My Story

-Everybody has a story to tell-

Everyone is unique, different and individual from that of everyone and everything else here in this world. However at the same time we all have similar experiences and can relate to each other in many various ways. I believe it is important for each person to share their experiences and stories, to share their developed gifts, talents’, interests and things they are passionate about. I believe that we share these things not only will we find more joy and fulfillment in our life but we will automatically spark inspiration, belief, hope and light in others lives who are affected by their influence. 

My Story

Since October 27^th my family and I have been on a sailing trip, traveling on my parents 47-foot Catalina sailboat, the “GabbyWray” from San Diego to the east coast where my parents are relocating for their retirement. We recently made it to the east coast and are back in the United States. Before I set sail with my family on this journey I was living in San Diego working full time (40 plus sometimes 50 hours a week) and going to school full time (about 12 hours in class not including travel time and studying).

I have been working in the mental health field for over four years now. In an effort to further strengthen my skills and abilities to help people I have also been learning hypnosis and relating modalities in combination with establishing my Major in psychology. Through my experiences working in the mental health field I have been able to work with people on both ends of the spectrum from adults that are labeled “severely mentally ill” such as “schizophrenia” or “psychotic” all the way to youth that are considered “at risk” for these and similar labeled “disorders”. 

My path has led me to this place where I am able to help these people with there sever life challenge because I have my own personal first hand experience of being on the other side of the table. I have been a recipient of “mental health” services by coercion and force. These services projected their ideologies and beliefs that they profess as science and facts, calming that I had an incurable disease that could only be managed with a biochemical concoxion of psychiatric drugging.

Despite their misinformation they attempted to “educate” me on or help me to gain “insight” to and “comply” with; the second I got my rights back upon my release from the prison like hospital is when I started to withdraw from their mind-altering drugs.

Taking myself off of their drugs I was literally forced to take was one of the most challenging experiences I have ever gone through in my life.

Looking back on these experiences it has been close to five years now since that day and I am healthy! I feel the best I have in my life in a general sense.  Everyone has their ups and downs but I am satisfied with my life in my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual relationships with my self and others; I feel free. Aside from about 5 visits with a psychologist (which was mandatory for my release) I don’t have any therapists, psychologists or psychiatrists I resolve my own problems by relying on family, friends and ultimately my self. I respect others choices to benefit from such therapeutic relationships, as they can be beneficial but I bring this point up because like me there are many others who are able to happily live their lives as if there past challenges had never even happened.

Working with the many people I’ve come into contact with in the mental health field there is a common assumption that once the “label” you receive from a qualified authority –confirms- a said to be “life long” “disorder” then you will always have to “cope” with the problem. The term Recovery means something different to everyone and this view is often infused with that word.

People often fire their loaded suggestions saying, “You will always be in recovery” and “always have to manage symptoms.” These things are false assumptions as they are not always the case. People make them true but they don’t have to be. These assumptions carry over into many other fields like..

 Mental health and recovery from addictions.

From a young age I was using a plethora of drugs continually throughout the whole day on a daily basis for years and years. I have had to be hospitalized because of my dependence on the chemical substances and even got to tremendous lows in my character such as lying, cheating and stealing.  I have gone through a long-term inpatient drug treatment facility for close to two years and was educated on my problem and that it would also have to be a life long challenge.

These experiences of going to the hospitals and treatment center were in times of great need for help. I was sick in many ways and needed help and had a huge problem that was consuming virtually every aspect of my life. However it has now been my experience that I don’t have to live with the challenges that I once had. I understand there are support groups and different twelve step groups and I encourage people to attend them if they are having a hard time, I know I have greatly benefited from similar support groups.

•   My point with these things is this; despite what people say, despite the endless examples one can give, some people -at least some of the time- are able to completely recover get well and stay well for the rest of their lives and not need to continue the treatment that was once needed to heal what ever kind of wounds physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.

There are many examples of “Miracles” where people are able to have miraculous recoveries from things that surely should have killed them or disabled them in some way.  When these things happen, whether we call them or believe them to be miracles or they are above our understandings and explanations, they defy others projected truths. This means that it is possible. I believe that when one calls such experiences “miracles” it is because they have yet to understand the inherent principles operating to get the intended change or effect. But, if the necessary process or governing laws are met then anyone could get similar results in their own ways.

For example, before the right brothers we “knew” that “nothing heavier than air couldn’t fly.” Despite the incongruence of birds breaking that belief, I’ve heard this statement made. But today we have to employ air traffic controllers to help direct the multitude of airplanes in the skies because there are so many flights.

•   Are the airplanes breaking the laws, which we have some understanding into, and label as gravity?  No, a higher law or a higher expression of the same law the law of aerodynamics supersedes our once imposed and believed limitations of the laws of gravity.

This example can be used for many facets of our lives but as you might be able to see where I’m going with this; just because people tell you one thing or another whether they are in a place of authority and power, it doesn’t make it true.

Not only have I no need for professional help anymore to happily live my life without the challenges I once had with chemical addiction and many other challenges that I was essentially masking and self-medicating with them; but I also happily live with out the need of an official support group like a twelve step meeting. Do I have support in my life? Yes, absolutely, my fulfilling and loving relationships with my family and friends offer me the support I need to live happily.

I view my ability to live my life in the way I do from multiple perspectives. To explore one of these..

Neurologically

There are constantly changing connections that are being made in your brain each time you have a thought, feeling, emotion, each time you converse with others and basically at all times. Each time you make one of these connections your neuro chemistry is also changing. Each time you think of a friend, of a loved one, each time you eat chocolate you brain is creating neurochemical changes. In general when you make a new connection it is weak. When you reinforce that connection each time your neural network grows stronger and stronger.

When it comes to neurology and addiction, neuroscientists can demonstrate that when someone is addicted to something lets continue with drugs in this example. There comes a point when the connection becomes an automatic response much like Pavlov’s dogs salivating with conditioning if your familiar with that. As much as you can condition and reinforce something you can re-pattern your brain. You can with help, when a sought after change has gotten to this point, change your brains neurology and literally rewire the connections.

Think about it like this, when you develop a skill, something your passionate about, a talent, lets take playing a musical instrument for example. When you practice and practice and practice you are building a positive habit and are creating positive neuro-connections. However if for whatever reason you decide to stop the longer you stop the more challenging it will be to remember the developed skill. The old saying if you don’t use it you loose it is exemplified in this.

The problem with this is when something has become unconscious competence or like muscle memory even if you stop for a while and forget, when you start to play the instrument it will be easier and quicker to relearn the pattern of behavior. It quickly becomes as if you had never stopped learning. This is what researchers usually point to when they push their ideas often coated in their quick fix for their chemical solution, it seems they always come to that conclusion. Their psychoactive (meaning drugs that cross the blood brain barrier) drugs are better than your psychoactive drugs. Seriously I had a huge lecture from a leading authority come to our school and educate us on all these things and then finish it up with their soon to come magic bullets for “dependency” in pill form.

What people don’t take into account with these addictive behaviors is that rather than stopping for a while like in the example of stopping playing a musical instrument. If you find a way to re-pattern your brain, my preferred modality for such things would be hypnosis, (many misconceptions still exist about hypnosis and I will be writing more about this… you can look at the inherent hypnotic processes in things like EMDR for trauma and more) than you can de-potentiate that effect or response.

•   If you were to consider it in this way, which I consider spiritually, the addictive behaviors labeled as “bad” are usually things that are covering up a fundamental need.

•   They are masking parts of our selves asking to be resolved. The more we ignore signals from our bodies and minds the more the addictive behaviors are needed to mask the signs.

•   And even beyond the things the addictive behaviors mask, it seems to me, there is a part of ourselves that seeks fulfillment which can not be achieved through physical means or means that only serve only ones self.

If you can find a healthy way to feed this part of yourself, this aspect of your being, then you can find a sense of resolve, a feeling of content and live a more fulfilling life. I see people that constantly try to avoid and push away these things in other ways, which may even be in the form of attending “support groups”.


The unconscious mind does not process negatives.

Meaning in the most basic example: if I were to say don’t imagine a sunset in your minds eye right now; do not imagine this sunset right now; you can’t not do it. Same thing when people “try” to not smoke or they “don’t” want to go back to their old ways of living and their addictive behaviors. In their minds they have to pull up these thoughts, memories, associations and connections, and then they have to negate what they just brought up in their minds. This is like a mental tug of war; it is mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting.

•   Then you hear the statements as “know ‘I am- an addict’ may have always been and will always be one” because of this “I know that I need or have to attend groups to stay sober for the rest of my life and I’m okay with that.”

•   If people truly want this kind of life that is completely okay and it is their choice. But if they truly, deep down inside don’t want to live this way, do they have a choice really?

•   When their own beliefs of the world their own statements force them into a way of viewing and filtering for information so as to confirm their beliefs, do they really have a choice?

This used to be my experience and statements that I used to believe and at times there was nothing anyone could do or say to convince me otherwise. Others attempts’ to have me see things differently only further cemented in my beliefs the statements I was making and the beliefs I had at the time.

I remember being relieved in one sense but also miserable in another, in that I thought I always had to struggle and fight just to be okay and survive. I remember looking around at others “like me” at the time, who were there and I had the realization that my life was still constantly consumed with drugs. Even though I wasn’t using drugs, it was still how I related to others and the world around me. I would use my -now not using drugs- to relate with other people that also had the same challenges.

Today things are different for me, I am fortunate and grateful to have people come into my life that were able to help me overcome these challenges by transmuting and transforming my relationship, my understanding, and belief about them ultimately changing forever my experience of them. I have been sober for close to five years now, I have attended groups in the past but choose not to any more as I don’t need them to stay sober or live a happy and fulfilling life. I am medication free and happy.

I want to be clear that I believe that I would not be here even alive today if it weren’t for such interventions, for such treatments and groups. They have helped me at the points that I needed them and I am grateful they were able to help me. I believe they could have helped me in many more ways. I also believe the ways in which they helped me discontinued to be helpful at turning points in my life which I was able to receive further help to set me on my path now. 

I see many of the principles in these groups and different ways people are able to get help and how they show up in my life in different ways. Among many of them support and giving back are important aspects of my life. I don’t live my life in a way like I “need to”, “should do”, “can’t do” such and such to be okay.

•   Rather than putting my energy towards attempts to avoid the things in life I don’t want, I instead focus my energy on the things in life I do want.

•   In this way I have attracted into my life as a result of my thoughts, beliefs and actions the kind of life that I want to live.

Because I have been given much I choose to give

I enjoy helping others it is what brings meaning and purpose, fulfillment and joy into my life. I know that people can overcome many things that they might not believe yet themselves or that other family, friends or professionals might be telling them. I believe that my experiences, though not the norm, are not necessarily unique. I know that many people have had the same experiences as me and have been able to overcome them. I know that people have gone beyond or have had challenges that in their own ways have been more sever but still have been able to overcome them.

•   Through this blog I plan on mapping out my experience and the process of what worked for me. Everyone is different and the specifics on my path are going to vary from that of anyone else’s; however in terms of the process I have observed that transformational change can be replicated. I believe that everyone can heal them-selves. Everyone can change their beliefs and change their lives.

Many of the huge challenges that afflict people’s lives from that of addiction to things that are often attributed to psychological or psychiatric disorders can sometimes be resolved quickly, easily, and holistically. Again the details such as time frames and degrees of change will vary person to person. I’ve personally seen people spend years in therapy and paying lots of money for continual professional help and then I’ve seen others with the same problems and to the same degree of severity, intensity and duration be able to have almost instant change in sometimes as little as a couple sessions.

•   This might seem ridiculous for some to believe especially if you or a loved one has been battling such challenges. It would be hard to even accept that you could have had the problems resolved a long time ago but are continuing to put your faith in a system that is failing you. No one wants to believe that their well-intentioned doctors would lie to them. We would like to believe that out of all the people who would know how to help people for their challenges, wouldn’t it be the qualified doctor who is providing treatment for these problems?

Well, just as our world was once believed to be flat, just as it was crazy to think that we could fly, and just as it would be crazy to try to explain the “smart phones” of today to someone even 50 years ago; it can seem crazy to consider these things in contrast to what we are familiar with and used to. These truths can seem crazy when they conflict with how we already view the world and beliefs about our problems and ourselves. Just because things may seem crazy doesn’t make them not true.

If we are to evolve our understandings and our conditions in life we need to expand our beliefs so they incorporate the understandings that need to be true in order to actualize the affects and results we want.

I invite you to consider new things in new ways as you reading the parts of my story I share with you. I will share more specifics of my story and information to provide more clarity and distinctions about what has been helpful. If you would like to contact me about any thing I’ve shared on this blog site or ask me any question please feel free to comment or message me and I can connect with you that way.

Thank you!