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Surviving Trauma: Stories of Hope
Surviving Trauma: Stories of Hope
From Trauma to Transformation: Jason Shiers on Addiction Recovery and Spiritual Awakening
Ever wondered how deeply childhood trauma and addiction are intertwined? Join me on this episode of the Surviving Trauma Stories of Hope podcast, where we welcome Jason Shears, an inspiring certified psychotherapist and transformative coach from Manchester, UK. Jason's story is a harrowing yet hopeful journey, from his early diagnosis and forced medication for depression, leading to heroin addiction at the tender age of 13, and imprisonment by 20. Despite achieving sobriety through a 12-step program, his struggle didn't end there. Seven years ago, Jason had a transformative awakening that changed his approach to helping others, shifting the perspective that people are not broken and that lasting change can indeed be simple.
Our conversation digs into various forms of addiction—substance abuse, gambling, and even retail therapy—revealing how these behaviors often serve as masks for deeper, unresolved issues. We delve into the complex relationship between addiction, trauma, and the unconscious mind, drawing on profound insights from experts like Gabor Maté and Carl Jung. Jason shares how unaddressed childhood trauma and negative core beliefs can persist into adulthood, influencing behaviors and life outcomes. The episode underscores the importance of introspection and self-awareness in overcoming these deep-seated issues, with Jason illustrating his journey from being a service user to a professional psychotherapist.
In our discussion on awakening, trauma, and self-discovery, Jason reflects on a spiritual awakening that altered his understanding of life and trauma. We explore the nuanced interplay between non-dual spiritual understanding and conditioned human responses, and the crucial role that transformative conversations and spiritual insights play in addiction recovery. Highlighting techniques like somatic experiencing and compassionate inquiry, Jason emphasizes the need to address root causes rather than just symptoms of addiction. This episode offers a beacon of hope and practical guidance for anyone grappling with addiction and trauma, proving that healing and transformation are truly within reach.
If you wish to connect with Jason, check out his website and social media links below.
Website: https://wideworldcoaching.com
Website II: https://www.infiniterecoveryproject.com/how-it-works/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shiers-79170991/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jvswwc
Facebook II: https://www.facebook.com/wideworldcoaching/
Podcast: Misunderstandings of the Mind
Connect with me by checking out mycenteredlife on social media, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think of the episode. Also please, head to Amazon, Takealot or Audible at the
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Hi there, I'm your host, marlene McConnell, and welcome to the Surviving Trauma Stories of Hope podcast. Today I am thrilled to welcome Jason Shears, who joins me from Manchester in the UK. Jason is a certified psychotherapist and transformative coach who operates within a non-pathologizing framework to help people discover their well-being. He has over 25 years of experience and specializes in addiction, trauma and mental health. His journey began with a diagnosis at the age of 10, followed by forced medication for depression. By 13, he was a heroin addict and by 20, he was in jail due to crime and drug-related offenses. Despite getting clean through a 12-step program, he continued to struggle with process addictions and mental health issues, leading to multiple instances of being sectioned. Initially, jason sought to help others as a way to heal himself, but soon realized he could not effectively aid anyone. This changed dramatically seven years ago when he experienced an awakening that transformed his approach. Now he uses this experience as the foundation of his work in addiction, trauma and mental health, guiding others to understand that they are not broken. As the host of the Misunderstandings of the Mind podcast, jason provides a unique perspective on change. He emphasizes that lasting transformation can be simple and does not require struggle. His approach focuses on uncovering your innate health rather than dwelling on what's wrong.
Speaker 1:I loved having Jason join me on the podcast and I know my listeners you will find great value in this episode. I also wanted to announce that I recently launched a YouTube channel. My videos will include relevant inspirational personal awareness, self-improvement content, positive affirmations, meditations, visualizations and, of course, the podcast. So please check out Marlene McConnell on YouTube. If you wish to support the podcast. To keep going, please join the Infinite Progress Society on Patreon and take advantage of the great benefits. Thank you to my listeners for joining me on this journey. Comment on the posts on Instagram, facebook, linkedin and YouTube and let me know what you think of this episode. Also, head to amazoncom, audible or takealotcom and get your copy of my book Ray of Light, and please leave me a rating and review. It would mean the world to me, as always. Stay tuned and keep listening. Hi, jason, welcome to the Surviving Trauma Stories of Hope podcast. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Nice to be here of Hope podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. Nice to be here. Yeah, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you join me. It's not every day that I have a guest on the podcast in the same time zone, so that's pretty nice. So you're out in the UK.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you want to sort of just give us a little bit of just general background as to who Jason is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a love-hate relationship with titles, you know. But, like, sometimes, just because I'm a psychotherapist, people think, oh, I must have something interesting to say. So I tend to find that I personally don't like titles, but it helps people to open their ears and perhaps you know listen, but it helps people to open their ears and perhaps you know listen. So I am a certified psychotherapist, a transformative coach, and I'm somebody with a story of addiction and trauma, a personal story of a lot of years of mental health struggles and personal battles with suffering.
Speaker 1:And I think that is like a story for so many people.
Speaker 1:I think there are a lot of people in the world that are suffering and that are just absolutely drowning in their life circumstances, and the reality is that not everybody knows, when they feel overwhelmed by their circumstances, even where to start or what to do.
Speaker 1:Circumstances, even where to start or what to do. And so you know the fact that you've managed to overcome and that I know you don't like titles, but that you can say, okay, I've actually gone on to become a psychotherapist and I mean you're being so modest, but I will tell everybody on the podcast in the introduction, all your credentials but to have gone on to do that and to get to a place where you can actually help others, especially you know when the suffering included. You know addiction, which is something that most people never actually even find in their lifetime a way out of you know. So I mean, when we talk about addiction, there are so many different forms of addiction and I've recently learned that thoughts can also be, an addiction, and an addiction in order to suppress those emotions, so that we don't really feel any kind of a disturbance.
Speaker 1:And you know, the more obvious ones I think you know would be alcohol addiction, drug addiction, perhaps even retail therapy.
Speaker 1:And I think you know, when we talk about or at least in my experience, when I've spoken to just people in general I always hear oh man, you know, drinking makes me popular, but you know, you just find the place to go in order to drink, to feed that addiction and surround yourself with the people that is going to support that.
Speaker 1:Or you know, I was having such a tough time today so I had retail therapy and I bought all the stuff, a lot of stuff that I don't even need. Or I was at the casino but then I ended up gambling too much. I was just there for a little while, and so I guess you know these are all sort of barriers in some way, shape or form that exists within us and we don't actually know that we have these addictions, or these are ways that we mask and mask that addiction in order not to really do the work. So, if we look from your perspective, if we look at addiction, do you think that if we cite these barriers that I've just spoken about, do you think that sort of that is the root cause of the problem? When we think of addiction, the gambling, the retail therapy, the alcohol?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a symptom.
Speaker 2:I think that's a symptom. I don't think it's a cause. I think what's important to understand about addiction is the classification of different types of addiction. And, like you talk about the gambling, the retail, the different things eating drugs, alcohol, whatever it is. You know it's like that's where the world of psychology operates in the symptom. You know those are symptoms and they're not nothing to do with causes. They're just what manifests on the surface level and what people see. Oh, this person addicted to alcohol, this person addicted to shopping, this person addicted to gambling, how do we help them with their gambling? Uh, we take off their credit card and we stop them from having money online and we we cut up their bank cards and you know, in the extremities and so on. It's just a waste of time because really there's just one addiction. There's not multiple addictions. Because those symptoms, there's nothing you can do at that level. You know, because that is just. That is the behavioral manifestation of addiction or the process or the substance, and you know taking part of addiction.
Speaker 2:What's really important to understand about addiction is the function. The function of that process or that substance, you know, like what is it doing for somebody, regardless of what it is. You know. For you it might be gambling, for me it might be alcohol, for someone else it might be sex, for someone else it might be money, it doesn't matter, it's highly irrelevant. In fact, I don't even talk about that when I work with people very rarely, you know, um, because what's important to understand is the function like why, why? Why is that happening? You know what is that about for you? Why do you need to numb yourself? Why do you need to escape your life? What is it about your life that's difficult, challenging? What is it about being with yourself that you can't be with? You know it's like. What is it that happens in your body when you're alone, craving, having an urge, when you're struggling, having difficult life circumstances, like what goes on there? You know, and that's where to look. You know it's kind of like because the ability to be present with ourselves and the amount of discomfort that we can tolerate or be with is really the place to look. Because that is what's that is.
Speaker 2:The function of addiction is to is to quieten the mind and to soften the nervous system. You know it's like to deal with the physical urges and the physical sensations and compulsions that appear from the discomfort, the part of life that we can't be with. I can't be with loneliness, I can't be with my relationship and I can't be with my financial status. I can't be with my relationship status, whatever it is, because it's too difficult, too much, too challenging, too hard, too much pain, too much suffering, too much arguing. Whatever it is, I can't be with that. So I need this to make this better, and that is the function is to quieten the mind, ie the noise of the mind, the obsessive thinking and the compulsive thinking and the urge of the body, know the nervous system activation from discomfort and then the urge of if I did this then I would feel better, because that becomes a physical urge in the end that we can't really fight off using willpower or challenges. So I think that's for me the most important thing to really consider.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think gabber matai. Gabber matai says not why the addiction, but why the pain. You know it's like. What is that about? It's the place it's, you know. I just don't. I don't buy into this uh, pathologizing approach where we classify addictions as one being worse than another. Of course there's physical implications with drugs and alcohol and potential death, even you know, know, with prescription medications and so on and stuff like that. But it's just the wrong place to look now.
Speaker 1:So what I'm hearing you say, jason, is effectively addictive behavior is just another way of saying I'm not good enough, I don't like what I feel, and it's just a way that I think we run away from ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a mask for the feelings of unworthiness, for sure, and it is a way that we run away from ourselves, but unworthiness being one of the things, unlovable core beliefs, you know, like unworthiness, unlovable, not enough. All those things that are a response, trauma, really in childhood, you know that we kind of many of us live with and try to offset using addictive processes or substances, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean that's interesting because you're talking about childhood trauma and we're talking about alcohol abuse, we're talking about gambling. You know, and in some ways, I think, in my mind, I associate these types of behaviors almost with adults. So how long can you carry around these feelings and then cultivate these negative belief systems in order to result in addiction?
Speaker 2:How long? I mean, like for a lifetime, forever. Wow, they don't disappear with time. I mean, this is kind of one of the myths of life, that time is a healer. You know, time heals nothing. It doesn't heal anything. Time on its own, you know, but time with introspection, time with willingness to look inwardly, time with uh presence, with, with a, with a willing other that's going to allow you to look into yourself, is something completely different. So unless you look, it will control your life. I mean carl jung, one of his famous quotes was uh, you know, unless you look inwardly, you, the unconscious will control you and you'll just call it fate. You know and that's basically what he's pointing to that this trauma response is playing out your whole life and dictating everything, all circumstances, all relationships, all work relationships, everything in your life, until you're willing to look at it, you know and you're right.
Speaker 1:I mean, I I'm also a big fan of collins work and he did focus on the theory of this interplay between the conscious and the unconscious mind, where he he did have this interplay between the conscious and the unconscious mind, where he did have this theory that the conscious mind was where we have our memories, our thoughts and everything that is in our present as we're experiencing it in that moment, but that the unconscious mind was almost like part of our mind that had this forgotten information and repressed memories, that was just sort of lying beneath the surface but had the potential to influence the conscious mind and if you're not aware of it that's what you're saying it just becomes your fate, right?
Speaker 2:There's just a couple of things to add. There's many people that Jodie Spencer, bessel, van der Kolk talk about that% to 99% of our experience is unconscious. So the level of nervous system dysregulation and activation that controls your conscious behavior is huge. It's almost like, according to them, over 95% anyway. So it's a very small amount, the amount you can see and know in your rational thinking and conscious mind.
Speaker 1:You know, you obviously have the science behind it and the logical understanding of how this works as a psychotherapist, but your experience and understanding of this also has a more personal tone. Do you want to share a bit more about that personal experience, that that actually has led you to this understanding?
Speaker 2:now um, in order to help someone else yeah, sure, I think it's an important part of it because, like many people just see sometimes a professional who thinks they know a thing or two about suffering or life. You know, and it's like having been, uh, the service user for many years myself and then a professional, and both at the same time as well, you know, at some points in my life, gives me a kind of unique perspective on on working with people and also having worked with people as a as a early on in my psychotherapy journey, not really having a clue myself about myself at the time and no ability to really help others, you know so and uh, it's a direct correlation. My ability to help others is a direct correlation of my knowing of myself. You know it has to be that way. You know my, you know what most people would call trauma. I don't really.
Speaker 2:I know your podcast is called Surviving Trauma. I don't like the word surviving because it implies a story of victimhood, you know, to me and I don't like the hero or the survival story because they're both a story. And I want to look beyond the story. Something happened in my life that was tragic. My dad went out when I was a small boy and he was killed and it's particularly, I'm sorry, to hear that my condolences thank you.
Speaker 2:It's still sad. It's never going to be not sad and I'm okay. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:I'm okay with feeling that and I don't think, jason, anything in this life prepares you for the loss of a parent ever yeah, I agree, yeah, but I can also say it's been the biggest gift that I've had, you know, and it's because, like, moving away from the story of survivor or victim, for example, of circumstances, you know, it's like then I can see that this journey that I've been on through life has been a direct relationship to that event psychiatric wards and jails and institutions and being locked up and all those things in hospitals and institutions in my early drug taking years, and my willingness to look inwardly for answers, into myself, into the trauma, into the nervous system, responses to look to being loved, to what happens when, when somebody loves you, uh, all those things, you know, this deep kind of existential journey that I've been on, you know, have been a direct relationship to that event, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, while it was tragic, it was also the biggest gift and the most impacting experience of my life, you know.
Speaker 1:Sort of a catalyst for all of these things. That then happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I sometimes say, who knows, if that hadn't have happened, I might have ended up. Not that there's anything wrong with stacking shelves in a supermarket, for example, but I just might have ended up as that.
Speaker 2:You know it's like who knows it was. You know it's had many implications over my lifetime of being that kind of service user. You know, like that was what you asked me about. Where did my journey go? So it was years of addiction, years of chaos and abuse and all sorts of things and psychiatric interventions and institutions in my early teens, through to finding 12-step recovery in my early 20s and then becoming a psychotherapist and still suffering, still struggling and seeking, always seeking, you know, and and really it was like an amalgamation of spiritual realization and psychological process and trauma that all kind of came together perhaps seven or eight years ago, you know. So that was like a little snapshot of my journey, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I love that you ended up sort of being able to see and bringing the psychotherapy or other modalities like the metaphysical even if you're talking about seeking, yeah, so so it sounds like it's sort of, uh, that search for meaning and purpose took on a different route, because I, I would, I would imagine that with the psychotherapy that can provide sort of the logical understanding of what is happening, why it's happening, have those interventions you know, know how to process, but then the metaphysical and the alternative interventions like, I don't know, meditation or self-love or looking inward probably is slightly different, but the two together is proven to be more holistic, mind and body. What was your experience eight years ago?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good point, because eight years ago I guess I had what you would call a spiritual awakening, a realization that life was not an amalgamation of circumstances and there was no external goal or place to get to that. Life was actually happening in my own mind and there was nothing else other than me. You know, like having an experience of me. So that was kind of like the complete kind of um collapsing of this imaginary, illusory, objective world and a and a turnabout focus to being inwardly, to everything happening inside of me as a projection outwardly, versus seeing something that really existed. It's like nothing happened without perception and it was a massive realization where I experienced bliss and peace for the first time ever, like for a few days at first, and then, over the space of a couple of years, my relationships changed in my life, trauma started to show up and I was left with this, with the physical contractions and constrictions of the nervous system, like, and it was really strange because I was kind of in this place where I thought, well, there's nothing outside of me, but yet there's these things outside of me creating these reactions in my body. You know, it's like.
Speaker 2:So that was my journey into trauma, into the autonomic nervous system, polyvagal theory and so on. You know it's kind of like. And then really I guess my work came to a point where it seems like it's at the pinnacle of the non-dual spiritual understanding and trauma you know of the autonomic nervous system. So you know, you could say in the terms of the absolute and the relative, you know, like the absolute truth is everything's happening inside. There's no other person, there's no body, there's nothing here apart from ourselves. But relatively we are conditioned human beings. You know we've been through adversity and trauma and our response and reaction to that in the, in the autonomic nervous system, shows up in relation to this apparent objective reality that we live in.
Speaker 1:You know and I think those core beliefs and those thoughts and coupled with the unconscious mind, will make us believe that we're someone that we're not, and whatever drives the behavior will think that it's part of our personality, but it really isn't. It's not who you are. So the interesting question that I have had to answer for myself I'm going to ask you that question too, because I had to answer that question For me. This question came up during forgiveness and I had to ask myself, marlene, if you let go of all of the self-loathing, the self-hatred, all of the things that are those darker emotions that really helped you and protected you in life and allowed you to excel, if you forgive and you let go of all of that, then who are you? Because if all of those emotions made you a good executive that could meet all deadlines, then who are you?
Speaker 1:If you're not going to be that person anymore, can you still meet your deadlines? Can you still function in your life? So that was like a big question that I had to sit with, really, when it came to that sort of transition. Do you find that when you had your spiritual awakening and that experience, that during that time you also had to ask yourself like who am I and who am I without my addiction? Where am I going as a person that now no longer? You know? Have this crutch that I can lean on. Yeah, I think that came as a secondary awakening. You know, have the scratch that I can lean on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that came as a secondary awakening, you know like, about a year or two after that initial process for me, where I was watching a video of Rupert Spira. You know like, questioning the I that suffers. You know like, who is that? You know like, upon investigation, the truth is is that there's nothing there. You know, like, upon investigation, the truth is is that there's nothing there. You know, there's no I. There's just a series of constructs and concepts I've created by my conditioning about myself.
Speaker 2:I call myself Jason, I've got an age, I've got a relationship, status and things in the world that I attach to me. You know it's like, but none of them are essential parts of my being. You know, all of them are ever changing and inconsistent. So the truth is, what's left is there's just awareness. There's just awareness of of life happening, you know, and it's like, and that that is ever present, um boundaryless, never changing awareness.
Speaker 2:You know that I've always been so in that exploration you know of the truth of who we are. It's kind of like you come to a place of nothingness. You know there's nothing there, there's nothing you can identify with. That is not a temporary attribution to an apparently separate self. Yet we're still relative human beings living in a body, conditioned and having reactions and contractions to life, to stimulus, to people, to situations, to financial challenges, to relationship challenges and so on and stuff like that. So I think it's a spiritual bypass to say that there's no body, nothing exists, so everything is blissful because nothing can harm or hurt or bother you, because there's nobody there for it to harm. There's no separate self, which is true in the absolute, but it's a bypass because we are relative humans living in a conditioned body that's suffered or struggled with adversity or trauma.
Speaker 1:I think if you can get to that place and you can have that greater awareness, that already takes off a massive part of the workload that you need in order to heal from trauma. And my question is so, Jason, what do the people do who don't actually reach the state of awareness what happens to them in their lives?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I would say, this is like the ultimate kind of healing journey because, like other than that, if you are believing yourself to be a separate self me called Jason, who has to do something in order to be okay ie in the traditional psychotherapy or psychological world you know, people might give me techniques as a way to feel better, or tasks to do, or look in the mirror and say gratitudes and so on, or say I love you or something when you feel unlovable. You know those things are just more doings that are only going to make you more busy and more difficult and, while some of them might give you a temporary respite, they're only ever going to like enforce the belief in being a separate being rather than seeing the oneness. You know the truth of what's happening, so for me, there's only one place to look, you know, and that is kind of what we're talking about in this conversation. You know, because everything else will solidify the belief in separation, which is unfixable. You know it's unfixable, it cannot be resolved in a material world or paradigm and, like you said, it's a good point that you made that the realization of a deeper truth, the realization of oneness, the realization of the fact that there is no separation going on here.
Speaker 2:While it doesn't excuse you from the human experience, it relieves you of a lot of the suffering, for example, the story that we tell. This is why I said I don't like the story so much of survivor and victim, because once you're free of the story, you're no longer perpetuating the nervous system activation with a story. Oh, that's because of my trauma, oh, that's because I was abused when I was 12. You know, I'm not making light of this because I work with this all the time and I'm of this life as well. That's because of when I was beaten, when I was young.
Speaker 2:See, when we're saying words like this about ourselves, what we're doing is we're actually continually perpetuating and solidifying this story of a belief in a separate me that was abused, that is suffering and that cannot escape this lifetime story of trauma that we've been telling. So just understanding this spiritual perspective will free you from a lot of the suffering that you actually create within yourself. That was my big realization. My realization was was that I'm creating the suffering that I'm suffering with? You know it was not done to me. You know it wasn't. It was like it happened and I'm free. It's not happening today, you know, like for most of us, that are talking about developmental and uh big t traumatic events that happened at some point during our lives.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's not happening today, yeah.
Speaker 1:But we're still suffering with it. You know, at you at wide world coaching, how would you, for somebody that is struggling with addictive or just generally suffering, um sort of define your stance on change and that can result in lasting transformation?
Speaker 2:I call it transformative conversations, because we have conversations and space is created between two people that under one of these two people that shows up, understands a deeper truth. You know, and and just with that, that, what's created in that space between two people, insight can happen, you know, and insight is the only true transformation. You know, insight, insight, and first, you know, it's always important for me for somebody to have an insight, to see a bit more about a spiritual truth, about who they are, and then what's left over after having insights into more of a deeper truth is somatic contraction, activation of the nervous system. You know, it's kind of like that's the unconscious part that we talked about earlier. You know, it's kind of like where something happens somebody doesn't pay me some money, I lose my job or something. I feel old. You know, something happens in my body. There's no thinking going on. I'm not consciously thinking, oh my God, I'm going to end up under a bridge, I've got no money, but my body is saying that. You know my body is going into contraction.
Speaker 2:For that we can use things like somatic experiencing, ifs, different approaches, you know, to question bodily contractions and sensations, to see what shows up and what is really, because in those somatic investigations where we're quite still and we're quite quiet and we're kind of leaning into feeling the body, you know the somatic place in that because there's two parts right, there's the spiritual awareness of that. The mind can kind of um see beyond, you know, like me, as a separate self in an objective world. But then the somatic part is the conditioning, the adversity, the trauma that we've experienced. You know that, um, and by somatic investigation whichever form you prefer it could be, ifs could be compassionate inquiry, somatic experience, and there are a few different types of modalities that that that will do. That. You know, you can start to feel into how that unconscious stuff that we talked about drives your behavior, your reactions, your, your contractions, whatever's showing up for you in the world. You know so. So it could be a variation.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't have a linear way to work with people. What I do have is I trust the moment and like it. Sometimes it's just directly into somatic work. Sometimes it's really like more transformative conversations and realizations. But it's never talking about addiction. It's never talking about what they're addicted to and how they stop and what they need to do. What's important about what I'm saying is that when people feel better in their life, they no longer feel the need to escape from it.
Speaker 1:That is very true and I think it goes back to the point that you made right in the beginning, when we started and I was asking you about the different barriers to addiction and whether or not they in fact was sort of part of the actual addiction, and you said, no, no, that is merely a symptom, right, because you are not dealing as a professional in the symptoms, but you're actually going to the cause through the various interventions that you've mentioned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, to add a little to that, what people tend to find is that somewhere along the way in our journey together they say something to me like oh yeah, I just don't need to do that anymore, or it just didn't seem like a problem for me anymore. You know, it could be compulsive eating, gambling, debt, whatever it is, money, pornography, anything like that, you know. And it's kind of like, and maybe at some point I ask, after a month or two or something, I say, well, how's that thing going? You know, and they'll just say, oh yeah, it's like just seems like really easy not to do it now, you know, because it's like no, you know, one of the famous things that I always find myself saying is nobody ever wakes up really happy and joyful and content and says I'm going to use crack cocaine today. Nobody does that, you know. It's like it's it's a way of escaping a difficult reality. You know it's a way of escaping a difficult reality, you know.
Speaker 1:And you're right. I mean, I think that when you're addicted, it sneaks up on you, because I don't think anybody sets out to become an addict. One day you wake up and you try to stop and you know when working with you or a psychologist or you know anyone that brings sort of these interventions. I think, if you're dealing with the cause, or even maybe sometimes the symptoms, could be how it impacts your daily life right now, right, not actual event. If it happens organically like the way that you're describing, I think that is a big win for both, because it happens organically and it obviously has got something to do with the root cause, but it's managed to just work itself out, like you say oh, I'm not doing that anymore, yeah, and I think that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's something else important about that that you just reminded me of In transformative conversations. I really want people to see their own wisdom. I want people to know that they know the answers, and it's not coming from me Now. So that must mean that I have to trust in somebody's ability to make changes for themselves. Because what happens is when someone else trusts in you, you start to trust in yourself eventually, even when you've got none to start with.
Speaker 2:But if someone else offers you solutions and gives you techniques and ways of coping with it, what they're really confirming to you, the unconscious message, is I don't think you know how to do it, so I'm going to tell you how to do it Right. So it's like what you're doing is you're confirming to that person that I think that you're not capable of this. And now see, it's more difficult as a therapist and you have to have done your own work to sit with somebody and not give them solutions and answers and help them to come to their own and trust in their wisdom and help them see that they have the wisdom and the ability to stop now. That is a completely different thing, because what you're giving them is a lifetime of transformation and ability to know themselves and to see that they have the capacity to stop versus uh. I'm giving you a band-aid for this bullet hole and it's going to stop you for two weeks, but after that you're going to go. I don't really work.
Speaker 1:Jason preach Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him one fish and you know, you just feed him for that one meal yeah that's exactly it.
Speaker 1:And it's about empowering people. It's about giving them their confidence back, empowering them to know that they are the owners of their lives. They are the creators, the co-creators of their lives and, you know, if they wanted to be the CEOs of their lives, they can be. That's amazing work. So, Jason, the listeners were interested in working with you. Where can they find you?
Speaker 2:my addiction treatment site is called infinite recovery projectcom. You can find it. Find it there and have a look at it. My coaching website is called wide world coachingcom and there's more conversations on my podcast, misunderstandings of the mind. You know. There's conversations about trauma. There's conversations about awakening and realization, and my own journey are all on there as well.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. I'm going to link those in the show notes. And you're also an author. We haven't even had a chance to speak about you having written a book. Do you want to share a bit about it?
Speaker 2:It's at the final stages. Yeah, I'd love to. It's funny because it's open on my computer now and I'm at the final stages, just before I go for the final edit. I've got another editor to go through and it's like this book has been four or five years in the making. I have no idea how I got to where it is now, because to think that I've written nearly 60,000 words is unbelievable. And it kept changing because my own journey kept evolving and my realizations got deeper and deeper. My spiritual realizations, my trauma work got deep, my work into my own somatic being, like my own willingness to sit in discomfort and to know myself, changed everything you know. So I thought I just can't put this out into the world as it is. I need to, I need to change it, I need to change it. So I kept going back and changing it. Um, but I like I'm happy with how it is now and it's a. It's a.
Speaker 2:It's my own story a little bit at the start, but a lot of it is really about, kind of like what is going on with addiction, like what happens in the conditioning process. How do we choose addiction, how do we get conditioned, the level of trauma and adversity that we go through. And then how do we come to a spiritual realization and kind of find that place of not a label like addict needing to do something to be okay, but that place of inherent okayness? You know, how do we come to that place of of being, um, absolutely perfect as we are, you know, how do we know that about ourselves? You know? So it really is a, um, a journey, you know, to seeing that that's what the book is about. Uh, it's going to be called the infinite recovery project, same as my program.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, I'm excited, you know I'm excited it should be, I reckon, like three months or something it is very exciting.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you what your working title is, but it sounds like this is a final title yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that title okay. So then, jason, in three months time, you're going to have to come back to the podcast. Yeah, to come and talk to us about your book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will do. I'd love to.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you so much for joining us today, thank you for sharing, thank you for just giving us a different perspective on how to approach our healing journey, and I think, even in our conversation. I know that our conversation was predominantly around addiction, but I think that a lot of the unique principles that you've highlighted here today I mean it's just you can apply that in most aspects of our lives because, like you said, it's all integrated.
Speaker 2:There was a time when I thought I could just make this book for everyone. You know, the thing is I have this passion for helping people with addiction that really struggled and suffered like I did. But there was a time when I kind of thought this book, you know, would apply to anyone suffering. You know what's in there, the message that's in there would really help anyone that's suffering with anything you know, any form of. I mean, I unpick a lot of mental health we haven't talked about that, you know but I unpick a lot of the process of diagnosis. You know the subjective opinions of kind of the psychiatric world and how it in a way perpetuates, you know the pathologizing approach, perpetuates this belief in separation and belief in illness and flawed character and identity and personality, disorders and addictive personality and all those things are in there really, you know's like um helping people to see beyond that kind of created world.
Speaker 2:You know so, um, yeah, I mean, it's the same for anyone suffering with anything. The solution is the same, you know that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I look forward to your book, so I'll be keeping a lookout for that. Jason, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing so selflessly with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And we'd love to have you back on the podcast in about a few months' time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be cool. Love to.
Speaker 1:Have an awesome rest of your day.
Speaker 2:Thank you Bye.
Speaker 1:That wraps up this podcast episode. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy my podcast, please take a minute to give me a rating and review in Apple Podcasts. Please subscribe in your favorite podcast directory so you don't miss an episode. Please consider following my Scented Life on Facebook and Instagram for daily inspiration. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. You can catch me again in the next episode. Same time, same place, sending you lots of love and light. Bye.