37 Tips to Heal and Overcome Childhood trauma and Abuse
Today is my birthday. Over the course of the last 37 years, I have learned enough that I felt I could compile a simple number list of the most important 37 pieces of information/advice that has changed my life.
If you don’t know my story…My mother cut off my finger at four years old. She was a drug addict and alcoholic, and eventually, she died legless in some random town in Indiana. My stepfather was hyper-abusive and beat the crap out of my brothers and me. We spent most of our childhood homeless and deeply in poverty. My grandma, who adopted me, was a racist. Many of my family members are in prison. My three childhood best friends were murdered over drugs. At twelve, I started popping pills and getting high; at thirteen, I started drinking, and I was kicked out of school by fifteen.
I chased money, women, thrills, and drugs. When I was twenty-six, I was 350lbs, smoking two packs a day, drinking to sleep, cheating on my girlfriend, and attempting to kill myself for the second time.
I discovered the ACE Study, Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, and suddenly my whole world shifted.
Today I have coached thousands of people around the world, I have spoken on many of the biggest stages, I have interviewed and been interviewed by some of the most brilliant humans, but more importantly than all of that, I have learned to love myself, let go of the past, to be the hero of my story, and to Think Unbroken.
But how?
Most concisely, this is the breakdown of the way I think about life that has allowed me to make sure a big shift:
1. I had to stop being a victim even though it was totally justifable. If you play the victim then your life will reflect that. Bad things happen to good people. That is just truth. If you don’t decide to change the way you think about yourself then nothing will change. Being the victim is easy, hell, it’s even expected. And let me be clear you have every right to be a victim but you have to decide if that truly serves you.
2. No one is coming to save you. I had to stop pretending that I would be rescued. I used to watch Annie and Richie Rich and think that one day my rich white day would come. He didn’t and he isn’t. As much as it sucks, I had to pull myself out of the pain of life and choose to do what it took to be the person that I needed when I was a kid.
3. Learning to ask for help is EVERYTHING. I thought I was alone but the truth was that I had allowed myself to be alone. I had choose to put myself in a position of staying quiet and hidden. When I asked for help I started to understand that world was in fact not out to get me, and the opposite was true that people are good and willing to help if I was willing to ask.
4. When I got a mentor everything started to make sense. Luke had Yoda. Frodo had Gandalf. I had Brendon Burchard, Tony Robbins, Tom Bilyeu, Eric Thomas, Grant Cardone, Mel Robbins, and Tim Storey, and thousands of other amazing people who have created content and media that I have learned from. It dawned on me one day that it is stupid to try to figure everything out that other people had already figured out!
5. I have never lost a dollar investing in myself. The first time I spent $49 on a course I was terrified. Today I have spent over 250k on my own personal journey. Start where you are and go to the library, watch youtube, and listen to podcasts, then when the time is right take the leap and put your money where your mouth is. The level of growth that comes when there is a mutual exchange is huge
6. Therapy doesn't have to be a forever thing. I used to think that I had to go to therapy all the time. And for years I did. Three times a week. Then I realized that I was just saying the same shit all the time and that instead of moving foward I was just circulating. I also realized that I needed a different therapist.
7. Speaking of… Therapy is like dating. So make sure that you have similiar backgrounds. If a therapist had a fucked up childhood like you then you will feel safer with them. Trust me.
8. Only you can know what’s in your best interest. You have to be willing to stand up for what you believe is true.
9. Childhood trauma is actually the theft of identity and in order to reclaim and build who you are you have to be willing to find out the truth of your existence on your terms.
10. People around you will say that you changed. Good. That means it’s working.
11. Some people will want you to continue to be the person you used to be. These people will not serve you.
12. Your heart will get broken. You will break people's hearts. This doesn’t make you a bad person. Do it with kindness.
13. If you are willing to acknowledge that you are scared and don’t have all the answers you will find compassion within yourself.
14. Big boys and girls do cry. It’s ok to cry. You arent weak for being emotional.
15. Control your emotions. It’s ok to feel the full range of emotions but to let them run wild like a bull in a china shop is a disaster waiting to happen. In the same way sadness and hurt can take over your life for the worst so can happiness. Don’t let your emotions fool you.
16. You are not your emotions, you are your beliefs. The average emotion lasts for 90 seconds. It’s the looping of the emotions that get us stuck.
17. Write down how you truly feel. Get that shit out of your brain and onto paper.
18. Your brain is LYING TO YOU. The purpose of the brain is to make sure that we survive and to make meaning of the circumstances of our environment. Your brain only cares about making sure you live and it will do everything in its power to ensure survival.
19. If trauma is tied to our identity then that means that shifting your identity is the foundation of healing. This means that you have to be willing to fail yourself forward into the person that you want to be.
20. It’s ok to be scared about new things. If you do not experience new things then you cannot know if what you think is true of who you are is or is not true. You must be willing ti find out.
21. The best time to deploy a parachute is when you are falling. Stop trying to have the perfect plan. Don’t wait. The time is now.
22. Most people take five years to do something that takes one hour. Find the space to be ok with knowing that you suck at new things. Everyone crashes the first time they ride a bike. Be ok with that and you will find that the willingness you have to explore will vastly grow.
23. Skills have utility. When I was a minimum wage employee I had minimum wage skills. When I became a leader I had leadership skills. When I became a warrior I had warrior skills. You must learn by any means necessary.
24. Education is everything. If you are not learning then you will never be able to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And education isn’t in books, education is the experience that comes along with doing the thing.
25. It’s ok if people don’t like you. I pandered for so many years to have “friends” and to be in ”relationships” with people that I thought served me but I would come to find that the more I grew the more those people cast judgment towards me. If people don’t like you that has nothing to do with you so stop trying to make people like you.
26. It’s NOT OK if you don’t like you. The funny thing about life is that we know what to do and we know what not to do but we are often more scared of success than failure. We are used to failure and have been come ok with it. Failure is a requirement for success. I have not found a way to learn without making mistaked but if I continue to make those mistakes then I nothing will change. And if nothing changes then I will not like myself. So I have to do things that I don’t particularly want to do so that I can have the life that I want to have,.
27. STOP LYING. This is the hardest thing I have had to learn to do. Lying is not going to help you and will never help you. The more you lie the worse your life will be. Most people life not because they are afraid to get in trouble, but because they believe that they are keeping other people from harm. The more you lie the more harm that will come. I promise you this.
28. Forgiveness is not a precursor to healing. People often say that you MUST forgive those that hurt you. I disagree. What you must do is let go and not carry the weight of that chaos and pain. It’s like having a backpack full of bricks. At some point you are going to have to ask yourself how long are you going to carry that damn thing around?
29. You can laugh and cry at the same time. Honestly, sometimes this shit is just funny. There is no other way to say it. I have these moments of reflection of some of the wildest shit that has happened in my laugh and it just makes me laugh.
30. If you need to call someone then you better do it. I will never forget grabbing my phone to call my best friend to find out that only a short period earlier that he murdered in his living room. I don’t know that I will ever get over that delay. It’s caused to me take massive action at all times.
31. It’s not your trash but it is your yard. This is how I think about the trauma we carry with is. We can pretend it’s not there but every time we walk outside we know the truth. And it sucks that you didn’t put it there but you have to clean it up. There is no way around it.
32. Not all people who are helpful actually help. Stop asking advice from people who haven’t done what you are trying to do. My grandma used to tell me that traveling the world is scary. She had never been on an airplane once in her life. I have lived in 12 countries to date and not one of them was as scary as the house I grew in.
33. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life. For the love of everything please, please, please, make sure that you are asking the right questions, you know the ones deep down that you are afraid of asking. Get the answer now not when it’s too late.
34. Keep your friends close and bury your enemies. Grudges don’t help. Let it go. It doesn’t matter what Sally in third grade did, or the server at the bar, or the guy on the bus. Shit happens man.
35. Be Brave. Be Kind. Be Authentic. Be Honorable. Be Congruent. Be Unstoppable. Be Intergrous.
36. No doesn’t always mean no, especially when it comes to your dreams. Sometimes it means not now. Do not quit on yourself. You might be just one day away from everything you have been seeking.
37. Who you are today does not have to be who you are tomorrow as long as you make a decision to change your life. You have to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be by showing up, trying, failing, learning, taking action, not beating yourself up, asking for help, healing wounds, and learning to love yourself. Yes, this is hard but what isn’t?
P.S. I could have written a million things but this is enough for today. I love you, I am proud of you. I know that you can everything that you want in your life but it isn’t going to be handed to you. It’s not going to be easy. And no one but you is going to be able to make this happen except for you.
Be Unbroken
Michael