Silent Suffering: The Power of Self-Love and the NFG Approach

Have you ever wondered how to break free from the silence of your suffering? In this video, we're going to break down four things to be aware of when it comes to you staying in suffering and what you can do to make sure that you no longer suffer in silence without being able to find a way forward, without being able to express exactly what it is that you want, and staying stuck, feeling like there's no way out. I want to start this entire video off with a story, and it's a story that's hit home with me. I actually wrote the story in my first book and it's about a client of mine whose name was Will, and on the outside Will was a property developer, he was a socialite, he used to organize charity events and golfing events and golf days and he was what you would call a connector. Right, everybody was having lunch with Will, or everybody knew Will, and on the outside he was this bubbly, infectious personality and always really friendly, always the life of the party. But there would be moments where I would walk into the change room at the gym before he would be training with me and he would just be checked out. He would be in some form of I guess you could call it a funk or a whole, and I could see his entire demeanor changing. His being would change, his energy would change. And I would try for years right, I trained Will for almost seven years to work out what was going on, to get some insight into what was behind what looked like was a giant amount of pain, like you know, when you look at somebody and their eyes are there, but they're not right, they're in some deep, dark place. That's where I could see him going, and over time, will was the sort of person that would just hustle through, just keep pushing through everything, and one of the biggest things that he loved to do was surf, and he wanted to take his family to Bali so that he could just have two weeks of just family time and surf. And I remember when he went for the trip and three days later I got a phone call from his wife's friend who was somebody that I was also training telling me that Will had been there for a couple of days. Day three, he decided to go out for a surf, which, again, which is something that he loved bought his first wave and crashed. Nothing big, the wave wasn't too big, but he had a heart attack and he died. And this isn't like a hey, when you are sad and suffering, that you're going to die conversation. The reason why I share this was that what happened post that conversations that I had with his wife, conversations that she was having with his friends and his work colleagues and everybody else, realizing how long he had been in a state of pain and suffering in silence, not communicating, not sharing, not asking for help, and ultimately it consumed him to the point where he was physically unhealthy, where he was so stressed out, he was so conflicted and almost internally toxic that it led to his demise. It led to his death and he was young, you know, 44, 45, like my age and to see that happen was such an eyeopening experience for me back then when it happened, because Nothing is worth you suffering in silence for too long for and we're gonna break up a few different things to be aware of around that, so that for you, my biggest goal is that at the end of this video, regardless of where you are or how you might be suffering, to realize that it's not worth waiting for things to get too bad before you actually start doing what you need to do for you, which is what we're gonna explore. One of the easiest ways to understand what it truly means to suffer in silence is very similar to a Japanese proverb, right, where it's death by a thousand cuts, that over time, you have these little tiny cuts that sure they hurt, they sting a little bit, but they don't hurt enough for you to do something about them yet, until suddenly there's a thousand cuts and there's a gaping wound that now needs your attention. That now is so bad that if you don't do something about it, bad things are gonna happen. Right, you're going to need to heal from it. A simple bandaid is not going to cover it up anymore. And when you understand that proverb and you can apply it to where you are right now, every time that you're not putting your hand up, every time that you have a conversation with somebody and you don't speak your mind, every time that you want something you don't claim it and you don't ask for it, you don't go after it. You're allowing yourself to stay stuck in suffering, and suffering has different levels. For some of us, it's going to be based around trauma. It's going to be based around you just not being who you want to be. For a lot of people, it can be as simple as never owning what it is that you want, never even asking what it is that you want, because you don't feel worthy. You don't feel like you can even ask for what you want compared to everybody else, and we'll explore that a little bit more in a second. But one of the simplest ways to start reframing all of this and to start finding a perspective that's going to serve you better is to start looking at your internal dialogue, and for so many of us we don't even realize the level of suffering and pain that we're causing from our internal conversations, our internal dialogue. There's a show on Apple TV called Physical and if you've never checked it out, you should check it out. The main actress in that is awesome, but she plays this aerobic star and the skinny housewife that's happy and bubbly to the world. But there's an internal voice over because she's bulimic. She'll suddenly go through the drive-thru and grab eight burgers and chips and fries and everything else. She'll smash it all in an hour and then make herself sick and throw up, and she does it all in a hotel room because she doesn't want anybody to know. And listening to this character's internal dialogue versus the character that she's giving to the world is how so many of us live day to day. It's how we'll live. On the outside, this bubbly personality, but inside he was constantly suffering. He was doubting himself, he had negative conversations around whether he was good enough to be able to do this, whether he was liked enough to be able to do this. All of these different things that we all suffer from in different ways and at different levels. But if we never take stock of what that internal dialogue is, if you don't stop and try and quieten down all the noise that's happening outside right, she did that to me. That's going on my life. It's like that. Why does this happen? That's all external noise. What we want to look at is the internal conversations and dialogue. What is it that you say about yourself when you go to do something? What is it that you hear as a conversation when you want to ask for something, when you want to invest in yourself, when you want to start something, and you say to yourself, yep, monday's the day. But the internal conversations? You know you're not going to do it. You know you're not going to stick to it, so why even try? It's that tiny voice that, when we can gain awareness around what's going on, we can decide whether or not we want to listen to that anymore or whether we're going to start putting some new conversations and some new dialogue in place. That might seem simple, but the process is not easy if you're not willing to hear the conversations first, if you're not willing to own where a lot of those conversations are coming from. Because a lot of them are coming from conditioning and your beliefs that you for somehow over time, believe that you weren't worthy of something or that you weren't loved or that you weren't good enough. And a lot of these conversations are coming back to those core beliefs and then you've conditioned yourself not to ask for what you want because of those core beliefs and somehow that justifies to you why you are okay staying in suffering and feeling stuck and unhappy and overwhelmed. Try to headache right and to wrap your head around. All of that is that if you want things to change, you have to recondition, you have to reprogram and that starts with your internal dialogue and then it's going to lead to the things that you're willing to do. Around that. Am I willing to put my hand up and try, whether or not I'm going to fail? Am I willing to ask for what I want? Am I willing to stand up for what I want? Am I willing to enter a conversation and not agree with somebody and be okay with that? That? They don't look at me as I'm not smart enough and not good enough. I just don't see it the same way as you and I'm good with that, okay. Which then leads us to the next thing that we want to dive into here, and it's a big one, okay, and it's something that I see probably more around parents and especially mums. Right, it's you trying to break free from the things that you feel like you need to do. I have so many conversations with busy parents and, again, like I said, especially mums where they wear the shield of honor around being a good parent because they sacrifice the things that they need for the ones that they love. Their kids have sport, they have clothes, they have school, they have all the things that they need, but yet you as a human being, you as an individual, don't have what you need. You don't have even what you want, and you're not willing to do that because you're hiding behind the shield of honor and valor that I'm a good parent because I'm sacrificing and giving to them, even though I don't get to have what I want. And it's a very interesting space to be in, because when you break it down and you look at the facts of it all and you look at what does it actually take to be a great parent? It takes being the best you being present as the best you is how you can be a great parent. Sure, being a provider is a factor of that, because we all want to look after our kids, even you as an individual. In a relationship, you want to be the best partner you can be. But if all of that comes at the expense of you not going after what you want, you not having what you need, you not getting your cup filled up in a way that is fulfilling to you, then you're not the best you, you're not even close to the best you, and then you stay suffering in pain and in silence, because you justify the sacrifice, because other people have what they want. And that makes you feel good. Because, for a lot of moms especially, they like to be caretakers, they like to provide, they like to feel like they're able to give their children maybe what they didn't have or some of the things that they want. But when you do it at the expense of what you want, then you're not living from truth. And when you're not living from truth, you're always going to be living in internal conflict, which is painful. It's why you get frustrated, it's why you crack the shits at the kids sometimes when mom can have this, this, this and this, and you're like, for fuck's sake, I get nothing and you guys get everything blow up. But that little voice has been inside you a lot. That little conversation has been going on in the background for a long time and we just get a little hint of it. When you get overwhelmed and frustrated and decide to crack the shits a little bit and have a bit of a tantrum, the same way your kids do, so to avoid all of this, how do we start reconditioning? How do we start going after what we want? Well, my next approach is a very Australian way of looking at things, but it's the NFG approach and for a lot of you this is going to be tricky to be able to own. But when you do, you'll be surprised at how much weight feels lifted straight away. And the NFG approach stands for no fuck's given. All right, like I'm going to go after what I want and I'm not going to give a fuck about what anybody else thinks. I'm going to leave that with you for a second. I had the NFG approach. What I want is about me, it's not about anybody else. And if you can't claim the things that you want, if you can't put your hand up and Own what it is, that you need to be the best, you right. Whether it's time out, whether it's you investing in a healthier body and mind, whether it's you being able to spend some time on your own getting your nails done, if it's a guy, whether you just need to get out on the golf course on the weekend, or you need some time with your kids without being nagged about everything else in the background, or with partnerships. Maybe you just need intimacy. You need time where mobile phones don't exist, where we just talk and reconnect and whatever it is. If you no longer go after what you want and you stay in silence and you stay suffering because you don't have what you want, and then you Somehow expect other people to know what it is that you wanted and needed, but you never communicated for it, then I mean honestly, how did you ever expect the results to change, and we see this. I read this about a month ago that 75% of the divorces that happen past the age of 40 are coming from women who, once the kids are at college or out of the home, ask for a divorce. 75% of divorces past the age of 40 are coming from the women telling the husband that they don't want to be in this Relationship anymore once the kids are gone. So they sacrificed everything that they wanted for however long. They stayed in pain and suffering for however long, until they got to the point where the kids went there, so they didn't have to justify it and wear that shield of honor anymore. So now they put their hand up and they wonder why the husband is freaked the fuck out, or vice versa, however you look at it, their partner and there's never been any communication. You never put your hand up. You were too worried about what everybody else thought. You were too worried about the judgment of everybody else or the rejection, or you looking bad and other people's eyes that you never asked for what you wanted, because you gave too many fucks about what everybody else thought. And I want to reframe that. I want to give you the NFG approach, so you start conditioning yourself To speak up, to put your hand up, to step up and go after what it is that you want, so that you no longer wilt away in a corner, unhappy, unsatisfied, heartbroken, in pain, in suffering, because somehow you felt like that was better than you asking for what you wanted and maybe hearing a no Like how many times do you think a kid asked for something and here's the word no but continues to ask for shit? Like they don't shy away and hide in the corner and work out that they can't ask for things anymore. That happens later. It happens after hundreds and hundreds of attempts. You're a grown human being, right, you're gonna hear no, and one of the best things I ever heard and it was around sales is Every no that you hear brings you one step closer to a yes. So cool, you might not agree with me, you might not want to do that Cool, that's fine. I'll get closer to the next yes, but I'm not going to take the no personally. I'm not going to no longer ask for what I want because you don't agree with it or you don't want to help me get it. And that's where relationships are tricky, because we give our power away to other people, we give our Need for things away. For, for other people and I'm gonna do an episode next week about how 50 50 is is literally the definition of an imbalance relationship, and and a relationship based on 50 percent 50 percent of each of you is not a whole, but I'm not gonna dive into that now. So the biggest thing I want to leave you with Overall in this video is is understanding that right now, every single one of those thousand cuts are gonna lead to a bigger wound, whether you realize it now and want to do anything about it or not. The internal dialogue is a way that you're compounding those cuts. You're cutting yourself from the inside out, keeping yourself in pain and suffering and Continuing to spit around these same cycles of conversations, the same level of emotions that just trigger you daily, weekly, monthly, and Then to realize that how much of the stuff are you attaching to? What you feel you need to do, who you feel you need to be Versus who you actually are and what it is that you want? And then, lastly, if I'm ever going to go after what I want, I need to do it with an NFG approach, because right now you've cared about too many other people and too many other things, and it's led to you staying in suffering, in silence, and in order to break free from that, it's going to take you no longer caring as much about everybody else. That doesn't mean you're going to become a bad human that doesn't like people or care about people anymore, but right now you need to start caring about you, because until you care about you and go after what you want, you are giving yourself away. You are giving your power away to everybody else, and then you wonder why you feel powerless, helpless, not strong enough, not worthy, not confident enough to go after and to claim what it is that you want and that you need, and you know what. It's okay I'm letting you know right now. It is okay to want things just for you, like. I've been married a couple of times now and either way, I would never want my partner to feel like they couldn't ask for what they wanted. I would hate that and I guarantee for a lot of you you probably feel the same way, but it's exactly what you do to yourself. But yet your partners or your kids or your work colleagues or whatever else, they can get everything that they want. They can ask you give them the space and the capacity to do it, but yet you're not willing to do it for yourself. So let's flip that around, okay? And one of the things I want to invite you to do right is reach out to me for some help. Okay, you can email me at adamantilovechanginglivescom. I will let you know more about my mindset mastery program, right, which is literally designed to make sure that you get the keys to self love, self mastery, which will lead to incredible results. And the biggest part around you being able to get back to a point of self love is self awareness. It's understanding that right now you might be suffering, in pain, and reaching out to somebody like me even to have a conversation in the beginning is a great first step, because you're going to hear yourself. Maybe for the first time, you're going to have to articulate the pain that you're in. You're going to have to express what you're unhappy about and why you're in pain, and just hearing that sometimes is a huge factor in gaining the awareness that we need to create change, rather than staying in silence and waiting for some giant catalyst to come along to kick you in the ass before you realize. Hang on, I need to put my hand up now and actually start going after what I want. You know, it's been 20 years 30 years that I haven't done a single fucking thing for myself. Right, you think I'm being facetious? I talk to people every day who have been living this way. That's why I've dedicated the last 24 years to helping people get out of this. All right, and if I can help you, like I said, send me a message on social media, email me whatever you need to do, and next week we're going to dive into why 50-50 relationships do not equal a whole, and I hope that you will join me then.