I am going to get really REAL with you in this message because I think I need to for me and you. There is so much talk happening in the mental health space about what it means to be happy and I think one thing needs to be made clear, no one is ever happy all the time and if they say they are well, they are lying.

When was the last time that you said to yourself, I am happy? For many of us, we find that those words come few and far in between, if ever at all. That is the state of mental well-being for millions of people around the world, but it does not have to be. No rule says, even if you are sad, depressed, anxious, or dealing with a mental health issue that you can't seek happiness. Some say that being happy is a choice. I subscribe to that notion. Sure, on paper, that sounds easy, but what does it look like in real life? What is it that happiness can be through choice?

On my 26th birthday, I put a gun in my mouth. I was miserable. I was beyond miserable because all of the trauma, drinking, drugs, sex, work, and failure had caught up with me, and I couldn't take it anymore. I felt that the world had betrayed me, and as I sat with my back against the bathroom door, my girlfriend screaming for me to talk to her and the bitter metallic taste of the barrel in my mouth - I pulled the trigger. For some reason, one which I will never understand, the round in the barrel of that gun did not fire. Call it luck, the universe, God, divine intervention, or user error...I am somehow still here. Now you would think that would have been my rock bottom and that from that point, I would begin to create the changes in my life. It wasn't, and I had many more rock bottoms between that moment and the day I looked in the mirror and decided to create the change that I wanted to be. 

You can still tend to your garden and be depressed. 

Those were the words that my therapist told me almost six years later to the day as I sat in his office on a rainy Portland afternoon. I asked him if anyone ever stopped coming to therapy when they had been through the things that I had. He said, sometimes. I asked him to tell me about someone. Obviously, due to confidentiality, he couldn't go deep, but what he did tell me was that a woman in her '50s had been in his office just a few months prior. Her background mimicked mine and probably yours in a myriad of ways, and she asked him the same question I had. He told me that she loved to garden but had been depressed for years and when she asked him if depression ever went away, he responded with I don't know, but what I do know is that you can still tend to your garden and be depressed. Those words resonated with her so profoundly because something became abundantly clear, and that was the idea that because we are sad doesn't mean that we can't live our lives.

It's hard for me to believe that it's almost been a decade since the night I put a gun in my mouth and even more amazing to come to terms with the fact that as of writing this, it has been exactly twenty years since my first attempt as a teen. 

What I didn't know that I am now sharing with you is that happiness and our state of mind is a choice. In the same way we can choose to tend to our garden we can choose to show up for ourselves. We, after all are the most important garden to grow. We can manipulate our thoughts, reframe our understanding of self, and create a new narrative. We, as human beings, have the most powerful tool on Planet Earth and perhaps the universe, our brain. I have arrived at a place of contentment and happiness (while understanding that both are fleeting) through sheer effort and unbreakable will to be the best person I can be. Both creating my life and allowing myself to exist within it are choice-based decisions. But even with all the mental fortitude in the world, I would not be here without the most important principles that I believe are the cornerstone to healing.

The Six Principles of Healing Childhood Trauma:

1. Freedom - Is the choice that we can make decisions that better our lives. These choices can be going to therapy, hitting the gym, getting out of bed, being intentional about our lives, and being happy.

2. Move Forward - We have all faced the demons of our past, and it is our responsibility to go forth with intention and create the life that we want despite them.

3. In This Together - No one heals alone. There is scientific evidence beginning to surface, showing that people with a support system are exponentially more likely to heal.

4. Permission - You must give yourself permissions to heal.

5. No Excuses. Just Results. - How are you going to show up for yourself? Are you going to be the hero in your own story?

6. Fear and Excitement - The brain doesn't know the difference between these two emotions, and when you learn how to reframe what is possible, then everything becomes possible. 

These are some of the most important discoveries that I have made in understanding how to navigate my own experiences with trauma, which have led me to this moment, and the one thing that they all have in common is they are each based around choice. You have the ability and the responsibility to make decisions that will impact your life for the better, and no one can do that but you. 

In Think Unbroken: Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma, I take a deep dive into these concepts along with many others from the science of trauma to the mindset practices that I have used to get out of The Vortex and to become the hero of my own story. 

Today I get to share this message with you as someone who understands the impact that trauma has had on me, and in doing so, I have made it my responsibility to spend my life sharing what I have learned so that we can create a better world together. In this service of others is where I find my happiness. I don't know about you, but being Unbroken is not only something that I want to cultivate for myself, but I also want to share it with the world. 

We are in this together, and if one of us can carry the torch in the hopes that it lights someone else way, then that is all of our responsibility.

You can pre-order Think Unbroken from now until December 24th and receive over $1000 in bonuses:

Bonus #1 - Credit for any of the Think Unbroken Academy Online Course! ($100 Value)

Bonus #2 - 30-minute coaching call with Michael! ($250 Value)

Bonus #3 - 1 free ticket to any One-Day Think Unbroken Workshop in the US in 2020! ($499 Value)

Bonus #4 - Access to the Think Unbroken Mastermind group! ($200 Value)

Bonus #5 - Free Audiobook version of Think Unbroken when it releases to Audible! ($25 Value)

You will receive all of these bonuses when the book launches. You must order by December 24th to receive them.

Pre-Order Think Unbroken: Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma now.

I know that the tools in this book will help you change your life, and if they aren't for you, then perhaps they are for someone that you know. Carry the torch for the people in your life, and let's create an #UnbrokenWorld.

Until next time my friend.

Be Unbroken

-Michael