Stop punishing yourself for not living up to values you don’t believe in

My life spiralled into a complete mess from an early age. I struggled with:
-Ever increasing fatigue and muscular pain
-severe anxiety and depression
-brainfog
-developed autoimmune disease
-in a toxic environment and relationship
-addictions to instant gratification (Video games, porn, TV shows)
-got to nearly 16 stone and looked dreadful. I could not even recognise my self.
-demolished self worth and self esteem
-body dysmorphia
the list was endless... my future looked bleak. At rock bottom I prayed to God as I had nothing left. I prayed for guidance and an opportunity to turn this around and it was given to me. From that day forward i dedicated myself to health and spreading the word on the truth. I'm incredibly passionate about health, mental health, relationship health... everything that allows us to live a happier life.

Accept that you are ill. Do not accept that you can't recover.

Consultations currently closed.

[ratmalschonweiter]

That's an interesting side of severe chronic illness. We drop out of society, which is really depressing, but then we get to look at society and the world from an outsiders, probably more neutral point of view and we're like "what the fck is everyone doing?!"

[originalsongsbyadam]

This was a knockout of a video. So on-target and so accurate. And while I have a million things to say in response to so many of the good points made, I'm going to just summarize it all with a quick quote from someone much more intelligent and concise than myself.

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - J.Krishnamurti

CFS is a wonderful and profound wake-up call for those willing to answer. I'll post one more quote regarding this to cap off my sentiments via the brilliance of others.

" As I have already stated, a classic mistake people with CFS often make is to think recovery means "returning to how I was living before I got sick." The person will seek to recreate the conditions in which illness initially developed, and will of course relapse. Many are presented with this lesson repeatedly, until they shift their criteria for what "recovery" means. It is not desirable to return to "how it was before."
The message of CFS is change." -William Collinge, PhD.

[kathystoner]

My values have changed so much since I have had this illness. I look at society and think how sad to see these people so caught up in the rat race. Living a simpler life is so much better! I think the key to living a happier way of life is to not put value in the things society deems important, but to put value into the simpler things of life( nature, family, health, ect).

[annacomnena]

Outstanding wisdom and insight, as always. When one recovers, one's life, relationships and values will never be the same again.

[lilarain]

I have stayed in these communities. I met people who grew their own food. Got most of their power from solar panels. Some even collected their own rain water. Living in a caravan leaving them without needing to work or working few hours. What happens to people like this is it unleashes their creativity they become artists and writers and musicians. There are whole books about how to live without money. Our whole world would be better like this we wouldnt be killing the planet. We would have more free time and be less stressed. We really dont need all the stuff we have it isnt making us happy. Whats the point wasting your life working. Ok so you have to give up luxuries. I struggled to stay here because people have to do stuff to chop wood to stay warm in winter and its difficult but for me its a small price to pay to have freedom from the rat race

[michaelbrent]

totally agree. the difficulty is that things turn against you if you can't do the rat race game. everything runs around money unfortunately. you can be a great person but if you're ill or you just can't deal with the madness of the job market or full time work you're basically treated like a criminal. it's incredibly hard to set your values against such an all encompassing and hugely powerful structure that threatens homelessness and shame, especially when you're rock bottom. I struggle with it anyway.

[IVAN]

"There is an analogy that comes from the world of games. It was used quite some time ago by a psychologist named James Dobson. I first learned it from my grandmother. My grandmother taught me how to play the game monopoly. Now, my grandmother was a wonderful person. She raised six children. She was a widow by the time I knew her well. She lived in our house for many, many years. And she was a lovely woman, but she was the most ruthless Monopoly player I have ever known in my life. Imagine what would have happened if Donald Trump had married Leona Helmsley and they would have had a child. Then, you have some picture of what my grandmother was like when she played Monopoly. She understood that the name of the game is to acquire.

When we would play when I was a little kid and I got my money from the bank, I would always want to save it, hang on to it, because it was just so much fun to have money. She spent on everything she landed on. And then, when she bought it, she would mortgage it as much as she could and buy everything else she landed on. She would accumulate everything she could. And eventually, she became the master of the board.

And every time I landed, I would have to pay her money. And eventually, every time she would take my last dollar, I would quit in utter defeat. And then she would always say the same thing to me. She’d look at me and she’d say, “One day, you’ll learn to play the game.” I hated it when she said that to me. But one summer, I played Monopoly with a neighbor kid–a friend of mine–almost every day, all day long. We’d play Monopoly for hours.

And that summer, I learned to play the game. I came to understand the only way to win is to make a total commitment to acquisition. I came to understand that money and possessions, that’s the way that you keep score. And by the end of that summer, I was more ruthless than my grandmother. I was ready to bend the rules, if I had to, to win that game. And I sat down with her to play that fall.

Slowly, cunningly, I exposed my grandmother’s vulnerability. Relentlessly, inexorably, I drove her off the board. The game does strange things to you. I can still remember. It happened at Marvin Gardens. I looked at my grandmother. She taught me how to play the game. She was an old lady by now. She was a widow. She had raised my mom. She loved my mom. She loved me. I took everything she had. I destroyed her financially and psychologically. I watched her give her last dollar and quit in utter defeat. It was the greatest moment of my life.

And then she had one more thing to teach me. Then she said, “Now it all goes back in the box–all those houses and hotels, all the railroads and utility companies, all that property and all that wonderful money–now it all goes back in the box.” I didn’t want it to go back in the box. I wanted to leave the board out, bronze it maybe, as a memorial to my ability to play the game.

“No, ” she said, “None of it was really yours. You got all heated up about it for a while, but it was around a long time before you sat down at the board, and it will be here after you’re gone. Players come and players go. But it all goes back in the box.”

And the game always ends. For every player, the game ends. Every day you pick up a newspaper, and you can turn to a page that describes people for whom this week the game ended. Skilled businessmen, an aging grandmother who was in a convalescent home with a brain tumor, teenage kids who think they have the whole world in front of them, and somebody drives through a stop sign. It all goes back in the box–houses and cars, titles and clothes, filled barns, bulging portfolios, even your body."

[saph]

Dealing with Chronic illness and this is one of the things I cannot get over. Not being able to make income while dealing with this. My parents are supporting me for now, but I feel so guilty and dependent on them. I get severe depression and panic attacks, and this is one of the things that I replay in my mind over and over. That I will never be able to create income for myself. If I don't have my mother who is supporting me, I literally have nothing.

[ik]

True
According to my personal experience, sometimes the attitudes of your own close relatives and friends change gradually when you stop being ‘successful’ and having a vibrant social life. You are ostracised in a subtle way as you cannot match their pace and cannot do well materially according to their standards. Even your kids stop getting the same value and attention from the relatives as they used to, when you were doing well in life. That is painful when your own blood relations turn their backs on you.

[lelediamondASMR]

Totally right! Social society is to blame people made up this success category I call it where if you dont have all the things society expects or others have somehow you not as good or we compare our lives, this is why social media is so damaging to our lives. Too many people like to show off and it's all insecurity needing validation from others. We need to give our selves some props just for being who we are and things we have been through. That's the value I take from life to be proud of what u do have and who you are.

[willeo]

Could you make a video about How you got back to life after your recovery? Socially and everything, did it take you long? Just having a conversation is difficult, you really lose your personality after being long term ill.

[elleelle]

Lol my family are exactly like this. My cousin has just trained to be a lawyer, whinges about the amount of hours he works all the time, thinks he's a martyr, no one forced him to be a lawyer

[HoneybeeAdventures]

Loved your discussion. Too much emphasis is placed on money 💰

[Matoujapon]

Thank you so much for this insight dude. From a girl with ME/CFS who's father has a lot of money, has never been around when I was a kid, is alcoholic, sick, and still urges me every single time I see him to get a job right now, since the doctors said I have nothing.

[Naturesrhythm]

Agree with you on this one.
It's one of the shit things when you are unwell. Made to feel that you arn't a successful person by society's standard's.
A stress people with Chronic illness are unfairly made to feel.
People with illness deserve so much more respect, admiration and support than they get.
We need to create a new world or none of us will survive on this planet much longer.

[Slr]

I don't want to be superficial, but you're getting more and more handsome. You look amazing!!!

[richardwype]

I agree with most of this. However I think the most toxic stress is mental stress and isolation, not necessarily working long hours. Before industrialization people had to work from sunup to sundown in fields 6 days/week and weren't developing modern health problems. I think the difference is the enormous amount of mental strain that is involved in becoming a "someone" in today's society, plus the fact that there isn't a real sense of community anymore, unless you are the rare person who has a large and close extended family.

Being around other people in a community helps reduce stress I think, as does not constantly having to worry about your position in society as compared to everyone else. Just my 2 cents.

[vincentlee]

Great video and insights. Unfortunately, it is the rat race, competition, greed and the profit motive that has elevated countries like the UK into developed status. There is a reason why people from developing countries, who have simpler lives, vote with their feet, and risk a lot to get to these developed countries. Also, when countries try to drop out of the global rat race (i.e. competition in industries), they stagnate/decline and this in turn brings other societal problems, such as a brain drain, despondency, opioid crisis, higher suicide rates, etc.

Having largely recovered from CFS myself, I think what's best is a minimalist lifestyle where you're not locked in by debt, marketing or social norms. At the same time pursue jobs or income generating endeavours where risk of physical and mental health problems are low. With whatever surplus you have, you invest it in index funds i.e. you're extracting money from willing participants of the rat race via capital gains and dividends. This requires very, very little effort and will ensure financial independence in a matter of two or two decades.

[vim]

Oh and I had so many subscriptions on YouTube and emails but for now I only listen to u .. everyone was false or they were just trying to make money of people's illness .. I love you mate I will let u know when I will recover from cfs for sure

[kimwarburton]

When im well, havin learnt this lesson, i think id be fully content to be mucking out stables for a riding school for an income. But it's only since ive dedicated myself to returning to full health no matter how or what changes i need to make that ive realised this. b4 i was always thinking 'how do i earn enuff money so i can afford to buy land n build an earthship for myself?' now, i dnt think about it anymore ... how can i possibly control the future?