BONUS: Think Unbroken with Guest Michael Unbroken

Today's episode is all about finding and healing your own inner power. And you know, this is one of my favorite topics. After all, you can't really manifest to the fullest extent until you grasp that wellspring of power and receptiveness that's within you. Now, normally when I teach you to uncover and heal your inner wounds and patterns and blocks, I do it gently, layer by layer. But my guest today, Michael Unbroken, takes a different tack. As a survivor of extreme forms of abuse, he's discovered a way to fundamentally heal that's a little more in your face than mine. And I want you to hear how he does it and maybe see if he's speaking your language and and has been your missing piece. Flow Dreaming Still Kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of Woo Woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming Still Kinda Woo Woo. Before we jump in today with our conversation with Michael, I just wanna shout out to everybody who is part of my Flow Dreaming Mastermind. It has been such a pleasure so far this year. Travel through all of these workshops and rituals and even a few parties that we've been doing each and every month. And my love goes out to all of you. I'm so excited about this new format that's so hands on and live action. And I hope your little journals are just getting full and full and fuller with all of the processes and revelations that we have been exploring together in our classes and workshops. So my love to you guys. Keep up the good work. If you're curious about what I'm talking about with this Flow Dreaming mastermind, just go to my website@flowdreaming.com. check it out. It is a wonderful and low cost experience. Now let's jump in and let me introduce the wonderful Michael Unbroken. From homeless to hero, Michael Unbroken is the author of the best selling book Think Unbroken, as well as his podcast, also called Think Unbroken, which I've had the pleasure of being interviewed on. He's a coach, he's a mentor, he's an educator for adult survivors of child abuse and many different forms of emotional, physical, sexual abuse for that matter. He hosts the podcast Think Unbroken. As I just mentioned, he also teaches at his Think Unbroken Academy. And really his mission is to end generational trauma through education and information. You can find him@thinkunbroken.com now let's get into this fascinating and hard hitting interview and see if it wakes you up inside.

Michael, I'm so glad that you're with us. And you know, we're going to go into an area today that I don't usually talk about with my audience. So I'm hoping you're going to educate us as well as maybe entertain us a little bit too.

For sure, yeah. I'm excited to be with you.

Yeah, so do you. I mean, I've already told people a little bit about you, but I certainly didn't tell them your whole story, which is, you know, a big part of what got you to what you do today. Maybe you could just begin with a little bit of that. Like how did you end up in this world of trauma coaching and what's your life experience? I mean, and briefly, I know you could probably talk. You could talk for a whole book about it, which I think you have.

Which I have multiple times and a ton of podcasts. I never anticipated this. I never signed up to be the spokesperson for kids that got beat up, you know, or suffered or were hurt, and to be able to serve in the way that I do and to have coached thousands of people around the world, millions of podcast downloads, tens of thousands of books sold, giant stages in front of 10,000 people. Like, I was just trying to fix myself, you know, And I think that's where a lot of this starts for most people. I mean, the, the elevator pitch of the horrific childhood. And, you know, I'll say this too, I think it's important. Like, my childhood was really, really, really awful. And so I want people to be cautious, you know, not because maybe they'll say, oh, my childhood wasn't so bad. It's like, it doesn't matter. Wasn't my childhood. It was, I didn't live your life, so don't compare. But when I was four years old, my mother, who was a drug addict and alcoholic, actually cut off my right index finger. She was manic, bipolar, schizophrenic, Institutionalized and rehab, end up dying of an overdose, married this super abusive dude, you know, 6 foot 4 to 20, beating up 7 year old. He's just a, a real coward of a man. And I spent a lot of my childhood homeless for 8 years old to 12 years old. We lived with over 30 different families. And by the time I was 12, I started getting high, drunk at 13, kicked out of high school three times, didn't graduate. But then I ended up figuring out how to navigate like the real world in corporate America. I ended up making a million dollars by the time I was 25, working for a Fortune 10 company. And I blew it all. I was 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep high from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed cheating on my girlfriend. I'm $50,000 in debt, making like six figures, my car gets repoed and my little brother says never talk to me again. And it's like the only way my life got worse at 25 heading into 26 was if I killed somebody. And I promise you, that was not that far away. And you know, I'm laying in bed one Saturday morning and keep in mind I'm 350 pounds, I'm fat, I'm watching the CrossFit games and eating chocolate cake like rock bottom. And I'm. You're laughing. I'm laughing because it's so nonsensical. You're like, what is happening in this guy's life?

Yeah.

And, and the reality was I was being a victim. I was being everything that everyone told me I would be. I was terrified to be in this moment who I am today. I was codependent and a people pleaser. I had poor habits in every area of life. And you know what? Summer, I pulled my ass up out of that bed that Saturday morning, walked into the bathroom and I went to war with myself. And I did because I had to. And I just called it all out. I was like, this is your fault. You did this. All these decisions have put you here. And it changed my life forever. Now look, I didn't take culpability for my childhood. That ain't on me, right? But that moment, like looking at my choices, my decision, it was radical responsibility. A word that I didn't really have then. I was just tired of my own bullshit. And then it just started, the journey. And 14 years later, here I am.

Yeah, I often refer to that as radical ownership. Right? Same thing, which is this understanding that we are here because of not just what's been done to us, but the way that we perceived it and the way that we responded to it, which is the only thing we can actually control our own perception and responses. All the things that happen around us and through other people, they're not under our control, but we ourselves are. So you and I have a lot of overlap in that, um, I often talk about power leaks, which is another way of saying something else has to change for me to be different. And we have a lot of them. We point to this and this. Like, if my husband loved me more, if my boss would give me more money, if my mom was nicer, if my body wasn't so, you know, disappointing, and the list goes on. I'm sure you know all about it when we talk about trauma. So you had that moment, that face off, if you will, and began to change. And of course, now you teach people how to do a similar thing. Do we all start with that moment in the mirror, or is there a gentler approach, perhaps? Because a lot of us are thinking, I have trauma, but I don't know what to do with it. And I've tried everything else.

Look, here's what I think. And, like, a big part of this journey is recognizing, and this is a hard truth that we're very weak as people right now, as a society. And I don't mean that to be disparaging. It's just reality. What is the. What is the hardest thing we deal with on a daily basis? The Uber was seven minutes late. Right. You know, and that's the reality for a lot of people, that is the hardest that their life becomes. I'm not. Look again, context. I was homeless as a kid. I stole food to survive. My three childhood best friends got murdered. My mom died of, like, I get it, right? So the people who are like, oh, man, this guy's so harsh. Whatever. Like, I just understand what it actually takes to change your life. And people will look at me like, I'm 6 foot 4, covered in tattoos with a gold nose ring, and people are like, what does this guy know about kindness? And I'm like, everything. But if you really sit in it, what is the kindest thing that you can do to yourself? Stop lying. Go look in that. Dare you. Go look in the mirror. I dare you. Because your life will change forever if you do. And. And I wish that there was to my. To my understanding. And look, I've been doing this for almost a decade. I've interviewed the greatest minds and trauma research in the world and studied under them from Dr. Meryl Bouquet to Dr. Caroline Leaf, Judd Brewer, Anna Lambke, Dr. Gabor, mate. I mean, the list goes on. I've interviewed everybody. I've learned from them. I have 30 certifications in trauma education. Your life doesn't change without the rock bottom. I just. They all agree with me. I agree with me. And like, you look at that and you're like, could it be gentle? I wish it could, Summer. I really do. Yeah, but I think that if it were gentle, it would continue to be what it is now and you would never shift. It's almost like there's this weird innate thing that we have as human beings in which we kind of crave suffering by our own hand. It's. Especially if you've come through trauma and we look at it and we go, this is what it's supposed to be. But you know what it really is when you unravel it? It's self doubt, right? If you really unravel it and you look at it and you go, well, why am I so scared to be the summer I'm capable of being? Well, because you don't believe in yourself. Because your whole life you've been told you don't matter, you're not good enough, you're not important, you're not worthy, you're undeserving. You tack on, well, then you were homeless and then you got beat by your stepdad and you wet the bed until you were 18. And all the things I went through, and you're wondering why your life is a disaster. And it's like all the clues are on the path to this moment. And if you look back at them, it's not that they're all your fault, because again, they're not. I don't think you're culpable for the terrible things that happen from the people who are supposed to take care of you. But as an adult, you have to make adult decisions. Be an adult. You are a grownup. Some of the first thing I teach my clients when they come in, whether it's one on one or group coaching or they, whatever, I sit with them and I tell them the truth. You are no longer a child. And for some people, they don't even understand what that means because they have been trapped in this mindset, this face off that I love. I wrote it down actually, as we were talking, because I love that you said that, because that's what it is. You sit in front of somebody who is here to help guide you down the path, you're going to have Face off right and if they're really good, you're going to be really mad at them because you're gonna be like, you're gonna be like, how dare they? How dare they tell me the truth when I'm living in this delusional reality of a fantasy that I want to pretend is my life. And you know what, like, everyone always says, the truth will set you free.

I found with people that we often develop a skin of protection when we're kids, you know, and I come from as well, and abusive upbringing in some regards. And the skin of protection are coping strategies, self soothing strategies, and like a whole bunch of strategies that we develop when we're 4 and 8 and 12, 15, and then we find ourselves at 40 or 50. And those strategies have never actually been looked at or upgraded since we have just continued to use them without even realizing that we're still doing them. So I really hear an echo of that in, in what you're saying. We have to remind ourselves that's what that, that's how I chose to handle this or think about this person or myself. This is how I chose to think about myself when I was 8. And it worked when I was 8, but I never changed it. Whoa. What, what do I do now? How can I, how can I be different? What do you. I was at your website, of course, you know, cruising around, learning all about you and you talk a lot about cptsd and I've been talking with pts about PTSD pretty recently. In fact, this week I was talking with my mom who was explaining that, you know, she feels like she has some sort of PTSD from her childhood for a lot of health related issues because people in her family were deathly ill and it was so, so traumatic. And we were, we were wondering like, is that a form of ptsd? Can you get it not just from, you know, like the big three. Emotional, sexual, physical. Can you, can you? I know I'm turning the conversation a little, but I just want to get clear for a lot of people who think that they've experienced trauma, but they don't really credit. That's trauma. They're not sure.

Yeah, well, look, I mean, you can take a DSM and throw it out the window, in my opinion. Who determines what traumatic experiences are for you? You know what I mean? It's like, you know, like this book doesn't tell me if my shit was bad, right? The, for some people think about this, right? Something as simple like. And I mean this genuinely. Imagine for a moment you're in third grade and you're in art class and you're coloring the house and the moon and the dog and all that, or the sun and the dog and all that stuff, right? And you decide in little eight year old Summer's mind and her imagination, you're going to make the moon purple because it's yours. You make the moon purple. And then Ms. Smith comes over to the desk and she sees it and she laughs and she goes, oh my God, Summer, the moon's not purple or the sun's not purple or the house isn't green and all the kids laugh. And in passing, as adults, we would look at that and we're like, whatever, right? But your 8 year old brain and development is looking at that moment and assessing the information for survival purposes and recognizing that you're being ostracized out of the community because everyone is laughing at you. And then from now on, Summer decides, well, I'm not going to be creative. I'm not going to put myself out there. I'm not going to honor my imagination because when I do, there's pain. And the brain takes these experiences of pain and they measure that. It just simply. The brain's a survival tool. That's it. The brain really doesn't serve any purpose outside of that, right? And when you think about, I mean, it does, obviously I'm being facetious, but like, if you really look at its number one primary purpose, it's survival. Help you disseminate information to make decisions so that you don't die. That's all. That's the whole point of it. So the brain's taken in this information and something as small as that has kept you trapped for 40 years. When you have to do the presentation at work, you go and vomit. When you have to go have a confrontation with your partner, you can't see straight and you got tunnel vision, right? And the list goes on and on and on. I mean, that seems pretty traumatic to me. So who's to say that this book, this, this literature gets to determine it? So I don't think it is only those things that create this complexity in our life. I think there's a myriad of issues. I mean, there's things that are so dumb. I'll give you a real life example and in passing you'd go, well, that doesn't sound like that's a big deal. But I used to have on the verge of a panic attack every time I heard a car door close, like constantly until I was like 28 and I started doing EMDR and things like that because Every time my stepdad came home, I would hear the car door close.

Yeah.

Is that not complex? So I think that it's really important just to. To notice and pay attention and not allow face value to exist just because some guy wrote it.

Yeah.

Or girl or whatever.

Right. So the definition is, if it causes fear, anxiety, a poor sense of self or a feeling that I'm not reaching my own expectations and a bunch of other things, it can be considered some sort of. Some type of trauma.

Feels reasonable to me.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

I mean, because, look, think about this for a second.

Et cetera. Any of those feelings. Yeah, yeah.

Like, to me, trauma isn't. Isn't the experience itself, it's the aftermath. Right. That's why it's called post traumatic stress disorder.

Yeah.

Or complex. Right.

Yeah.

It's not called in the present, Traumatic stress disorder. Right. It's post. And it's not the. Like, I look at my body and it's not the cuts and the scars and the burns or the mangled finger or the marks that I had, like that stuff. It's like, it's part of the journey. What. What really has been the trapping in my life that I've had to work through so much is the letting go of the experience of the shame, of the guilt, of the pain, of the hurt, of the fragility in it, the fear of vulnerability, the fear of being a man who's healed and. And, you know, all those things. So I. I'm always cautious to define these words because I just don't know that it's fair.

Yeah, I 100% agree. What do you think about, you know, the idea that you. You experience this trauma? It doesn't have to be a big trauma. It can be multiple tiny traumas or coloring moon purple or scribbling outside the lines. Whatever it is that you start to associate with this is bad, I am bad, or I need to protect myself, or I will be hurt, anything like that. And then we start to live our lives sort of dictated by that. And our future choices are either to avoid that at all costs or to never have that happen again. And yet, so oddly, we seem to recreate it again and again, the very trauma we try to escape and avoid. You know, for instance, if you, you know, had house insecurity, you would move in one place and stay there forever because you never want to experience that again. And yet you find yourself going from apartment to apartment to apartment. Do you see that happening? Like, what. What is that dynamic? And people call it drama, but I think That's a kind of a. An oversimplification and almost, you know, mean. It's not, it's not that. It's that we're. We know something is there and we keep repeating something, but we don't understand why.

Well, that's the problem, because you don't understand why.

Yeah.

It's very simple. Go figure it out. Stop being a child. Go be responsible for your life. Why do you keep getting into horrible relationships? I don't know. Why is your money bad? I don't know. Why is your health bad? I don't know. But I can tell you one thing. You're the common denominator.

Yeah.

I can promise you that. And so I think it's there. There's a curiosity of being able to step into it without destroying yourself in the process. Right. Now, obviously, what I said when my life changed required like a kick in the face, like it was self imposed. I had to have that.

Yeah.

There's no way in hell I could have been. Someone sat across from me and, like, calm energy and like, you know, Michael, you're really destroying your life. You're in all this debt and you're cheating on your girlfriend and you're overweight and you're smoking two packs a day. You know, you should really do is you should go to therapy or something. Like, what are we talking about? Right. What I, what I needed. What I needed was the same energy that brought me into that.

And it was in the face.

Yeah, exactly.

Got big. Big big meets big equal.

Yeah, exactly. Right. Because my energy has always been so big that it just absorbs rooms. It always has been like, even when I was a kid. And so I needed that for myself. And. But, but it really started with. I was so mad at myself, like, beyond. And it's like, at what point are you going to be tired of your own. And here's the truth, Summer, and you know this. There are so many people that will sit in that victimhood until the day they die.

Yeah.

And they will never change. They will never ask why. They will blame the world. They will continue to be a horrid partner, not take care of themselves, leverage these coping mechanisms that only hurt them. And then on their deathbed, they will be like, this life sucked. And you know what? They're gonna be right. And I feel so much pain for those people because they don't understand that they're only one decision away from everything being different. And I'm not saying that you're going to flip a switch like 26 to 30 years old was the hardest four years of my life. It was so unbelievably difficult because I had to do the things that I was loathing.

Yeah.

Quit smoking, go to the gym. Leave the relationship. Pack the bags and move across the country. Leave my home. Tell the truth. Jesus Christ. If somebody. If somebody would have been like, hey, dude, you're going to have to be honest with people and tell the truth. I'd been like, I don't know if I want to do this, because some of the shit that we had to talk about. No, it's beyond that. It's beyond conflict avoidance.

Yeah.

It was. It was actually taking ownership of my bad behavior because I watched my mother and my stepfather and my grandmother. Scapegoat or lie. I watched my community do it. Like, think about this. I would go to school covered in bruises and have to make up stories.

Yeah.

The police would come to my house and talk to me, and I'd have to make up stories. I was a masterful liar.

Yeah.

And so when I sat in the pain of truth, I had to tell my friends, my family, my partners, the people I'd been with in business and everything. I had to tell the truth. It was unbelievably painful, constantly, for years, until it wasn't. And that's the game. It's like, what are you gonna do? I stood in front of that mirror, I asked myself a question. What are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have?

Yeah.

And the answer was no excuses, just results.

Yeah.

And. And that meant to me, in that moment, and I. It's the same thing I teach my clients. It's like, are you gonna sit in the truth or not? Like, I won't even help you if you're gonna make excuses, because I don't care. Like, I really don't.

Yeah.

You know, my job as a coach, I think about this a lot. And it's a weird thing that people don't understand until they're actually sitting with me. I'm not here to be your friend, Summer. I'm not. I'm here to help you change your damn life. And you look at this, You. You think like it's a. It's a sports reference. But go look at a guy like Bill Belichick. Like, even if you don't like football, you know his name. He's one of the winningest coaches in the history of sports. I guarantee you the vast majority of his. His. His. His players did not like him. But damn it, they won a lot of championships.

Right, Right. Yeah. When you're. When you're being confronted with something that you've worked your whole life to avoid or cloak and someone says, oh, but this is what's really happening. It's a game changer. And I often say to my own clients, if you're feeling provoked right now, that could actually be a really, really good thing, because chances are that's where all the gold is. Right. If it was otherwise, it would be easy. You'd have found it already. But you haven't wanted to have this, so you haven't reached where you want to go and how you want to get through it. It's a mindset around fearlessness that I think we have to. As a site, like you said, as a society, we don't really cultivate that kind of fearlessness in ourselves or with others. And I encounter this too, because, like, a lot of the people I work with were very. I call us empathic or intuitive. A lot of people, you know, that are listening right now, we call ourselves highly sensitive, and we don't mean it like we're shaking little flowers who can get bent and broken so easily. But it's very different. We came from oftentimes pretty traumatic environments. And that sense in us of I need to know what's going on to survive, I need to read the room. Like, when I'm four, it gets hyper developed earlier, and then we end up kind of carrying that through the rest of our lives. And we're like, I know what you're feeling and I know what they're thinking. And I'm always like, pre playing in my head the conversation that I think this other person is probably thinking about me. And. And then people say, well, you're just too sensitive. It's like, no, actually, we are honed for survival. Do you have, like. Is a good part of your coaching people, you know, clients do. They do the same thing.

Here's what I'll tell you. I am that. Like, I'm. I'm almost clairvoyant. I walk into a. I walk into a room. I feel the energy immediately.

Yeah.

I sit across from somebody. I know who you are. You don't have to say a word, and I will figure you out. My superpower is that, like, to a T. And. And it was survival entirely. And because I was around so many strangers constantly.

Yeah.

I had to always be on guard. And unfortunately, it was through suffering things that I don't even mention publicly because it's just too dark. That was because of those I learned how to read People's intentions quickly. So I'm a great businessman. That's why I'm a great coach. That's why I'm a great human and friend. Because I already know what you are about before you even say a word. And one of the really hard parts about that is sometimes you have to give people space to actually like open up and not be so judgmental or have prejudice. But it's also a survival mechanism. So it's also about trusting your gut. And I think one of the things that people often do, I teach, it's funny just this Monday in our I teach themed months in coaching and this week we're talking about and assertiveness and actually like how to be like a person who gets what they want. And. And a big problem with people when it comes to assertiveness is they think it's a dirty word. They think it's bad because they're in. They're making meaning of unrealistic things. They're trying to parse out all the reasons why things don't work or why they can't go they want based on their experience. But what I'm always trying to do is find the supporting evidence for why you can have it, right? Why you do get a habit. And if you're empathic, if you are a highly sensitive person, which is great, don't use that as a lever or a clutch for why you crutch for why you can't have what you want. Because people do that all the time and then they're all up in their head. And the reality is, if you really think about it, you've never once in your life been like, ah, I knew I should have trusted my brain. But I promise you, hundreds of times, hundreds of you'd been like, I knew I should have trusted my gut. I knew it. And that's the, that's the gift that people who are empathic have, that they have to leverage to have the life that they want to have and get out of this. I need to do a pros and cons on everything. Trust yourself. Because to tell you the truth, I think the greatest sign of healing is trusting yourself if you can get to that place where you're not and like, even little things, I'll teach you something that's so ridiculous that people are going to be like, I never thought about that. I promise. Because I do this all the time with people. Stop asking people who are serving you at restaurants what they recommend that you should eat.

What? Why? Why?

Because are you making your own decision when Someone else is telling you what to do.

Yeah.

Oh, I don't know what I should eat. Should I have the steak or should I have the shrimp or should I have the fish or should I have the lasagna? Should I have this, hey, hey, guy over here who has no idea who I am, tell me what I should do. Yeah, and you do that in that moment. I promise you I can show you a hundred other moments every single day where you do the same thing. Yeah, because you're not trusting yourself.

I have a big, big interest in the world of trust. I call it the trifecta of trust. Right? Trust of self, trust of others, and trust of the universe or God. And for me, it also comes back to how do we build this, this, this trust and where has it become most broken and how is that playing out? But again, I'm here for you, but I'm just mentioning that for my audience because you guys have heard me talk about that, right? So Michael's talking about the exact same thing, just using slightly different words. This has gone super, super fast. I could probably continue and continue. But I want to talk about you as a trauma coach because I think for a lot of people, it's the first time they've really heard this. They're used to go to go see a therapist or, you know, go do some certain, you know, neuro linguistic programming or something. Right? What is a trauma coach? Like, how, how does this work? And for everybody who's shaking in their boots, like, I don't know if I want to have that moment in the mirror, like, how do you walk them in? Because if a little bell is ringing in a lot of people's minds right now, like, ding, ding. Everything he's saying is making total perfect sense. Oh, my God, what do I do now? What do you tell them? What do you do now?

I'm not walking you in. This is your life. Make a decision. What do you want? Yeah, you want a different life or not? I'm not. I'm not here to fucking convince you. Like, Summer, this is a horrible thing to say. I don't care if you change your life. I just don't. And nobody else does either. I can promise you that. But I promise you this. You sign that dotted line and you come in with me. I refuse to let you fail. I will hold you accountable. This community will hold you accountable. Your life will be different. But I only help people who are committed to helping themselves. Yeah, that's it. That period, point blank. And people will be like, you're so Harsh. No, I'm not. You want to keep having a lackluster life that has no abundance, no meaning, no joy, no fulfillment, no love, no courage, strength, no honor.

Cool.

I'm not going to tell you that the life over here is better.

Yeah.

But I'll show you.

Yeah.

Because I promise you this. Do you know what's. You know what's super cool is. I'll give you an example one time. There's. There's a Big Lots on the corner of 30th and Georgetown in Indianapolis. It's raceway area. It's where I grew up. I don't know if that Big Lots is still there. I haven't been over there in a decade. I assume it is.

I don't know.

But I would go steal food from that Big Lots when I was 10 years old, 11 years old, 12 years old, just making it. Trying to figure out how to navigate the world. Living in an abandoned house by myself while my mom was in rehab or disappeared with some dude, or who knows? And recently, I'm sitting down at a dinner that cost $2,500 with some of the most impactful people in the world. And I say that not to, like, gloat. I promise you, I've worked my face off. It's not easy to be able to afford that kind of thing. But I made a decision. That's it. I was willing to raise my hand and ask for help. And for the people who are listening to this and like, well, what does a trauma coach do? It's really simple. I'm gonna. I'm gonna show you the path. I will hold your hand as we walk down that dark tunnel. I will do my best to give you the thing that somebody else should have given you. But I am not going to do the work for you. I am not going to be sympathetic to your needs. And here's why. I know that sounds insane, but here's why. Too many people have allowed this rainfall of sympathy to be the reason why their life sucks. Everyone is sorry for you all the time. I'm so sorry you had a hard life. I truly am. What are you gonna do about it? And that's what I do. I sit with people and I ask them, well, what are you gonna do about it? And I'm not for everybody, Summer, trust me. There are people who are trauma coaches. There's a handful of us. There's not a lot of us, but there's a couple of guys that come to mind who will approach this in a whole other way.

Yeah.

But if You're a guy like me or a girl like me. And you come from the streets. You come from the hood. You went through some dark shit. You've had the world against you, and you've been stuffed into a corner and told you don't matter. And you need some intensity because you are an intense person. I'm your guy. You need somebody to coddle you and hug you, and it's going to be okay.

You.

I ain't for you. You. You will hate me, I promise. Yeah, I promise you will, because I. I'm going to give you tough love. But it will be love. But it will be difficult. I was coaching somebody just yesterday. We had the hardest conversation they've ever had in their life about something they needed to take care of. And last night, I will read. I will literally read you verbatim the text that they sent me. And no coincidence, today was pivotal. Too much to text. Thank you. What do you want to do? I got goosebumps. What do you want to do? I'm not. I'm not helping people who don't want to be helped. But if you want it, if you're ready, I promise you, I won't let you fail.

It's beautiful. Yeah. Michael, we're going to wrap up, but I'm sure you're going to get some emails. I have a feeling. Hello? I heard you. What's a way a person can reach you? Like, what. What's the first step? Do you say, come work with me? Do you say, you know, check me out first? Or talk to, you know, join my group first or get a feel for it? Like, what do you. What's the way in?

Here's how crazy I am. Because I believe in my mission. I will coach anyone in the world for free for 10 minutes at any time. And I've done this thousands and thousands of times. And all you have to do is.

Go to thinkunbroken.com and sign up 10 minutes with you. I bet those 10 minutes feel like an hour. They're like, oh, my God, he got everything. Oh, yeah.

Sometimes.

But you're right.

I don't need 10 minutes to figure out why you're stuck. You do. I don't.

Yeah. Yeah, I could see it. Michael, thank you so much. This has been beautiful and brilliant. And if. If. If everyone's feeling like me, I just feel like there's a lot to process in just the half an hour that, you know, we shared. Like, there's a lot to. To settle in. Because the biggest thing is, you know, you. You Kind of have brought us in the last half hour to a moment of self. I don't want to say confrontation because, you know, self awareness.

It's a good word. How about Face Off?

Face off, yeah. Yeah. So I almost feel like stealing that from you. We don't need to go in so many different directions and talk about all the things. When you hit something as spot on as the Face off, then that's all we're doing here today. What's the Face Off? Where are we at? Where are we really at? Like, honestly, at deeply at what's still lingering and traveling with us from days, years, decades ago that's running us that we no longer want to run us. So what's your last. Last little bit you want to sign off with here? Little note of encouragement. No excuses. That's your note of encouragement?

No excuses.

Love it.

No excuses.

All right, Michael, thank you so much. It's been a fabulous interview. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, my friend. It's amazing.

Well, my friends, what did you think of that? If you don't think that Michael Unbroken is a pretty intense guy, then I.

Don'T know what interview you just listened to.

You know, in the world of flow dreaming, I can dig in a little bit. Sometimes I can go deep into blocks and patterns and lack thinking and so forth. My experience with Michael, though, is he takes it to the next level and you can see. Well, like he suggested. Well, it was somewhere midway toward the end, perhaps, of our discussion. He suggested that if it's worth doing, you need to do it, and some of us need to do do it in a really big way. We need to have that moment in the mirror of full acknowledgement and breaking down and breaking open. So I recognize that we're all on different paths. Some of us are pursuing a more gentle unfolding. Some of us want or need the sledgehammer. And that's what I thought was particularly enlightening about our desire discussion. Michael presents a way to use, I would say, a sledgehammer that is also gentle and loving. So maybe check in and think about your own self and your own desire for really getting to know who you are and why you have what you have in your life and where you want to go from here and consider to what degree am I comfortable making changes? Because, frankly, sometimes if you make changes and you're not comfortable making them, then the changes are almost worthless. There's so much resistance and bracing involved that even though it may be something extreme, it doesn't yield the result you're looking for. On the other hand, sometimes the change is so slow and invisible you can barely see it. And you can say to yourself, it's great, it's gentle. But I could do more. Finding that perfect degree, that perfect amount of inner ownership and hunger for renewal and breaking through. That's almost half the battle with that. If you do want to get in touch with Michael, you can find him, as I mentioned before, at www.thinkunbroken.com or you can search them out on Instagram ichaelunbroken. With that, I'm going to leave you with one last little thought. I run a mastermind. I get together with some amazing and gorgeous and manifestationally minded people who run really do commit month after month to growing and stretching and seeing what else they can make and create. They're part of the Flow Dreaming mastermind. Every single month we're getting together, we are doing live workshops where we dig in and we create things, make things, heal things, release things. We cover a lot of ground over the course of a year.

Year.

Now you can become part of this mastermind for just a month if you want to, though of course I encourage you to stay as long as you want. But it's a great way to stay connected with your practice, to stay connected with your Flow Dreaming and to keep yourself accountable on your path of growth and healing and co creation in your life. Go to my website flowdreaming.com and check it out. Also make sure you've got my app on your phone. It's also called Flow Dreaming. And by the way, if you do have the app, I end up giving you some free flow dreams you can begin practicing with. So you do want to grab that. So you can really take advantage of all the free resources I have for you, including 20 seasons of this very podcast. 20 years. That's what 20 seasons means. I was, in hindsight one of the first podcasters out there. Certainly one of the first in the category of, you know, mind, body, spirit and personal healing and growth. So take advantage of 20 years of insights and musings and teachings. If you're curious where the first 10 seasons are are, they are inside of Apple Podcasts. That's itunes, Apple Podcasts and doesn't matter if you have an iPhone or an Android, makes no difference. You can still go to Apple Podcasts, use the app and I make it a measly $2.99 a month to be able to get to 10 years worth of free teachings about what is that going to be around? Maybe 300 or so hours of teachings. So Very, very, very worth it. Something I forget to mention, but it's, It's a really good and low cost way to immerse yourself into this world of flow and Flow Dreaming. With that, my love to you all, I can't wait to see you again for another episode of Flow Dreaming. Still kind of. Woo woo.

Hi friends.

If you enjoyed this episode, then I'd like you to consider what having private mentoring with me would be like. You see, I accept a small number of people each year for private coaching. The question is, what do you want to make? Who do you want to become? We can program and shape any area of your skill or your life. Imagine right now what you would be doing if you had no fear. Imagine how your life would look if there were no patterns and blocks repeatedly tripping you up. Imagine if you were fully healed in your heart, body and mind. Imagine if you also had a map to your success and you could follow it with ease and free flow. Well, I look into you and into your life and I feel where you're going and know where the road is open and where it's blocked. I help you make the very best decisions based on what's coming up for you. I'll also show you exactly what I do day to day to succeed in my personal and business life. And we can create a copycat plan for you. So if you're game, you can fill out an application online website for private coaching. Just go to flowdreaming.com coaching and then let's talk. I mean the time to go for it is now. So let's just get this started. Just reach out to me at my website flowdreaming.com and I'll get right back with you.