#511: (pt 1 of 2) From Pain to Purpose: Embracing the Power of Struggle for Personal Growth

So I had mother on my right arm, ex girlfriend on my left, tearing at my shirt, trying to push, shove and drag me out of the way. And I said, you know, this is assault. You're trespassing. What on earth are you doing? My ex girlfriend then bit me.

The story you're about to hear is real. A real client working with David Holman to achieve extraordinary results. David has worked with high performers such as Olympic athletes and business owners, as well as those looking to develop meaningful relationships. Aside from names and certain characteristics which have been changed to protect clients confidentiality, all other details are true. This special season is brought to you by the Self Belief Chief podcast.

In this episode, we're talking with a business owner who is describing an attack from his ex girlfriend and is obviously quite shocked by the situation. What I want to do in this episode is when we have these types of moments, it causes a whole swell of different emotions, like a wave crashing over us, of anger, sadness, frustration, maybe a feeling to act in some way or behave differently. It's this huge wave that crashes over us and we sometimes don't really know what to do with it or how to handle it. So I just want to make sure that we can disperse some of that energy but use it in an empowering way that can help him to continue to grow. Let's get into the episode.

I found a few bits and pieces of hers in the house. Knew she had a few bits and pieces of mine. Emailed her Monday last week to say, let's get this sorted. You know, that, you know, I'm done. I don't want anything more. So I sent a polite email saying, let's get these things exchanged. She came over the following day with her mother and wouldn't give me my things back until she'd received all of hers. I said, no, no, no, come on, that's not reasonable. You get your stuff, you know, I've got a tail in the garden. Just put your stuff there. I'll make sure everything's there. You can make sure everything's there. Fine. They weren't going to do that at all. So I said, okay, well, that's not really reasonable. I'm just going to go back in the house. When you start bringing things out, that's absolutely fine. Just knock on the door, walk round to the back of the house, walked inside, saw my girlfriend, ex girlfriend, walking to the back door. So went to the back door to meet her. So. Because I thought, you know, okay, she's gonna be reasonable. When I got there, she shoved me and the door and tried to shove me out the way, which wasn't, I mean, I mean, she shoved me backwards into a door frame, but she wasn't going to get too far so I just kind of put my arms out. She held my arms, I walked forwards. There's no way she could stop me. Then she assaulted me, started telling my shirt. Her mother came around the corner and started joining in. So mother on my right arm, ex girlfriend on my left, tearing at my shirt, trying to push, shove and drag me out of the way. And I said, I said, you know, this is assault. You're trespassing. What on earth are you doing? My ex girlfriend then bit me really hard and sort of clamped her teeth in and wasn't letting go. And I said, look, your daughter's biting me. This is assault. What are you doing? You're tearing my shirt. They carried on until literally the back of my shirt ripped. All the buttons came off the front. And then my ex girlfriend released me from her jaws. So I just twisted out the shirt, closed the door and called the police. So it's been eventful. Yeah, so, yeah, it's. Yeah. And then didn't hear anything from the police for four days. Tried chasing them up and everything. Yeah.

As you can imagine, that's one of those stories that just shocks the nervous system. Now I'm also only hearing one side of this story. As the case with most of the clients I work with, I'm hearing one side of a story, but I'm not here to interrogate or investigate if it's any different. My only concern is the health and well being of my client. That they're actually able to help themselves, that they're able to manage their emotions and that they're able to grow from their experiences and achieve the types of results that they want. That's my only interest and concern. That type of story, though it brought up something for me. I know what it's like to have one of those moments that completely shocks you. When I was younger, bear in mind that I'm half Christian, half Jewish. I saw smoke coming from a chimney from a house across the road. And some boys at the school that I went to said, david, why don't you go knock on that door and see if they let you in with the house with the smoke coming out the chimney. And I said, why? And they said, because that's where they're burning all the Jews. And then a whole group of boys, I don't even know how many, started chanting gas the Jew. And it was a really Difficult, traumatic moment for me, and it was such a shock to my whole system. I didn't even really know what to do with it at the time. Whilst it's a different experience to the one my client is describing, I know what it might, that person might be feeling if they're just stuck and frozen and no idea what to do. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to share a story. Not my story, not his story, a different story. Because I want him to see what happens if we hold on to potentially some of this negative energy. What happens when we hold on to it? Sometimes we sort of. We know logically it's not good, good, but it makes us feel, I don't know, it gives us some sort of power in some ways, or we think it does by holding on to it. I'm going to tell him the story. That means that we go for the more empowering, productive alternative. So let's have a listen to that story. There's a story of a. A religious figure, and he's about to be interviewed by a journalist. And journalist sits down across from this religious figure before the interview and just said, by the way, before we start, I'm not a big fan of you. I, I don't really get what you do. I don't really get why people are into, you know, follow you or, or listen to you or watch you. I think it's a load of nonsense, truthfully. So I just want to make sure you knew that. And the religious figure goes, okay, all right, thank you for letting me know. And the journalist looks a bit puzzled and goes, well, hang on. I've just told you that I'm not a big fan of you, and all you've got to say is, that's okay, thank you for letting me know. And the religious figure says, if I don't take your negative energy, who has it? And the journalist sort of sits there and goes, and kind of concedes going, I guess I do. It's a really short, simple story, but I love it because it's just a good reminder of. You don't have to take on the negative energy of other people. We don't have to just consume all the negative energy around us. We can make conscious decisions to learn from it or grow from it or just acknowledge it, like in that story. Now, I'm not an idealist. I'm okay, things will affect us in life. But in terms of our next steps, in terms of what we might do with that information, are we just going to accept all of it and dwell on it and live in it, or do you want to just acknowledge it, learn from it, and grow from it? We have an option here. And in that story is an opportunity to acknowledge and to learn. And in this case, he helped the journalist learn and grow. In fact, those two people are actually friends now. So having heard that story, I want to see how he starts to perceive his own situation. So how does he see it now?

Very settling for the mind. Really appreciate you saying that, because there was still a part of me that had the weight of everything that happened in the relationship. You know, she very, very much. Well, there was a lot of uncertainty about how my. How my behavior had been perceived. You know, I was trying to be rational, Rational and reasonable and just think, you know, what she was saying. I was thinking, well, how. How do you come to that? Well, maybe it's. Maybe it's me and that behavior, you know, with her mother joining in, which I just thought was, you know, okay, emotions running high, she's lost it, fine. But for her mother to join in as well, to completely lose it like that, I just thought, you know, it gave me clarity on my actions have been reasonable given the information that I've received. Not trying to be unreasonable. I've tried to be polite all the way through, But I've been met consistently with just madness. And for that to happen, okay, you know, wash my hands of it. Complete cut, sense of relief.

I'm happy with how he's described the situation in terms of. It's given him some clarity that it's not the right thing for him, that he can let that be, that he can move on with his life. So sometimes these moments can give us clarity about a situation. But there's something else that's concerning me. See, whilst it can give us clarity in a good way about an external situation, these moments can often rock our identity. Makes us start to question, how have I got to this point? Or how have I got myself in a position where something like this has happened? It starts to really make us question ourselves. Are we good enough for this not to happen again? And what our natural instinct often is, is to try and avoid pain in the future. Because our brain is designed to help us survive, not to make us happy. So always looks for what's wrong, the dangers, the problems, to help us avoid pain and essentially keep us alive. But when we have these moments, or too many of these moments, or too many of these types of experiences, ones we don't want to repeat, we start to learn ways to avoid pain. Which is good. But up to a point, after a while, all of our behavior, all of our actions can start to become about avoiding pain. Everything in life is about pain or pleasure. You can either have things pointing at avoiding pain, or you can have things pointing at accessing pleasure. Which two of those do you think has the more enjoyable life, the person accessing pleasure. And yet most people I work with, they act and perform and operate in a way to try and avoid pain as much as possible. It's hard to live life like that and enjoy it at the same time. It's hard to live a life trying to avoid pain and not question ourselves or have doubt or worries or feel anxious because we're always staring at the thing we don't want to happen. Our brain doesn't work in the do not think of this or hope that this does not happen. It's like if I said, don't think of a pink elephant, what are you thinking about? Our brain can't do, don't think about this, or don't worry about this, or, you know, avoid this. It just means we're staring at it. So at some point, we have to be facing and looking forward to pleasure. And my concern is that a moment like this, an experience like this for this client could gear him to start thinking, facing more towards avoiding pain, and therefore might stifle his relationships and his life and his career and all the other areas in a completely different way. So what we're going to do in the next episode is I'm going to show him how to reshape himself in the way he's always dreamt of. Not just to reset after this situation, but to design the identity that helps him access the most pleasure in life possible for him. Not based on anything. I think I'm going to show him a very simple strategy where he can work out for himself how to access as much pleasure as possible. And it's one you'll be able to follow along with. But I think you'll be amazed at the difference between the identity he'd originally formed and the new one that he goes on to create, and how he looks at those two versions himself and questions, what have I been doing all of this, this time? Why have I not lived this other life? Why have I not lived this version? So I look forward to showing you that transformation and that you might be able to see a transformation that you can make in your life as well that opens up these completely new possibilities for you. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your life, and I'll see you on the next episode. Because this story is not over yet. Next time on how can I change your life?

I think self belief makes me happier. I think respect for people respecting me is almost ego because when it comes down to it, if I have self belief, I don't need people's respect.