A Story of Radical Change, Hope and Love for 2024

For about 15 years, tens of thousands of people would have watched me doing life on social media (year in and year out) with my wife Jennifer and our daughter Sophia. For the past couple of years now, most people have been respectful enough to say very little as Jennifer and Sophia appeared less and less on my social media pages. Most people could guess that Jennifer and I were no longer together officially as a couple. I just wanted to kick off this story of radical change, hope and love for 2024 by clarifying this situation. It's important people understand that radical change, although hard, can indeed make our lives better......even though at first, it can make our lives extremely painful. 

Let's get to a good part of this story by first documenting that Jennifer and I decided to start a new journey together and walk separate paths in life, without each other. Our joint commitment to our daughter is unwavering and very rare. This description of a better situation isn't just words, as I write this article from the basement suite in Jennifer's large home (which used to be our family residence), a home she now shares with her new partner. Jennifer and her new partner often host me on my short visits to Cornwall, knowing that maximizing contact with Sophia is the top priority. I pay my way, everywhere I travel and when I stay here at their home, it's the same. I'm a hard worker by nature and I do everything I can to make my stay advantageous to the living situation wherever I go in life. You can indeed get along with your past wives, husbands, partners etc.......it is possible but yes I know it's more than rare in our "take a side" and "conflict" based world. Jennifer is happier. I am happier. Things are better. It is possible. 

The lessons I want to focus in on here always start with the psychology of change, which is never easy. Change registers as "terrifying" in the nervous system and this big change for me was no exception. Getting happier wasn't easy, in regards to this big change in my life. I had to step off into the abyss of uncertainty in order that I hold any hope of finding better days down the road. As Gabor Mate often states, "if you avoid pain, you only get more pain." Deciding to change your life creates plenty of pain, as the nervous system is very averse to such big changes. I had let go of everything I knew, including many of the dreams I held, in order to exchange all of that for something completely unknown.

Would it work out? Would I ever find another partner? Would I ever find true love with someone who would support me in all I do? What would happen short term and long term? I didn't have any of those answers and the human nervous is programmed to stay as far away as possible from any uncertainty. I started to walk my new uncertain path, in plenty of pain. There were no easy answers. In fact, there were no answers at all but natural law dictates when things grow and when things aren't working anymore........so I had no choice other than to step out the plane door with nothing other than a parachute on my back and some hope in my heart. 1,2,3......jump into the pain. 

Our nervous systems are designed to stay with what we know and avoid what we don't know. Our drive to stay the same is inside every single one of us. Breaking away into something unknown, uncomfortable and unfamiliar is the biggest act of bravery (or insanity) anyone can do in their entire lives. As a self-sabotage coach, I know the steps that I had to be follow, in order that better days arrived in the future, even though a tsunami of pain was all that initially greeted me.

I had to fall back onto my knowledge of self-sabotage psychology. Thank God I had that knowledge, because without it, my path to hope and love would have never manifested. When you walk a painful and challenging path alone, you need the gifts God gave you at full power.......and I know that starts with the human brain. The worst thing I could ever do is the worst thing anyone else could do (when faced with any painful transition in life)....and that's to start sedating and tranquilizing yourself with the common psychoactive drugs of the day. (like alcohol, sugar, marijuana, nicotine, coffee, chocolate, harder narcotics, watching entertainment screen productions, sedative medical drugs etc etc)

In order to find your way in life, you need to feel your pain. I know this as law from all my years as a self-sabotage coach, who understands self-sabotage psychology firsthand. Knowledge can always help transverse life's challenges in an easier way, so I leaned hard on that knowledge that I had acquired over the past 2 decades. If I was to successfully make my way through my pain, I not only had to feel that pain, I would also have to master the lessons that only the pain teacher can deliver.

Avoiding pain leads to long term addiction. Facing pain leads to long term happiness. I wanted happiness and I didn't want to waste any more time. I wanted happiness more than anything else, so addiction and sedating to my pain was averse to my happiness quest. Let the rite of passage begin. I opened the blast furnace door and let the pain of my new uncertain situation consume me whole. Zero addictions and zero sedative substances. I let the pain train run me over and then I let it back up and run me over again. A good video from Dr. Gabor Mate is below to help reinforce this valuable point. 1,2,3.......go. No one said change, growth and evolution was fun......and it wasn't but nothing worth having in life is ever fun. The pain teacher began to talk and she had lots to say. I had been ignoring her for much too long. She said, "sit down, grab some tea, we're going to be a while.".

Pain is a guardian, not a goblin. Pain is part of our natural GPS system that can deliver us the messages and the map, to help us finally find our way out of the pain. People today love their creature comforts and they love their sedative comfort comas. With their addictions to not feeling their pain, many people actually get trapped in their pain. At first, I felt the pain inside my previous failing union and heard the message that it was time to step outside the plane door, and to jump into a great abyss of uncertainty. Once I was already tumbling inside a massive storm of painful uncertainty, I knew my next task was to sit with the pain teacher, hear her painful messages and potentially make even more painful adjustments.......along the way to a better life. 

You face the pain head on and trust the process. Faith. I also had to learn faith. Trust the process. Trust the plan....but not in a Q way. (ha ha) I would hear the whispers many times inside my own head, "keep going, something better is ahead, you can't see it now but it's there.......have faith, something beyond you is guiding you and guiding the process, one foot in front of the other, your answer to the pain is inside the pain, let go, something else has got the wheel."

In 2024, these can be very valuable lessons for anyone, who may want to dive deep into their pain. As I walked the pain laced road full of spiders, hornets and thorns (without any sedative substances)......I ended up trying to get around a bigger group, in order to feel safer again. This led me to Anarchapulco in 2022, a freedom conference in Acapulco Mexico. I ended up going there myself. I didn't know anyone else who was going. I would just trust the process. Something odd was guiding me the night I arrived. I was stinky and smelly from the heat and the long plane ride. I usually do not enter public spaces in that state of filth but for some reason I just kicked my luggage into my room on its rollers, shut the door and decided i would attend the opening night festivities stinky and smelly. At this point, who really cares. I'm not trying to impress anyone. 

I came down to the bus stop, getting ready to take the 30-minute ride to the event. I met everyone at the bus stop and introduced myself. There was a lady there at the bus stop in a beat-up blue dress with dirty sneakers. I paid her very little attention. Not my type. I thought she must be one of the poorer attendees, most likely sleeping on the beach, as many attendees do during that event. We rode to the event together in the bus. When we arrived, we discovered there was no event other than a very expensive VIP party, which we were not invited to. We were told we should come back tomorrow for day 1 of the official public opening. Someone at the event that night recognized me and ushered me in the backdoor of the VIP party. I insisted that my new bus friends all be permitted as well (testing my truth community power on the spot...ha ha) All 4 of us were ushered in the back door, including the girl in the beat-up blue dress, with the dirty sneakers. I had so much fun meeting some of the people I admire in the truth movement that night. My new bus friends also had a blast dancing barefoot in the hot and humid Mexican air. At the end of the night, we all happily took the bus back to the hotel together. 

The blue dress/dirty sneaker girl was now sweaty from all her dancing with her friends. She did manage to ask my name on the way back but was generally unimpressed with me or how my reputation had her ushered into a very exclusive party at no charge. She wasn't my type. I wasn't her type (as she told me later as well). No sparks were flying whatsoever. We all had a good and adventurous first night. 5 more days to go at the event, Time for a sleep and some late-night tacos, off to bed. 

To make a long story short, I only talked to this lady one more time during the 5-day conference. We ended up talking for about 4 hours one day and visiting the sound bowl healing center at the event. She loved it and I was happy she was happy. She actually had a different dress on at this point, so things were looking up. At that point in my life, I was just happy to have someone to talk to and I found out later that she was also in the same boat, as something tragic had just happened in her life, which prompted her to travel all the way from Latvia to Acapulco Mexico for the event. 

I never talked to her again until the very end of the conference. There was an end of conference party that night at a beautiful restaurant, high on the mountain, overlooking the ocean. As we all walked to the taxis, as the event was ending, she asked if I was going to the restaurant for the party, I said yes and she said, "maybe I will see you there". We were becoming friends in a way, after our sound bowl healing session and it felt safe knowing someone I knew would be at the restaurant that night. That's when something odd happened. Trust the process. Have hope. Stay clean and see the signs. Keep your brain free of sedative chemicals so you can see and feel everything in and around you.

At the nighttime farewell party, she arrived and I found her. She told me she was now travelling alone because her travel partner decided to go her own way. She told me that her next stop was El Salvador, by herself. I immediately said, "WHAT? DID YOU SAY EL SALVADOR........ON YOUR OWN? ARE YOU INSANE??". She didn't know much about Central America, so I informed her that this wasn't a good idea. She said she was supposed to travel to Peru after her 4-day trip to El Salvador. I suggested she save her own life, come back to stay in Puerto Vallarta with me and then continue to Peru from my local airport. At this point, I was just trying to save this person's life really and she understood that. I thought to myself "I don't really want company in my condo, I have lots of work to do but this lady is in danger without knowing it." She said, "I will think about your offer and if I change my travel plans, I will see you at the airport tomorrow and we will both go to Puerto Vallarta". 

The next day, sure enough, she was at the airport waiting to travel with me back to PV. Over our 3 days together in Puerto Vallarta I discovered that she had a beautiful soul with a very big heart. When I walked her to the Puerto Vallarta airport, I was actually relieved she was leaving, as I am not one to entertain people in my own condo for that long. After her plane took off and as I was walking back to my condo, I actually started to miss her immensely. Even though I had just met her, I felt very relaxed and comfortable in her presence, most likely because I was just being myself, as I didn't have any intentions beyond becoming anything other than friends.

Fast forward to today........two pictures are below. The first picture is her by my side at The Romanian Palace of The Parliament, before I spoke there. The other picture is of our table after the last day of speeches in Romania with the famous Dr. Stephan Malthouse, Dr. Mattias Desmet etc. (FYI...none of the wine glasses in the second picture are mine of course) The lady with the beat-up blue dress and the dirty sneakers......her name is Kristine. She ended up being my type after all. I ended up being her type as well. Trust the process. Have hope. Love is waiting. One foot in front of the other. We have now travelled happily together to Lithuania, Austria, Italy, Romania, Latvia, Mexico, Turkey and Belgium. Trust the plan. Sit in your pain. Hear the messages. Invite the pain teacher in for tea. Have faith. In 2024, let some of the lessons in this article help you fine tune your pursuit of greater happiness. 

I do teach self-sabotage psychology twice per year, live online, and I do help certify people as official Overcoming Self Sabotage Coaches. You can take this program online form anywhere in the world. Our group meets 3 times per month for 5 months.  We only take 100 people each semester. This is our 8th semester, and anyone can afford it, due to our affordable payment plan. The program is almost half full and it starts Jan 14th. Make some changes in 2024. Maybe working with me and your new tribe can be one of those changes. Trust the process. Have faith. Maintain your hope for a better day. Face your pain. Find more happiness in 2024. Click here to investigate joining our tribe. If you have any questions, email me personally at [email protected]. Life finds a way. Love finds a way. Always have hope.