Healing from Boarding School Trauma: Overcoming Addiction and Finding Purpose

In this powerful episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, we explore the journey of healing from boarding school trauma and overcoming addiction to find clarity and purpose in life. Join host James Ainsworth as he dives into a candid conversation about the emotional scars left by early experiences, the role of addiction as a coping mechanism, and the steps toward recovery and self-discovery.

🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ How boarding school experiences can shape identity and mental health.
✔️ The connection between trauma and addiction—and how to break free.
✔️ Practical strategies for healing emotional wounds and finding inner peace.
✔️ Why facing your past is essential for creating a meaningful future.
✔️ Inspiring insights on resilience, vulnerability, and redefining manhood.

💡 Who This Episode Is For:
→ Men struggling with unresolved childhood trauma or seeking recovery.
→ Those looking for practical advice on healing emotional wounds.
→ Listeners searching for stories of resilience and personal transformation.
→ Anyone who feels stuck in their past and wants to move forward with clarity.

🎧 Subscribe & Listen Now to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning for more heartfelt conversations about healing, masculinity, and living with purpose.

Piers Cross is an author, a film maker, & a leadership coach specialising in the area of peak performance, and trauma, especially boarding school. He also runs a podcast around these themes, called An Evolving Man. He is currently producing a documentary called, Boarding On Insanity.

Transcript

0:00

In today's episode, we have a deep dive into boarding schools and the impact they can have on people's lives from PTSD, addiction, workaholism, and emotional disconnection. And we explore the nature of anger, its potential effects and the practical strategies for managing it effectively. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James: 1:01

We can heal from trauma. We can move from post traumatic stress to post traumatic growth. Good morning, peers. What do you mean by that statement?

Piers: 1:15

Yeah, thank you. I think what I mean by that is in my own life, I thought I was just damaged and there was no way out and it was that realization that I could heal. And that there was a pathway, and I see that the work of Stephen Joseph, talking about post traumatic growth, that actually our wound can become our gift.

James: 1:43

Okay, so it's kind of like, we have all these things like anxiety and fear, maybe say for example, the fear of, fear of a snake. But that fear of a snake is almost a gift because that fear can almost become your friend, which then can teach you the lessons. Is that kind of right?

Piers: 2:06

That's it. And then also, then we can help people who've been frightened of snakes, go, well, this is what I did. And I think the wound becomes the gold. I mean, Robert Bly in his book, Iron John, he said that our wound is where the greatest gift will be that we'll give back to society. At the end of Bessel van der Kolk's book, The Body Keeps the Score, The Psychiatrist, he says that often those people like Nelson Mandela, the Oprah Winfrey's have had real bad Trauma in their lives, but they've turned it around and they've given their gift out And I think that's what we're saying here is that we it can be growth rather than it just being You know before we started recording It's like taking us from minus 10 the trauma to 0 but then from 0 to plus 10 Actually, I can be in purpose on purpose in life. I can give of my gift. Whatever that might be

James: 3:05

It's almost like we have these things anxiety rejection procrastination. But these things that we almost try to run away from, the more I feel as if you run away from it, the more it kind of chases you. But as soon as you allow yourself to hear. What it wants to say. It's almost say it's almost then it becomes your gift. So, for example, the other day, I, I've gone through a phase, a big phase, where I get procrastinate, I get overwhelmed. But the other day, I decided to turn it around. And I asked myself, what does the overwhelm want to teach me? And it was kind of like, just kind of pull yourself back in. And it said, just focus on the one thing that you can do now, rather than trying to focus on this massive goal with all these different branches. And it's just said, focus on what you can do in this exact moment.

Piers: 4:05

Mm. That's beautiful. That's it. Jason Selk, in his book, Executive Toughness, he talks about, they says, you know, when we feel overwhelmed, what is the one thing I can do? Not the 10, 000 things. No, what's the one thing that will make this better? And I think often in trauma and what you've just said is fascinating and I think I'd take it in another step Which is we have to feel it as well because it's following us But if we just stop and bring it somatically into the body How does this actually feel and often underneath that is the gold? It's the grief but the flip side of the grief is joy We run away, we don't want to feel the grief, but actually, that's golden, because that opens our hearts. It gives us empathy for other people.

James: 4:57

Can you tell me about yourself, please?

Piers: 5:01

Yeah, so, I work as a coach. I work mainly with leaders, executives, and the specialties around boarding school. So I help people who've been to boarding school. Maybe they had a difficult time or they are suffering the consequences. Now there's often what we call boarding school syndrome is a specific set of symptoms. Addictions. We've got workaholism, struggle in intimacy, difficulty feeling emotions, depression, suicidal thoughts. These often accumulate and people don't realise it's often linked into their experiences at boarding school. They just think, Oh, that's just me. But actually, so that's my work. And I'm also the producer of a documentary called Boarding on Insanity, realising that just, How many of our global leaders have been to boarding school, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of the FBI, Christopher Ray, who's just resigned, head of the Church of England, who's just resigned, Justin Welby, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we're making a documentary to go, what's the impact of trauma? on our leaders? Are our leaders traumatized? How might that impact the rest of the world? So that's something I'm doing. I run a podcast. My day to day work is really working with leaders, executives, people who've been to boarding school or some form of trauma.

James: 6:38

That brings to mind, and obviously I always try to avoid talking about Politics or anything like that by a number of Donald Trump, whenever speeches said, if you want to overcome depression work harder, and I was like, oh, my God, how can you say that kind of thing? And that just goes to show that. The workaholism, the lack of idea of your own emotions and, and probably the impact that could have on people who heard that.

Piers: 7:14

Yeah, I think we do live in a very driven world. And, you know, it's like if you look at the brain, and this is the work of Dr. Ian McGilchrist, we have left and right hemispheres of the brain. One is more analytical. And one is more intuitive, more inward. And, we in the West It's just the, you know, the left side of the brain, analytical, more work, push, push, push. But this is more the feeling sense, the, the, uh, you know, the right side of the brain, it's more feeling, it's intuitive, it's creative. And I feel both need to be merged. Nurtured. And what, when we have both in balance, it's called hemi sinking. And I just feel we're a, we're out of balance. You know, we see how we treat the earth. That shows me an out, we're out of balance. We haven't gone within. We're always out, out, out. And actually, I feel great leadership, and this is what Warren Bennis, Koosers and Posner in their book Leadership Challenge says, is we've got to start going within. We've got to lead ourselves first.

James: 8:31

It's an idea that's almost as well, I just, kind of it brings to mind the masculine and the feminine. So the masculine side of things is the taking the action, doing the work and then the female side the feminine, not necessarily the female, the feminine um, the sense of surrender. So almost, that feels almost like hemi thinking, so the action, as soon as you take an action step, surrender, then take some more action, and then surrender. And it's almost that sense of allowing ourselves to do what we need to do, but then flowing with the universe, or flowing with, if you use the word, God, kind of thing.

Piers: 9:14

Yeah, yeah, perfect. It's that it's like, if you look at martial arts, you know, I've done martial arts over a number of years and particular Aikido and the Japanese. And it's the idea is the more relaxed you are. And I've heard this a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as well. They said the more relaxed you are, the better you are. People often think, Oh, no, if you're really strong and you got, you know, you're kind of rigid like that. Well, actually that shows you you're weaker, you're easier to submit. And so. It is important for us. To, to act, but in a relaxed way, it's softness. And it's like, if you think of water, you know, water will move through anything. It's, you know, and that's a lot in martial arts is flowing of energy.

James: 10:04

So where did, where did your journey with boarding school begin?

Piers: 10:08

Yeah. So I went to boarding school from age 11 to just before my 18th birthday. So I was there for seven years. And on the surface, I was seen as a success. I was good at sports. I was captain of athletics, first 15 rugby, first 11 football and I was in a rock band and I went on, left boarding school and went on to a top business school, international business school, France, worked in Paris, London. And then in my twenties, I started to have a breakdown. Within a few weeks, I'd lost my father, got cancer, eventually died. Uh, I spit up for my partner. I left my home, quit my job. And I was essentially homeless. And it was around that time that I suddenly realized that boarding school, there was an impact there. And I came across a book, the synchronicities, uh, went on retreat. And I suddenly had the understanding that boarding school had been horrific. I had so much anger and I realized, yeah, I'd been sexually abused while I was there. Uh, one of my friends had committed suicide and the school decided after, you know, the friend had committed suicide that we needed to go and see the priest and the priest sexually abused me as he tried to do with other people as well. He was just got out of prison recently. And so, That was my experience and that just started. So I was mid twenties, started to have a real breakdown and I went to live in a Buddhist monastery and I went just for 10 days. I just needed some time out, but ended up staying over a thousand days, three and a half years. I ordained as a novice monk and I worked with a yungi in the nab. Analyst and it was like just processing a lot of what I'd been through as a child, lots of tears. I tried to commit suicide, self harmed, but I came out the other side. So that was my experience and I, I see that my work, it's a bit like. Beginning with my own journey and I'm like, okay, it's just me and then realizing actually no There's other people who've been through this experience as well at boarding school There's lots of stories and then I started to do some investigation. I started to read the books of You know well known exporters and you realize Oh my God, almost to a tee, they've had most of them horrific times. And then the second third part is, well, what's the impact on the rest of us? If these people have been to these schools, had horrific times, and you realize there's a lot of data out there that the, you know, Peter Levine in his work, he says the effects of unresolved trauma can be devastating and therefore If boarding school is a trauma, so many of our leaders have been traumatized, how is that going to affect their, their decision making? And that's really my work now is working both with leaders, but also, you know, creating this documentary, which will be out in the next couple of months.

James: 13:22

So you talked about some of your traumas that you went through. How did you start to look, delve a bit deeper into these traumas so that you could kind of understand? What happened so that you could grow from it.

Piers: 13:38

Yeah, great question. And I'm not sure, I mean, essentially when I started to look within was when I started to work doing one to one. You know, I think for me, boarding school, it's a complex trauma, complex PTSD. You know, we have PTSD. It's one thing which happens. PT, CPTSD, complex PTSD is when that thing happens over and over again. So for us at boarding school You know, we're being separated from home over and over again, so it means it's complex. So I began seeing therapists, but it didn't really work. It was only really when I began to work with this Jungian analyst, and I started to work with dreams and the unconscious. And I think that was my pathway into, because people could say to me, Oh, you're a good person or you're this or that. I couldn't hear it. I was too dissociated, but to actually start writing my dreams down, it was my dreams speaking to me. And I was do, you know, they were nightmares night after night after night, me being killed, you know, being, um, Types of horrible things. Uh, and I then realized, Oh my God, that's my inner world. My inner world is really troubled. So that's how I went deep was through doing unconscious work, dream work. What I do with my clients now is I use what's called EFT matrix re imprinting, which is a similar work. We're going into the unconscious. What's your unconscious saying? Because often when we are just doing talk therapy, or we're just coaching, it's just the prefrontal cortex. But our trauma is stored in the amygdala, in the limbic system. The reptilian part of the brain, and when we work unconsciously, we access that. Whereas often just by talking, we're not accessing that part of the brain. That's why, for example, I know you work as a firefighter. Some people might have been in a fire, and then any instance of fire or smell of smoke, their amygdala is going to go off. And it's going to keep going off until they look at that unconscious. And there are tools and processes that we can do, coming back to that question, that we can heal. And, you know, whether it's dream work, whether it's matrix re imprinting, whether it's other things, we, we can heal these traumas.

James: 16:18

Was there any specific things, like, with the dream, was there a specific dream that kept repeating that just literally said, and it had an aha moment?

Piers: 16:30

Not particularly. I mean, my Jungian analyst, um, She said to me, write your dreams down. So I would wake up every night, two or three times, and I write my dreams down. So I could be awake an hour or two in the night writing my dreams down. I'd do pages and pages of them. And the theme was, there was a lot of violence in them. I was either being shot at, I was fighting, you know. And so it was just showing me how much anger I had inside. And I think When I was able to separate almost and see that angry part, then the tears started to come. I started to grieve. And I think that was the key for me. I think often, sometimes trauma we hold onto it with too frightened of grieving, but when we do, that's when we can start. Letting it go it feels overwhelming because especially if you you know You've you've got complex PTSD and it feels like this reservoir of emotion. It feels oh my god, if I let that out That's gonna swamp me And so what we do is just lift the sluice gate up little bit by little bit little bit of tears release A little bit of tears and then eventually we can dismantle that reservoir wall and it's just a beautiful flowing river. This is our emotion. And I see in Britain we have a society which is stiff upper lip. We damn up those emotions. Boys don't cry. And actually it's, the research is now showing that to be emotionally intelligent, to be able to connect to your authenticity, your vulnerability is a greater. predictor of future success than academic performance.

James: 18:20

With regards to your own anger, how was it that you kind of started to release, how did, how did you release that anger? of yours?

Piers: 18:31

Well, not in a very positive way at the beginning in the monastery. I painted. So my, therapist said to me, I'd like you to start painting. So I was painting. I think I was already painting, but then she says, I was just doing it black and white. Cause I was doing Chinese calligraphy, Chinese brush painting. And I wanted to perfect doing it. And she said, what about some color? And I'm like, I don't know if I'm ready for color. And she says, no, I really suggest using some color. Soon as I added in the color and I would paint using a cardboard or paper, but I'd use my hands and I was able to move diatomatically connect into this anger and I'd be able to paint this. And that for me was very transformative. I'd feel anger coming up and I would paint it. The not so skillful ways was I was actually physically beating myself. So I went to A and E four times, I think, for broken bones, arteries opened, breaking things, you know? And so that was the, another way I was dealing. I'd punch, punch the wall cause I was just felt so much anger. And then. I think as I moved on and left the monastery, so I'd been there what three, three and a half years. And then I left was then using exercise to channel it, you know, to, to go swimming, cold water, swimming in the sea, biking. But then also painting, I've got a studio and, I'd get these big five meter canvases or pieces of paper and I would, you know, just paint and a bit like Jackson Pollock do that type of thing. And that was for me a really great channel for, for that. Another thing was, um, music, writing and did a lot of journaling in the monastery, didn't sing, but we were chanting. So we'd chant every day in Pali, so you know, ya, we'd be chanting. So I was allowing the voice up as well. So, yeah, that, those are some of the ways that I dealt with the anger. But there was so much, I was so angry.

James: 20:45

So I know from my own past experience, I've had to build up the anger in the past, and when I would go out drinking with friends, I'd have a bit too much, and that's when, I suppose, when I had the alcohol, I could no longer push the anger down, so the anger would come up. And the idea of getting aggressive, fighting, that kind of thing. But I'm interested, when you said that you channeled your anger when you did exercise, how did you personally channel that anger? Because I know, I, obviously, I use exercise now and again as a way to channel my anger, but I'm most interested in how you did it.

Piers: 21:25

Yeah, so I think it's to feel it in the body. So actually to feel, okay, I feel anger and then move. It's like the somatic, I think it's that mindfulness. Is just to feel, okay, I feel some anger. There's a practice from Thich Nhat Hanh, who's a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who's passed away now. But he, he says it's like, we've got to walk back and forth, or you can do it running, and just say the words, breathe in, breathe out. Breathing in anger has arisen in me, breathing out. I'm taking good care of this anger, breathing in. And so we just do that. We run, but we feel it in the body. And often what happens is I've used this example quite a few times, but a few years ago bought a new carpet for downstairs and I was emptying, we've got a coal fire emptying the ashes and As I was walking down the corridor to empty them outside, one of the embers, which was still hot, fell onto the carpet. And I was like, right, it's really hot. Took it outside, came back, big hole in my new carpet. I hadn't had it the day. And I felt really angry. And I just did the practice, walked back and forth, felt the anger, felt it in my body. I burst into tears. What it took me back to is when I was about three or four, uh, I'd put a light on the carpet at home and it burns a hole in the carpet and I'd been beaten for it. And that memory was stored in me. And so just by us feeling the anger, often under the anger is sadness or grief or there's something there. And I think as, you know, British, we don't go down into that depth. And that's where the gold is. That's where it becomes from post traumatic stress to post traumatic growth.

James: 23:24

But I, for myself, I kind of embody the warrior and I allow the warrior, anybody listing the warrior is one of the four male archetypes and represents anger. So I use the warrior to kind of decide your crossfit. So when I'm going hell for leather. I almost channel that warrior and allow him to feel what I need to feel in that moment.

Piers: 23:51

Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. The archetypes are just so powerful. It's like these aspects of ourselves. And I think a lot of us are in shadow, especially around the warrior. You know, the warrior. Yeah, he's, he's very calm. He's kind of very present, very powerful. I think sometimes in Britain, we think, Oh, you're, I don't know. We, we have this anger. Seems okay. Almost that we bottle it up and then we explode. I think if we can just connecting him with our anger feeling it but not letting it build so much that we just Explode. I mean I used to before I went to the monastery. I was very much into football and Portsmouth and Portsmouth is You know, was my football team. I remember being on the, um, the terraces and there was such a lot of aggression and, you know, I remember being sat one day outside a pub and these people started throwing bottles at the, the people, um, from the opposing fans. And I turned and looked to the kids next to me and they'd got blood pouring down their face. One of the bottles had smashed onto one of these kids. And I'm just like, what am I doing here? There's so much anger. And I feel for us, it's like important for us just to every day feel what am I feeling? Oh, feel it in our body. So it doesn't build and then explode as is so often happens in, you know, certainly in, in Britain.

James: 25:30

Yeah. So throughout this journey of healing, what challenges did you come up against?

Piers: 25:39

I think the first 30 years were really difficult for me. I mean, till I really left the monastery, things started to settle. So, but the first 30 years I came up against so many one was, you know, mental health. depression, suicidal thoughts, and then I attempted, tried to slip my wrist a couple of times, contemplated when I was in London working in the city, jumping off Waterloo Bridge, and struggle with addictions as well. You know, I went to Africa, kind of post my father dying after leaving the city, and I was there for a year, and I, again, I struggled with, with drink. Some nights I would drink all night and then go back to work. And because of the work I was doing, it was like, Oh, I gave myself permission to, to drink lots. And it was like, it's okay. It's it's work. There's been many challenges there, obviously friends dying. But mainly it's been my own mental health, really struggling with anger. Struggling with hating myself, um, struggling in relationships as well, not really being able to love. That was one of the side effects of boarding school shutting my heart down and my emotion. Being in relationship, but not being able to open and have empathy or love. So, um, yeah, there's been quite a few. Um, certainly those first 30 years. I mean, the monastic life was very difficult. Really difficult. Some people say, oh, you're really lucky and it's like yes on one level. I was really lucky. I probably would have been sectioned Probably would have been put into, um, a mental institution because I was so, so broken, but I had the support there. And I think that's a part, one of your questions, you said, you know, what's really helped. And I think it's, it's community. My wife has been amazing. Michelle is, has really helped me, but also community, having friends, having the monastics there. I think sometimes we have this belief, we've got to do it on our own. It's, And that's definitely something from boarding school. It's all, you know, got to do it yourself. And actually it's, it's community as much as anything. Yes. We've got to help ourselves and we've got to have support around us.

James: 28:13

So as well as community, is there any specific tools or strategies that you use yourself on a daily basis. I'm just thinking if there's anybody here listening and they, they might not have gone to boarding school, but they might be struggling. And I think if there's any tools or strategies that you use that could really help people out there.

Piers: 28:35

Definitely. Definitely. This is something I'm fascinated by is, is tools. How do we move from that zero to plus 10? And I've just had a cold bath, you know, cold, cold bath. I don't know. I had one for a little while. You know, they say that increases our dopamine levels by two and a half times. It's one of the, it's been shown in research, really great way of getting over addictions. You know, other things exercise, you know, if you can get into that zone too, which is, I won't go into details here, but essentially it's the, uh, aerobic zone rather than anaerobic zone. Those types of things that those are shown the efficacy for that compared with, um, antidepressant, it's as effective. exercise. I use EFT with my clients, but also on myself and that's tapping on the meridians, the acupuncture and acupressure points. Uh, and I found that transformative both with myself and with my clients. Meditation. Wonderful for me. It's not for everyone. If we're really struggling mentally, sometimes meditation's not so good, but. Because we can go too much into our heads. But actually going out walking and being mindful. So almost mindfully walking. I think that's another one. Creativity, painting, drawing, writing, creating stories, allowing the little child in part, child, part of you, in to, to almost feel joy again. I think in society we, we squash that joyful part. We become adults, but that part still lives within us. It needs to, to dance around. And dancing is a thing in the UK called five rhythms, which is, you know, without alcohol, we go and we dance with the community. And it's fun. I found that to be really transformative. What other things have I found really great? Uh, Qigong. Tai Chi, you know, martial arts, I think practices for getting us into our bodies. And you know, something like EFT, you can find videos. I have videos on YouTube where I lead people through the, the different processes. And I've interviewed a few people on my podcast, you know, about the science behind EFT. And I'm trying to think what other ones, uh, yoga, that's another one being barefoot on the earth. Okay. You know, grounding, earthing, you know, I've mentioned cold water, but all of these things, uh, diet makes a big difference as the work of, um, Christopher Palmer, brain energy psychiatrist founding actually, if we change our diets, that improves our mental health. There's just so much out there. And I think it's wonderful now that there's so much clinical data to go, wow, actually, if you. Cut down your carbs. That makes a real difference to how you feel, you know, according to Christopher Palmer or Georgia Reid. It's like, wow, all of these things. So yeah,

James: 32:03

I can relate to a few of them So I've done cold baths In the past, and they ought to get back to it really cold showers, but I find the cold shower for me. It's it's helped me to slow down my breathing. So when you get into a cold, a cold bath, and obviously in the winter, it's colder than in the summer, but it's the idea that you almost you become present. You become present in that moment because you're, you're freezing cold. And the first 10 seconds you're going, uh, but within 10 seconds, I've learned to slow my braving down quite rapidly. And, uh, yeah, that massively helps because it has an idea of really waking you up first thing in the morning. So with regards to. Other men that you've seen who have gone to boarding school and have this post, um, post traumatic stress. What are the reoccurring themes that you see in men like this?

Piers: 33:02

Yeah, I've mentioned them before. I think it's addictions, you know, either cocaine or alcohol or pornography or having affairs with people, sex addictions. There's also workaholism, the addiction of they just can't stop. And that often comes from boarding school because we've got this thing called timetabling that Nick Duffell says, you know, you go to boarding school from seven o'clock in the morning till nine 30 at night. You are. Timetabled. You don't, you know, I was talking to someone on a podcast a couple of days ago. He says that the average boarding school week is about 80 hours for a child. You've got an 80 hour week for a child, you know, and the same for the teachers, and the thing they're currently struggling with is burnout. Like you've said, you've said earlier about, you know, having that softness. There's no softness there. So we're just like, go, go, go, go, go. Now I see people in my work, the twenties and often the thirties, they're really productive. They do wonderful things because they've dissociated. They're just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But eventually they break out, they burn out. They can't go on because there's not, you know, this ultradian rhythm of on and then off. It's just on all the time. So that's often what I see. And. You know, when I go to the rest of Europe, I remember I was in Greece a couple of years ago for a holiday, sat in the airport and there were workers just sat down just chatting. And I was like, you would never see that in Britain. You're expected to always be on the go or you go home. And it was just really nice to see that, that, that, that kind of on and then off. What other things do I see? Relationship breakdown. Because there's no ability to connect to their emotions, they find it very difficult to be in relationship. You know, as Jung said, it's like it's projection. We project out that which we will not look at within ourselves that we've dissociate onto our partners. If we're in a position of leadership, we'll put that onto the people we're leading. UK, I see there's a huge issue at the moment with vulnerability and the people who are vulnerable, the older, the children, or the, you know, uh, Uh, the infirm because the our leaders learn to hate the vulnerable inside themselves and therefore they cannot, if they hate that within themselves, they'll project it out onto society. Jung said, he said, the psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. And this is what I see. The other thing is emotion. He's, especially if we're in a position of leadership, Professor Antonio DeMasio's work, he says you cannot make good decisions without emotional information. If you've dissociated from your emotions, which is the principal effect of boarding school, you go and if you show anger, you're laughed at, you're called psycho, if you cry, you're called a wimp, and you're bullied. You learn to become dissociated. And so we struggle making decisions. And I see Britain is currently going through that at the moment is that it's the consequence of really poor decisions for decades in this country, because people haven't been able to connect to their emotions, you know, empathy. What other things would I say that I see with people? I think those are most of them, you know, feeling isolated as well. They feel they're on their own. You know, especially people who are in positions of leadership, very, feel very isolated. There's no one they can really talk to. No one really understands them. So yeah, those are some of them, James.

James: 37:08

So how can, if somebody's going through this, how can they start to break the cycles?

Piers: 37:13

Yeah, there's, there's many ways. I mean, I have lots of podcasts. I've done 120 episodes, mainly around this subject of boarding school. So it's, I think because it's complex PTSD, I feel you've got to be quite varied and complex in your healing. So cognitive, you know, I would recommend reading, You know, you know, books like this, The Making of Them by Nick Duffell. Uh, this is another great one, Wounded Leaders by Nick Duffell. Um, there's George Shavarian's book as well, Boarding School Syndrome. So I think that's the cognitive side. Understand it. And I've interviewed all these people on my podcast. It is to go, ah, yeah. This is, this is, this is me to understand. That's the first level. Second level would be join a group. And I I've stopped the men's group at the moment, but there are, it's an organization called seen and heard, which one of my clients is, is part of, and it's, it runs weekly check in circles. So you can go as an exporter and you can hear other people's stories. So I think that's important for us to realize we're not alone. They're isolation or I'd break that down. Meet other people here. Oh my God. You went through the same thing. The other thing is one to one work, you know, whether it's a therapist or a coach. You find someone, a counsellor, who understands about boarding school and there's a website out there called boardingschoolsurvivors. co. uk or com, which is Nick Duffell's workshop, um, workshops and, uh, resource. And you can find a, a, a person trained in boarding school syndrome and they will understand what you're going through. Some therapists, it's becoming more well known, but a lot don't necessarily understand that it's a trauma. Yes, not everyone is negatively impacted by these schools, I need to say that. And not, not everyone is traumatized, but everyone has to survive, as Nick Duffell says. We have to survive, we have to create a survival personality in order to survive in these institutions. And part of the work is to dismantle this survival personality.

James: 39:39

So with regards to your documentary on boarding schools, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Piers: 39:47

Yeah, so I wrote a book a number of years ago and About my boarding school experience, it was rejected by the publisher. And I was like, going back to the drawing board, starting to write again, you know, edit it. And then I was talking to a couple of friends. One's a film producer, another is a director, and I just said, I want to make a film. I think, and we just talked about it. It's like, let's do it then. So this was about three years ago. So we just began by interviewing people, you know, putting ideas down kind of what could we do, where could we film? So we started to film. And, and so what I see is it's a bit like, that the idea is I there's my story, my, what I went through at boarding school. And then the next level is, well, who else has had these experiences? And so we've interviewed, we did a retreat where we heard other people's stories at boarding schools. And then the next level is the leaders. Well, if these are the experiences of the, the, the people at boarding school, what are the lead, the leader's experiences? And so we've interviewed experts. We spoke to Dr. Gabor Maté, spoken to Nick Duffell, Joy Shavarian, Alex Renton, people who are very well known in this field. And then it's to ask, what's the impact on the rest of us? And so in the film, we've interviewed historian as well, SI Martin, who talks about slavery, how slavery and the boarding schools were linked as well. Um, for example, one of the most well known slavers in the UK went to my boarding school and the money he got from this, the slave trade he's channeled into the boarding school. So it was like almost a direct, direct link between slavery and these boarding schools. So we bring that in to the, the documentary and then, yeah, looking at the path of healing as well. How do we transform? How do we move it from post traumatic stress to post traumatic growth? How do we use this as our gift? And I think that's the key message I want to say. Sometimes we get locked in the poor me, the victim, it was terrible. We need to grieve. First way, you know, there's three levels really. First is we're dissociated. We've got to start to awaken to what happened to us. Second level is grieve. We've got to grieve, go into that space, that liminal space as Robert Moore talks about. The third level is then taking that gift, as Joseph Campbell says, back out into the world, the boon. What is the gift that I've learned by grieving going in? What from that experience? So for me, I'm passionate about closing or converting all boarding schools into sixth form colleges. You know, making it illegal to board under 16 because I think developmentally it's so damaging. And like I said, I've got 50 biographies here. Some of the most well known people, John Peel, he was raped at boarding school. Boris Johnson was beaten. There was sexual abuse going on in his boarding school. David Cameron, he lost a stone in weight. And was beaten at Tony Blair was beaten at school and he ran away. He not only ran away, but he tried to leave the country, got on a plane, tried to leave the country. You know, you realize there are dozens, if not hundreds of stories like this of very well known people. Uh, Richard Branson, he tried to commit suicide at boarding school. You know, he wrote a suicide note and he tried to walk off the cliff, but the teachers and the other people stopped him. So it's like realizing, ah, this is what happens and what can we do? So that's, yeah, some of my, my vision and the idea with it.

James: 43:57

Thank you very much. It's been a very, very informative. I'm kind of, um, just so much. Going on in my head just trying to figure kind of take all this information in but can you tell people out there? What is it that you exactly do?

Piers: 44:13

What is it I exactly do?

James: 44:15

So like what kind of the sessions one on one sessions or group sessions?

Piers: 44:22

Yeah, so I've Stopped the group sessions at the moment, but the one on one work is You know, it's maybe 12 weeks. I will meet with someone. It might be longer. It's for me, creating a daily practice. It's one thing. Another is goals. Very important. Whether you've been through trauma or you're just wanting peak performances to have a vision of where you're going. Uh, next thing for me is emotional intelligence, developing that, and also mental resilience. You know, creating that another aspect is that inner work, finding those early parts of ourselves, grieving, letting that go. I teach people about leadership, you know, what makes a great leader, the importance of love and leadership, purpose as well, you know, the importance of purpose to improve our mental health and other such things, essentially, you know, and there's so many levels to this. I've just trained recently as a. as a coach in more sexual healing. So because so many of my clients have problems sexually, you know? So, um, yeah, that's, it's something I love doing. I've been, I don't know, 15, 2006, I started, so 19 years I've been doing it. I've probably done four or 5, 000 sessions with people. Um, and it's something I'm just passionate by. So I'm always learning and growing. So. Yeah, that's, that's what I do. I'm, I'm going to start a course in the next few months, probably after the film has gone out, called The Compassionate Leader, which will be a 12 week course and it will be, you know, group coaching, but also going through 12 modules about, well, how do we develop, you know, to be a compassionate leader, to be in high performance and be heart centred as well.

James: 46:29

That's, that's what I'm doing. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your time, Piers. It's been absolutely very, very informative, uh, episode.

Piers: 46:42

Well, thank you, James. Thank you for doing these podcasts and, uh, you know, the wonderful work you're doing. Thank you for that.

James: 46:49

Thank you.