right? Like those are that's the timeline for that but in other timelines are really intense like your business got torpedoed and you lost your job, your wife lost her job and now you're starting over and you're going to lose your house. Well, that's not okay, and next week it's not going to be okay and next month, it's probably not going to be okay next year, will it be okay? Maybe? What about a couple of years from now, even if it's not completely, okay, it's certainly going to be better than it is right now in the moment when you're dealing with that. So I try to sort of zoom out far enough on the timeline mentally and realize okay, five years ago, I went through this thing and I thought I would like, never get over that. And now I'm mostly or completely over it, all right!

So let me jump ahead in the timeline and realize I'm not over it now because I'm in the thick of it, but eventually I will be over it which means I can almost act accordingly, right? Like, oh my God! I lost a million dollars on this stupid thing, and now I'm going to lose my retirement, I have to retire five years later, that's not good but you're going to survive, it's going to be fine, you're probably gonna be able to make a lot of it back, it's probably not as bad as you think, you've been through similar situations before that all makes you realize that you are, it's kind of like the everything is going to be okay. It's not always going to be the way that you want it to be but zooming out that far on the timeline is help me with so many stressful situations. If I get screwed over by somebody or if I hit a business hurdle, I just looking to go. All right! I've gone through like, three, four, five of these in my past. I'm 41. There's going to be more. They always suck but it's always completely fine. Now, there are some events that are not going to work out, like if you lose a child, you're always going to miss that child, but the pain won't be as acute as it is at the moment. You know, if something really horrible happens, you lose someone dear to you, it that's always going to change things, the pain is always more acute at the moment. So realizing that you can get through things, sounds simple, but it really you really do have to focus on that timeline because otherwise, it's really easy for your adrenal system to snap you back into fight or flight, pay attention to every second of his pain, kind of situation. And what you're trying to do is say, okay, I'm going to plan this out. You're almost snapping into a logical mode, you're not trying to withhold your emotions or bury them, you can deal with them, I deal with ideally with a therapist, if it's bad enough as you need to but you also need to like stop, knocking and waking up at 3 a.m. with when a cold sweat because you have made a bad investment or because somebody stole something from you. You know what I mean, that's not helping anyone.

Michael: Yeah, that's super powerful. And I've had this notion recently about this idea of time is now. I was at a restaurant and you put your name, you put the time and I just started writing. Now I have no idea why other than I was thinking like, why the fuck am I worried about tomorrow? Why am I worried about yesterday in the mistakes that I've made went at today right now in this moment is actually the only thing that I have control over, and you led me into my lead to you which is action and suffering. Dude, I am such a big proponent of that. I found myself at.

The Unbroken Nation, the audience knows they've heard this story 350-pound, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep work in the corporate America job, found myself a rock bottom, 11 years later. Now, I'm an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, coach people around the world, and back again and I swear the only way that happened is action and I think that hearing you say action and suffering is such a big proponent of that and I heard those words from you. So I wanted to say thank you for that, in the case of this journey been such a big deal. Why is that so important to you? Like what was the catalyst to come to that with yourself?

Jordan: Sure. So this wasn't something where I was like I read it in a clever self-help book or anything. This was one of those hard-won lessons where I was like; okay, so what happened was, I had a podcast in a business, a training company and I run it for 11 years, and over time I'd been doing like pretty much all the work I had a lot of teams, they were great, I worked with a lot of amazing people, but the people I had brought in as partners years and years before, it’s Thursday at 2:00 p.m., they're not answering their phones anymore, they're going out for, they want weeks and weeks off, they're not adding to the bottom line, they need raises because they have a credit card and debt. I'm like, okay, I'm saving money, I'm getting married, I want to have kids, I'm saving up for a house, these guys are like, hey, we have 30k in credit card debt, we need a raise and I'm like, this isn't working like we're paying more in taxes because you need more income.

So there were a lot of little disputes and we had an amicable split worked out, and then they just went, we're not going to honor this, we're not, we're just not going to honor it and then I was like, you know what? I have to start over on my own and do the Jordan Harbinger show and just not worry about it. Because when I talk to people, that what you might call mentors and guys that have sort of been there and done that and business, they were I know you think it's a big loss, just start over and move forward. Sue him or whatever but don't get bogged down in the suit, get to work moving forward and that was awesome advice, that's exactly what I did. But then my former partner sued me because they were like, wait, you weren't supposed to move on and be successful without us. So they tried to, well, they did file a lawsuit, it didn't go well for them and but it took a long time and it was expensive, it was much more expensive for them but that was a that's another story for another time. That's what happens when you sue lawyers, it gets expensive for you. So but I had been waking up for the first couple of weeks after the split and I was like, how am I going to restart this thing that I created over 11 years on my own like is the timing wrong, you know, I'd started in 2006 when podcasting was like new. Can you build a big podcast now? Are people going to find me? Do I have what it takes to do this on my own? Like all these questions, but it wasn't like, all right. I've got this. I was Oh my God! I'm screwed, and then, I'd wake up at 2, a.m. to go to the bathroom and I wouldn't be able to sleep again, and I'd be like, my heart's pounding. What is going on? And I went to the doctor because my wife was like, dude, you never sleep anymore, like I lost a bunch of weight, and so I went to the doctor and they're like, oh, your blood markers, everything's good. What's going on in your life? And I started talking about what was going on and they like, bro, you're having like literal, what sounds like panic attacks at night and I'm like, I don't fit. No, I'm not panicking. I'm just thinking about all these things that I have to do and I'm thinking about all these issues that I'm dealing with doing within like, yeah, it's called anxiety. Don't know if you've heard of it and I'm like, no, no, no your miss your misunderstanding, I'm worried but it's not like I'm freaking out. I'm just waking up and I can't go back to sleep but my heart's racing and they're like Hello Google freaking anxiety, you dumbass, this is what you have. And then, of course, many doctors are like here's pills, and I'm like no, no. Humans deal with anxiety. I don't need pills. I'm not having suicidal ideation. I'm not like, I don't have any issues with my body right now, we will monitor my blood panel, and you know, my blood and what is it, like, gut panel, you know, monitor the stuff that says, hey, you're killing yourself like, make sure that's not happening but I just started walking more outside. I started talking to friends more. I made sure I had social contact every single day even if it was like a 12-hour, 16 hours, super busy day. I would do like 30 minutes or 20 minutes or fifteen-minute call with a friend that helped a lot, but the action and suffering thing was I felt like I had so many things to do that you ever made a protein shake in a blender and the top comes off and everything in your disciple.

There goes my afternoon, right? Cause you're cleaning like frickin whey protein out of the lights, that's what I felt like my life was at that time and the energy had nowhere to go as like every day I'd wake up and it would be like (sounds) and I'd be all over the kitchen and I'd be like, oh! I gotta clean this up and I'm cleaning up all these little things, I got to start a Twitter account, I gotta open bank accounts, but then, I was all right.

Instead of freaking out about all this stuff because there's so much, I just sat down and I made a plan, it was like a hundred things that I had literally that I had to do. And I made this huge ass list with my wife and when I made the list, I did a few of them and then I took a glorious nap, and then when I woke up, I did a few more until I was tired, and then the next I went to bed and I slept fine because I was like, well tomorrow I'm going to do this and I'm probably out of time about here and I just started knocking everything down. And as I did that, my business was building up and I just rebuilding things and getting things back on track and I was like; Wow! Look, making a plan, great insight, jack off, why am I listening to you about this? Seriously, though? Like, if you have no plan of the plans only in your head, that's a huge problem because your head is going, well, maybe you should move this over here, but about that. Oh! But when you do this thing, don't forget about that, but if you write everything down and you're just knocking them down and then you think of something new, you just add it to your to-do list, there were hundreds of things on this list over the last few months or over the first few months of rebuilding the Jordan Harbinger Show, and as I knock them out, I felt better as opposed to feeling worse, which is what I felt like before because it would like it was like, pulling weeds, right? I'd pull one out and go.

Oh! Good. I finally did this and I'd be like, there are these three more things I didn't even think of, and I'm up at three, am typing and writing things down, that was miserable, but when I had the action, focus. I was able to focus my energy like a laser beam instead of a blender and that was really, what made me feel like instead of when, what is me, how am I going to do it? It was like, okay, we had a major setback, but I'm on my feet and I'm walking and I'm warming up to a run again.

Whereas before I was just kind of rolling around in the mud, that's really what it was. I was gaining, no ground, even if I was gaining ground, it didn't feel like it because I didn't have any sort of sense of a map of the territory and it didn't feel like I had forward momentum.

Creating Hope Through the Power of Storytelling: Insights from Nick Nanton

Michael: Yeah. And there's a lot of gold and what you just said, in the biggest, take away from me, just in that and maybe it's because the last thing that I heard, right? You go, okay, and in reality, the way that you step into creating something powerful is that you have to, for lack of better term, you just got to show up and do it. On the days you don't want to, on the days, you do want to and every single day in between. I mean, that's the same way, I built a podcast, same way I wrote a best-selling book, the same way I've done all the things it's like – I don't want to sit down and write for four fucking hours. I can think of a million better things to do, but it's on the calendar, so you show up. And Nick that kind of leads me into this question that for a lot of people listening right now or watching, they're probably thinking like, man, this Nick guy, he's just one of the lucky ones, he must have everything handed to him. I mean, he's written music, he probably will win a Grammy one day, knows all these celebrities. Why are we even listening this guy right now, but I want to ask you this question because I think it'd be really impactful and beneficial for people to understand something. How much of this journey for you has been about getting out of your own way?

Nick: Oh! Man. I think, and in some ways, every part of it. So I what to share a lot of people as look, first thing when I talk to somebody like, you know either, I don't have a story which there's a whole I could go on a tangent on that for a while but I really need to start, I need to write that book, I need to give speeches but I'm not a great speaker like me, I got a list for me, there's I talk too fast, whatever, there's like I also people, when your mission and your message or more important than your ego, you just get out of your own way and you'll start, because if it's truly mission driven and if you really believe that you have the power to impact a million people or that if you were the one doing everyone's heart surgery as a surgeon, you would say 10% more lives, like – you're not going to worry about your delivery, you're going to worry about. Like I got to just get out there and get started and I got to start, you know, evangelizing for whatever it is, that I'm evangelizing for.

Like me a big thing, like – everyone has a story and everyone has a story that matters, and there's a series of events that led you and me to this moment today and without and not even being hokey about it, if we go back and actually think about those moments like an honor those moments, most of us have things that happen in kindergarten or first or second or third grade things in high school things in college that are driving us right now and we just haven't acknowledged it. Like I talk about it all the time, had a third grade teacher, tell me from the front of class, I was stupid and I was mad about it for a long time, I FedEx or a box of Emmys. She has no clue by the way. I think just having a bad day, and think this for most people, every time she's my mom and the grocery store shelves, that's I'm doing says, I was one of her favorites that, and for years. I've thought a grudge against this lady, but when I think about it, like perhaps, she is one of the people I can say, for sure that like – that drove me to prove to the world like to perform. Now, you got to keep that in a healthy balance because just performing and not enjoying your life or any of that is not healthy for anybody and you shouldn't just be get to run away from demons, but there's these moments that have led us to, to where we are today.

And so much of my like – look getting into emailing a lady at the Emmys for the first time was super uncomfortable. I mean getting on phone calls, sometimes the people you don't know or you don't know where their ideas going to lead and so I've just learned over the years, I mean a lot of its based on I'll my presentation of it is based on my faith, but you could extrapolate it, but I imagine if I want to accomplish the things that are for me, in life, I got to give got elbow room, I got to like stop trying to control everything, I can just got to show up and do the best I can and serve the best they can in the moments that I'm given and so that's what I try to do. And I mean, look, it would be silly for me to say. I don't have any talents or gifts that would be like disrespectful to even to the audience and in the same thing for you. I don't go around bragging about my talents and gifts, but certain things, come easy to me, come easier than other things, certain things I am terrible at.

And so to me, what I've really learned is collaboration like makes this all work. So if I want to accomplish something the best way to get out of my own way, is to go find mentors and people who can help me accomplish those things. And so, I think, what I really want people to take away is like, I'm different, then everybody like we're all different world different in each other, but it was definitely like I didn't have relevance in the business. I mean, I remember when I first started, when I was in music, I read a book that is as born in 1980, right? So I'm not that old but I'm starting to become one of the older ones in a lot of rooms these days but yeah, I'm 41, right?

So when I was like – in the mid 90s as we didn't have, we had like prodigy maybe AOL is coming online, but like there wasn't like you can go find anything you want on the world wide web. And so you would get books, you go to library books, or whatever and there's a book called, all you need to know about the music business by this guy, Donald S past and I think you still love a professor at USC or somewhere out there and like one of the things was like, Hey, if you want to have a career in music, you must have an entertainment lawyer. Well, I got the phone book and I was living in Orlando, there's like maybe three people, listen our entertainment lawyer, but we just had Matchbox Twenty just broke out of Orlando, and Mary three, which is like, there's a little bit of a scene or supposed to be Hollywood East, you know, Disney was building a studio, so it's a few people but like I had to, like call. And as a 15-16-year-old kid would pregnant no money and try to find someone who talked to me because this was my only way, this book says, I got to get an attorney. We just like, you just have to take these steps and they're uncomfortable conversations. I actually end up getting through to one guy and end up in a Bible study within 20 years later, which is funny. I was like – I was able to tell the group like he doesn't know who I am. I'm going to tell you guys, this guy's the real deal, he's a good dude, he took my call when I was 15 and he was Matchbox twenty's lawyer, and he walked me to the next few steps I can take to my career. But all this is all like I am not specialer, that's a terrible word, but I'm gonna is it intentionally, then anybody else here? I have taken, I had taken risks, some of worked out, some have not worked out. I think if the main thing I could tell anyone, if you want to be successful, I mean, self-awareness is huge. I mean, you can't just keep not getting any better or not having the town to do something I expect to be great at it, but I will say, I think an equal dose of perseverance is super helpful because you really only lose the game, when you give up and the rest of it is, you're still in the game.

So again, can sounds really cliché but man, there's no good reason why I should still be writing songs and trying to make it professionally, I just this last year, I've been writing since I was 15 and I'm 41 and I had my first commercial success probably last year and every time I went to Nashville, everyone had many reasons, my employees prior likewise, what's he doing? Like the questionable, like eventually, I did Rudy's documentary Rudy has a phrase tester life until it gives in like that's what I did.

I just kept going until someone gave up and they're like and eventually I got a great enough song and a big artist want to cut it in bubble. So now we have a few million spends on Spotify, but you still make no money from that. So the next step is we make some money and so anyway, hopefully I answered your question, lots of stories in it.

Michael: Yeah, you know, I love it, man. There's so many different ways, I can poke and prod this because I'm just like, yes, I get that. You know, one thing that comes to mind is this idea, really parlaying with what you just said about fortune favors the bold. And I think so much of my experience like this idea of like going back in time tracing all the footsteps to right now. I mean, it's taken me 36 years to get to this moment with you today, you know, and it took a lot of decisions, a lot of failures, a lot of doing things the wrong way. And most importantly, I try to teach this to my coaching clients, I try to bring it into my books, into my public speaking and everything that I do and it's so much about being a part of a collective to be able to create massive change in your life. And I know that you're big on this, you've mentioned, you know Community a couple of times here, but you said something I wrote down one time, you said; we are not self-made, we are community made. Go into that for me because I think it hits home for me in a way that I hope will home for other people.

Nick: Yeah, you know, I heard a few people say that they may be Arnold Schwarzenegger, sort of, got me thinking about this for the first time when it may, I think it was him, he said somebody like, there's this Western culture has the tendency to take any, you and make it singular. So if I say you, we go starting to me, it's about me. And so we have this really singular, focus on ourselves and we're all sort of born self-centered, right? Like I need milk and need food, I need whatever. And so at some point, I think a lot of us lose track of the fact that like whether, I liked the interaction with that third grade teacher or not, she helped shape who I was. And then beyond that people who like my parents, who sacrificed a lot. We were immigrants like to help me and my brother get to University and to get through University and to have food on the table, even if you were forsaken by your parents, let's say and you had to get a job to work, to raise yourself, to where you're like, you probably still had someone who took a chance on you and gave you a job. You probably had someone who modeled some good behaviors for you that you learn how to not recreate a broken past, that broken past that you were brought up in.

So we are the sum of it's funny because you can really break it down into simple as principal of sort of become a hokie self up from school. But you are the some of the nine people you hang out with the most but we are every one of us is the product of what we put into our heads.

And before I met Tony Robbins, I had hundreds of hours when I was training for tennis as a kid, my coach gave me Tony Robbins CDs, and like, you know, Tony Robbins was part of my mindset and then my tennis coach, who was nice enough to give me the pirated CDs, which I've had to apologize to Tony Robbins about that, we are made by our surroundings and by our community, and if you make good decisions, you try to remove toxic people and places from that community, they still do shape you though, by the way, they are part of your upbringing.

So I think it's just a very selfish way of looking at things to say your self made because you're not, I mean you nobody has done everything for themselves their entire life and a lot of times if you think yourself made more people than, you know, did things for you that you just never recognized.

So you probably owe a lot of people think use that you never took the time to think about.

Rise Up from Rock Bottom | Unleashing Your True Potential | with Nada Nasserdeen

Michael: You don't negotiate with yourself but you have, you're f*cking human being. For me it was like I needed a really high extreme, you know? Cause I come from this background where my mother cut my finger off when I'm four years old. I'm a drug addict when I'm 12, I need extremes to like this boulder is gigantic, right? How do you stop negotiating with yourself? 

Nada: I think for me it's really grown with my intuition like we've talked about. If I feel something and I'm excited about something and it's prolonged more than a day, more than two days, more than a week. I don't think about it. You know, the best things that have ever happened for me, were just like on a whim because if you don't take action, you talk yourself out of things. Right. And I know you understand this because of the coaching space as well. And that's why anyone that's listening, if you've ever done coaching or interested in it, that's why coaches say like, make a decision today, work with me in the next 24 hours and we can move forward because if you don't, you're gonna spend the next couple days in the next week being like, oh, should I not? Should I do this? Should I not? So, for me, if I have a feeling that's prolonged, like I don't talk myself out of it, I'm like, done, it's gonna happen, that's what happened with my business after a couple days, I was still thinking about, rise it for you. And I'm like, I'm doing this. That's it. Done. And I never looked back. Same thing when I moved out of state and I came to Vegas by myself, I was like, I had that feeling and I was like, no, I'm moving to Vegas. And I just did it and I won't allow myself to talk myself out of it, because that's where you get in trouble and that's where you're like, but what if, and what if. If something feels good for you, if initially something feels good and great for you, just do it, you'll figure it all out.

Michael: But hold on, you don't understand, every time I do that I f*ck up.

Nada: You'll figure it out. Marie Folio always says everything is figureoutable. And like that's part of the process though, it's like, it's okay to be afraid of messing up and failing. What's not okay is to let that fear sabotage you from moving forward. And I think that's what we're missing in today's world, is that there's this concept of like, I can't be afraid or I can't have negative thoughts, and that's not realistic, we're all human beings, I'm afraid all the time, all the time. I have fear, I have negative thoughts. And so, we need to normalize that like it's okay for you to be afraid. It's okay for you to have negative thoughts. I have crap in my head all the time, but what I've understood is, am I gonna let that dictate my actions? Beliefs, drive behaviors. And I don't want it to drive my behaviors in a way that's gonna hinder and sabotage me.

So, I feel the fear, I have negative thoughts, but then I counter myself and I say, okay, you're okay. It's okay that you have fear, but do you wanna stay stuck or do you just wanna try and go for it? And what's the worst that happens? I always ask myself that question, what's the worst that happens? And is it really the worst thing that can happen to you? You know, and for somebody that's had divorce, that's had loss, you can understand this and appreciate, you've been through a lot in your life, what's the worst thing that can happen and is it the worst thing that can happen to you? 

Michael: Yeah. The worst thing that can, this is my opinion, only the worst thing that can happen to you is you die. That's it. Anything shy of that, there is a solution. You can find your way through it, you know? And I think that's what's so interesting, there is an unlimited number of possibilities in the world. Now look, physics apply, you can't be the first person to try to breathe in outer space like that ain't gonna happen. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, because people, somebody's challenging me right now, they're gonna email me and be like, what about the shut up? It's stupid. Like let's keep it within the laws of physics and reality. But no matter where you're at, whether it's you have hit rock bottom in your business, your relationship, your health, your wealth, your physical being like whatever it is, there's a solution in here somewhere. I'm not saying it's happening overnight like I look at so many of the transformations in my life and it's like decades of work. I mean, I've been doing therapy in my own personal coaching and mentorship for 13 years, and I honestly just now feel like I've taken like a step forward, right? Moving past all of the limitations. And people are like, yeah, but you've been on billboards in New York City and you've written bestselling books. And I'm like, yeah, but you don't understand like every day, like the grinding through the what's better than doing all that other sh*t, getting stoned and playing video games.

Nada: Yeah. And you weren't there, right? Like you didn't start there. You know, we didn't build a business and then overnight be on billboards and get clients and so on and so forth, like, we started from scratch. And I think that is something to really know and for people to hear is like, we started from scratch and if we can start from scratch, you can too. But you gotta manage the fear so that it doesn't cripple you. Otherwise, it's gonna be five years from now and you're gonna be in the same place. It's gonna be 10 years from now, you're gonna be in the same place. And then that's when we build resentment in our life because we never actually just did.

Michael: One of the most heartbreaking things for me about the human experience is knowing, realistically, for some people, it's going to take 25 years to do something that takes 10 minutes. And like that to me is so devastating because it's like, you have so much life in front of you, but we get so stuck in it, so trapped in it. And I think the thing that's missing for people is recognizing like their support out here. And so I'm wondering for you as you were going through, anytime you're building something like it is so hard, building a business is almost impossible, dealing with death, almost impossible. Divorce, almost impossible. What were the mechanisms that you had in your life for support, for growth, for reconciliation, for all the things that have started to pave the path that you are now on? Like what was day one like? 

Nada: For me it was, it was community and mentorship. And I had two, I had direct and indirect. So direct mentorship and counsel were like people in my life, like my cousins, my brothers, that we could lean on, that we can support one another that were my cheerleaders. And then indirect mentor was like podcast and going to conferences and hearing people speak and understanding that there's possibility and watching these people do it and hearing their stories. And when you're able to have both sides of the mentorship, you can understand that, okay, wow, they struggle too. I'm not alone in the process of life, that's the one thing about life is it doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care who you are. You're gonna have death, you're gonna have heartbreak, you're gonna have struggle like they don't, it doesn't care who you are. And so having that mentorship was really important for me. I remember when I first came back, I listened to a podcast, which at the time was called The Art of Charm.

Michael: Jordan Harbinger. He's been on the show.

Nada: Yes. Oh, love that guy. He's awesome. And I just happened to listen to the podcast that day when I came back, that was him and a guy named Cole Hatter. And Cole Hatter was talking about his experience and talking about how make money matter like build something where you can still do great in the world. Right? Like nonprofits, you can still make an impact, but you can still make money and build a life that feels good, right? And that you're proud of. It was just that one podcast that I thought, wow, that's really awesome. And then they had a conference and I was like, I'm gonna go to that conference, and I'll tell you, within a matter of a week, I listened to the podcast, I went to the conference, I saw Cole on stage, I saw Jordan Harbinger on stage, and I just did. I was like, all right, we can make this happen. And they were my mentors and they didn't even know. But they were my mentors indirectly, along with my family, directly who were supporting me and obviously they were closer to me and what was happening, but I was also getting a lot of like coaching and guidance in that way. And then I remember a year later, I sat by Jordan Harbinger and Cole I was like, Hey, I gotta tell you this story and they were like, really? I'm like, yeah. So , that's really what helped me and also, self-compassion. Self-compassion and allowing myself to process, so I let myself process, but I didn't let myself stay there long.

So, there would be days where, you know, I felt really sad and I was like, okay, take an hour to yourself. Take two hours, go watch a movie, go for a walk, and then like, let's jump back in. And then the next day, same thing. Okay, take an hour, take a couple hours, let's jump back in. So, I allowed myself to feel, but I was really intentional about not letting it cripple me.

Discover the Secrets of Mindful Wellbeing | with Hope Pedraza

And one of the things I teach my clients constantly are if you don't cheer for yourself, nobody's going to, and so what did the beginning of that process of stepping into self-love look like, because I love that you pointed to, it's been a process. It wasn't overnight, it's still a process but what were the beginnings of that for you?

Hope: I think first it was, recognizing, I think first it was the physical piece for me and recognizing like how much damage I had done to my physical body. And I think that was probably the initial piece. I'm a function.

Michael: When you say, for clarity, when you say damage, what do you mean?

Hope: Like physical damage, physical damage from the years of disorder, eating behaviors and compulsive exercise and not eating enough and all of that. Like, my immune system was totally shot, my gut had IBS, my gut was shot, my adrenals were like in the toilet, like the physical pieces of me was probably the first realization because again, I thought in my head I'm like, I'm healthy, I'm working out all the time, and I eat healthy food. But I was totally running myself into the ground and I knew that, I knew that it wasn't, I think we all know when we're doing that to ourselves, but I think for me to see the physical evidence, I had run some labs on myself ‘cause I'm an functional nutritionist and so I'd run some labs on myself as part of my training and I'm like, oh crap, this is really bad. So I think the first thing it was, that was a wake up call, and this was, some years after I'd started this initial journey of let me, learn who I am again and all that, seeing it on paper, the physical parts, okay, like I've done some physical damage that I've gotta heal. And then starting that healing process, the physical healing process the physical body starting that was like, okay, I'll change this in my diet and I'll take this supplement, I'm doing the physical pieces, but realizing like you were saying where, you have all these accomplishments, but you're so empty, I felt the same thing when I was doing the physical healing, where I'm like, okay, I'm doing all these physical things and I've cut back on the high intensity workouts or whatever, I'm not running marathons anymore, I'm doing all these things, but I still didn't feel like healed and I still didn't feel, I still feel like there was pieces missing. So for me it was diving into, like inner child work and diving into that realm and uncovering the like mental emotional pieces that were under those layers. So it was something like this, like three step process for me because the physical part for me was easy, ‘cause it's oh, I'm used to taking care of my physical body, I'll just change how I'm doing it but it wasn't fixing the things. So I think understanding that, the physical parts, everything. And I am a firm believer of this, everything that's happening on the physical level and the physical body has its roots in the energetic emotional body and conventional ways of healing, they're not teaching that. And so it wasn't anything that I ever looked at. And so I think that was the other big piece is I come across this girl and I, she was like a spiritual business coach and so I started doing some work with her and there was like a big section in her little prem about in child. And I had never done any of that before, and that for me too has opened a whole other can of worms like crap. There's so much going on down there that needs to come out and this okay, this, and then I start, I feel like I started to chip away at the iceberg there. Okay, this is, I feel like I'm getting somewhere because there's these things bubbling underneath the surface, underneath the physical part that I've haven't touched, like I don't know how to get there, and so I think it was, that was the next step.

Michael: Yeah the inner child work is such a big part of this, my second book is called Eight Steps to Healing Your Inner Child. There it's actually arbitrary, it could have been 37 steps, right? It doesn't matter. But what I realized early on in this journey is that there is a linear impact to all of our experiences, whether we want to admit it or not, and there's a twofold thought process that I have about this, one is you do have to honor a lot of those needs of who it is that you are in that childlike free state, ‘cause that's play, that's excitement, that's joy. A lot of it's love unbridled, right? But then the juxtaposition of it is like you are not a fucking child anymore, right? And so now you're in this really weird place where you have to be able to navigate, how do I play and enjoy life, but how do I also be disciplined and accountable and responsible? Was there anything specific that as you started doing that inner child work became the pendulum swing for you? Was there a moment, was there an experience, was there a memory? Was there an event? What started in that work to shift you to where you are now?

Hope: Yeah. I think it's twofold, I think part of it is understanding how much my upbringing and let me, I just wanna preface this, like this is not me bashing any, anybody or anything or any organizations or anything, because I still have, I'm still from my beliefs, but this is just my experience. I think part of it was, or a big piece of it was understanding how much conditioning I had based on my upbringing. Upbringing, and a very conservative part of the country in the Bible Belt, and how much that affected my view of myself. And my accomplishments and all of that, I think it was a lot of, I had so much like shame and guilt under the surface about a lot of things, like I realized when I was doing this was, years after I'd gotten divorced and realized there was still so much guilt and shame around my divorce that I had never truly fully healed, like it was still under there, and it just went back to my conservative upbringing because in my view, and especially when I got divorced and I was still, I was super young, it was my early twenties, divorced, like the worst thing, it was oh, you're the ultimate center, like your marriage is a failure, you're not supposed to get divorced. And that was still living in me, that guilt and shame around that. So I think the guilt and the shame piece was huge, and I think when I mentioned before and witnessing the women in my life growing up, my mom and my mom be the first one to tell you. She'll admit this too, the women just in a community it's keeping up the facade, right? It's keeping up appearances, it's let's make everything look good and look like you got it all together and all of that, and I still felt that too, and again, it was all these things that had happened because at the time, so when I when I was going through this inner child work, all of this, I feel like all this was foreign to me, like I didn't know all of this stuff was living in me, that I had this guilt and shame about things and my, and understanding like my perfectionist tendencies, it all goes back to that, like seeing how this was modeled and you've gotta look perfect and be the perfect wife and all this. So yeah, I think it was deconditioning a lot of the things that I learned growing up and just how I was raised and this kind of conservative mindset of how things should look and how you should live your life and all these living by the shoulds and what makes you a good person and what makes you a bad person, untangling all of that.

Michael: Was there a part of that in which you had to forgive yourself? 

Hope: Oh yeah totally, I think the forgiveness piece a, for going so long, honestly, it had to been close to 20 years that I was like maybe not 20 years, maybe 15 years that I had been just beating up myself with the, my disordered eating behavior. So forgiving myself for that because the other thing I would think about, like all these things were coming up, all these opportunities that I saw as wasted, like these trips where I was so worried about what we were eating and how I could not eat this and how I could get away with not eating this. I wasted so much of my life growing up and in high school and college, so worried about what I was eating, what I was not eating, and just feeling like I put so much energy into that, that I wasted so much energy in that I missed opportunities to really be present and really enjoy these moments of my life that should have been, just more enjoyable as a kid and as a teenager and in college, and so I think there was like some grief around that part too of I felt that of these feelings coming up, like I feel like I missed out on things, but then reframing that and looking at. The opportunities that came up from those experiences and now working the work that I do as a functional nutritionist, I've worked with people who have, are or have been recovering from disordered eating behavior. So like I'm able to use that as a gift now, but it was definitely a healing process of forgiving myself for that and not and letting go of feeling like a quote wasted, time or energy, whatever, and knowing that time is and it's never wasted, it's just, how you see the opportunities on the other side of that.