Why Can't I Stay Focused And Accomplish My Goals?

What is that one thing that you just want with all of your heart of hearts? You, you have a goal. There's something in your life that you either want to accomplish or you want to have, or you want to go after, but you just keep not taking action on it, or you just keep sabotaging your own efforts. Why is that happening? What is blocking you from, from living your best life from getting out there and taking control of your life and getting what you want to get and accomplishing what you want to accomplish and doing all the wonderful things that you want to do? That's what we're going to talk about in this video. We're actually going to look at the three step process for getting yourself out of that cycle so that you can sort of remove your roadblocks and get out there, live the life that you want to live. Because after all, that's what this channel is all about. That's what recovery is all about. It's about living the life that you want to live and not being held hostage by addiction. Whether it's an addiction that's trying to hold you hostage or a family member hostage. Because even when it's got your family member, it's got you. And those of you that have been in that situation know exactly what I'm talking about. So let's get on with our topic for today. The first step that you're. That really you need. This is almost like, like a pre step, I guess I would say maybe it should be like step point five or something like that. But the first thing that I think is super, super important. If you really want to get focused, motivated, stay motivated and accomplish what you want to accomplish is you gotta find out, you gotta really dig deep, deep. And you got to get into the why. So let me, let me give you some example of what I mean. Maybe you want to lose 50 pounds. Maybe you want to save up $20,000. Maybe you want to start your own company, maybe you want to go to art school, Maybe you want to become a photographer or a writer or a dancer. Whatever it is, you probably have some kind of goal. It's almost like this objective that you want to meet. But really what's important is why do you want to meet that goal? Because rarely is it ever the thing that we think it is. There's always something underneath the thing that we say that we're after. Maybe we want to get a promotion at work. What is it that we really want? Why do we want that? Because this is your true motivator. This is what you really want. It's not the thing that you're saying, it's what's underneath that thing. Let me tell you what I mean. If you want to get a promotion at work, why do you want that? That's what. That's what I want you to ask yourself. Why do you want that? So what's the answer to that? So I can make more money, right? Well, why do you want to make more money? So I can provide better for my family. Well, why do you want to provide better for your family? Because it's really important to me. I didn't have a whole lot when I was growing up, so it's really important to me to do that. Well, why is that important? If you'll go through this process of asking yourself these whys, usually about five times. Like, if you say, what is it that you want? And then ask yourself, why do I want that? And then ask yourself, why do I want that? Why I want that? And go down this chain of why, questioning for yourself or for a friend. If you're trying to help a friend figure this out, you're going to get to the core why. And the core why is a is. Is where the real motivation is. And I'm going to give you a little cheat sheet hint right here, right? The core why is almost always a feeling. It's not a thing, it's not a status, it's a feeling feeling. Whether it's, I want to feel safe, I want to feel loved, I want to feel proud of myself. I. I want to feel fill in the blank, right? I want to feel creative, something. There's a feeling underneath this goal that you have, and that's the thing that you're really after. Like, for example, if your goal is you want to make a bazillion dollars, right? You want to start a company and just conquer the world and be like the next Bill Gates or whatever, which let me say that there is nothing wrong with that. Why do you want that? Is it. Is it about security for you? Is it about accomplishment? Feeling proud of yourself? Is it about being able to give back to causes that you care about? Is it about making a difference? And there's no wrong answer to these why's. So in order to really, really, really, really get to your why, you're going to have to remove your judgment off of it. Because sometimes these things that are motivating us, we feel like somehow they're sort of bad or corrupt or evil or we feel like we're not supposed to want that or it says Something bad about us. Like maybe you want to be the next Mr. Beast or something, right? You want to be like some kind of famous singer, or you want to be a famous YouTuber, whatever. And, and deep down inside that may be the thing that's like really, really driving you, but you have this block on it, which is going to lead me to number two. We're going to talk about the blocks. First thing I do is get a hold of the core. Why? Why do you want that? And the hint is, is probably a feeling that you're after. Second step is to remove the roadblocks. Now these roadblocks can be like real life logistical roadblocks. Like money not having enough money, not having some things that you logistic, not having a degree or something like that. If what you want is some kind of career path that you need a license for or something, sometimes they're logistical, real roadblocks that you have to remove, and sometimes they're emotional roadblocks that you have to remove. So like, let's go back to our example that we were going with. If your goal, you want to be like the next Mr. Beast, you want to be a famous YouTuber, you want to be famous something, singer, rock star, whatever, you may have a judgment on top of that goal. You may feel like, well, why do I want that? Is that selfish? Is that self centered? Is that arrogant? And, and you have this judgment on top of this thing that you want, and that judgment is subconsciously keeping you going after the thing that you really want. And most of the time it's not really even a conscious thing that we're aware of. Back to the example we used in the first one. If you, if you want, secretly, you want to make a bazillion dollars, you want to be a bazillion millionaire or whatever, you might be causing yourself to have a roadblock because you might have a judgment on that. You might think, well, that makes me a greedy person. Or you might have a lot of old negative, irrational thoughts about money. Like money's the root of all evils. Those things that we've been taught growing up, sometimes those things are subconsciously blocking us, right? It's, it's like we, we want to have it, but we have a fear of having it at the same time, because somehow we have this judgment over this thing that we want, or we have some kind of fear over getting this thing that we want and, and that keeps us stuck. Now, of course there are like the logistical, real life roadblocks, but honestly, those are the easier ones to overcome. It's the emotional ones that'll keep you stuck the longest, right? The logistical ones might be if you want to be a doctor, you gotta go to med school, right? So you gotta, you gotta make good grades, you gotta get accepted in med school, you got to take the proper entrix exams and tests and all that kind of stuff. Those are logistical things. If the reason you're not meeting, if you're not getting what you want to get, it's probably not really logistical. It's probably emotional. Now it may feel logistical, right? You, it may feel like, well, I can't get into med school because I'm too old or something like that. That's not really a logistical issue. That's an emotional issue, right? That's something that's going on with you psychologically that's keeping you back from, from getting the goal that you want. So let me give you some examples of emotions that can get in our way. And a lot of times we're like not even aware that this is what's going on with us. Guilt is a huge, huge emotion that is a big roadblock for us. Somehow we feel guilty for wanting what we want. Somehow we feel guilty for going after what we want. Like, like we think it makes us selfish or we think it makes us arrogant or prideful and we feel like that's a bad thing. We put this judgment on top of it. We feel guilty for maybe you grew up in a, in a difficult situation and you feel guilty because you made it out of, you know, the bad situation and your siblings didn't or something like that. And you have this guilt that's keeping you stuck and keeping you from reaching out and getting the things that you want. Other psychological things that can keep you stuck would be emotions like shame, which is like guilt on steroids, right? It's a deeper level. It's like I don't have what it takes. I'm not worthy, I'm not really competent to do that, right? I'm not good enough. That may be keeping you stuck. Like I said, most of this stuff is not conscious thought you have, but it is running the show. Another one that can keep you stuck is just silly things that you use to distract yourself, right? We all do this to some degree, right? We all do these time wasting things. We all say we don't have enough time, we can't get it all done. But all of us engage in some kind of time wasting activity, right? Whether that's watching YouTube videos, although this one's definitely not time wasting for sure. Or looking at social media for hours on end or playing games on your phone. You know, sometimes we can just get sort of lulled into this vortex, Especially when it comes to, like, Internet or something like that. It's easy to get distracted and unfocused. That. That's another thing that can be a huge roadblock for you. Here's another big old giant roadblock for you. Addiction, man. That's a big roadblock, right? The biggest roadblock. Because if you're addicted to something, doesn't matter what. Whether that's substance, whether that's a person, whether that's gambling or shopping or whatever. Addiction literally, by definition, is preoccupation. It's obsession. And that addiction starts to, like, take up all your mental space, and you don't have the space base, the emotional mental resources enough to focus your thoughts and your behaviors onto getting what you want to get. Addiction is literally the biggest, most difficult distraction to overcome, because that's what it is. It's a distraction. It is throwing you off course. And that's the way I want you to think of it. Like, this is just something blocking my way from living the life that I want to live. Because I guarantee you, you got better things in you than chasing after some kind of addiction. It doesn't. It just doesn't bring us any good thing in our life. Because whatever it is that you feel like that addiction does for you, it may do that for you initially, a little bit in the beginning, when you first start whatever that addiction is, but in the end, it does the opposite of whatever it is. So maybe you were doing that to meet some kind of goal or need, but now it's not working for you anymore. If it's gotten to addiction, it doesn't work anymore and does the opposite of what you want. So addiction can be another one of those things that throws us off course. But here's the biggest one that throws us off course. And this is really sort of the explanation to all the other ones I just named. The biggest reason we get thrown off course is because we're in this constant mind battle between survival mode and thrive mode, right? These things that we want, these goals, that's thrive mode. Those are like, I want to overcome. I want to get to greatness. I want to accomplish something awesome, right? Our brains are not wired to thrive. Our brains are wired to survive, right? It. It. It's. It's meant to keep you alive and functioning, not living your best life. It's just trying to keep you alive. And so we. When we allow ourselves to go on autopilot, which our brain naturally wants to do, because that's, that's sort of the job of your brain is to keep you alive. And it likes to put as many things on autopilot as absolutely possible. It's like energy conservation, right? So it wants to put everything on autopilot immediately. That's why it's so hard to break habits and, and get out of these patterns that we want to get out of. So you're in this constant battle between fighting, it's this fight with yourself to get out of survival mode and into thrive mode. And the, the best way I know how to explain it is like our brains, although fascinating and beautiful and wonderful, the human brain is kind of archaic, right? And to be honest with you, for the most part, if you're watching this YouTube video, you're probably included in this. You have what you need to survive because you watching YouTube or Facebook. So if you're watching YouTube, Facebook, you probably have most of the things you need to survive, right? And so because we have. But our brain is still constantly looking for what it needs to survive. And that keeps us stuck because it keeps us in this sort of lower level of functioning. And so what you got to do is you got to get like out of the autopilot. You got to take control. So literally imagine yourself like flying an airplane and you turn the autopilot off and you say, I will take the controls from here. If you don't do that, what that means is you, you become conscious and intentional about what you're thinking about, about what you're doing, about where your energy goes. And you gotta, you just gotta get out of that like going through the motions thing because you won't ever get any further than you are right now if you stay on autopilot. It's just too easy. It's like that natural flow that we just get into. And if you don't consciously try to get out of it, you just keep doing it. How many of you are stuck in a situation like that? Like, you know, you want something different. Maybe you want to get up at 5 every morning and go run 10 miles or whatever it is, but you just can't get out of that habit, that pattern that you. Because it's really hard, you gotta get. Break out of the autopilot zone. Not only that, not only is your brain just trying to get you to survive, but sometimes your brain is wired up wrong when it comes to survival. In fact, last week in our video, which if you haven't watched. You should totally watch it after this because these two go together. We talked about sort of the, how our brains are coded, the, the, the operating system, how are your brain's operating system works? And we talked about how it's kind of like your laptop works, right? So all of us have at least one strand of code in our brain that's wrong. And it happens because somewhere in our. Usually it happens because somewhere most of the time in our early developmental days, like our childhood, our teen years, although it can happen in adulthood, some need you have was either not met or over met. And especially when you had a need maybe that didn't get met adequately when you're young. It creates this like vortex emptiness inside of you that your brain constantly thinks you never have enough of. And so you're, you're all, you spend all of your like adult life searching this thing out because your brain thinks it didn't, it doesn't have enough of that. It's kind of like if you didn't get it sufficiently as a kid, you can spend your whole life subconsciously looking for it. So what do I mean by that? If you, if you didn't have the resources you needed growing up as a young person, like literally you didn't know if there was going to be food on the table, you will probably be plagued with a fear about that for your whole adult life. It will run the show, right? Even if you have gazillion dollars in the bank, you may still feel like you're not okay and you don't have what you need. And what that is is, it's this coding. You know, when your brain got wired up, somewhere along the way a code got entered in there wrong. That's the way I like to put it. And so you constantly feel like that if you didn't have stable, loving attachments and parents, you will spend your entire adulthood chasing that. And the problem is, is no matter how much you get of it, it always feels like there's an emptiness there because you didn't get enough of it in childhood. So it's, it's almost like you, your brain knew you needed that and so it's like starving for it, but it can't really be satisfied. How, how many of you out there know what I'm talking about? It's like relationship after relationship after relationship, but you always feel like you're going to lose that relationship or you always feel like the relationship you're in is not the right one and it's not good enough. Those. That's if it's a. I mean, if you have the thought once, it could be happening. But if you found that you have that thought over and over and it's a pattern and you constantly sabotage yourself in relationships, it's because your brain is wired up and telling you that you need something so desperately that it focuses all of your attention on it. So one of the things you gotta find out is what of your survival needs is keeping you stuck. Figure out which one it is. Then after you do that, ask yourself, is that even legitimate anymore? Like, do I really need that? Do I have enough of that? Do I not have enough of that? Like, is it realistic? Because in a lot of cases, the fear or the drive that's running the show isn't even rational. But it's running the show, right? It's like you can't go out and build this big career because you have this need to feel loved that can't ever be satisfied. And it's distracting you. And you just keep chasing relationships instead of going over here and getting this thing that's that your real hearts desire that you really want. It's that survival thing kicking in. So asking yourself, what is that survival need that's keeping me stuck? Right? That's, that's one. And secondly, ask yourself, is it even realistic? Is it even rational? Because when you can bring these things from the subconscious into the conscious, they don't control you anymore. But before you understand these things and you're just living your life, these things run the show a lot more than you think. Maybe your survival need that's run the show. If you've had trauma, maybe your survival need is feeling safe and secure, right? But no matter how hard you try, you constantly feel unsafe, right? And insecure. And it's like no matter what the circumstances, that feeling is there, like haunts you like a ghost. That's an example of a survival need that's kind of like keeping you stuck and empty. Feeling accepted by other people is a survival need. Humans need to feel accepted by other people. Like, it's not just like a want, it's not a selfish thing, it's a human need. The reason you need that is because humans don't survive on their own, right? We have to have other humans to live. And so we're wired up to need the approval of other people. Because if you don't have the approval of other people and you get shunned from society, you don't have a tribe, you're in danger, right? Let's say you always felt shunned as a kid, you felt unaccepted, you felt picked on. Like, I was watching last night, I was watching Cruella on Disney plus, like the new Cruella, the movie movie, which is super good, by the way, if you haven't seen it. Like, it's really good. I didn't think it'd be good, but it's really good. That's an example. She grew up, she had like, the black hair and white hair. You know, we all know who cruel is. She got picked on. And because she got picked on, she. She has this, like, fear of being controlled or being treated badly. So she. That fear is running the show of her whole life, right? And getting in her way in a lot of incidences. So that's just an example. And that's kind of an exaggerated example because it's a Disney movie, but it's pretty realistic. And we all have something like that in our life just keeping us stuck. If you're struggling with an addiction, it's probably one of the things that's going on there is probably like an ineffective attempt at meeting whatever that survival need is. It's like it's your way that you're trying to make that thing feel better, only it doesn't even work very good. So, number one, the need might not even be rational. Number, it might not even really be there, right? And secondly, the way you're trying to feel it is completely ineffective, right? You got to get out of this autopilot thing. And the third really big important step you. You gotta do if you really want to get focused like a laser and accomplish and get the things you want out of life is you have to build a system, build a plan into your life that's going to force you out of the autopilot. So it's not enough to say, I want to exercise every day. It's not enough to say I want to build a business. It's not enough to say I want to stop eating junk food, right? You can mean it, right? You can really mean it. But if you don't build some systems in your life that almost make it where you have to do it, that way, you're. You're so much more likely to fall back into that autopilot and not get to what you want. It's like, if you think about, like, those New Year's resolutions, right? We all, we. It's the beginning of the new year. Like, okay, it's a new day, it's a new year. I'm gonna reset, I'm gonna focus in, and it's not that we don't mean it, we mean it when we say it. In fact, we. Whatever that thing is, it's probably something you've been wanting for a long time. Like deep down in your soul wanted, right? It's important to you. It's not that's not important. It's just that we don't know how to get ourselves out of that autopilot. But here's the good news. When you first make these shifts, it feels uncomfortable and takes a lot of energy. We talk about this in last week's video a little bit more in depth. But the good news is, is that once you do the new thing enough times, once you operate in the new system enough times, that becomes your new normal, right? And doesn't take that much energy anymore. But, but you have to, you have to do the new thing long enough. T becomes the automatic thing and then you're going to want something more than that and then you're going to have to reach above that. So it's a constant self growing process if you want to get further than where you are right now with whatever it is. So if you're watching this, I hope you hope you're thinking about what your thing is. I hope you're really asking yourself why do I want that? Why is that so important to me? Right? Get connected to that why and do it without judgment. If you want to be loved and popular, there's nothing wrong with being loved and popular. Just take the judgment off, right? Don't hold yourself back because you feel embarrassed. Don't hold yourself back because you feel guilty. That's a silly, silly reason not to go after what you want in life and not to like live your best life, make your dreams come true. That's silly. Maybe you're not accomplishing your goals because you need to reach out to a person that might could help you but you feel embarrassed to do it. Now that's a silly, silly reason, isn't it? Right? That's an emotion that's keeping you stuck. It's the emotions that drive the show people. If you can harness your why, that's harnessing your emotion in the right way. So if you can figure out the why it's important to you and stay connected to that and remind yourself of that why. It'll take all that emotional energy and, and drive the boat in a positive direction. But you have to also understand what's been driving the boat and it's probably a negative emotion if you're staying stuck. If you're not getting what you want to get, it's a fear, it's an insecurity, it's an old trauma. It's something that's hardwired and wrong, and you gotta get it rewired. Good news is it will rewire. Human brains change. You can change your brain by changing your thought processes. You can change your brain by changing the people you put yourself around. You can change your brain by changing what you watch on TV or listen to on YouTube, literally. So you do have some control. You just have to take the control that you have, put the effort in and make it different. Let's see. Let's see, who else here? Oh, let me say this too. If you feel like you're having one of these blocks and you've tried and maybe you don't know what your block is, you can't figure it out, or maybe you do know what your block is, but you. It just. It just keeps getting you stuck, right? Because you get three steps ahead and then it pulls you backwards. One of the systems that you can put into place for yourself is to either get yourself in a community that is around the theme of whatever it is you want. Like, if you want to be a business person, put yourself in a business group, right? If you want to be a singer, put yourself in a singing group, right? That only makes sense. Connect yourself so that you're. That's part of this creating the new systems. You're influencing your brain. You're changing your brain in that way. If you're still having trouble with that and you keep sabotaging yourself, one of the things you can do is get yourself a coach or, or a counselor to help you identify what is this survival thing that's, that's keeping you messed up? And how do you get yourself unblocked from it? Because if you don't know what that survival thing is, it's going to be really hard to remove it, right? If you can't figure out what emotion is driving the boat, you don't know how to remove it because you don't know what's driving. So if you're having trouble with that, that's when you may want to take a step to actually get yourself a coach or a counselor. Now, if you don't have a counselor and you need a counselor, then I might suggest BetterHelp, which is one of the sponsors of this channel. The reason why I suggest them, not only are they a sponsor, but they're so accessible, right? They're an online counseling service. Is real counseling, Real therapy by real therapists. That have licenses. But you. But BetterHelp has licensed therapists all over the world, right? And those of you that have tried to get. Get a counselor for, you know, you call, you can't get a call back these days, especially because Covid has made it like 30 times worse even than it, than it was. And it was already bad. You can't get a call back. You can't get it figured out. You do get a call back, but you can't get in there for a month. And the thing I like about better help is so accessible. So not only can you get connected very quickly, but you can get connected to someone that's the right person for you because you get to like, vet the person. You get to answer all these questions to figure out what's the right combination for you. And you can have access to communicate back and forth with your person, even in between sessions, via messaging and other kind of technology ways. So it's convenient, you can make it happen fast. And it's accessible, which these days, accessibility is a huge issue. You guys let me know in the comments if you know what I'm talking about. I bet you do know I'm talking about if you try to get a new psychiatrist appointment, you live in this state where I live, first of all, you can't find one. And if you do find one, you can't even get in for like six weeks. Like it. There's an accessibility issue, which makes it kind of difficult sometimes. And don't feel weird about taking that step. Don't, don't. Don't let some kind of emotion keep you from taking that step. Like feeling embarrassed to go talk to a counselor. Like feeling embarrassed that you have talked to a counselor. Here's what I tell my clients these days. Having a counselor, it's like status. It's like having a personal trainer. Everyone has a counselor, and it's not even weird anymore. I would say all the housewives have a counselor. They film their counseling sessions. Like, everyone has counselor. Like, literally, it's like having personal training at the gym. There is no reason to feel weird about it. Having a counselor does not mean you are crazy. In fact, crazy people can't benefit from counseling because you got to be pretty sane to do the work, to. To be insightful, to figure it out, to remove these blocks. You gotta be pretty together to be able to do the work. So you got to get rid of some of those emotional blocks that maybe have been keeping you from taking the steps you need to take. All right, now let's let's check in with you guys. I want to know what is. What is it you want. Writing it down is actually a very good first step of going out and getting it. Just saying it out loud, putting it in writing. Tell me what it is. What is it that you want that you've not been getting, but you've been wanting for a long time and you're staying stuck. Let's see who's with us here. Ashley says she wants to be less fearful. One of the. I posted on YouTube. If you're watching from YouTube, I posted in the community just yesterday. What's the one thought you wish you could quit having? Like, what's the one thing takes up your brain space that you wish you could stop thinking about? That's one of your blocks. That's a clue to. To this video right here. That thing right there is keeping you distracted. It's not serving you well. And you know it because you listed it, you wrote it in the comments. What? What is it? And that's what Ashley's saying there. The fearful thing. Discreet says is Omega 3 working on meth addict. I do not know the answer to that. I wish I did. If someone else knows the answer to that, you guys put that in the comments or in the chat and. And help this person out. I wish I knew. I don't know a super ton about supplements and stuff. That's kind of an area that I'm. I'm weak in. Amy says, how do you. How do you overcome an emotional block even if you don't know what they are? You can get the counselor or the coach, and that can help you figure it out. If you can't figure it out yourself, but just figure out what it is that you keep doing instead of doing the thing. And if you'll figure out where you're going wrong and you'll ask yourself the question of, like, what. What would be the reason to do that? You. You probably getting pretty close to the answer there, right? What is it I'm doing instead of what I need to be doing? Well, why would someone do that? What. What need would that feel to do that other thing? And then you're getting close to figuring out what it is. Hey, Cassandra. And Laura and Amy. Lucy says Lucy's got something, so let's see what Lucy. Hey, Amber. I set my first boundary with the father of my kids. We moved four hours away from him a year ago. I thought he would see the addiction for himself in that time, but unfortunately, the power of addiction and it didn't work. So now I have set a boundary that he can have the kids for the first week of the holidays, for the day, but they come back to me in the afternoon at dinner, bed, etc, then they have a routine for the week. I've never set boundaries, so it's kind of cut off here. I've never set boundaries so that he is not. And then I lost it. It's probably maybe in another comment, cut us off. There S says chased a relationship with my mom my entire life, man. That's a good one, man. I'm glad you said that. Right. If you. It's, it's, it's weird. You see this in adults all the time. If you never. If you had a parent who didn't pay attention to you, didn't love you, didn't adore you, you can spend your whole life chasing that affection. It's really strange because it's like, it's like the dad that never said, I'm proud of you, I love you. And you spend your whole life just trying to make your dad proud. It's like that one thing you didn't get, the thing of it is, is do you even need that now? That's the question to ask yourself, right. Are you getting that in other places that are maybe even more productive? See, some. These are subconscious things. And so I think it's really insightful for you to know that about yourself, that that's driving the boat. And maybe you don't want to drive boat anymore. You take in back control, you're going off the autopilot. Sherry says this is good advice for anxiety issues. Yeah. Thank you. I hope it is. Melissa says my alcoholic husband fits this, but he had loving parents. Could his brothers have caused this As a kid, like five of them would beat him up. Plus he was named Dana, which he was picked on for. That's a great question. So what A lot of times when we think about someone has an addiction, we think, oh, they must have bad parents. Which is ridiculous. Let me just say that because some people that have addictions had terrible parents. That is true. But a lot of people have addiction had great parents. Almost all the ones I see in my office came from great families with very loving parents. But somewhere in life, something happened to us. It could have been the brothers. It could have been the kids at school. It could have been that heartbreak that was so devastating when you broke up with your first boyfriend or your first boyfriend broke up with you. And it like hurt you in a way. That's this run in the show. It could have been. You got cheated on when you were a teenager and it made you feel so insecure. And now that thing is running the show. So, yes, the answer to your question, Melissa, is could it come from situation other than parents? Absolutely, 100%. I think that's where we get thrown off because we think, well, my mom and daddy love me. They were good people. What's wrong with me? We all go through tough stuff in life, right? We all have those. And you don't have to call it trauma. Sometimes trauma, but sometimes maybe it's not like trauma, but it's a life changing experience, right? It has a profound effect on you. And maybe we don't call it trauma because you didn't get beat up or think you were going to die or something, but. But it changed you. Like it changed the coding in the brain. And those things, even if they're not huge, huge things, can keep us stuck because most of the time that gets wired in. And we're not very conscious that it's getting wired in because most of it gets wired in when we're kind of young. Other times it can be if we in adulthood, it can be if we got heartbroken, if we got an abusive relationship, if. If someone that we thought was on our side was like severely disloyal, like a friend or a boss or a co worker or something, that. That can be. Not like. I don't want to use the word trauma because I think it's overused sometimes, but it can be important, right? It can mess us up and it can run the show in ways that we don't want it to. It creates an insecurity and a need. Let's see here. Hey, Daniel. Hey, Amy. Donna says trust issues keep me stuck, resulting in my husband's past infidelities. I find that it makes me trust no one. Don't understand that, of course, Donna, because it was like a severe assault. The thing about infidelity that's so horrible, it's the trust violation. It's the fact that everything you thought was true was not true. And so what happens is the trust issue comes from you stop trusting yourself, Donna, because you get mad yourself. You're like, how did that go on? And I didn't know it or why did I let that go on? And so what happens is now you don't trust yourself. You don't trust yourself to. And to see things if they're happening. So you've got to decide, Donna, do you want to let that run the show? I know it's crazy. Because you're like, well, I have a trust issue. You can override it. You can decide, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole when you. And you may want to watch the video from last week, but when your brain starts going left and you don't want to go left, you want to go right, just say, no, I'm not. I'm not going in there. I'm not going to pick up the phone and dig through it. I'm not going to read through my husband's emails anymore. I'm not going to double check. You got to stop the obsessive behavior to rewire that. But the issue is, is trusting yourself. You. You. We get afraid that we're going to miss it. We get afraid that we're going to let people treat us badly and we're going to be taking a fool of. And it's about getting back to trusting yourself. Susan says, what are some examples of the Attic addict getting a system in their life? Are you talking, Susan, about, like, getting a new system, a good system, or the not good system, like the addicted system? If you let me know that, I'll give you a better answer, because I have some answers to that. I'm just not sure which way you mean, like. Like, how did they get a new system or how did they get into this bad system? We can go either direction with that. Hey, Sherry. Sherry says she never thought of the emotional concept. Yeah, the emotions run the show. Stacy says, I've tried 20 counselors over many years. Never found a great fit, unfortunately. All right, Stacy, if you've tried 20 counselors and none of them have been a good fit, there's probably some kind of emotional block to counseling. There may be an insecurity issue. There may be an attachment issue. There may be a fear of judgment issue. If you've tried 20, I mean, counseling is for sure about a relationship. But if you've tried 20 and none of them been good, there's probably some kind of block inside of you. I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm just saying there's some kind of emotional, subconscious thing. This. That's. You're blocking yourself because 20 is a lot. Anthony says he's actually liking telehealth. You must be talking about, like, when I mentioned better help. Anthony. Yeah, you know, even as a counselor point of view, I didn't think I would like it, to be honest. Like when, you know, 20, 20 hit and we all had to do everything. I thought I wouldn't like, I thought I Hate it. I thought it wouldn't work the same. It's actually fine. Even the c. Even counselors, we have, like, a bias against it at first, but actually it works. Okay. We're all kind of getting used to zoom and virtual these days, aren't we? Amy says, I want to lose 80 pounds that I've gained over the last five years. That's a great goal. Why do you want to do that? And whatever that answer is, why is that important? Why is that important? I want to feel healthy. I want to feel proud of myself. I want to look cute in my jeans, whatever. There's no wrong answer to that. But keep asking yourself why till you get to the thing that's the real thing, which is probably a feeling. Hello, our friend from Emerald, North Carolina. Let's see here. Eagle, Wing Turtle. That's a fun profile name. I like that. Hi. From Wisconsin. I want to help build my local community, but I haven't decided how. That's a really admirable goal. Right. So before you go to how, go to why. Why do you want to do that? Why is that important to you? That way, if you go after the goal, you'll make sure you're really hitting the mark, right? You'll make sure you're really feeling that need or that. That desire that you have that you really get it done. Rachel says, please tell us the name of the online counseling program again. It's called Better Help. And I did. I did put it in the description. And I put. They are a sponsor of this channel, so if you use the link, our link, you actually get like a 10% discount, I think. So I put it in the description. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll. I'll put it in the comments or something so it's easier to find. Deborah says, let's see. I didn't switches. Deborah says, my daughter has a substance abuse issue. We're both working on recovery. I appreciate these videos. They help. Hopefully someday. Well, thank you for your kind words and I love your attitude. We're both working on recovery. I say all the time, like, if you got someone in your life that you want to change, the first step is to change you. Because relationship dynamics ping off of each other. And if you change you, it changes the relationship. It. You can't help but do that. It's like pouring water in a container. It's going to take the shape of the container. So one of the ways you can do is just change the container, change the relationship, which I love. It you're doing it. Let's see. Sandcastle designs from Emerald Island, North Carolina. Ashley says, I want to finish my master's degree to become financially independent and help others, which leads to being more confident, less fearful, and supporting my community mental health needs. Man, Ashley, that's impressive. Like Ashley's done some thinking about this. Like she's got, she's got her wise. She got a bunch of wise in there, right? She's got it listed out. Because this, because this, because this. I love it. Great example. Kyo says my issues with self harm binge eating in video games. I want to switch off between them when I try to quit one. Your videos have helped a lot. Is what you're saying is like, these are my Roblox, these are my three Roblox. These are kind of like where I fall off the cliff. But if I quit one, I'm getting into the other. Ask yourself, what is the. What are, what do those things do for you? Right? Is it a distraction? Is it making you feel better about yourself? Some. What does it do for you? Because really it's that need that keeps popping up and it's just manifesting in these ways. And so let's figure out what the real need is there and let's do a better job of meeting the need. And then you're, you'll be less likely to have those other addictions come up because you've got to have a productive way to meet the need. Let's see here. Anthony says, I keep wanting to eat more because I skip days and I have to force myself to make food and eat. I can go two or three days on coffee and Red Bull. So that's an interesting example. And then because what you're saying is like most people like me, that need to eat is just like constantly in the front of your brain or whatever. But you're saying you forget to eat. So what that means is you have some other needs that are pushing that need out of the way, right? Like something else is taking priority. And maybe it's an emotional need, maybe it's a physical need, something like that, but it's pushing that one back out of the way. Daniel says I'm chasing parental approval. One of the things that reminds me of when you said it, anyways, if you do have some kind of issues from your childhood with your parents, which we all do, you can have good parents and still have some kind of issue there. I mean, we all mess our kids up in some way, right? You'll see that, you'll see that Parental issue come out in your significant relationship with your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse, whoever. Eventually that person will start to trigger that childhood issue, and then both people get caught up. That's what happens in marriages, right? Both people are triggered and they're angry, but their childhood issues are coming into play, and they're. And it just pings off of each other. Lindsay says question. How do you deal with an emotional roadblock that you continue to deal with? Because it involves a relationship with a family member and it's out of your control. So it's an issue that doesn't change. It's like you're telling me in code there, Lindsay. So there's a family member that's causing some kind of problem for you, but you. It's not in your control. Maybe it's like a brother, a sister, an aunt, uncle, something like that. You don't have any control about whether that person's in your life. You do have control over how much mental space you let that relationship take up in your life. Or is it fear? Are you running on fear related to that relationship? Are you running on resentment related to that relationship? What's the emotion that that relationship brings you? How much of your thought processes does it take up? Because maybe you can't help but have to be around this person sometimes, but you can have maybe not 100 control, but you can have a large amount of control over how much mental space you've let it take up in your life. Great. Great question. Let's see here. Lou says, the addict. The addict I'm with became needy of my time and interrupted my art project time constantly. Now I just find it hard and pointless, regardless of what's going on. That's a great example. That's an example of some kind of unmet need that the person in your life has. And it's like. It's like it can't be filled, right? And something somewhere along the way, that need was not met very productively. And so there's this. There's this underlying, probably subconscious fear and endless desire for it, right? And so it's like maybe this person feels insecure if you're away or something like that. So it's. They kind of keep needing to pull you back. Let's see. Laura says, I had a trauma experience at 16. I was involved in a gang shooting. I was given Valium at 16. Yikes. I know, right? Just managed to get off of Adavan after years. It'll be two years in July. I feel so much better. You're. You're giving Me a lot right there, Lor. So you're saying this bad thing happened. You. You got this prescription for this medicine which then kind of took over the show. And. And it's taken you some time to get off, but you've been. But you've been off two years in your life. That's fantastic. Right? That's one of those medications that. It's not that it doesn't serve any purpose, but it definitely should not be used long term. Right? It's okay to use well if you're an addict. It's not okay to use occasionally if you're not an addict. Like in this example where you went through something. It'd be okay to. To if a doctor, you know, if you use that for short term anxiety, it's a terrible long term anxiety problem solver. And like you say, then you just get stuck on it and then you have to spend a lot of energy getting off of it. So I'm glad you said that. I am totally sure you're not the only one in that boat. I bet a lot of you relate to Laura. Oh, I like this one. Lou says, I stopped looking for bottles a while back. I don't have time for that. I feel like. Lou, I feel like your head is shaking right when you say it. And I like it. I don't have time for that. That's right. You don't have time for that. It's ridiculous. That's. That. That fear thing. Taken over, using up more of your time than you want to. Good for you. And it's not. It doesn't do you any good if you did find them, right? What, what are you gonna do? Star fight? Like it's not gonna do you any good. Perfect. I love it. Stacy says, I was afraid to say that. I know 20 is a lot. Just don't feel like I'm getting to the root of things. The tools I need. Maybe I'm too impatient. You must be Stacy. You must be commenting on some other statement you said or something somebody else said, because I'm a little lost. I'm sorry. My fault. Josh says I work at a rehab facility. I recently found your videos and I've been playing some of them in a weekly class. Said, okay, I love it. Play my videos. I think that's wonderful. Let's see, about six months, eight months ago, something like that. I had a client of mine. Well, he's not. He wasn't a client of mine recently, but he had been a client of mine like several years back. I saw him and he recently told me he's like, I was in a treatment center and I went into my treatment group and they turned the TV on to one of your videos. And I was like, I know her. I felt like I was rock star. I was like, really? They showed me in your treatment. And I was like, did you. Were you like, I know her or whatever? It was just kind of fun. So I love it that you show my videos. I appreciate any of you guys that share my videos. It helps me, but it also helps a lot of other people because I don't. I don't know that people know to go to YouTube to look for help with this particular issue. It's not maybe the first thing that pops in your mind. Amy says it is good news that if I change myself, my addictive son will change too. Love that. It is good news, right? You can't. You may not can control all of. But you can influence it. You sure can. All right, let's see. Resentment. And Lindsay says resentment, insecurity from shame and guilt. Daniel says, I'm regaining my courage. Today we'll be writing about the Sidewalk Surfers Skating School. That sounds cool. Sidewalk surfer skating School. That's kind of like hard to say. Say that 10 times fast. I love it. I like that you're putting it out there. I feel like just like I said to the person earlier, I felt like there was like some. Some attitude, some good attitude in there. I like what Daniel's like today. I will be. There's like a certainness about what you're saying. It's happening and I like that. Thank you. Thank you for everyone who joined us. There are always links in the description for more resources. And I am going to link the video from last week up, in case you haven't seen that. And next week we're going to focus on this topic, but we're going to focus more in on how to help someone else stay motivated and change. Because we've been talking about how to do that for ourselves, but we've hinted at it. But there are ways to help someone else stay motivated and change. So next week, more on that. I will see you then. Bye, everybody.