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Your First Steps

Updated: Jan 25

If you are reading this, then the chances are that you have had a cataclysmic event in your life, that you are looking for a programme for living, that you are struggling in some way, that you would like to access your Higher Power but are not sure how to do that, that you want leadership coaching, or that you are embarking on a journey of Transformative Life Coaching (TLC).


Regardless of how you got here, and regardless of your 'problem', your first few steps will be the same in order to heal, recover, and fly in your life...


Your first steps...


The very first step is to realise that your life has become unmanageable and that you are powerless over it.


For my article about 'Powerlessness' please click on the following call to action button:


For my article about 'Real Personal Power' click here:


The next two steps are all about your 'Higher Power'. Click me for Higher Power:



Step 1

You feel like you have a hole in your soul. You feel 'other'. You are not present. You feel like you are an egocentric with an inferiority complex. You may be preoccupied with external validation. Your best 'stinking thinking' got you here. It won't get you out of here. You feel powerless over your life and that your life has become unmanageable. You have been given the gift of desperation. You are scared about 'lifting the lid' on your emotions. You are consumed with fear. Your 'inner child' doesn't feel safe in facing the world. You are not real friends with anyone. You don't listen to others.


All of this can be undone by taking these steps. If you had known better, you would have done better.


Having to bury your true Self in order to secure survival attachment needs to your parents in lieu of authenticity as a young child is severe trauma. Your whole being is uneasy, anxious, deadened, and numb, disassociated from your feelings, yet in excruciating emotional pain: A pain that is too much to bear. Anxiety and fear rule your world. You have found yourself isolated and alone, often gripped with fear and despair. You have been in survival mode for decades, living from your 'survival brain.' None of your achievements ever make you feel successful, worthy, or loved. Your inner voice is speaking to you, but you are not sure what to do about it or how to train your ears. You want to be reborn. You are right: Your saviour will be you.


You are afraid of not being loved, of being unlovable, of not being worthy, of being abandoned. These are mortal universal fears. You are completely asleep to your real dream: Of fulfilling your life’s God-given purpose. You are putting everyone around you through an emotional rollercoaster, like a wrecking ball. You are destroying everything and everyone around you. You are currently a creator of chaos. You are addicted to excitement. You judge your Self harshly.


Powerlessness is the existential launchpad for the recovery of your soul, it’s divine purpose, and its real power. Powerlessness is the expectancy or probability held by you that your own behaviour cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes that you seek.


Powerlessness means that whatever power is usually involved in making sound choices in your emotional behaviour does not reside with you. Powerlessness describes a feeling of being unable to control your life: Realising that you don't know how to handle situations without guidance. Powerlessness is an invitation to change. Embrace your powerlessness now. You need a new source of power. Your will, grit, determination, hustle, and perseverance in trying to control people, places, and things will not work. You need to switch to a higher-octane fuel. You are powerless to change on your own. Your admissions of personal powerlessness will turn out to be firm bedrock upon which a happy and purposeful life may be built. The paradox is that surrender to the impossibility of control is the beginning of recovery. You must surrender unconditionally. In the Bible it says “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate” (Romans 7:15). “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18). Jesus said “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). I am a sheep without a shepherd who was doing what he hated doing. St Paul wrote “It is when I am weak that I am strong.”


There is a path for you to walk, step by step. There is a solution. This relates to your connection with your Higher Power.


You must realise the need to surrender and let go of trying to bend the Universe to meet your will. Relax into the flow of the Universe and let it unfold.


If you are ever tempted to look outside for approval, realise that you have already compromised your integrity.


Start to accept life on life’s terms, rather than engaging in a ‘tug-of-war’ match with God.


We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that Faith means courage. All men of Faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologise for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do.


There is a passage in the chapter “We agnostics” in the 12 steps, where it states something that touched my heart and soul when I read it today with waves of spiritual connection: “Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else: “Who are you to say there is no God?’’ This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.“

 

Try to live in the phrase “Be here now”. This is the blessing of the aphorism “One day at a time”. That is where you will find God in life’s chaotic maze.

 

Realise that you can choose a different life, through choosing the higher path in every moment. If we don’t realise that we are the problem, then there is no solution. Change for me is like a fork in the road with two paths to take. One leads to misery and death. The other leads to peace, love, and joy. The path ahead is clear. You have to be ready and willing to step through the open door ahead of you.


There is a solution, that is these steps, and the only way to do this programme is with an open heart. Embrace this programme with all your heart, and you need to do this until the programme becomes a living and breathing thing and it becomes who you are and you drop from your head into your heart. It has to be part of your soul. When you read the literature from this different place, then that’s when it works. When you live from your heart there is acceptance: You are able to accept people, places, and things just as they are.


The only way to win a losing battle is by surrendering.


This journey will be the hardest yet greatest thing that you will ever do. There is less drama when you live in the solution. You have found a programme for living. Pain is the touchstone for spiritual progress. Be gentle with your Self.


You will realise the value of wisdom over knowledge. These steps will lead you to a place of spiritual and emotional maturity. We are working towards a place of being happy, joyous and free. You will name your emotions instead of being overwhelmed by them.


Realise that enlarging your spiritual life and increasing your conscious contact with God is the most important thing in your life. Know that it will bring coherence to your life. Know that there will be growth and change in your character. Don’t doubt that your Faith will be strengthened and that you will finally reach the shore, with these steps being the bridge.


There is no upper limit to the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing of working in the solution.


Step 2

You will need to believe that a Power greater than yourself will restore you to sanity. When you place humility first, you receive the gift of Faith. Carlo Carretto said “Don’t try to reach God with your understanding; that is impossible. Reach him in love; that is possible.”


We had not even prayed rightly. We had always said, “Grant me my wishes” instead of “Thy will be done.” True humility and an open mind can lead us to Faith.


As Dr Carl Jung wrote to Bill Wilson “The only right and legitimate way to such an (spiritual) experience is, that it happens to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path, which leads you to higher understanding. You might be led to that goal by an act of Grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalism.”


We were raised with weapons but now we have tools. The Big Book states “When the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically."


Step 3

This step is where we “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” Practicing Step Three is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still closed and locked. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a pathway beside which is an inscription. It reads: “This is the way to a Faith that works.” In the first two Steps we were engaged in reflection.


To every worldly and practical-minded beginner, this Step looks hard, even impossible. No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? Fortunately, we who have tried it, and with equal misgivings, can testify that anyone, anyone at all, can begin to do it. We can further add that a beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed. Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more. Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up the key of willingness. Is this also the key of ‘handing it over’? I have always been a ‘control freak’ when it comes to problems as I find it hard to trust anyone else, let alone a deity. I couldn’t trust my parents so how could I trust God, who was for me a stranger?


I have tried self-will. I have tried designing my own spiritual path. Yet to no avail. Despite all my efforts of intellectualisation I didn’t feel any better and I didn’t feel more surrendered.


When I try to describe the truth of my life right now - I use a corridor metaphor – the door behind me is closed to trauma, failures, fear, and ego. I am only taking the lessons. I have swallowed the key to the door behind me. I saw in a church recently - Revelation 3:8: “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” Ahead lies belief, Faith, and seeking God. I don’t have to open the door ahead of me. It is already wide open. I just didn’t see that it was. My action is to walk through it. I need to let go or be dragged. I need to hand it over. I need to let go and surrender.


The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent we actually are. Therefore dependence is really a means of gaining true independence of the spirit.


Let's examine for a moment this idea of dependence at the level of everyday living. In this area it is startling to discover how dependent we really are, and how unconscious of that dependence. Every modern house has electric wiring carrying power and light to its interior. We are delighted with this dependence; our main hope is that nothing will ever cut off the supply of current. By so accepting our dependence upon this marvel of science, we find ourselves more independent personally. Not only are we more independent, we are even more comfortable and secure. Power flows just where it is needed. Silently and surely, electricity, that strange energy so few people understand, meets our simplest daily needs, and our most desperate ones, too.


But the moment our mental or emotional independence is in question, how differently we behave. How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act. Oh yes, we'll weigh the pros and cons of every problem. We'll listen politely to those who would advise us, but all the decisions are to be ours alone. Nobody is going to meddle with our personal independence in such matters. Besides, we think, there is no one we can surely trust. We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world we live in. This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in the speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: How well does it actually work? One good look in the mirror ought to be answer enough for anyone. That’s for sure!


Should his own image in the mirror be too awful to contemplate (and it usually is), he might first take a look at the results normal people are getting from self-sufficiency. Everywhere he sees people filled with anger and fear, society breaking up into warring fragments. Each fragment says to the others, “We are right and you are wrong.” Every such pressure group, if it is strong enough, self-righteously imposes its will upon the rest. And everywhere the same thing is being done on an individual basis. The sum of all this mighty effort is less peace and less brotherhood than before. The philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off. Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin.


Each of us has had his own near-fatal encounter with the juggernaut of self-will, and has suffered enough under its weight to be willing to look for something better. So, it is by circumstance rather than by any virtue that we have admitted defeat, have acquired the rudiments of Faith, and now want to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a Higher Power.


In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.”


I now want to rely upon an infinite God, rather than my finite Self. He will enable me to match calamity with serenity.


This is pure spiritual surrender. The situation was roughly this: If our addiction to external validation was such a fundamental part of our personality - if it had developed long ago, during our childhoods, and had shaped or deformed many of our other personality traits, our relationships, and our value system - then we had to ask whether all our prior ideas about who and what we were might be incorrect or ill-founded. This is not to say that on a practical level everything we thought we knew about ourselves was wrong. But if we really wanted to change ourselves and lead new and sane lives, ultimately having a spiritual awakening and Enlightenment, we had to at least pose the question, if only on the abstract level. We had to admit to the possibility that anything, if not everything, we believed could be faulty.


To use the Biblical expression from Psalms 23:5 of the “Cup that runneth over,” we were like cups that had run over with obsession - with a need for external validation in the form of 'imitation love' - power, ego, money, sex, substance addictions etc. Step 3, as a spiritual exercise, suggested that we could choose to tip our own cup over and let the 'conditioned societal sickness' run out of it. We knew that having done this, we could not refill the cup through our unaided will, because we had become convinced that any solitary attempt to do so would inevitably take on the obsessive/ compulsive character of our current day personalities. We could not outwit our own addictive and compulsive natures. The enemy was us.


I am happy to have a ‘new employer.’ I am powerless without him. He is all powerful and I will do my best to perform his work well. I want to contribute to life rather than living from a place of egocentric fear. Takers are losers in life. Contributors are those that win. I want to face life successfully and enjoy peace of mind. I want to become increasingly conscious of God’s presence. I want to be reborn - the renewing of my mind. "God do with me as you will. Take away my difficulties, so that victory over them may bear witness to those that I would help of your power, your love, and your way of life. May I do your will always."


If my thinking becomes better in all areas then surely my life will become better in all areas too. I think we need to realise this is the real decision that we are making, to turn our entire will and our entire life over to the care and direction of God's will.


I see you, I hear you, I see the divine in you.


Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you: Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.”







Click here for the books that I know will help you along your journey of recovering your Self:









I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




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