From Orphan to Tribe: The Day the Daffodils Came Back (and Everything Changed)
In this episode of Everyday Awakening, host Catherine Duncan interviews Dr. John A. King, an author, poet, activist, and founder of the Give Them a Voice Foundation. King recounts how, at age 45, a sudden memory triggered by a patch of daffodils forced him to confront a childhood of sexual abuse and trafficking that he had never recognized as such. He describes the ensuing personal collapse—loss of career, marriage strain, and a feeling of being a "college student" again—followed by a deliberate, multi‑year recovery process. Key elements of his healing include finding a therapist (Mona) who used EMDR, insisting on practical tools rather than victim‑dependency, and leaning on his wife Melissa as a constant, non‑judgmental partner. King also shares his recent reconnection with his Imbrani (Aboriginal) heritage, which reframed his sense of family, lineage, and identity, moving him from "orphan" to "tribe." He distills four guiding truths: live authentically, envision a future, set goals, and practice "relentless resilience." Daily grounding rituals—coffee, a cigar, Bible reading, and gym—anchor his mornings. Professionally, he runs a boutique marketing firm, the Give Them a Voice Foundation, and the Phoenix Collective, an evergreen online curriculum that packages his 15‑year recovery learnings for others. King emphasizes hope, neuroplasticity, and the power of simple affirmations, urging listeners to breathe, stay hopeful, and ask for help. He concludes with his purpose: love God, write, and serve others, while inviting the audience to connect via his website drjohnaking.com and social media.
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Do you find yourself searching, yearning for more, but you don't know what that more is? I'm Catherine Duncan, near-death survivor, mystic, and intuitive. Welcome to Everyday Awakening. On this podcast, I explore what it means to be alive. I help you awaken into your soul and live fully now through inspiring conversations. We'll dive into mindfulness, spirituality, and the transformative power of presence. And living aligned with this universal energy. Together, we'll examine life's biggest questions, and I'll share practical wisdom to help you open your heart and awaken to the preciousness of being alive. Today, I'm excited to share with you my conversation with John King. Dr. John King is an author, a poet, a longtime activist, and founder of Give Them a Voice Foundation. He launched Give Them a Voice Foundation in 2015 to provide advocacy resources and rescue to those who have been trafficked, sexually abused, and suffering from PTSD. His poetry book, No Working Title, talks about his raw lived life that is in progress, and he's a regular speaker on the topic relentless resilience. John has a lifetime worth of wisdom, steeped resiliency, and understanding about what it means to be alive. Welcome to the show, John.
Hey, how you going, love? Good to be here. Appreciate it.
Great to meet you. And I— it was such a delight recently to meet you in our conversation and hear about your amazing soul-filled journey, your passion, your Your resiliency, your openness, your zest for life was palpable and is palpable.
Thank you very much. That's very nice of you. Yeah.
Let's dive in. You've lived a really big life already. And I loved— I want to share your statement that you've shared. I was never a victim. I have always been an overcomer. If I can make it, so can you. So I want to just start with Your path, when you started on this healing journey, what did that look like for you, for everyone listening?
I was sexually abused in what we would call as traffic today by the people who raised me. And it wasn't until 2008 that I had recall of that. And that was the first time in my life I realized I'd been abused. Up until that point, it was just my childhood. I didn't have any external benchmarks for it. It was just how I was raised. I thought All people had to engage in oral sex with their caregivers. I thought that was just a normal way of things. You go to parties, you watch pornography, you're engaged in those sort of activities. So it wasn't until '08 when all these bits and pieces came back and they came together and they played continuously like an old 8mm in my head for about 7 years. And to be honest, sometimes they still do. And then I thought that was the only time I ever called myself a victim. I said, I'm a victim of abuse. And it's, I said it once and my inner commitment was that I would never allow myself to frame myself as a victim of anything.
Wow. That's powerful. And you were in your 40s, is that right? When this came to you?
Yes. I was 45.
45. Oh, and did it, can I just ask, did it happen all of a sudden in one afternoon, evening, something triggered and then all of a sudden this opened up in you?
Yeah, daffodils. When I was a kid growing up, there was a lady down the road, Mrs. Anderson, and she had these bunch of plum trees. And under these plum trees, she planted daffodils. And when the days were rough and the nights too long, I would walk to school. And every spring, I would wait to see those daffodils. And for me, that meant I'd survived another year. And it was a springtime here— no, it was November here, on a Thursday, I think it was. And I walked outside of my writing shed. And I looked down and I thought, wow, they're beautiful daffodils. And it all came flooding back. 14 years of abuse. And my wife at the time found me curled up in a ball in the backyard sobbing. Wow.
That is, that's really powerful. And do you have a, when this started coming back to you, did you have a memory of, as you said, year after year you'd see the daffodils and you realize I survived another year. Do you have some recollection that actually was going through you? Year after year when you were little?
No, I think I've worked— I think that's my reflection on it now. I've wondered why those daffodils. And I think when I've sat with it, I realized that I'd come to depend upon those daffodils for counting the passing of time and counting year by year. It was just, it was the only pleasant thing I can remember from my childhood was those daffodils every year. And I think, I don't know why, but On that particular day, all, everything that I was raised and went through as a kid was tied and committed around that, that, that memory.
Wow. Very powerful. Can you share more than what happened at 45 as it started flooding back? I know you and I've talked a little bit about your life started falling apart, but what would you like to share with people? What happened? What you started to learn?
I went from traveling the world. I would, I'd be on a plane 9 months of the year speaking in very large nonprofit and for-profit organizations. And I went from that being a very successful corporate trainer, big stage speaker, to a complete lock-in with a stutter that was so bad people would get embarrassed. So my life was total meltdown. I went back to being like a college student. I'd, I was in the, I'm heading towards divorce at this stage, and I was living in a 1-bedroom apartment with cement block bookshelves and a mattress on the floor. I was basically a college student again. And so that, that was the whole tumble down. And from that point, it became the decision and determination to start to live my life differently and having to— I went from John 1.0 to John 2.0. Often what trauma does is it changes the way your brain's wired. And you know what John Agueddon did for me, it moved me from this. very left-brained, goal-driven person to someone who wanted to smoke cigars and write poetry. John 2.0 had a totally different skill set than John 1.0. The two just weren't compatible. The two halves of the brain were just not getting on. And so this learning journey was a totally different and new experience for me. And as I started to build back and understand the impact of trauma and what I'd been through as a child, I started to have to reinvent myself in a totally new reality.
I know you've shared with me off podcast that you found a skilled therapist to help you, which is, I think, critical in my work, in my private practice and working with people with trauma. Can you have someone that really sees you, helps you through the process? Can you share about what that experience was like?
I think it was very daunting for her and daunting for me. I determined I needed to talk to someone, and I had a mate whose mother-in-law was actually a therapist. And what I liked about Mona was that Mona had actually been through something similar as a child, because I wasn't going to go and sit to someone who had no idea because they just weren't going to get it. And understand, this is nearly 20 years ago, and there were no support services for men. Still today, there's only one place in all of America where there's a home for trafficked or sexually abused boys, and it's in Texas. There's nothing else. There's still very few support groups for men. Very— we don't even— we're not even comfortable having a conversation about boys and men being sexually abused, particularly when it's by women. So I went through this whole phase of having to find someone, and Mona was prepared to talk to me. She lived in South Dakota and I was based in Texas. So I took myself off to South Dakota and had a series of conversations. She wanted to do it over a period of 6 months, and I said, I'll do it over a period of 3 weeks, love. And I want 2 a day and I want 3 times a week. She said, impossible. I said, you don't know me. I am capable of things. I will achieve this. I said, what? I think the thing that did it for me was I told her I didn't want— I didn't need her to save me. I just needed someone to give me some tools. I'll do the work. I'll make it work. And I think that's the difference with— for some people, if they become therapist dependent and they want to turn up and relive the victim story, they don't want to graduate beyond the therapist. And Any good therapist is like a personal trainer. They want to see you out the door and being able to work out on your own. A therapist wants you to, you've got, there needs to be a time where it's meant you've evolved beyond my skillset to a degree. Like, yeah, I brought you to the end of the skills I've got or to the end of your journey with me. Now I can hand you over or suggest something else, but I think a good therapist, that's what their outcome would be.
I agree with that. And it sounds like this Mona, she really saw you, witnessed you, With you, I'm assuming talk therapy, but also I would guess somatic work. Was it both talk therapy and then releasing it out of your body?
We did some— EDMAR really worked for me, that rapid eye movement stuff. Goddamn, I think it is. I can't remember.
EMDR.
EMDR, thank you. The other one I think is a, like a dance drug or something. Anyway, so that one, the one that's not the illegal one.
Yeah.
But so that she was, that was real, that was really helpful for me. That some of the voice stuff and some of the other stuff really didn't work, but that one, and I think it's okay to do that, to try different therapies to find the one that works for you, because that's a very important thing. So Mona was a small part of my journey. I think the person that I would attribute with the quality of seeing me would be my wife, Melissa.
Nice.
She was the one that in my worst times would walk towards me. She was the one who understood that this rage that was in me was not at her, but my soul was like broken pieces of glass. And when I was having to walk around the inside of me, it just hurt. And with pain comes volume, but volume was never aimed at anyone. It was volume at the world because I just ached. And Melissa was the one I'd attribute who The power of a partner, the one who saw me and she determined to walk with me through this journey. I lost just about everybody else in my life at that stage. But Melissa, I found Melissa along the way.
Oh, that's such a bless— such a blessing. Very much. Such a blessing to have her walk with you through all of it and through the pain and letting the pain out.
Yeah. Yeah. She, what someone else saw as trash, she saw as treasure. And that's something that it was life-saving for me to have found that. And the power of a partner, I think, is not discussed enough in terms of recovery, of having an emotionally supportive environment. I think it's absolutely paramount for people to, to be able to recover well.
Oh, I completely agree. And the whole genre of work, attachment theory, is extremely, I think, important on your healing journey. Just looking at family of origin, which, you know, what it means. Were you, did you have a secure attachment? Anxious, avoidant, disorganized. But a secure is, were you really safe, seen, soothed, secure? Which not many people in my many years of practice had a secure growing up, a secure attachment. But then to find that when you're an adult, that's how we heal.
Yeah, definitely. I think my journey there took a different nuance 18 months ago when I found, found my Aboriginal heritage. I'm, I'm an Imbrani man, Indigenous man, Australia. The government policy was to breed the black out. So melanin is a recessive gene in Aboriginals. So by the time you got to the 3rd generation, they were blonde-haired, brown-eyed kids, as I was. And when I turned 60, we just introduced Melissa to a Cherokee family, and she said, you've got to answer this question for yourself. You need to go back and you need to find mob. And so we went on that journey. So the last 18 months, 2 years, That family of origin took on a totally different meaning for me. And you go from orphan to tribe, and it's, uh, it explains so much on a DNA level, on an ancestral mind level, on understanding what's actually in your DNA. That family of origin, that gave me a whole new sense of rounding out my recovery.
Thank you for sharing that. What would you say biggest, some of the biggest learnings from just that experience, but then also on your path right now? Biggest learnings, biggest gleanings?
There's probably 4 truths I've come to develop is live authentically, be authentic, imagine the future you want to inhabit, allow those truths to set your goals, and to live— the Finnish word for it is relentless resilience. So those 4 are the probably the 4 key things that I've taken out of that. What I learned from my family in the last 2 years, my Imbrani or Aboriginal family, is to walk slow, to think slow, and to speak slow. And they were things I always did naturally, but they were things that never worked within a European context. It was always just a part of who I was, and I was ridiculed for it because I would just walk slow, I would think slow, and I would speak slow. And I think between those 2 tenets, I've started to assemble what the next 20 to 30 years will look like. I would say in the arc of recovery, I'm probably 15, 16 years in, but probably only the last 2 years I feel like my feet are under me. And I feel like these tenets I've now got are for my future self in terms of guardrails and guidance for the, what the next 20 or 30 years look like for me.
And it just, in the moment, sounds like your connection back to your original family that was so powerful in understanding really who you are, what defines you, what's important, explaining who you are to yourself.
Yeah, it is. It, everybody's from somewhere. Like, indigenation is a, God had a tribe, that tribe had a piece of land. God's into indigenous. We're all indigenous. We are all from somewhere. We have roots somewhere on this. Beautiful place the Creator put us. And I think it's just paying homage to that and understanding that you've walked somewhere as a family before. I don't think without our learnings in from scripture or from quantum physics that we can deny things like ancestor mind and an understanding of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is a generational thing that comes with you forward. And if you get around indigenous people, you understand it's not just Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Like they talk, their lineage. You get to reading the Book of Numbers, it's boring because everyone just begats someone and they're shagging for all these chapters. And you, but you understand that what they're talking about is this heritage and lineage that has come forward and they're all building upon as part of a greater story and a greater narrative. And I think in our Western society, we bookend it with birth and death and some mind— most, most often than not, mindless activity in the midst of it. Instead of taking pause and wondering, why am I here? Where did I come from? And what is my future and my destiny? Like, what is my purpose, mission, vision, and value for this thing? And I, I think that's a very important part of growth in everybody.
Oh, I completely agree. I completely agree. Where you're at today and all your healing that you've gone through, what would you say in the moment is your calling? When you look back at what you've lived through, why are you here? What does it mean? What's your purpose?
Oh, they're a good question, man. 30-year-old John 1.0 had a totally different question than 62-year-old John 2.0. Purpose, overarching one, is to love God and enjoy him forever. I think it's as simple as the catechism. It's just enjoy this because this is beautiful, and then to do things that I enjoy. And I enjoy to write, I enjoy having conversations, I enjoy working with my wife on a daily basis. I enjoy those things. So I think I learned in recovery that I might— my childhood was pretty horrible. So at some point I made a decision that I wasn't going to do horrible stuff anymore, and I just wanted— I wanted to do things that were good for my soul. And I love to write, and I've always loved to write. And so provision for the vision— I, I run a couple of businesses and a nonprofit, and they provide money that gives me time every week to write. And I think that's okay. So my goal accordingly for the next period is to move my career trajectory into writing full-time, and we're in the process of doing that. So I think purpose is one of those things that you're allowed to discover and evolve into. I don't think it's a mission statement and a 5-year plan. I did all those and they were all BS. They never work. I don't think we know. what our future's like beyond the end of our nose. We can pretend we are, but human beings have a habit of doing that, trying to outguess the Creator on what that means. I know I'm supposed to have some sort of smarter answer, but I think Miles has just taught me that, yeah, it's all rubbish. I enjoyed getting up this morning. I enjoyed thinking about talking to you, and I'll enjoy going to bed and having a cuddle. So that's 3 wins for the day for me.
That's so lovely. And what I hear with what you just said is just be here now. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy life in this, the preciousness of life right now is what I sense and feel with you in this moment. And isn't that, I think, how we're called to be in this world? And yeah, life is precious.
I believe so. It doesn't take away the pressure from having to make money or the obligation to turn up and meet a client's needs. That's all part of it. You can turn up and meet a client's needs while still enjoying the fact that it's a beautiful day outside or it's about to drop 5 inches of snow where you are. Yeah, I think you can do that. I think you can do both. I don't think it has to be one or the other. And I, I don't think there's pressure to find out what you're supposed to do early and pursue it. I, that's not, my experience has taught me that's just not the case. And I don't think we ever end up where we started, but we always end up where we're meant to be.
I would agree with that. And it's a process of opening into each day, hearing, sensing, feeling guidance. We live into it every day and just By being present, we can open into the guidance that's always here in our lives. But I also wanna raise up the fact that you, I sense from your work, have a passion to help others who have suffered.
Yeah, I do.
Can you talk more about that?
Sure. So for me, recovery was a 15-year and probably $250,000 process. And I was blessed enough to be in a situation running my own businesses that I could take that time and spend that money. But I came out of that thinking, like, on average it takes someone about 10 years to get into recovery. They start the process and probably 10 years or so before they start to get their feet under me. I probably got my feet under me for the first time, as I said, a couple of years ago. So what I wanted to do was I started this online group called the Phoenix Collective, and what we've done is try and take 15 years of learning and put it in a form that it's an evergreen, self-paced learning curriculum. And I really enjoy that. And part of that is we do group coaching. So I really enjoy sitting down and challenging people to ask questions around why are they self-limiting in their belief systems about being able to recover. I thoroughly enjoy that. And to facilitate the dreams of others has been a byline since I can remember. So I enjoy that process and it is rewarding. I think I'm blessed to be at a stage in life where I am only doing things I enjoy. And that's not, people would call that lucky. I would argue vehemently that's not, that's decisional. That, that is very decisional. I do go to work and I do things that are business that are part of provision for the vision. But even those things, like the business that we run, a boutique marketing business that only has 5 clients, 5 clients a year. And I only ever work with people. I tell people straight up, if they want to come and they want me to do work, I said, I need to meet you. I need to meet your spouse, your team, because if I don't like you, I'm not gonna work with you. And I've had to tell people, look, I'm not gonna work with you. And they say, you mean you don't like me? I said, yeah, I don't.
That's hilarious.
Well, why don't you like me? I don't wanna unpack that because, you know, you're a dick and you're not gonna listen. So I just not gonna work with you.
Or maybe say, not feeling a resonance, or don't feel in my heart maybe that I could help you.
Yeah, you would say that. I'm gonna say, I think you're a bit of a dick and I don't wanna work with you. My wife will tell them it doesn't resonate and our calendars Yeah.
Oh my gosh, you're hilarious. At the end of the day, you're giving back and with everything you've lived through, look at this. You have so much wisdom from what you've lived through, from your healing journey. It sounds only natural that to help others going through a hard time.
I think, but isn't that part of, so there's a concept amongst the Bunyi or in Aboriginal people of an elder, of you get to a point where you graduate because you have knowledge of your songs and your lore. And a responsibility to pass that on, and you become an elder within your tribe. And I was talking to someone, and he said, "I said you need the term elder came up." He said, "Don't say that. Don't say that. I'm not that old." I said, "Brother, I just want to challenge you on that. If you're not graduating into an elder, then you're stuck in middle age, and that's where we did all our learning and all our breaking. At some point, we have to turn around, and only in Western society." Has age— is age seen as detrimental and useless? In every other society and culture, gray hair, gray beard, that's the signs that you have lived life and got miles, and maybe you've got something to say now.
I agree with that. So really taking that to heart of being an elder, and you've lived through so much, you've been blessed to walk through it. It's almost that phrase of how walking through the fire, how it's burned you, but like you've come out on the other side. And the tremendous healing and wisdom and awareness and understanding of life. You have it, you hold it.
Yeah, bronze not burned, I suppose. It should leave a mark on you. Life should leave a— life should mark you. But at some point, they need to move from scars of shame to medals of honor. They should— your past, you should wear your past visibly because it's important. It's in— have you ever read a biography where Or an autobiography where it says, I went there and I did this and I was awesome. And then I went there and I was just awesomer. And it's boring. I want to know about, I went here and fell down a hole and I had to fight a lion on a snowy day and I crawled out and then I had to protect a hill of beans. And then I went, I want that guy's story. Because I want fail, fail, still falling forward, fail. That's the guy. Because I think that's more accurate and a more useful story. Then I'm awesome and I've got an Instagram following.
Yep. And I agree, but I'd also say in the moment that takes a consciousness, a choice to look inward at the pain and the suffering and wanna heal. I see this in my private practice every single week. People I work with that are finally ready, maybe they're 50, 60, 70, 80. In fact, I have a 90-year-old in my practice, woman who, I'm ready. I know I can experience more of life. I know I'm still holding this pain and I don't wanna hold this anymore. So I do think it's a, it takes courage and strength and a conscious choice that I want more. I wanna heal more. I wanna open more. I wanna feel more.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
But then on the other side, there are people, I'm guessing you've seen this as well, that, and I've only met a few here and there that sense and see this and the pain within, but they don't wanna do the work and like, eh, fine. Next lifetime I come back. Yeah.
Yeah. They get into a victim narrative about it and they define themselves. Your past will either refine you or define you, and they've allowed their past to define them instead of make them into— there's no point having lived through a horrible patch if you're not going to learn from that and graduate. Turning shit into fertilizer. Like, we've— you just got to scrape it around your life and let the tree grow. It's because you can't escape it, so it might as well be useful. And if you can't sit with it, you can't escape it. You might as well let it be useful. And I admire someone like that, the lady, 90 years old, because the journey from 0 to 90 is she was always progressing towards healing, always progressing. And she was fighting every day to come to the place of saying, I'm ready. I hope in 90 that I'm still going, I'm ready. Because whatever happens between 62 and 90, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to deal with some stuff along the way. I want to be that chick, man. That sounds awesome.
Yeah. Oh, I agree. Amen. And she is. And all the clients I work with are like, oh, how lucky am I? It's what a blessing. And I agree with you. It's about choosing even just the basics of, can I open? Can I notice? Can I sense what I'm feeling and decide that I want to heal? And that said, yeah, it just, it defines Who we are, who we become. And like you, I feel like, wow, I still have so much to learn. I have such a visceral sense of what it means to be alive from almost dying twice. And yet it's, wow, life is so incredible. There's so much to learn. And it's just magical. It's magical to feel into it, to open into it and keep being open and learning.
Yeah. I've also got an obligation. When I got married, Melissa said she wanted 40 years. So we've just done 9. Yeah, I'm, I'm the fear of God and the fear of the missus. Like she wants, she wants another 31. So I better go.
That's so great. But isn't it interesting how going through something so horrific in your young years shaped and helps open into why you're on this earth and what to learn? Same with me. I had a horrific childhood. It was horrible coming close to dying and the extreme fear and loneliness and isolation, but I would never be who I am today, never, without having gone through that, ever.
And I think that's the point, Katherine. It's like people ask me, I have only ever prayed that he would turn all things for good. And they've asked me, you know, what, how would you do it differently? Would you do it differently? What? And it's no, I know I wouldn't because I like John 2.0. I never really liked John 1.0. And the question of Can I do it over? There are none. So you have to come, you have to have peace. And I think that living in that regret thing, I think that's a real debilitating thing. You know, regret and fear are just debilitating emotional phantoms.
Yep. Yeah. And we also know now there's books on, there's a lot of research, and I do public speaking on this, but just we're energy and everything's energy and tuning into energy. And if you live in a place of these lower vibrational energy— fear, shame, guilt— which happens being human.
Yep.
But you work on it, you process it, you— it takes some like, wow, work. But then to move through it to the higher vibrational energies— love, joy, peace— where are we? Because what we embody, what we move through every day, the emotions and feelings we hold, we put out into our energy field. And that's how people experience us How the world interacts with us, what we manifest. It's— there's a whole research science on this.
Yeah, that's great. Very true.
Yeah. So love to hear about more about what gives you meaning. I— you've already alluded to God as a source of, I sense, strength. Was that in any way part of your path when you were little, or that you would lean into asking for help? Or did that come as an adult?
No, I, my, my first spiritual encounter was, uh, was when I was probably 13. I had a very, I had a, a very vivid spiritual encounter. And I think even in my darkest times when the, when I was trying to run from him hard and fast because no one could want to ever have accepted me, and I had no concept of grace and mercy. And, and the God that was being misrepresented often in the pulpit was not the God I read in the Bible. So I went looking for that God. And when I collided with him later in life, it was like I'd just come home. Like I knew this fella. This fella had always been there, and I just— he'd always been there. And so for me, that sense of coming home was the greatest relief of my life. It answered so many questions for me.
Can you share with us what happened at 13, that spiritual opening, awakening you had?
So there was a little church that had a big hall, and it was a Scottish Calvinist Presbyterian church. Now that's a mouthful just there.
Theologically, that was a mouthful.
Yeah, there's— theologically, there's a few issues, but yeah, and it was a Scottish Calvinist missionary church, and once a year they would send a guy over from Scotland to preach the gospel. Calvinism believes that all are called, and they would, this was part of their worldwide evangelistic thing. So anyway, on the corner shop across from there was like a little milk bar. And I don't know what the equivalent is in America where they sell milkshakes and candies and things like that. And so I went over there and I stole a packet of cigarettes and I brought it back to the hall. And there was a stairway where all the peep girls would go upstairs and boys downstairs. So all the boys would gather down and look at the girls' socks and try and grab their legs as they walked up the stairs. So I was smoking under the stairs trying to grab girls' frilly socks. And so that was the midst of my great spiritual awakening. And then I went and stood in this hall and this old Scottish guy was preaching and it was literally like, like this beam. It was just that thing. I just, for the first time in my life, I had an understanding that God was a reality and he spoke to my soul. So in the midst of my sin and 13-year-old boy behavior, it's not like I'd prayed and fasted for this thing. In an app with a guy with the thickest Scottish brogue that I could never understood, I had a revelation of the reality of Christ, and which to me just ticks so many boxes. Like, I wasn't worthy, I couldn't understand the guy I was speaking to, but my heart became enlivened for the first time Since my creation was brought forth. And so from that forward, he always walked with me. Now, in that period of walking was the period of my greatest sexual abuse, my greatest trafficking, my greatest sexual humiliation. And, and he was there in the midst of all of that. And I, if you ever get the, it's one of the most awe-inspiring and soulful things is when you hear heaven cry for you and understand that the Father has a heart for the broken. And so those years were times, some of the sweetest spiritually and some of the darkest emotionally and physically. And so when I came out of that period, I went looking for love in all the wrong places for a lot of— very angry, very broken. I was an equal opportunity victim. I was very more regularly abused by women than men. And so I, when I came out, I was just angry at everything and everyone. And so in the midst of all this, I was driving home from I'd been mustering sheep and cattle first time, and I drove past the church and I saw a funeral. And this voice again that I recognized because I knew it when I was a kid said, one day that will be you. Are you ready to meet me? And I was like, hell no. So I did what everybody should do under the conviction of the Holy Ghost is go and get drunk for a couple of weeks. And when I sobered up, he was still there. And I thought, nah, right. I need to work this out then. Hey, you're not going anywhere. And obviously I need a little bit of help.
Yeah, it was amazing. Thank you for sharing that.
Wow.
It feels, what I'm sensing is you felt, would you say a deep presence with you all of a sudden, a deep presence of God, Christ, what words you wanna use that came into your being?
I think it was an understanding that was always there that I had never, I had never understood what that feeling was. And once I understood it. I realized that it not only had never been there, but going forward, it never left. It didn't matter where I— it's very hard to run out of the hand of God. It's a very big hand. And so you just have to stop and give in and go, you're right. Okay, you win. Okay, let's just do this thing.
I love the analogy of, yeah, running from the hand of God. It's always there. Stunning.
Beautiful. It's a big palm. It's a very big palm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I felt that when I was 11, just, I felt like I was literally on a tightrope. Am I gonna live? Am I gonna die? And that came through me. And it was just like, oh, and I— to this moment. Yeah, it's a gift. It's a gift and a knowing that we're not alone.
Yeah, absolutely.
So for listeners right now hearing this that are feeling stuck in fear, in pain, in just tremendous anguish, maybe they're starting to look inward. Any thoughts you would share in the To help them?
Just don't give up. Best thing you can ever do is get up and breathe deeply, appreciate the morning, and understand there's hope. Hope, hope is very powerful. It is the foundation of all faith. You can't have faith without hope. And hope is the easiest thing to have. I hope tomorrow will be better. I hope today will go well. I hope I get an answer. We can all hope. Having faith is a little bit more tricky sometimes for people. So for people who are looking for an answer, I just try and get them to say, just stick with hope. Just start your journey as I hope today goes well, as opposed to today's going to be an absolute crock. I hope today goes well. I hope the interview goes well. And neuroplasticity, neuroscience has now taught us that once we stop the negative, we automatically start to write the positive. So by stopping the, this is going to be a crappy day, with the, I hope it's going to be a good day. If you can't master an affirmation, you can certainly say I hope. You know, you can't say hope and feel miserable. It's like saying hallelujah. You can't say hope and be miserable. And so I that was probably one of the very first lessons I learned, and it's the first lesson I try and teach people that I do coaching with. Is just let's not worry about anything else except hoping that tomorrow is better than today.
And just I'm just moved by that, and I love the language and. Yeah. Even just going back to neuroplasticity of stopping the negative worry, rumination, fear, anxiety, and working with that, naming it, feeling it. But then like Rick Hanson would say, grow the good, marinate in the good. But yeah, naming an affirmation, using the word hope, and it's creating positive new neural pathways in our brain. We reshape our brain.
Yeah. 'Cause I think, I think one thing I'm aware of is it's taken me 15 or 16 years to get here. And I've done a— I mean, I don't want this to sound arrogant. I'm an educated person. I've been blessed with the opportunity to gain an education. So with that education either comes humility or arrogance. And I've done the arrogance. We've all been arrogant. We do that before we realize that's just a waste of time. And I don't forget what it's like not to have known these things. And I work with a lot of very intelligent people that are really comfortable with being the smartest person in the room. I'm Very uncomfortable being the smartest person in any room, and I never want to give a person that sense. So when it comes down to things like neuroplasticity and quantum physics, I can hold my own with the best of them. But for most people, just understanding that it starts with hope, and if I could just give them that one little phrase— because it took me a long time to understand the impact of my words, it took me a long time to understand how I frame my future according to them. Took me a long time to understand neuroplasticity and all that, but it always— knowing that I could hope. And if I can help people start there, then it becomes obtainable. And that's another driver for me, the ability to be able to take very complex subjects and make it obtainable to people. That's a core driver in everything I do and everything I try and teach, be it theology, be it metaphysics, be it backyard psychology over a pipe and a whiskey.
I love what you just shared and holding hope, just the word hope and the grace. And I would say a step further where I land is even just saying the words, help me, whatever that is for everyone listening right now. Is it God? Is it energy? Is it Allah, Brahma, source, whatever that is, but just knowing we're not alone and tuning in and asking for help. Just help, be with me, guide me. Powerful.
Yeah. Indeed.
So is there, I know we're getting closer to time, but is there a Practice that you do every day that just centers you, grounds you? You don't go a day without a practice? Yeah, I wanted to ask you this question.
It'll sound very complicated and it will sound incredibly spiritual, but I, I make a cup of coffee, I light a cigar, and I read my Bible. Coffee, Christ, and a cigar every day without failure. I go to the gym and I do a range of those other things, but the anchor for my day— now, do I do it every day? I will tell you that because we're on a podcast and I need to seem more holier than thou than all those other poor listeners. But if I get 4 out of 5 or 4 out of 7 or 1 out of 14, I'm doing okay. You know, I miss it when I don't. I freaking feel it when I don't. But when I do, my whole world becomes easier.
And do you typically do that morning, afternoon, evening?
First thing in the morning.
First thing in the morning.
Here's how we go. Here's the deep insight. So Alarm goes off at— coffee machine starts at 4:30. Alarm goes off at 5. The Turkish said that one reason a woman can give the divorce papers, a divorce, is the lack of good coffee. So coffee goes off, 5 o'clock. John makes first coffee, listen to the Bible. Wife makes second coffee. Gone. John goes to the gym. John goes to the shed, has coffee, cigar, and Christ.
That's great. Love it. Yep. Centers your whole soul, your whole being.
Yeah. Especially lying there with the missus too, holding hands. Having to pray. That's really important too, I think.
Yeah.
It's just really important. It's, that's a very important part of the ritual. She's my wonderful, she's a—
What a blessing.
Yeah, it is. I, yeah, I didn't know that be it a friendship, marriage, or sex could be this good. And all of that is communication. And to have someone in my life like that, I understand is a treasure. And so I want to just make her coffee and keep her happy.
Sounds like lovely connection, connection and flow.
It is. And she taught me that because I'm a, I've got PTSD, I'm on the spectrum. I don't communicate necessarily well emotionally. And Melissa has been my greatest coach and my greatest model from those things.
Yeah. I think a daily routine is so helpful and a grounding in gratitude and God. That's similar to how I start my day. I don't even get outta bed before I'm like, thank you. Just prayers of gratitude. I would love to ask you more questions because I have a whole bunch more, but I want to be mindful of our time. And I end my podcast by asking the question from my book, Everyday Awakening: what does awakening mean to you?
Acceptance of who I am and where I'm from. Understanding that there is no thing as past or future, but only now. And Yeah, it's all like something like that.
Lovely. Accepting the moment, being in the moment. Lovely. Thank you so much for coming on my podcast. You are inspiring. How can listeners find you, your work, website, social media?
Sure. drjohnaking.com is the website. And there's a bunch of stuff they can get on there for free. We've got some mental health quizzes and challenges. We're launching a couple of books. If they'd like to find out about those or drop them an email. And social media, Dr. John A. King, all over different platforms. So love to connect with them. Love to have a chat.
Lovely. I feel inspired meeting you, talking with you. My heart feels full and I wish you the best. Thank you for coming on.
Thanks, Katherine. Appreciate it.
Thank you so much for joining Everyday Awakening. Let's keep the conversation going online. You can follow me on Instagram. Um, at Catherine Duncan, M.A., BCC. And to keep up to date on the show, subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. I'd love to hear from you.
