Thank you Sandra @theminduntangled for making me a part of #thecoilchallenge

Here are the details for anyone that's unfamiliar with it:

Let's get right into Sandra's questions...

1. *When was a time that you struggled in your life, and what did you do to overcome it (or, how did you overcome it)?*

I was 26 years-old and had been living in a studio apartment in San Francisco with only $47 in my account. Feeling depressed, smoking a pack of cigarettes per day, not having a girlfriend for over 3 years due to a fear of rejection, and developing high levels of anxiety, I was questioning the decisions I’ve made up to that point.

https://gph.is/1oiLCSq

Nothing made sense. I did what society told me was right, thinking that that would be my saving grace. Go to school, get a job, follow the rules. For God’s sake, I was in graduate school learning to become a psychologist yet my emotional well-being was deteriorating. I felt powerless. I would think to myself, “How can I help people when I’m falling apart?” My world was becoming smaller every day because of anxiety and my sense of purpose was fading.

The conventional knowledge being fed to me was making things worse. I was looking for answers outside of myself through status, approval, and material objects. I did this by hustling hard with four jobs. Two were at a hospital, one at a university; and another one at a community clinic. I was making money, publishing research, and doing presentations at international conferences with an attention-grabbing designer wardrobe to go along with it. Even though things looked better on the outside, I still felt empty and anxious.

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One day, my friend Anthony starts telling me about a hypnotherapy training he was doing with one of our professors outside of school, and he asked me if I want to join the group. He said, “This is the real deal and we get to do work on each other.” “Hypnotherapy” I said, “are you guys going to make me cluck like a chicken?!”

https://media.giphy.com/media/1oC7ENXZ3GOHKS0lEA/giphy.gif

Even though I was skeptical, I was still curious because, I kid you not, when I was 16 years-old a psychic once did a reading on me and said that I’d be a hypnotherapist one day.

https://media.giphy.com/media/d8i5PX2GLP3EI/giphy.gif

With reluctance, and at the same time feeling a magnetic pull to it, I joined the hypnotherapy group. We met in an old Victorian house in San Francisco where we’d hypnotize each other all day on the weekends.

(Fun fact, I worked at a rehab clinic one block away from these Victorian houses where the opening credits of Full House was filmed. They're called “The Painted Ladies”).

One afternoon, I decided to volunteer for a process called a hypnotic regression. I was desperate to get to the root of the powerlessness I felt.

In a deep trance, I concentrated and focused on the feeling when I first felt powerless. In my minds eye, I saw my 10 year-old self, looking sad and powerless because my father was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I felt like I couldn’t do anything to help him. I was also afraid of his erratic behaviors that the illness drove him to do. My father’s mood swings and the fear that I would no longer have a dad were common place in my mind. In that chaotic home, I saw images of myself walking on eggshells or else all hell would break loose.

In my young, impressionable mind, I internalized the false belief, “When someone close to me is sick, I am powerless to help them.” My adult self now saw the truth that when my dad was sick, it was accompanied by behaviors that made me feel helpless. This did not mean that I am a powerless person! I gained insight that I don’t need to submit my personal power to feel safe. I don’t need to walk on eggshells in life to gain control of my environment and my destiny! I understood, “That was then and this is now!”

The feeling of powerlessness lifted off my chest when I saw the vision of my adult-self nurture and communicate those empowering words to my 10 year-old self. My body was slightly shaking and it slowly relaxed as the process completed where I felt whole and empowered with the sense that I have control over my life.

My inner breakthrough was that even though I had adverse experiences in the past, I did not have to be stuck in the past. I transformed my sense of powerlessness and felt a jolt of energy to engage with life to the fullest.

I was excited to help people heal and have breakthrough moments just like I did. I was reconnected with my purpose in life, which is to help people overcome challenges so they can be in loving relationships, live with financial abundance, and be fully engaged with the world.

Anxiety was lifted off my chest. I completed my doctoral degree and every year since 2012, I have continuously increased in my income. Now, I’m married to the love of my life!

2. How long have you been a Psychologist, and what motivated you to pursue that as a career?

I have been a psychologist for 8 years, but have been doing therapy with people for 13 years.

When I was 17-years old, I would notice my best friend’s hands were dry, cracked, and bleeding. He couldn’t even sit in class for more than 5 minutes because every time he’d touch a desk, paper, or pencil, he’d run to the restroom to wash his hands. He believed his hands were contaminated with germs.

It turned out my best friend had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). He would become so anxious, depressed, and debilitated by OCD that he was suicidal and at one point was hospitalized.

**I didn’t understand why he was compelled to wash his hands 100 times per day, and I felt powerless because I could not help him.
**

My sense of powerlessness triggered something inside of me that I wasn’t aware of at the time, but it drove me to learn everything I could about mental health issues and how to treat them.

From the age of 17, I volunteered at a psychiatric hospital for 6 years, I became a guinea pig in dozens of psychological experiments, spent thousands of dollars on fringe workshops about meditation, and by the time I was 23-years-old, I moved to San Francisco for graduate school in clinical psychology.

(Sigmud Freud created Psychoanlysis)

(Ivan Pavlol discovered Classical Conditioning)

(Abraham Maslow is the father of Humanistic Psychology)

3. What do you like to do in your spare time?

In my spare time, I love keeping physically active (lifting weights, kickboxing), playing guitar, and going to concerts (Some of my favorite bands are The Mars Volta, Tool, The Fall of Troy, Dance Gavin Dance, and Hail the Sun).

I use to play guitar in bands for many years, where we played either guitar or drums.

(Circa 2002, playing a showing at the Hard Rock Cafe in Toronto [my hometown], Canada, with a band I performed with for over 5 years).

**4. Have you ever done motivational speaking, and if you were to now, in this day, what would be your main focus, and why?

**

I have done motivational speaking and I love it! I've done motivational speeches on the topic of happiness and success mindsets.

In the future, I would like to continue doing motivational speaking on the topics of on success, happiness, and relationships.

My favorite motivational speakers are Les Brown, Eric Thomas (the Hip Hop Preacher), and Tony Robbins.

I had the change to see Tony Robbins in October 2019, along with Silverster Satalone, Gary Vaynerchuck, and Grant Cardone. Here's a video I made with some of the take-aways from the event. Click the link below to watch it!

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B4-hj8sA-Jr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXuSMjrx_e8&t=781s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oxz060iedY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVP1CwEBz_Y&t=130s

Thanks everyone for reading this article!

I will end this by passing the Coil torch to another Coil Blogger! I pass this on to Steven Sands (aka Vengeful Seven).

Here are my questions for you:

1. You're a prolific writer! What was your educational journey (e.g., schools you went to, mentors you had, inspirational literature) that shaped you into becoming the writer you are today?

2. You've been writing a lot about the health care system in the United States. What were the life events that lead you to research and write about about the US health care system?

3. What three books changed your life in a positive way and how did they affect you?

4.
What are your personal secrets to staying focused when writing large volumes of articles?

Once again, thanks everyone for reading and joining us on this Coil Challenge! Here are the Coil Challenge rules:

The following are Coil Bloggers that have participated in the challenge!

Riley Q.

Patricia C.

Adam Waring – Aussie Ninja

Patricia B.

Dani Torres

NickelNDime

Seth Stanley

XRPtheStandardProductions

Michael B.

Randal C – Crypto Pilot

Ramon Ramentol – Moncho

Niels

Srdan Vocanec

Michele Lancia

Sandra Scala – The Mind, Untangled.

Christian Rizea – @dr_chris10

-Dr. Chris