The Root Of Addictions And Escapism

Transcript: So as a coach, people often come to me to help them to stop drinking or to stop smoking. Maybe it's weed. Maybe it's playing too many video games or watching too much TV. And they'll tell me all the reasons why others have told them it's bad, or why they believe it's bad. And the first thing I'll do is ask them, how is that serving you? What is it giving you? What's good about this? What's so interesting is they will often be taken aback and they'll really have to think about that for a minute. But that answer, and if there's something in your life right now that you're struggling with that you're feeling like isn't very healthy for you or isn't good for you, maybe you've binge eat or something like that. If that's something that's in your vibration, ask yourself, what is this giving me? How is this helping me? What good is coming from this? And that answer will lead you toward the core issue at hand. Because if it's television, for instance, maybe you are watching a lot of Netflix. And maybe it's just scape your life. You're not feeling good about your life, so you live through other people because you're really just not happy with your life. You felt beaten down and when you watch TV you just get to escape. Or when you drink you escape and you feel good for a little bit. You know, you feel those happy hormones go off in your brain and you feel good for a little bit and then you get a hangover and feel terrible and you wreak havoc on your body, right? But for that little bit of time, you're escaping your life, you're feeling a little bit better and you're not having to deal with the deeper issue. So all of these things bring us some sort of pleasure, otherwise we wouldn't do them. And they also help us avoid some sort of pain. But we'll get to the pain and we understand where this is coming from. Then we can have power because we have awareness. And having awareness is key to changing your life. You have to be aware. You have to see your blind spots. You have to understand what it is that's really going on. And then figure out what you really want. What do you truly desire? Because if it's that. Same pattern if it's binge eating, you know, like if that's really what you want to be doing, keep doing it. But if ultimately you get the awareness of realizing, oh, I do this because that's how I feel loved. And I really just want to feel loved. Then you can go about just getting that love, giving it to yourself first, and then getting it from others. And also asking for people to show up in ways that make you feel loved, and uncovering how you best receive love, or how you like to give love to others, or ways you can give more love to yourself. And that's just one example. It could be another wound that you have that you haven't dealt with. It could be a trauma that you want to unpack. But getting at the root of it, that is the way we start to heal it because a lot of times new coaches and therapists and. You know, untrained people or people who mean well, or your friends. A lot of times they focus a lot on the behaviors, but they don't get to the root cause of why something is happening. And when we get to that root cause, we can pull it up by the root. We can pull that out. We can get rid of that from our life once and for all. You know, over seven years ago I stopped drinking. I wasn't an alcoholic, but I definitely drank too much. I was trying to escape certain things in my life. I was really unhappy for a very long time, and I saw this as a problem in my life and something I needed to change. And I finally just said enough. I stopped drinking and I never went back to it. But I do. Once in a while I'll try a an alcoholic beverage just to see the flavor, to have the taste. Or some champagne. You know, when I'm flying first class, it's kind of fun to cheers with my friends. But I've never had to go back to alcohol and. I don't do it for health reasons. And also because I like where I'm at a lot better than where I was, and it's kind of a reminder of where I was if I were to drink, not when I'm like choosing on a plane. Or I was in France a few months ago and I got to try champagne in an ancient. Seller like a very, very old champagne seller that was under a monastery. It was really cool. And so those moments I won't like, let myself miss out on. But I don't seek it out and I don't drink. I'm not a drinker and I like that. I like that for myself. And so if there is something in your life that you're doing that is causing you to escape from your life. I would encourage you to look at that and then figure out a way to make your life so great that you never want to escape it. You're enjoying it too much to want to, like, use alcohol and drugs and other ways of buffering and coping with life instead making it so amazing that you just want to show up completely present for it. And that's not to say that you never have some fun, you never party or do something. But it is to say that you don't have to. You love your life, you love the people in it, and you love yourself. You respect yourself and you honor yourself. That's the sweet spot. So that is something that you can learn through coaching or you can learn through other personal development books or things like that. But I hope that I can be a resource to anybody out there to help you dive deeper and I know within this podcast and within. All the content I create, it's always here to serve you, to see things from a little bit different perspective, to uncover more of your truth and to shine and connect with your light. So I hope you can feel that. And if you'd like some free coaching tools, I have some amazing tools, some of my favorite. Coaching tools that I give away completely for free and all you got to do is go to kadenjames.com & up for my e-mail list. You'll be prompted, It'll pop up and you just put your e-mail in there. It's super easy and I start sending those materials over to you right away and it's been amazing to just give good stuff away. You know, I don't just hoard all this stuff I find and create. I love giving it. And there's a lot of joy that comes from from giving these materials because they are transformative and they do really help people. And I believe that the universe keeps the ultimate score. So I just try to give, give, give, give, give, because I know that the universe is always going to take care of me. And that's just my life philosophy and it brings me a lot of joy to help people, so I hope you'll check those out and just know. That there's always a root behind the behavior you know. So if there's somebody in your life who is honoring, or you know, gets on your nerves or is rude to you or treats you poorly, that came from somewhere. And it might not be easy, but it's helpful to see that person as an innocent child. To remember that they came to this world just pure, pure love and they just wanted to be loved. And if they're really cruel to you, or if they do really awful things in the world. You'll notice that if you look into their life story or you ask them, you know what happened to you. It's a It's the title of a famous book by Oprah Winfrey and a doctor. They they pose that question. That's the title of the book, What happened to you? Instead of What's Wrong with you? Say what happened to you, and you can ask that question. It's a great question ask. And when you ask that, a lot of times people will open up and they'll tell you about some really personal experiences that caused them to be the person they are today or to have those behaviors. But at anytime, we can change our story. Your past doesn't have to define your future. You can change in this moment just by reclaiming your narrative, your story. That's one of the most powerful things I love to do with my students and as a coach, is to have people write out the story that they tell people about their childhood, for instance. You know, write that out, write that story out, and read it. And see if it's empowering or disempowering. And for pretty much every student I've ever coached, they kind of tell a story that's kind of a *** story. It's not a real uplifting and inspiring story. And I know from personal experience because my story was terrible when I started. I used to tell all the bullying and all the horrible things that I went through as a kid and. I had a pretty tough childhood, right? But that toughness created strength in me. That toughness may be more empathetic and more loving and a better person and a better coach. And now I wouldn't change anything because it brought me to this moment where I'm in front of you getting to share these tools and help you hopefully in your life. So I wouldn't change any of that. I'm so thankful for my story and now I get to tell it from a really empowering, beautiful way. And I like to think of it almost like a video game. If you had a hard upbringing or if you went through some challenges, you were on hard mode on the game and that made the game even more fun when you conquered it. Because I remember when I would play a game and I would have it on easy mode, and if it was too easy, like by the end I didn't really feel proud of myself for the accomplishment. I kind of felt like, yeah, well, I did it on easy mode. So it was simple. Like, you know, it was for little kids and maybe I was a teenager and I was like, oh, that was too easy. But since it was harder for me. I now have a much bigger sense of pride for all that I've accomplished and all that I've gotten to do and all the people I get to help. I have a better story because of it. And I remember I used to watch E True Hollywood Story and I I really loved the episodes where you'd see somebody who really came from nothing, rags to riches kind of stories. Those ones were really inspiring to me, the person who really had to conquer a lot and you know, achieve a lot. And it wasn't really about. Coming from a lot to getting a little bit more. It was coming from nothing or coming from a really hard time. Those were the most inspiring stories, and I probably manifested some of those hardships into my life because I wanted a story like that. I wanted to be inspiring, I wanted to be helpful and to be able to use my story to. Make other people feel like anything was possible for them. So I did probably manifest a lot of the hardships I went through. But now I just am so thankful for where I am and and how I get to serve other people. And I hope that you can honor your journey and your story and you can use your challenges. To help lead other people in the direction of their dreams and their highest aspirations. Because you have unique gifts and talents that. That are very special. And if you hold on to them. You rob the world from what you have to give. But if you give them generously. And if you receive energy back from them, you can expand yourself even further and you can help so many people. And that is when you're living a life that is in alignment and you're doing the things that light you up and fill your heart with joy. Nothing is better than that. And then your life just becomes ease and flow. And it becomes like breathing, to be in front of people and to help people and to serve people. And to love people, it just becomes so easy to do when you come from that place. So I just want you all to know that I love you, I support you, and I'm so happy that you're watching this, you're listening to this, you're engaging with this, you're applying these tools to your life. If you want those tools, those free tools, again, just go to kadenjames.com and put in your e-mail and I'll send those, right? Over to you, but. I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for doing the work. Thank you for everything that you've been through, that you've overcome and that you've stayed so strong through this process, holding on to yourself, to the core of who you are and that you're going to share that. Beautiful strength and wisdom with other people.