This. It is to two seventeen Recovery Podcast with Corey Winfield. Yeah,
it's hard right now. It's tough, it sucks. You want to crawl
a hole and die. But this could be the best thing that's ever happened
to you. Justin Burke, Then we actually take better care of her than
our plants or you're talking about Susan. You're back on that. Yeah,
and Mitchell old Brian, I watered all of the plants, all of them.
It is the eighteenth of March twenty twenty four. My name's Cory Winfield,
and this is the two seventeen Recovery podcast. Justin Burke in the North
studio. How are you fabulous? Mitchell ob Oh, Mitch isn't here.
Yeah, ms is coming though. That's why I did the whole Mitchell O'Brien
thing. But the special guest, though, is not that you're not special,
Justin. I'm glad that you hear today. But a very special guest
joining us on the phone is Patrick Jones. Patrick, how are you.
Yeah, I'm doing amazing. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm
looking forward to converciation with you. Yes, and we talked last week.
We'll just make it fair to everybody listening and did a podcast yesterday. I
was talking to Marny about it, and you send me a message because you
have a website, And first of all, you're a person in recovery,
right you identify like that, you know, I don't. I actually identify
myself as a free man. Ah, here we go, which is a
different take on it, really, but it's a right away, right,
Well, thanks for calling it. No, just joking, No, but
that's that's a different way to think about it. But others could call it.
I mean, other people can call you whatever they want to call you.
You know, that's their business. But yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, but you changed your life. Yeah yeah, and recovery
was part of that journey, I will say absolutely part of it. That's
what I That's what I wanted was to recover, Like that was my only
mindset, was there? Right, So that is an absolute part of the
process for anyone out there that's looking looking to recover. That is the first
step. So you were just sitting on the couch, just lost your job
as a paper boy, like, like, what happened? What made you
decide? All right? And I got a change, and I think there
was some medical stuff with you as well. But we'll get into whatever you
want to. But what made you decide, Okay, I need to change
some things. Yeah, that's a good question. So just for context purposes,
Frank, when this listening, I for fifteen years I battled with multiple
addictions. There wasn't just there wasn't just one that spiraled. It was multiple
sprout at the time. So when I stopped one, I would I would
go to another one. The main core was food. I was a food
addict. I used food to numb myself. Whenever I didn't want to feel
something, whether it was my kids, whether it's with stress or work,
I immediately went to the only thing that I knew that would comfort me,
which was food multiple times a day, three to five times a day.
And I found a way to relieve that through bolidia actually, so that I
didn't have to feel like guilt anymore. And then all of a sudden,
it was like, oh my god, I don't have a problem anymore because
I feel good. So I reset myself by doing that. But to answer
your question, there was a fifteen year battle really from two thousand and twenty
fifteen, and it was a battle of my mind it was my mind that
was telling me that, you know, you're a crappy dad, You're not
good enough. But I really what was going on it was that I'm not
enough. Like there was this driving narrative that I'm bad, I'm not good,
I'm not enough, and that context, that mind narrative played every day
that kept me into self sabotage behavior. And it wasn't until two thousand and
fifteen after I was thrown in treatment centers and we talked about this a little
bit, but I was thrown in multiple different labels and identities that I said,
I am this, I am this, psychiatric disorders, all these things
that in my gut I knew I wasn't. In my heart, I wasn't.
I wasn't born this way. But like I couldn't figure out a way
out. And so it wasn't until twenty fifteen that I was diagnosed legally blind
and I was working still coaching. I've been coaching twenty years all but the
types of coaching and training with people in different levels, and I was coaching
at the time I was working for as a sports trainer and as a health
coach, and I could no longer see over six months, my eyes deteriorated.
Even with corrective contacts and also with glasses, I no longer could see
to the point where there was a moment I was in denial that there was
a problem in my eyes. And I remember I was driving home one night,
and I remember I saw the cross rock and I thought to myself,
just speed and go past it. And all of a sudden, I went
past it this one night, and in that moment I almost hit somebody and
my At that moment, I felt like wow, like I must have a
freaking problem. I need to get some help. So I was diagnosed with
this it disease called catconis. Couldn't see anymore, got depressed again, went
on my couch. I sat there. My twins were just born a year
before, and in that moment, I like this light bulb hit me.
I woke up because I couldn't wake up. My twins woke me up,
but they said to me, you know, Daddy, Daddy. They was
just starting to talk. I remember, and I just felt this like emotional
wave of like God, I need to do something different, Like I'm tired
of this relapsed recovery. One day's good, one day's bad, Like fifteen
years of this, and in that moment, I realized that the attractive option
of a life beyond this hourmoile this exhausting life I created for myself of hiding
a secrecy, of lying, of nobody knowing, living a double life.
I was so tired of the pain of not one to be there anymore.
Was pushing me to a desire and the attractiveness of what I truly wanted,
like beyond addiction. So I started getting in touch with what I wanted.
I switched my focus in that moment. I wanted a life where I felt
free. I wanted a life where I had abundance and alaris of life.
I wanted to be connected to myself. I was running for myself. I
wanted to be connected to my kids. I didn't know how. No one
ever taught me. It wasn't trained or anything. But the problem was I
couldn't deal with me and my emotions. I didn't know how I was going
to free myself, but I knew I was on a journey. So that
moment I finally advocated for myself for the first time ever in my life.
I was thrown into programs, hundreds of twelve step meetings, this and that
it all perpetuated the cycle and made it worse. This was the first time
in twenty fifteen I said I'm going to find a way to heal, and
I declared it, and I went on this seven year journey of opening up
new levels of health, new levels of freedom that I had to uncover through
ups and downs and figure out the path. It took me a good seven
years to really go through this. You know this dark, you know pit
going to the dark to find the light. It was quite the journey for
myself. So on the timeline, and I know you said it was a
seven year journey, but on your website you talk about seven summits of freedom.
Were you tackling these one at a time each year or was it just
seven just is a good number that just happens. Yeah, so so much
of freedom are what I what Basically, over the last couple of years,
I have looked back at my journey of healing, breaking free, of rewiring,
ryding, the patterns of my mindset, how I did it, the
somatic healing I did, the movement to breastwork, the buy or how I
did it, how I healed some trauma from my past. I look back
at how did I actually create abundance in every part of my life when I
was in scarcity at one point living in my car, I broke it.
I couldn't afford anything, like, how did I do it? And I
unlocked? What I realized is I unlocked different levels of freedom. I got
accessed to create power, certainty and an action in different parts of my life
and ultimately freedom. And this is without by the way, dependency, rehabs,
twelve steps or therapy right and along the way, I hired mentors and
coaches, I went in programs, I went in transformational training programs. I
went on spiritual journeys. I hired stealers. I did, I did absolutely
can everything you can imagine to like unlock more levels of what I was just
a journey of what's next? Okay, I'm here in my life? How
do I get here? Okay, I'm here? My relationships suck, like,
my kids don't like they don't like their dad. So how do I
actually you know, connect with my children? Right? And so I unlock
these levels of freedom? So these seven levels of freedom I just discovered,
not in order, not in order. So what I've done was as I've
been working with men over the last few years with helping them liberate them from
addiction, really a transformative journey to liberate themselves from addiction, not just from
addiction, but liberate and create freedom in their body, create freedom in their
mindset, create freedom and their emotions and create emotional fluidity, create freedom inside
the relationships, create freedom in every part of your life right and rebuilding their
entire identity. And that's really really a crucial step, especially after you come
out of addiction or any kind of addictive patterns, of destructive patterns, you
are stuck in. The question becomes who am I? What's my purpose?
What are my core values? How am I going to operate in the world?
So all these things is what a man when I work with them,
they go through this process of death and rebirth to rediscover who they are,
to really just step into surrendering into who they be and how they operate in
the world and how they can create that abundance. So these seven levels are
just a way for a man to peak at different levels of freedom. And
so that's what they go through in a six month process in my programs particularly
so rather than just taking seven years like it took me, I could take
a man through these different different peaks in a very much for a period of
time. And how do you do that for people who you know because you
live in Connecticut? Yes, so how do you do the program? Like
save a man justin here is like, man, we want to do this,
like sign us up? What do we do? And how does that
offered to us? You know, if we want to change our lives,
like if we want to turn it around? Good question. So here's the
thing. Most people are not a good fit for this. And I say
this because there's a there's a like go back to my story. Right.
It took me fifteen years to finally say I'm ready. Right, I had
to make the choice I'm ready to reclaim my not just control over the addictive
patterns, but my life. Right, because it's it's a it's a it's
a commitment, right, it's a commitment to rise. It's a commitment that
you want more out of life. And so for me, you know,
it's a very intimate process, Like I'm working with the man directly, and
I'm giving him the weapons and the tools to liberate himself. Right, So
I need to make sure he's ready, right, And so I personally talk
to every person that I work with, every man, because he needs to
be ready. Because that process of rediscovering who you are is scary. Right
when you let go of the ego that wants to be right, that wants
to be in control, that wants to look good, and you uncover and
you become vulnerable. Right when you when you look at to your emotions and
repattern them somatically that it come up like that takes vulnerability, that takes courage.
And so there's a big part of that process. And we're working with
somebody. But listen, man, like anybody, anybody that's ready, truly
ready to heal to move past this and create abundance in all airs of life.
It's possible. And I will say it could be done anywhere. We've
done anywhere. It's it's an online program particularly, so it doesn't matter where
you are in the world. It could be done just as long as you're
willing to do the work right. So you have like zoom meetings in the
good question. The way that it's structured, there's a there's an accountability piece
to it. There's a piece to it where you're in a teen unit,
where you're you have team units together. You're also on weekly zooms as well
with myself when we go through the whole seventh summits and specific content that gets
stripped out to the person and what I call missions. So each week there's
a different mission that awakens a new possibility in a man. So they go
through a bit of a like a like a death process and then a rebirth
process every week by awakening something in himself internally to actually create a shift in
in that specific area. And so each week is a mission. They go
through that mission and something awakens within and there's all there's already a new sense
of freedom that happens. So with that with the curriculum and also with the
group, a team unit held accountable, and then there's also group meetings as
well with the entire group. I'm im justin right now and I'm just looking
at him like, yeah, have you and this is something we kind of
talked about last week. Have you ever had yeah, companies reach out and
say, hey, man, we got a whole team of people and maybe
some of them aren't a good fit. You know, maybe someone will drop
out, but you know, like this is something that I think would be
great for us. Guys here at two seventeen recovery because we've made a huge
change in our lives. I think Mitch has three years clean, you have
four. I got five. You know. It's like, okay, so
we made a commitment to change our lives a little bit. But justin went
through a relationship issue a year ago, kind of getting a couple of pounds,
you know, maybe you'd turn to food. I don't know. I
know I turned to sugar, you know. But like those are just little
things, you know. There's other parts of our lives that we want to
be better at. There's things we want to achieve, Like I want to
make a movie one day, and I'm learning how to write a script right
now, you know, and like those are the actions, and those are
some of the things that I'm working on. But like, I think this
would even help me even further, just be more mindful of those days where
I could be reading more about script writing or you know, I have an
idea, like if there's things I can do, you know, but I
don't, And I think this would help hold me accountable. I guess is
that a good I love what you just said, hold accountable. Listen,
here's what I know to be true, and I think you and I talked
about this. What gets let me go back. So here's what I need
to be true. Is that people get stuck in three areas. They either
get stuck because they don't know what they want right and they don't move forward,
or they get stuck because they don't know where they are right. They
don't know where they are, so they can't get clear and what they want
because they don't know who they are, or they know what they want,
they know exactly where they are and they are not in denial and they were
very clear, but they but they don't know how to get there right,
They're not to get there. And then there's a fourth Something stops them to
get there. Something gets in the way that's causing them not to actually get
the result. Because most people know what to do, most people know what
they want right, But what happens is they actually don't do what they need
to do to get there. They don't actually do the required action. Is
because their commitment, their commitment is like a level two action, yet they
have a level ten. I want to write a movie, I want to
write a documentary, I want to blah blah blah, Right, but it's
it's at a two or three. And usually what's in the ways of belief,
And we talked about the other day all resistance, because if you're not
where you want to go, you're not doing the required actions because you're in
resistance to what is right. And all resistance is rooted in some beliefs.
You're in some conflict with some belief and we resist because that that conflict happens
internally inside of our narratives, insteade of our mind. So we can we
can reprogram that in the moment right now, right, we can shift,
change the narrative, change the story, change the action, and even learn
something from that. And we have a tool that we use with our guys
that actually let them, at the fingertips of their palms, rewire their subconscious
in the moment to actually shift the direction, get a revelation, feel the
feelings behind that, and step into empowerment and a new action. And that's
what gets a man out of, you know, being stuck into committed action.
But that's what's required, and that's kind of my thong. We hadn't
answer to answer your question, all right, though, Yeah, it's gonna
hold the accountable and do you think being a part of the team. Obviously
you think that because this is how you do it, But being that team
kind of keeps people together and not really that. I'm gonna like say,
if you know, we sign up for this and hopefully we can do this.
But you know, I'm not gonna bust Justin's balls all the time,
you know, but if he walks by, if he's like, hey,
I want to lose weight by this, you could You could do that too.
It comes in with a box of donuts. I'd be like, Justin,
what are you doing? Bro? Like your your actions aren't matching up
with what your mouth was saying, you know, like like I think that
would be so good. So so Quail, let me say something. So,
it's not your job the whole accountable. In fact, my programs,
it's about self accountability. If someone is looking to be held accountable, then
they're going to fail because they're looking outside, something outside of them to save
them. Right. There's always a story or narrative that gets in the way.
Like I just said, to to to what you want. So if
for some reason you're not getting what you want, you're going to actually go
inside you. Corey, whoever it is, you'd go inside you and investigate
your thinking that's causing you to actually be where you are and change the narrative.
So it's a self accountable program in a framework that's accountable, if that
makes sense. Yeah, because if I just would bust his balls on the
doughnuts, he would just eat the don'ts free. He came in his balls
though, Yeah, yeah, yeah, well a lot of Well from what
I'm hearing though, it's a lot like with going to a treatment center for
addiction. You know, you have to be ready, you have to be
able to hold yourself accountable and know that I'm tired. I'm tired of live
in life this way and want drastic change and put in the work to get
it. Yeah, because my mom like and she'll say, you know,
she been over backwards for me. She was the only one at the end
that was still there for me, and she still didn't do it for me.
You know, I had to go out and do it myself. But
having that support from people, I think is good. I think that letting
other people know what your goals and you know, desires are the things that
you want to achieve. I think that that's a good thing because when I
check in with my team every week, you know, and I want to
know what's your goal for next week? What do you have going on?
And not just goal at work, but like your personal life, like like
what are you doing? What do you want to do? Because if you're
not going after something, then you're just kind of stagnant. And you know,
to hear like them being held accountable, I guess, you know,
for this is what I said I was going to do last week, this
is what I did or what I didn't do a lot of times there'll be
a lot of excuses in people in life, I guess in general, but
I want to say myself as a person in recovery, I had tons of
excuses for everything we do and I still got them today. Well, I
can't go walk for thirty minutes to day because I don't know name it,
and I'll have an excuse for it. You know. Is that something that
you've you find just being human? Man, it's yeah. But but but
they get in the way, right, they get in the way. That's
that's the problem, you know. And I go back to like when you
when when I say when these excuses excuses are narratives, exclusive excuses are beliefs,
and they can be interrupted in a moment. You can reinvent that that
turn the excuse around and reinvent the narrative and change direction in the moment.
Most people just don't how to do it. I've never trained, or they
don't have a tool, or they don't have a way to actually investigate your
thinking. Because I tell people listen rather like I tell people, don't believe
anything that you think. If you do, you will suffer. You will
suffer. We have, like I don't know, eighty thousand thoughts a day,
and the moment you stay attached to a belief system or a thought process,
most of the time, it's because you want to justify being right about
something, and if you let that go, it opens up limitless opportunity to
everything that you want. It's crazy, it's crazy how true that is.
But only if you discover it for yourself internally, you'll know it to be
true yourself. And a lot of times it takes breakdown. Right, So
breaking down your belief system is breaking down your ego, and that's freaking painful.
It is right, So accountability is a part of the process, but
so is a goain to go back to being willing to submit to what you
don't know, because underneath that is freedom, another level of freedom. Yeah,
I'm just thinking here because what you said, don't believe what you tell
yourself, you know, like, don't believe like the thoughts that you do.
And last week there is just a perfect example of Patrick is. I
had to go speak in front of this organization called the Drug Freak and I
had to go and they and I knew most of them that were there,
and they were like, hey, we want you to come and you know,
present you know, and do a little presentation and let us know what
two seventeen Recovery does. And I say, okay. So I go in
there and I'm like, we had this, we do this, we do
this, we do that, and I'm just naming off all the stuff we
do and all of them are like writing notes down. I'm like, what
are they doing? And at the end of it, they're like, wow,
we didn't know you did so much. And I'm but I'm sitting here
thinking why do I have to go to this to tell them what I do
when they already know Well clearly they didn't. But you know, that's I
think a really good example of me telling myself, oh, people know what
we do. No, no, no, they don't. You know.
I talked to my wife about that, and I was like, I was
shocked. I thought it was a waste of my time, Like why am
I going here? You know, like this is silly, Like, yeah,
I don't know. That's just just the thought that I just had there
when you were talking about that. But no, I love what you said.
And one of my mentors along my journey was buyering babe when Katie,
she's amazing. She's got a great book called Love You What Is And one
of the quote she has is when we believe our thoughts, when we tell
ourselves a story and we believe them, we suffer. We do, right,
because when we're like, think about like your situation, right, you
told you had thought something and you believed it, and then all of a
sudden you were what disappointed or like, oh my god, I can't believe
my all my time, you know that they didn't know, right, but
you went to a disempowering emotion of suffering, of disappointment, of upset,
which is never an emotion that can propel us into what we want. Right,
And so we're constantly attached to that like, oh my god, right,
even just for a moment or for a day, or depending where you
are in your recovery journey, could be for years. And then we go
to food or a drugted to number selves. But it just comes back to
that what she says about when we believe our thoughts in the stories that we
tell me suffer m except for when I say I'm awesome that stuff now,
But even then, yeah, am I really that awesome stuff? Probably not?
And that was just it was a wake up call. But then so
I went from there patrick to immediately thinking, well, I got to do
a better job. I need to do more of this, I need to
do more of that. And I guess that would be a natural reaction,
right or narrative, Well, it depends what was the narrative that was playing
exactly in that moment. Well, I'm not doing a good enough job of
I don't want to say, I guess marketing or letting people know what we
do. Okay, So I'm not doing a good enough job with Mark and
letting people know what we do. When you tell yourself that story, what
what emotions or what feelings come up for you? Disappointment, disappointment, failure,
failure. Okay, And when you tell yourself that narrative and you feel
that deep feelings of disappointment of failure, what does that make you want to
do? It makes me want to need a pizza or or no, if
you if you're really honest with yourself in this moment, like, what does
it make you want to do? You know when you experience those feelings?
Mm? Like if I were too deep, like yeah, let me dig
in here, I would say, it makes me want to go back to
the drawing board and figure out what I'm what I'm doing wrong? Yeah?
Do you want to fix it? Yeah? Yeah, got it? And
what what was that narrative again? I want to hear that narrative again?
What what what is it that you're the tape this plane that I'm not marketing
our company, I'm not getting the information out of what we do. Mhm
if I am, that's not going to the right people. And again,
I knew those people like I see those people a lot, and I would
I just assumed that they knew exactly what we did and they had no clue.
So whether we got to to make videos or again, but yeah,
you can't make somebody watch a video. Yeah, and from that, from
that particular narrative that you're playing, what what what? What is the type
of person that has that narrative like that tape, this plane, that they
they need to do more marketing. Nobody knows about them and you thought they
did. If you would have judged the type of person what what? What
would you say about them? That they were clueless? That they were not
self aware? Got it? Not? What? And what? What type
of person is self aware and clueless? Uh? Who's self aware and clueless
or not? So? What? What? What type of person is not
self aware and in their clueless Like how do you judge the person like that?
Hmmm? I would say they're they're not what they I don't know.
I would say they're not I don't know if there's a I'm sure there's a
word for it. I would just say that they're don't want to say stupid
or an idiot, but yeah, they just don't know what's going on with
their situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm not gonna go too
much down the rabbit hole here, but basically, there's a deep there's a
deep like seated belief, and generally it's so subconscious. It's called the shadow
and the work of shadow work that I do, there's a deep seated belief
that that's there, that's running the show. That's why you do certain things.
It's driving the actual behavior of what you do or don't do. We
won't unpack that deeper. I'm not gonna make you go through the process,
but it's always like is it true, Like investigating that thought, because ultimately
what you're saying is that there's potentially and I heard what I heard. There's
like these feelings of of disappointment which become like guilt or shame. It always
leads the guilt or shame. Yeah, right, in some capacity if there's
something wrong with me, I'm not good enough or I fucked up, or
I'm not whatever right, I am not this whatever right, and then it
just kind of drives the next action. Now, the good news is that
you know you have recovery, right, so you're more awake and aware of
that. But there's always like the deeper shadow that runs the show. If
we're not careful, which goes to disruptive habits or behaviors, or an action
or an action which is doing nothing, which is just as bad or worse
as doing something. To yourself as destructive, right, because then we get
complacent and we get like an autopilot in our life is working, but it's
not like extraordinary, it is just working, right, And I think I,
you know, I could go to the extreme and something about shop.
I know there's people that are addicted to shopping, but you know I could
go to the other route with oh, well, I just need to spend
it. Like I kind of said. I was like, oh, I
can make some videos and you know, I could spend a ton of money
to get commercials and that kind of thing. And then again, like I
kind of said it too, like you can't make somebody watch a video,
you can't make somebody click on something, you know, like that could be
all for nothing and that could be the horrible way to go. And we
just spend a bunch of money, we don't have to to what you know,
to get the message out. And then I didn't even get the message
out. So yeah, that's interesting though. We are joined by our third
guy, just real quick here Mitchell, Mitchell, how are you today?
Oh? Nice, nice, speedy, speedy, sped well, thanks Patrick,
glad you made it in. Mit No, we're talking with Patrick Jones
and Patrick, your website is addiction ends here not today? Yes, yeah,
and Mitch you looked at his website. I sent it to you and
to justin what do you think about it? I thought it was I skimmed
over it while I was over out of my training last week, and it
was it was interesting. Yeah, yeah, I liked it put together well.
And so Patrick has a incredible story. I would like to say,
uh, and and his change in his thoughts about wanting to take control of
his life, you know. And I don't want to say being a man.
Can we say being a man? Patrick? Now? But you know
what I yes, because I definitely did not feel like a man. I
felt terribly weak and powerless. So yeah, that definitely could be something you
can say. Yeah, absolutely, I can relate to that too. With
my story is it was very demasculated in my addiction and then really had come
into I mean, it's taken three years, but to find a place of
positive masculinity, it's been good. Yeah. Patrick, I don't know if
you remember, but I was telling all Mitch's dirty laundry to you last week.
Now, he's the guy that I said that, you know, I
had to start lifting weights or using the weight bands, like the resistance bands.
Why he was because he couldn't even get out of bed. And yeah,
somehow I could get out of beout to get to that liquor store,
but anything else. So, yeah, which what was your go to?
Was it? I heard liquor? Was it alcohol? Yeah? Mainly alcohol.
There was some some pills and prescription drugs in there every once in a
while, but it was mainly alcohol. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
how long were you kind of struggling with it, particularly from start to finish?
About sixteen years, the worst of it was probably the last five to
six years. Got really heavy then, and that's when my life really started
to fall apart, the last five or six years. And I'm curious for
you, like, what was the catalyst for you, particularly that said hey,
I'm done. It's a little different than what I've heard a lot of
other people say. I finally had somebody step into my life that wasn't sick
of my shit anymore and really said, here, let me walk you through
this and showed me love in a way that I hadn't ever noticed it before,
and I was able to kind of be guided through it until I was
able to make it my own and that took a good year year and a
half probably of sobriety before I really owned it for myself. But everybody around
me, Yeah, everybody around me was really just kind of sick of it
because they've been dealing with it since I was a teenager. And yeah,
so somebody new came into my life was like, Hey, we're going to
figure this out no matter what thene did and didn't leave, and that's what
really, that's what it really took helped me through it. Yeah. I
heard two things in there. I think the really powerful points you're gonna figure
this out. The mindset of we're gonna I'm gonna have breakdowns, I'm gonna
go up, I'm gonna go down, but like, no matter what,
I'm gonna find a way, which is such a crucial mindset for anyone struggling
is I will find a way, and owning it is I And I heard
that you did that, and that's really powerful. You know. The other
thing I want to make another point, that's you lightly said it. You
said the word. It's the word that's now accepted in society. It's it's
love, right, you know, I heard, I heard I heard self
love right, and to me, you know, even seven years ago or
even five years ago, the word self love still kind of triggered me,
right, you know, because I was still in my own self love journey
trying to figure out what does self love mean? And I was in my
head about it. I wasn't experiencing self love, so like, of course
I would not experience love because I was afraid to connect with myself and I
was afraid to connect and authentically with other people without trying to be somebody else
that I'm not. So I'll tell you a quick story around my first moment
that I found self love, because I think for anyone that is on that
journey, I think we're all, especially in an addiction, that's like we
do everything not to love ourselves. We sabotage ourselves, we do everything to
fight against ourselves because we're not enough or we're broken, or something's wrong with
us. That's like this driving belief underneath the surface. There was a moment
when I was going through my healing journey. I was about two and a
half three years in a twenty seventeen eighteen, this is eighteen. I was
taking five prescription medications. Three of them I was finally got off of and
I too left mood stabilizer and I because I was diagnosed with bi polar disorder.
I will tell you this though, like on my healing journey, I
knew I was misdiagnosed because my behavior looked like bipolar disorder. But I was
up for five hours in my substance, in my addiction, like it looked
like a ratic behavior. But I just was numbing myself because of my I
didn't, I couldn't. I didn't want to feel right, and I don't
want to be ridiclal for my mom and my dad or anybody you know and
judge me. So I went to this. But I told my doctor in
two thousand and eighteen, I said, the same one that gave me prescription
meds for ten years. I said, Doc, I'm done. I never
want to take meds ever again. What do I need to do? Tell
me what I need to do. And I was just again open to the
possibility of it. Right. That's the difference between that and ten years ago.
He said. He was an Indian doctor. He said to me,
the only thing that you need to do if you want, if you want
to never take meds again. The one thing you need to do is go
to by positive meditation ten days silence, no talking, one hundred and twenty
hours of sitting and meditating ten hours a day in silence, to observe self,
to observe sensation, to observe your mind and not attached to them,
and you're and you're motions. I went to my first one in twenty eighteen,
and it was one of the most at the time, the most liberating,
freeing experience of my life, where I found freedom and peace, but
ultimately I found stillness. I stopped running from myself, stopped running, and
I found peace and self love and I've found and I cried for hours when
I just felt my heart beat for the first time in my life. I
was so profound, and that was the moment I'm like, Okay, this
is cool. I want more of this. I want on a journey of
you know, not looking for more self love, but like, how do
I sustain this now because I'm still dealing with battle internally, But like I
wanted to sustain self love practices, I didn't know how. But ultimately to
your point, when going back to your point, you said that we'd self
love, and I'm like, all right, that's the journey we're all on,
right, is freedom of being ourselves and loving ourselves radically and accepting who
we are no matter what the heck happens. That's self love. Right,
We're all on the journey. I'm still on the journey. You know.
I notice moments where I shift outside of me and I have to shift back
inside of me because I'm still human, right, I'm not perfect, and
that's something I've accepted. You know, you're not walking around like mister Rogers
and nothing ag iss mister Rogers being like, hey, I love myself.
You're not like doing that twenty four seven. I mean, and maybe you
aren't. I would assume you're not. I will say this though. So
I was in Thailand a couple months ago on another healing journey of detoxification,
and there are some guys that just that are so how do I say?
They're very spiritual right where they just are just calm and they're just in the
space of you know, you could say self love, but they've done a
lot of work and they're in a different consciousness. There's different levels of consciousness.
And so now I'm like, Okay, I want to strive to be
on another level of consciousness, you know, because these guys really just are
in the being of everything. They're not in the doing. They're in the
being which causes the doing, but they're living in the being in the moment,
and so like there's always another level. That's the point. So I'm
even striving for, like what's next, how much how can I become more
conscious as a man, as a father, as a partner, as a
business owner, as a as a as a leader, as a guide for
other people, right, Because that's what it's all about, is self awareness
and raising consciousness at the end of the day, which is a FOURD concept
to me three years ago. By the way, I love that. I
love it, and I think that one of the biggest things you said in
there with your your journey for self love and how you did it with the
spiritual practice and the meditation and the stillness, that's how I got it too.
It was a different pathway, it was a different I found kind of
found it my myself and just with different people that I met over time.
But in the end I had ended up doing the exact same thing you did,
and that's what worked for me. Wow, And the self love part
was the most uncomfortable at the beginning. My counselor had me start doing affirmations
and I'm like, no, I don't want to do this fluffy stuff.
I'm supposed to be a man. Why don't I have to tell myself I
love myself and I'm handsome and you know these positive things like that's not how
I was raised. And to break that down and then to find meditation and
that stillness and the self awareness and everything that you mentioned just kind of a
little bit different offshoot of the path that you mentioned, like that that is
what it is, and I prescribed to a very similar mindset that you do
with the consciousness and everything like that moving forward with it. So I really
love to hear you say that that was really awesome. It's beautiful man,
you know, and listen, like you've you've clearly had quite a journey and
you're still on the journey. And you know, it's so interesting how when
we're open to a new perspective, because everything is perspective, everything is interpretation,
right, and and we submit to a new possibility like everything and anything
is possible in life. Like like Corey, you're I think he said you
want to write a script like that's totally possible. And then when you write
that script, whatever it is, guess what, it's going to open the
door for something new, like something even bigger than that. Right, because
what you thought was was like normal becomes numb, and what becomes numb becomes
becomes your current reality. Like you're going to reach a certain peak and then
you're at another pit. I call this the Pizza Pitt journey. You're going
to reach this like I made it, and then you haven't because now you're
like, what's next. Right, there's another peak and you're at another pit.
Doesn't mean it depressed. It just means we're on a journey. We're
evolving machines. We're evolving growing machines. If we're not growing, you've heard
this, sney Tony Robbins says it all the time. They're dying. We
were on an evolutional journey. My only purpose in life is to evolve,
like the ultimate purpose in life and to to ultimately, you know, heal
you know, things from my past which which I have, and resolve the
things of why I was brought here in the first place, you know,
to create a generation of my kids that don't have to go through what I
did, and that's the legacy that I'm going to leave behind that shadow work.
You said shadow way again, you got to do that shadow work.
You're just explaining, you know, the heal in your past and and paving
the way from God. But it's a daily coryus daily man. It's like,
listen, when I'm stuck and I'm like, Okay, what do I
I asked myself this question, like and just give you like a frame or
for anyone listening to this is really helpful. I have you ever stuck?
This is how you get unstuck. It's like you identify where am I right
now? Okay, here's where I am. This is what the current reality
going on at this moment is a situation. This is what I'm feeling,
is that I'm experiencing. This is what's happening. This is what's true,
because you can't argue truth, right. And then the second part of that
is what do I actually want? Because most people like they don't ask themselves
this question in this moment, what do I actually want? That's it?
Where am I at? What do I actually want? And then the second
part of that is who must id in order to do the things necessary to
get what I want because it's not about the doing. We think, like
especially as business owners, entrepreneurs, successful, high on whatever you want to
call, we think it's a doing that's going to get the act, that's
going to actually get the action and get the results of what we want.
It's actually a way of being. It's an embodiment. It's how am I
actually showing up in this moment and the way of being my being? This
my embodiment. Right? Am I being resistant? Am I being you know,
arrogant? Am I being rigid? Am I being stressed? Or am
I being inspired? Am I being excited? Am I being empowering? Am
I being driven? Am I being results driven? Right? It's a way
of being the access in order to move to the result that we want.
And this is actually it was called the B do have model. It's a
way of operating in life to get a different outcome, different results. It's
very powerful. It sounds like it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah,
we love the positive talk. We love the thought of change because I
don't think like you said, you know the peaks and valleys. I don't
think wherever, and this is how I feel. I don't feel like I'm
ever there, and even you know, when when I complete things and we
get funding and we open a you know, a recovery center. Okay,
that's great. And my wife is a drives a because she's like, you're
not happy, you don't seem happy, and you should be happy. And
it's like, well, yeah, that's cool, but I'm on to the
next thing already, you know, and it frustrates her. And then I
started thinking, well, maybe I don't know what it's like to be happy.
Maybe I've never felt that emotion, you know, with numbing things for
twenty plus years. Yeah, maybe I don't know. Like if I get
happy now, I cry and it's weird. And maybe I'm just like I
don't know, I don't know how to be happy. I think I'm not.
I'm not sure. But it does drive my wife nuts when she's like,
just be happy for a minute, and I'm like, yeah, I
guess I'm proud of whatever we're doing it, but like I'm on to the
next thing already, like I got stuff to do, you know. That's
yeah, So that's listen, I understand exactly where you're at that journey,
right. I had thought a couple of years ago that in order to be
happy, I had to be successful and I had to do things, and
I had to make this happen. I needed that to happen. And then
I had this revelation of years back and some trainings I did that happiness is
a choice, like I can choose to be happy now, and it's not
even an intellectual like thought. It's actually a way of being, like how
do I be happy? And then and then in my body and body the
type of person that's happy. It's a skill and it's a way. It's
something that can be learned by getting doing embodiment practices, getting your body and
actually putting that energy and changing your state in the body that changes the action
externally. If that makes sense. Yeah, I kind of learned it again.
Yeah it's oh no, no, I was just going to say it.
For some people it's foreign because they like me years ago. I used
to operate from my head like go go, go, go next thing.
I don't I am happy, but I would tell myself that narrative. And
you might be telling yourself too, I am happy, But are you actually
experiencing happiness and feeling that moment to moment right, That's the magic question.
Yeah, I kind of learned it is just a little bit different verbiage,
but very similar. Is happiness is something that happens to you and that you
feel, and that joyfulness is a choice. And I like the way that
you you explained it as well, and then you explain kind of how to
achieve it as well, which was very relevant to how I've learned it.
So yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's all at the end of the
day, there's nothing new like. This isn't like I just readly I invented
this terminology. Now this is this has all been around for a long time.
It's now just being more accepted. So people are more open to it
because it's not woo woo anymore, right, right, you know all these
terms and all these things, and you know, even even eight years ago,
meditation I don't think was really fully thing it was. People knew about
it. It benefits, but it wasn't like in every single Instagram that you
go to on live, right and you can scroll like crazy and if someone's
doing it live with a hundred people on it. Very different, much more
accepted now too, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I forget I say, yeah too. But that's heavy stuff.
It takes us, you know, to process it and let let whoever's
listening process it. And it's all relevant to my journey, it really is.
And and Patrick, he articulates it very well so people can understand it
and try and do it. So yeah, when Patrick, when I saw
your website, this is you know what I told you last week when I
talked to you, it was just like just screaming, like we need to
talk to this guy. And and not just because I want to use your
services with us, but just because like there's so many people out there that
are in our same genre, in our same situations I guess are very similar.
Where all right, cool, we've beat or our beating addiction. We've
changed our lives a little bit, you know, enough to we're not going
to die from something stupid, hopefully, But then you know, we're not
kind of putting those other actions, those other pieces into play. You know,
we're just going through life, you know, some of us. And
hey, you know what, for some people, that's all they want to
do. Good for them, But you know, I try to surround myself
with people who do have goals and dreams and they want to achieve more.
But like you said earlier, like maybe we don't know how to get it.
Maybe we don't know what's stopping us or what's preventing us. Is it
because we're scared? Is it because we're you know, like what is what's
the goal? And I want to surround myself with those people and I want
them to achieve what they want, you know, And that's why I was
just like, man, we really got to talk to this guy. Yeah,
I've on his website very yeah, well, I really I I appreciate
the kind whereas you know, one of one of the things that I wanted
to be I said the word be. This is about seven years ago.
One of my mentors, I don't know if you guys have the named Garrett
J. White, Wake Up Lawyer. Lots of exposure, right, And
one of the biggest things that working with him and in a lot of his
programs was I had to I had to first stop fucking line to start telling
the truth, right, That's step one. And when I started to do
that, I started to create a sense of freedom. So a lot of
you know why, you know, yes, we have success. Life is
good, but it's not great. Life is great, but it's not remarkable.
It's not Okay, it's remarkable, but it's not you know, exceptional,
right, because we end up settling for secrets and lies and we don't
tell the truth of where we actually are. And this includes feelings, by
the way, Corey like, when you're not actually allow yourself to feel,
you're not you're not experiencing life, right, You're not experiencing the moment.
You're not connected to what is. And when you're not connected to what is,
we can lie and pretend. That lying means pretending, right, pretending
that everything is great, showing the world one way. But yet we're kind
of just operating small and we're just beating ourselves up and it's not it's not
fine, right, but we're doing that in silence. Right. So yeah,
I mean just going back to you know what you're saying, there's there
always in the next level. And you know, one of the things I
wanted to be going back to that point. I wanted it, he said
eight years ago. I'm like, I want to be that man. It's
the most powerful man in the room, has nothing to hide, nothing to
hide, right, no secrets, They're willing to tell the truth, and
they're living in full integrity with themselves and they're they're because they've exposed everything to
themselves or to others, and they're living in truth. They're not living in
a delusion or reality of hope or fear or the future or anxiety. They're
living in the moment and in that moment they're free, right, And they
probably don't feel the sense of shame or guilt either. Well, that's interesting.
Thing is I think as that mentiones that you just the thing is,
no, that's the thing is, they do feel it. They allow themselves
to feel the shame of the guild. I have shame and guilt every week,
right. It shows up because it's natural, it's being human. The
difference is I allow myself to feel it. It only takes ninety seconds to
feel an emotion and let it pass. Yes, And it is the most
liberating experience of my life every time. If I allow myself, I'll be
willing to surrender my ego, thinking in my in my my narrative that I
don't need to cry, I don't need to release the emotion because it still
shows up, submit and just put on some music and allow myself to pass
that emotion and not stuff it. And get it stored in the body,
you know, and just let it pass. It is freeing, it's healing.
Yeah, feeling is healing. Feeling is healing. And I still get
caught up sometimes and the guys I work with like like not to feel because
I'm a I'm a like driven, i am an entrepreneur. I love helping
men. I'm on a mission to empower men and awaken them from from the
from this destructive prison of addiction. But I have to stop and just grab
myself, like what am I feeling right now? Oh? Shoot, what
am I experiencing? What are my emotions? Can I just sit with that
in that space and be That's That's something they do early on too in treatment
when they when I was in treatment, they gave us this whole It was
like page just filled with feelings, and some of my didn't even know what
they meant. I was like, I have no idea what that means.
That's not me. But it opened my eyes to that. And they would
go around the room. This one guy, his name was Steve, and
he was really good, and he's like, I want you to, you
know, pick one of those and tell me, you know what you're feeling.
And some people be like they would just make up words, and he's
like, that's not even a feeling, you know, like that's no pick
apord, and tell me why you're feeling that way, just to get you
in tune with you know, if we were all sitting right now and just
said how are we feeling, you know, and I wanted you to check
in, I would say I feel energized, you know, say fabulous,
just say fabulous. I'm excited. I should say excited, you know.
But those those are feelings, and you know, early on it's tough for
us to sit there and think how am I feeling right now? And I
try to do it once in a great while, but there's you know,
you might be familiar with gratitude lists, you know, and that's something that
kind of grounds me. When I'm feeling some kind of way or overwhelmed or
whatever it is. I can look back to, you know, where I
was five years ago, and I just can go down the whole list of
things I'm grateful for now. And I feel bad for my wife because I
don't think I appreciate her enough. I don't show it, you know,
I would just again kind of like going back to that presentation I did last
week where I just assumed every been in the room knew what we were doing
and knew what we were up to. You know, I just assume that
my wife knows I love her. You know. I think I need to
do a better job, and we can all probably do a better job of
that, you know, just showing our loved ones that we really do love
them. You know, if I would pick the phone up and call my
mom every weekend just to tell her I love her and to get a report
on the whole family and who's doing the dirt or whatever. If I have
to listen to that, that's fine, you know, Yeah, but that
at least show her that I care and I'm listening, you know. And
there's the thing I love you, and then the showing that I love you,
you know. But yeah, I could do a better job of those
of those things, for sure. Yeah. I mean you you brought a
lot up there, and what you just shared, from feelings to showing you
know what you say. I mean, there's so much there. But one
thing that you just said that set out and I can relate to it is
when I was thrown in two different treatment centers even outpatient all that stuff.
I too got this card that said like these emotions on it. And here's
the problem that I discovered. I was so like mentally checked out and I
was so much attached to still in my addiction, that you can't just teach
me emotions if I'm that far gone, if I'm in the dark right,
And they were teaching it from an intellectual place. I never learned it from
an embodiment place. So like now it's like, really, when you think
about feelings, it's like, Okay, what am I feeling in this moment?
What am I experiencing? And then where am I experiencing it on my
body? So then you can get deeper in the somatic and actually getting in
touch with where do you feel it in your body? And that way you
become more connected to what is and not from a headplace, but you actually
feel it on the body. You know. Then that's what came up when
you brought that up. It's because I never had them go deeper on that
note. It was just kind of that car do they say the feelings and
you know, well, that's that's a word. It doesn't mean anything to
me. It's just like a word on paper. Yeah, yeah, Well,
and Patrick, you brought something else up and it's I really enjoyed that
you did before. Corey shared just a moment ago, was how you feel
it and how it only takes ninety seconds typically for a feeling to come and
go. And that's something that I share in the mutual aid groups that I
do here at the Recovery Center, and a lot of people I'll start talking
about shadow work and healing the past and things like this. The big question
I get is how do you do that? And there's a step you take
after you learn how to properly feel your feelings in the present, and you
have to realize that you didn't feel your feelings in the past. So every
time you suppress something back then, you left a little anchor in that energy
and it is just holding its place back then. So what you do,
once you have the ability to do it in the present is go back,
replay that situation out in your head, ask yourself what you were feeling,
what did you reply, what did you repress, and just fully feel it
again. Kind of like you said, you know you can play some music,
you can you can feel it. And if you can do that without
creating a story, about it is how it was told when when I learned
this, then you will be able to release that energy from your past and
that stuff that you have back there. And it's kind of like how you
were saying, doing it in the present, you're just doing it for the
past. It's healing and then you don't have that anchor holding you back anymore.
So I really really liked that you brought that up, because that's that's
something I actively share with people and it's that's beautiful. Yeah, it's worked
for me, so it really has. I love what you just shared.
I mean, there's so much on that you could talk about, but you
know specifically that you brought up feeling those feelings and going through the past to
find them. I know for me, you know eight years ago that that
would have been foreign to me. You know when I say that is like
I would into likes how do I do it? How do I do it?
How do I do it? So you know, I think for anyone
that's listening, to kind of make it more relevant, right because it's like
I could tell you all the incredible experiences that you can do to heal your
past and all these things, and you can do this and do that.
The simplest thing to do is I know for me, this is what I
would have needed, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten years
ago, which is a check in, a check in, and this this
is what I do for guys in my program too if they need it,
depending on where they're at in your journey, is have a have your calendar
on your phone out or a reminder on your phone, and have at twelve
o'clock check in. And by the way, this is for anybody, including
myself. It's just a check in, a feelings check in. It goes
off at twelve year in your day and it just goes off. And in
the message it says, how are you feeling? How am my feeling?
Excuse me, how am I feeling? And then the second question attached to
that is where am I feeling in my body? And then the third question
is what do I want to feel? This is where you have the power
to choose a different feeling. And then the fourth question is what must I
embody now in order to feel that right? And you do that at twelve
noon, and you do it again at seven o'clock at night or six clock
at night wherever you know, you get kind of in your limitation or you
get in your day. You're not a pilot. I used to do this
for quite a long time, and now it becomes so second nature. I
can do it in a moment's notice, where I can do it every five
minutes, I can do it every hour. I can do it without because
I'm aware. It's also been becoming conscious and aware rather than defaulting to reaction
of the time are going off or six days later when you're like life is
going crazy and you're like, okay, I need to pause. Stop where
am I right now? So it's just an intentional way to pause and check
in with you, right. I like that it's more relevant for anyone listening.
You know that how do I do it? I really like how that
works and how it brings you into the moment, because there's also the belief
where the moment is all you truly have, and a lot of people get
caught up on what the future is going to be like or things that have
happened in the past. So when you do that and you purposefully make yourself
feel or decide what you're going to feel or what you want to feel in
the moment, it brings you into your body, right, there and just
kind of pulls it all together and you can leave that future or past anxiety
like out of that situation. And it's that's healing too, and that's that's
beautiful. I love it. Yeah, one more, one more piece of
that. This is something I did a training called a Master's training with a
company out in California about a year and a half ago. And you know,
as a man, you know working with people, I like, I
said, I think on the phone to you, I'm on it. I'm
still on a journey, right, I'm still in my own growth of learning
more about me and growing as a man, be better. And there was
this moment inside the training where it was about experiencing your experience and then communicating
your experience you know the person so in order like this is interesting to actually
anchor in the subconscious mind and the deeper experience of what you're currently experiencing.
When you communicate to somebody else what you're experiencing, it actually gets you more
present in that experience. Right. And then the moment that you notice that
you're not present, you are actually present. It's fascinating, isn't it.
Yes, when you notice you're not present, you actually just got present,
and I like how you have to word it. You have to say it
to somebody else, and it's it's almost multi dimensional at that point, so
you're speaking it out into existence. And then if you write it down and
you think it and then you tell it to somebody else too, you can
you do it in all these different ways, and you just become so much
more self aware in each dimension of that communication, and it just brings you
even into it even deeper, and the deeper you can get into it,
the deeper you can heal. And I just I love it. I love
it. It's great. Yeah, it's so good, so good good stuff
for sure, great conversation. We could go for a long time on the
cuff. But Patrick, though I do want to thank you. Though Mitchell,
he has his own podcast and normally they're like three and a half hours
long, So Mitchell seriously would talk to you for another three and a half
hours. But we know that you have a trip you're getting ready for.
You know you're going to Austin, and I do appreciate your time. Addiction
ends here, not today. Is your website, and we'll put a link
to your website in the description of this podcast as well, but is there
anything else you want to get out there? Plug or say, I would
say, you know all you all on Instagram or if you want to get
on Instagram, whatever it is. I check out my Instagram. It's also
addiction. It's here. I put a lot of content on there as well.
But the thing I would say is this, I just I think this
last persigon with is recovery is possible. But what we all deeply want is
to be free, right free in our minds, free in all areas of
life. And freedom is not just possible, it's available. But freedom is
a choice. It's a choice moment, a moment that we must make it.
It's a choice that we make to be free in this moment. And
I'm telling you that if I was in such a dark, dark place for
so many years in my life, so many years, and I if you
just and I said this to you on the phone, if you just want
it one more percent, the one percent more meaning of you wanting the attractive,
attractive option of a life beyond it's possible. So what I mean by
that is fifty one percent has to want it more than the forty nine That
one percent as long as every day you focus on the one percent of wanting
that freedom, wanting life beyond it, wanting to move past it. You
will do it, but it takes that one percent sense Again, I was
telling that to my wife and the podcast yesterday and I totally screwed it up.
I was like, no, he was saying, this is like looking
at me, and I'm like no, for real. I was like,
I'll talk to him tomorrow. Yeah, but no, that's that's that's great,
And I like that just because it's not, oh now it's one hundred
and eighty percent. No, it's just just one percent. Like everyone's like
one hundred percent all in there. You just need one percent some days to
go to forty eight, like thirty nine. But then some days it'll be
like, you know, sixty five percent. You just need the one percent
because it's about mile steps moving forward, one step, one step, one
step, one step, one step, one step again, one step backwards,
one step forward, two steps forward, one step back. It's just
part of the journey. Yes, for human good stuff. Patrick, I
appreciate you talking with me, Justin and Mitch today. I hope you have
a good trip and stay in touch for sure, man, because we're very
interested and hopefully we can talk about that coming up in the future. Yees
yeah, I'm going to be in touch for sure with you. Look forward
to it and thank you for having me on the podcast. So it is
a pleasure. Thanking all you guys, and I look forward to talking again.
Thanks for listening to the two seventeen Recovery Podcast. We hope you come
back for our next episode.