Sarah Marie

I am hoping someone much wiser can help me understand this and more importantly how to access it. I was addicted to OxyContin by the age of 15. By the age of 17 I was sober. One day I simply woke up and decided I didn't want to use drugs, I stopped cold turkey.Despite the intense and horrible withdraws I never have had a slip up and have been sober since. From the age 15-20 I was an active bulimic. One day, I woke up and decided I was tired of feeling sick all the time so I'd stop. With zero backsliding I successfully stopped and I have been in recovery since. These are just two of the examples of what I call "flipping the switch" that I have experienced. It's like something changed and suddenly I WAS 100% committed to a change. I then went into therapy to understand why I was having these unhealthy behaviors and uncovered deep childhood traumas that I worked through. My question is, how with no understanding of personal development was I able to quit something overnight? What is this switch that changed in my mind? Scientifically only a small percentage of people can stop bulimia without help, yet I seemed to do it overnight. Now I feel like I really have to engrain certain changes (nothing as big as an addiction) into my mind. I use lots of techniques to help and I am successful, but I am so interested in knowing how I was able to "flip" something in my brain with zero experience in any personal development techniques. It's like I didn't even have to motivate myself or talk myself through it. There was not any other option so I did it. It felt like it was just what "was" and not what I committed myself too. I have also read that many people have similar experiences (ex. Weight loss). Hoping someone can help me sort this out in my own mind! ?

I got married at the age of 18. Before I even gave myself a chance to figure out who "I" was. I feel very lucky in that my husband has always encouraged my independence and gave me the opportunity to "do me". I am 25 years old now, I own my own marketing company, am in school to become certified as a life coach and have an 18 month old son. I now know that my choice to marry young was because of voids I was trying to fill in my life, which I later worked through in therapy. In addition, all of my extended family is Mormon so it is extremely common to get settled down early and start having babies. My husband and I waited 4 years before having kids (2 of which we were physically separated because he was in the military). In that time I got two bachelors degrees and did an internship. I feel as though those years alone were essential in me figuring out "me" and I am so grateful for them even though they were extremely stressful. My schedule is very organized so I can fit everything in. Nap times are when I work, do school, and clean. I fit my gym time in when my husband gets home. My personal development work I squeeze in whenever I can. If my son is having art time I will put one of Leo's videos on the T.V. so I can listen while also playing with him. My son even knows Leo's name (haha). I will also sometimes put on an Ebook. I go to a group mediation every Thursday night and I meditate while breastfeeding my son or in the first 10 minutes that he is asleep. I used to meditate for an hour a day but it is impossible for me to fit that in right now. I will say, I am the happiest I have ever been but feel I still need to come a long way to consider myself living to my potential. Here are some of my current struggles: Feeling disconnected from my husband. I respect his journey and try not to push personal development on him, but naturally we have felt a shift. He can watch T.V. all day, while I watch none. He eats junk food, why I am not interested in the best foods to fuel my body with. When we got married I was doing what he is still doing, I have changed and it seems he is extremely content with his life style. I don't know what to do with this situation. When I try and talk to him he says he supports my path but I don't feel much depth from him and when her tries it isn't authentic. Poor Social Life. Friends, what are those? Honestly the group of friends I've had forever feel so distant from me. I am no longer interested in talking about who is sleeping with who in our town. So, I just find it easier to dive into a book, when I do actually have "me" time. I hate my job. Although I have gotten myself financially independent from my work, I do not like it. It is so extremely boring to me. But it gives me the freedom I want so I am half way there. I don't parent like others parent. This is a big one for me. My choices parenting are very different then the other moms I see. Some consider me a "bad" mom for not sacrificing my every waking moment for my son and husband. I just feel very strongly I need to still be my own individual to be happy. I really don't give a damn about what they say, but it is hard not to have others who choose this type of parenting style. Overall, I know I will be fulfilled and living to my full potential one day because I work on it every single day, so I do think it's possible. What I will loose or gain on my way to getting there? I am not sure.

First, let me start by saying I completely understand why you feel this way and I would absolutely feel the same way in your shoes. Second, I can relate to your story in similar ways. Some questions I had to ask myself when making a choice about a toxic person in my life were: Do they make me feel good about being my authentic self? Do they bring value to my life? If my best friend was in this exact same situation what advice would I give to her/him? Am I enabling this person? Will this person effect my growth? Will helping them cross some of my own personal values/beliefs? For me, the answer was easy even though this person was a family member after answering those questions. I decided that I would cut her out (my sister) and I told her, "As long as you continue to use drugs I will not be apart of your life. If you choose to get clean we can go to therapy together to rebuild our relationship." I set, and kept my boundaries. It was a "tough love" approach. After not speaking to her for 3 years she got clean and we rebuilt our relationship. She still thanks me to this day for putting up those boundaries.

I am 25 years old. Been married since I was 18 years old. My advice, wait. Get to know yourself. Before I got married I didn't even know who I was. Take your time getting independent and comfortable in your own skin!

Is this a scientific statement?

In short, a creator.

While I understand porn addiction is a serious problem, I don't think it's the case for everyone. Here is some benefits I've found personally from masterbation (with or without porn). - Learned to be comfortable with my own body. - Learned to have multiple orgasims (25+). - Learned what turns me on. - Taught me tricks and ideas to experiment with. - Made me more comfortable with trying new things - Made me more counscious about my body and the different types of orgasims I can have. I love masterbation and porn, I see no problem with it as long as it doesn't spiral into an addiction.

Awesome; I didn't see that. I am looking forward to it.

Awesome thanks for asking this, I've been looking into a few myself!

Hi Alex, I also do not like the traditional 9-5 work week. I started my own business and work from home now. Some important questions to ask when considering starting a business are: - Where are your expertise/ What are you good at? -What is there a need for? - What is your experience? - How can you find a niche and stand out in an industry. I will use my own personal experience for an example. - I am good at understanding businesses and marketing. I also did an internship and have a bachelors degree in marketing. - In my particular area, there is a need for small business marketing. They are big enough to want to invest into some additional marketing, but can not yet afford to hire and in house full time marketing employee. - Once I realized that there was a large group of businesses who wanted to do things like social media or SEO but could not hire a full time employee to do so, I found my niche. They are my target audience. I keep my prices lower than traditional marketing companies, I do not offer "cookie cutter" marketing (each company has a slightly different focus and way for reaching their target audience), I am cheaper than hiring a full time employee, and I present data evidence monthly of a companies growth. I hope this helps!

Hi Anders, I have have a couple suggestions that may help you that seemed to help me a lot with me comparing myself with others. - Understand where you are judging others, because you are setting yourself up for self destruction and self judgement. - Work through or identify any big issues holding you back from childhood. For me this was therapy. - Learning how to practice self love. I really self loathed for more than half my life. So doing things like taking care of my health and myself really changed my mind state to learning how to love myself rather than compare (and ultimately hate) myself to others. Once I was able to do these three things and practice them on a daily basis my view changed from "what I am not doing" and "why can't I accomplish as much as others" to respecting my journey and having faith I was exactly where I should be. I got more motivate because my changes were made out of love for myself rather than hate. It sounds like that may be a problem for you, nothing is sticking because the motivational factor. Perhaps taking the focus off comparing to others and focusing on your own journey and how to make change out of love for yourself will be what you need too! Nice to connect with you, glad you're here.

I absolutely felt a sense of exactly where I should be going and how to accomplish it. I feel like I was almost there myself, but I just needed to pinpoint exactly. For example, I thought I wanted to go back to school to get my PH.D to become a psychologist. However, after taking the course I realized I actually wanted to be a life coach. This was a huge step for me because I had contemplated this for at least a year straight.

It took me a while to finish the course too. I bought it the week it came out and ended taking mini breaks from the course and would come back. Some feelings I identified were fear of failure, the idea that I was finally taking 100% responsibility for myself which felt overwhelming, and many limiting beliefs. I was very resistant and still go back into the course and re watch the videos. My suggestion is to try and pinpoint what you are feeling and then go back and watch a video that will help you get through it.

ENTP!

I feel like the key (for me at least) to being able to tackle many concepts is keeping an open mind, I really don't attach myself to many beliefs. For me, being "right" has nothing to do with awareness and everything to do with ego. Once aware of this, I felt so humbled at how much I really don't know and then gratitude for the opportunity to learn more. In my opinion becoming defensive over a certain belief is a sign of low counsciousness. I also have a friend who seems to be on a similar "spiritual" path. Her life is constant coas. I just remind myself that she is exactly where she needs to be on her journey and then reflect back to see where I might be holding onto a belief too tightly. It always leads to gratitude which feels "right" to me.

I really appreciate this answer, because now I question if my desire for an open marriage is lead by ego rather than inner awareness. Thus far, I've thought it was due to my inner awareness because prior to dealing with all my issues I couldn't not fathom why someone would want to live this way. However, after it seemed so appealing. How would one know if it is coming from their ego or inner awareness?

This is a great topic. I can completely understand why someone would want to live in a polyamory situation. I can see the benefits and where it would be hard. I would at some point be interested in trying an open marriage. Although some may say it's caused from deep routed issues it's actually the opposite for me. I have worked through those deep issues which caused insecurities, controlling behaviors, jealousy, and ultimently an unhealthy relationship. Once I worked through my own personal issues my mind expanded to an idea of infinite sexual possibilities. The reason I would prefer and open marriage over a polyamory situation would be because I am not sure I could give 100% to both parties. I feel like my marriage now is a lot of work and doubling that would completely overwhelm me. However, the idea of experiencing different sexual partners in an agreed upon non-monogamy relationship is extremely appealing to me. On the flip side, I also see why people would want to stay strictly monogamous.

After you became ceritified did you build your own website and do it all yourself? Being in marketing I know how to do all of that, but wonder if it will take too much time around building my coaching business. I go back and forth if I should invest in someone else doing it or just go at a slower pace and do it myself. I am sure I will have a bunch more questions so thank you for posting this!

? I will have to check it out, sounds like me??

I don't think I've come across many girls that share my views, that's for sure. I definitely don't like feeling like I am "locking" my husband down. I kind of view it like we're our own people, just choosing to share our lives together rather than "he's my other half" type of thing. Sex is amazing like one of the best parts of life. I like to experiment and although I have no complaints about him I'd love to explore with the right people. I understand why he's not there though, so I respect his boundaries. If at some point it's something I decide I NEED to make my sex life a 10 out of 10 I'll address that opportunity. At least he didn't get defensive and shut down my suggestion! ? With the right person, I feel like this situation would be my 10 out of 10.

Normally, I'd say sorry and quickly orders. This time I said, sorry you're upset I'll order when I'm ready. Thanks for the complement"? I've come a long way from my people pleasing. Also, I have to add to this thread that the most powerful videos of Leo's as a group for me was his life purpose course. For those of you that have not taken it, it's so worth it. Changed my life!

I am married, got married wayyyyyyy to young 18(cough cough). My husband and I have an amazing sex life. I would love to have an open marriage with him, but he isn't there mentally (and I'm ok with that). I would leave him if he cheated on me, went behind my back and lied. However if our relationship was in a good place and we both felt comfortable I would want to try an open marriage. In that case we'd both be open and honest about who and where we were with. There pretty much isn't a single thing he could suggest that'd I wouldn't try, so I'd feel there were much deeper issues if he knew this and still decided to cheat. In which case, I'd prefer to go separate ways.

Yes!! I forgot about this one. I loved it, which reminds me I've only watched it once and should add it to this weeks videos again!

The worst ?

Okay, so a little side story about this particular video because you brought it up. I did exactly what Leo suggested and went to a our local coffee shop during lunch hour, got to the front and paused while I looked at the menu to see what I felt...... And an 80 year old man behind me leaned forward and said "Jesus Christ, you'd think there would be a brain behind those pretty eyes.." 30 seconds hadn't even passed!!!!!! I could NOT stop laughing, it felt too ironic.! I still laugh about it today. I think I've watched almost all of his videos twice because it seems I need to be reminded. I also take different things from each video depending on where I'm at in my journey. With food I often remember his video about how he lost his weight and being mentally stronger than others. The second one that helped a lot was how to master and control your emotions.