Purpose Coach Adam Tallamy gives a powerful tool for overcoming fear PLUS a free offer in part 2 of this 2-part interview

(gentle music) Welcome to the Find Your Purpose Now podcast. We are delighted that you are here because this is for you. We do this to help you find and live your purpose, the good purpose that's uniquely yours. Because when you find it, everything starts to just fall into place. You're happier, you're more peaceful, you have better relationships with good people. It is remarkable. What happens when you are living in the sweet middle of your purpose, the purpose that you've been perfectly matched to live? The great news is you're in the right place to find it. So let's get started. Every single thing that you've gone through, it equips you to be able to do what you are born to do. - Okay, so share with me some with our listeners, some examples of, I don't know, you're like you mentioned clearing the fears. Help us to kind of understand what that means and then what maybe some outcomes have been with some of the people you've worked with. - Sure. So let me give you an example that I've been working on over the last few days. It was fear around publishing some articles and putting those articles out to journalists. And not a huge thing, pretty small, okay, but that's how they often are. But I don't know if you're a pervaricator because I used to be. So it's those things that we don't take the actions on, but we know that they would be good for us. We know that they would move us towards our purpose. You've got to work through those. You've got to work through the resistance and then get to a place where you feel "Oh, actually I can do that now, this is easy." And then you do it. And then the next piece comes up. It's like, "Okay, so I've done that. Now let's send out five articles and let's go to 100 journalists." It's really practical straightforward stuff. It's not we we're now there. But it can be. Okay, so. - Does that make sense? Sorry. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's so interesting to me that, when you were sharing about some of the feelings that you got and their macro. And now the examples that you've shared are more really micro. - Super practical, yeah. - There's a gap that you need to take, right? And so very interesting. So it's almost to me like I kind of get the vision of you just sort of take somebody's hand and you're walking alongside them, holding their hand. - Yes, and initially the first kind of month. And so it takes me normal, it can be immediate, but typically it's kind of four to six weeks before the person's life purpose comes through. - Okay. - And those four to six weeks, what we're doing is we're working through the day-to-day life issues, challenges and stuff. So it might be, my partner is like this and that makes me feel this way. So you've got to work through that. It might be, I'm worried about the money. If I can get my job to do this, what will happen so you work through that? Okay. And then you get them to a place where they're like, yeah, I feel good now. I feel like, yeah, that's all resolved. I feel pretty cool about work, pretty relaxed. Bring it on. And then it drops in. You have to build a strong enough foundation. Some people can just go for it, like it sounds like you did. But for 90% of people, I would say they don't quite have that in place so that you need to help them build a foundation and hold their hands to get them to the right place. And then it's an element of divine timing, but typically then it drops in on the bus or wherever. And then they're like, okay, great. Now, what do I, how do I move towards that? - Interest. - That's how it works with me. So it's not, because there are two types of purpose and what people will like purpose. There's one where you just, you make a choice and you say, I'm gonna make this my purpose. And then there's the type of life purpose that I'm working with is what's given by God or by the universe or what's that innate thing. And it drops in for me that sentence that I told you that I would never in a million years have thought that that's my life purpose. It wasn't a passion of mine. In fact, it was a fear of mine, but I had to overcome that to then go on to do something bigger. So if you wanna play a big hit game, the only way is to work your way through the resistance, through the fans. - Interesting, interesting. Okay, so I'm thinking about, you know, the folks who listen to my podcast and, you know, if you think about people who have been through some hard stuff, I mean, that's almost everybody right? I mean, none of us gets through this life without going through something hard, but, I came out of the child welfare system and experienced childhood trauma. So a lot of the people who listen to my podcast have gone through some really, really hard, painful things. - Sure. - Many of us don't have a lot of, you know, like don't have a safety net in life. And so if you think about those people, Adam, what do you wanna say to them? What's your best advice to people who, you know, maybe because of their circumstances of having been abandoned or neglected or abused or even trafficked, when they were too little and too vulnerable to prevent it and maybe have a hard time even accepting that there is a purpose for their lives. What do you say to them? - Well, it's a big one. And some people might not like the answer, but I will, I'll give it as honestly as I experience it. Okay. So the first thing to say is I have worked with people who have been through similar situations. And those, and it's possible to change anything and everything. Okay. Through co-chairing, counseling, therapy and deep healing. And I've seen people go on to live, sorry, my dog is rolling around and barking a little bit one second. (laughs) So yeah, if that office hope to anyone who maybe hasn't is not believing that, I've seen it happen, it's completely possible. So, and then the second thing is, so this is my belief, we come in with a plan. So before we're born, there is a meeting of the souls and it's like, okay, what do we need to learn here? What are the lessons and what are the situations and what are the circumstances that we need to go to to learn some lessons, okay? And typically, not always, but typically for the, for the really old souls who've been around a long, long time, they're a bit battle hardened and they're able to deal with some very difficult challenging situations. And horrific as it might sound and I know some people aren't gonna like this, there's some form of agreement and the agreement is that we wanna grow and that's ultimately why we're all here. And you're gonna get so much stronger from that experience if you just work through it. And I've seen people come out of the other side and unbelievable as it may sound. They understand why it happened and they have grown immensely from it and have become very beautiful souls. It's a bit shaky as saying all of that because I know a lot of people, it's hard, right? It's super hard for people to hear that. One of my very best friends was abused as a child and has come to that. I mean, it took her a long time but she came to a very good place with it and that's her perspective. - Well, you might be surprised to hear me say, I agree with you. It's actually biblical that it's in, untarable at quoting scripture but I think it's the book of Ephesians and the second chapter. And I think it's the 10th verse that talks about God creating us as his masterpiece. And for, it designed for a specific work that it's possible for the person to accomplish and achieve with the help of Jesus. Of course, I'm paraphrasing. That's the Rhonda paraphrased version of the Bibles. I went pretty up on it. You're five years in England. Well, so I always think of, okay, so in some versions of the Bible, it says, God created us as His masterpiece and in other places, it says, you know, other things instead of masterpiece, but I always think of, okay, so if you think about baking a cake and the flower and the egg and the vanilla and the whatever goes into this, you know, thing that we're making, and I think, okay, isn't it possible? If God made us for a reason and perfectly equipped us and empowered us for a specific work, and God is so big on free will. He gave us each our free will. We can believe in Him or not. You know, He doesn't reach the long arm of God out and grab my shoulder if I should decide I'm going to go, you know, rob a bank this afternoon. He just lets us do what we're going to do because we've been given that freedom and liberty to do that. And so I can imagine that instead of God making us into this masterpiece or whatever you want to call it, this formula that He's created us, that He's so big on free will, I can't imagine that He would just unilaterally say, I'm going to make Adam like this. I'm going to make Ronda like this. You know, it doesn't matter to me whether they like it or not. This is what I'm doing. I know, that's not supported by the whole rest of the scriptures. And so I think, okay, so in my little mind, I have this vision of God sort of taking us aside when we're a soul in heaven. You know, the Bible says that God knew us and approved of us before He knitted us together in our mother's womb. So I'm like before, wait a minute, before we were conceived, if God knew us before we were conceived, isn't it possible that He takes us aside and says, Adam, okay, here's the deal. I want to create you this way. I want to give you this life. I want to, I want to bring you into this particular family. You're going to live on this street. This is going to be your second grade teacher. This is going to be your best friend in fourth grade. Here's what I have in mind for you. There's this whole experience train and everything that you ever experience in your life or go through or whatever. Even the stuff that's really hard, it's necessary. And I'm going to weave it all together for your good. That's what he says in Romans. This is the one verse I know how to quote Romans 828 that God will work all things together for good for those who have him and are called the court and do his purpose. So I feel like, okay, so God says, look, even when it feels like I'm not there and you think you've been forgotten because it's really, really hard and it hurts really bad. I'm still there and I'm still working everything together for you good. You just have to trust me. Don't get off the train at any point in time. Stick with me and it's all going to work out. And so it's kind of like what you said. I arrived at it differently, I think. You know, just finding my way through that within the scriptures of the Bible, but it sounds very similar. It does, it does. And I also want to say that every, everyone has a unique life purpose that is their own special private mission on this planet. And we've all come in for a reason. And if you've been through one of those horrific experiences, a lot of your journey is going to be about healing that. That doesn't negate or mean that that could be part of your purpose, but it won't be, it's not the end goal. There'll be something you can build upon that and build upon that. It's like for me, fear of public speaking, I needed to work through that stuff. And that's trivial compared to what some people have been through. I totally get it. But you go to whatever your story is, you've got to work through that, build that foundation. And you're going to feel better for doing it as well, but it's just hard to face it. It is. I'm glad that you said what you said about building on it because so many people who have been through really hard stuff, thinking about victims of violent crime, rape, whatever. I mean, the last thing you want to do is think about it. You had to live through it. This was my, I had never, I was 27 years old and I had never told anybody that my parents had left and I'd experienced abuse and all of that stuff. It's very shameful. And most people, I think, who go through really hard things that were completely outside of their control, want to forget about it. Don't want to talk about it. Stuff it down, hide it in the closet, whatever it is, but let's move on and don't ever bring it up. And I think, okay, I get that because I did that for a long time. But when we will pull that stuff out, not to live there, not to be a victim, not to have a chip on our shoulder, not to feel sorry for ourselves, not to torture ourselves by reliving it, but just long enough to pull the nuggets of gold out of it. The nuggets of gold being, as you mentioned, the lessons, there's lessons in there. There are character traits. Living in poverty, you learn how to be resourceful, right? Something breaks, you can't afford to buy a new one, you figure out how to fix it or you figure out how to live without it, abandonment and you're alone. That teaches us self-reliance and can make us stronger. I mean, all these things can make us go one way or the other. Yeah. And as well as those golden nuggets, which are amazing, right? If I were working with someone like that, I would help them work through those fears when the feeling of being a victim comes up, which it will do, right? It's going to come up repeatedly. You can work through those feelings and transform them each time so you then feel, I should I feel okay now? No, I'm feeling more empowered. So it's step-by-step building the strength. That's the key, I think, what you said about feeling more empowered, because when we pull out those really, really painful memories, the things that we would have done anything to prevent, but couldn't. But when we see that we're, oh, you know, turns out, wow, I am stronger than the average person. I'm resilient, I'm resourceful, I'm courageous, I'm tenacious, I'm determined, I'm all these things. When we pull that out and when we think about the way we survived, our survival skills, our coping skills, the things that we learned how to do, like for victims of child abuse and child trafficking, we learn how to read facial expressions. So micro expressions even. And so you can read a room very quickly, you can determine very quickly, who you can trust, who you better not trust, all those kinds of things. Every single one of those things that we can learn in really hard times are extremely valuable, I would even say priceless and how to transferable into workplace. Yeah, very valuable. And it's interesting that you mentioned that specifically, because I'm full of the hyper-awareness, hyper-vigilance, because that comes up a lot with my clients in terms of preventing them from taking steps and going out of their comfort zone, because there's a voice or a part of them in the background going, no, for a good way, I'm not going there, that's terrifying. And that one part, even if let's say that we made up a thousand different parts, that one part screaming and being like not going there, that's enough to stop you ever taking that next step. It was a fact interesting. So if you can, if you can heal that one part, which is totally doable, then you can keep the hyper-vigilance, but a much healthier version, you can still be aware, you don't want to kind of, you know, it's not kind of this field day, you can anyone have a jump in, right? We're not going there. So you keep the vigilance, but you also have the inner strength and you're not freaking out of that taking the step forward. Yes, you know how to use it. You know how to harness it, all of those things. And I always feel like, okay, so part of what God says in the Bible about working everything together for good, I think, okay, well, once we learn those things about us that are part of us because of what we men through, that the courage that it took to survive, the way we survived, you know, hiding in the closet and being really quiet, paying attention to it. attention, learning how to list it, whatever it was, all of those things, when we're aware of them, we can call on them and we can use them, which qualifies us and equips us to help people who are on the path behind us, who are maybe still going through what we've been through. And I think it also helps in prevention. For example, somebody who was the victim of a violent crime and is able to pull it out long enough to pull the lessons out of it, and share those lessons with other people and help them prevent it, thinking about a person who's in a parking garage, and they don't have the keys in their hand, and they're talking on the phone and they're unaware of their surrounding. Somebody who, somebody came up and surprised them and got the best of them in that situation can turn around to other people and say, "Here's what I learned. Have your keys in your hand. Don't be talking on the phone. Be aware of your surrounding. All of those things that, now a lot of us commonly know those things. Why? Because somebody somewhere had the courage to step up and say, "Here's what happened to me. Here's what I wish somebody would have told me." And so when we're able to sort through some of those really hard things and move past the fear, as you mentioned, it can be incredibly helpful for other people, and it can be cathartic for us. So I give you a lot of credit at them for working with people on those details and sorting through the fear. I wish everybody had someone in their life. We had an atom. Right? Oh, it's a thing that's awful. By the way, run that. Now I get it. Just somebody to say, "I'll hold your hand through this." Oh yeah, I mean, it's invaluable. Everyone should have a coach or someone who's got that back, right? And so many people don't. I want to give one tool for your listeners, and you can apply this to how you're feeling about anything, from running late to work, and you feel a bit stressed about that. I was thinking of it in the context of someone who perhaps doesn't feel ready to face what they've been through, which by the way is completely okay. There's no, you know, can be in 20 years' time whenever you feel strong enough. It's great. But using this tool, you can just start to change how you feel about it. So the tool is called the feel it process. It's so simple. You're going to hear it and you're going to go, "Don't, what does it make sense?" Right? So basically what you do is you think about whatever it is that's coming up for you emotionally, and start with something really small and gentle. Okay, don't go to the worst possible things that have ever happened. So running late for the bus, or even if it's, you know, this feels right for people who aren't ready to face, to really open up and talk about what they've been through. This is great for you. And you might just feel kind of a feeling of kind of not wanting to go there. You might not be able to put a word to it, but it's just a resistance. So what you do with this process is you say, "Okay, where do I feel that in the body?" It could be typical places are stomach, chest area, heart or head. And then the next question is, "Okay, on a scale of zero to ten, ten being intense, zero being it's completely gone, how intense is that feeling?" That helps you to kind of just to classify it a little bit. It could be anything, could be a two, three, right up to a ten. Okay, and then what you do is you just sit with the feeling and you kind of lean into it. You allow it to come up and you feel it exactly as it is. You're not trying to change anything. You're just going to sit with it typically for between two and five minutes. And what's going to happen is it might go up one or two initially. It might go from a six to a seven or eight. You're not making it worse. Don't freak out. You're just noticing what's actually there. Okay, and then what will happen is it will start to go down. It will come down to a five, four, three, and you've been feeling better, something's changing, something's shifting. It sometimes gets a bit sticky, gets stuck for a minute or two. Don't worry, it's still going to change. You keep feeling it, come back to the feeling. The head is busy, come back to the feeling, kind of catch yourself. And then eventually it will just dissipate and it'll get down to a zero. Okay, super simple tool. Everyone can do it. We don't need to go on some expensive course. And sometimes you need to keep coming back to things. So if it's something like you're not ready to face talking about something that bad that's happened to you, then you might want to come back to that on multiple days when different feelings around the issue come up. Okay, just keep feeling it until you are ready to tip someone. So I hope that helps. It really works. I know it sounds crazy. I don't think it sounds crazy at all. I think I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm with you there thinking about, okay, if I did that, how would I feel? And yeah, it's would be, it would be hard at first. It would be scary. But then at some point in time you have to realize, oh, I'm actually, I'm actually really there. And I'm still breathing. I'm still in the game. I didn't drop dead. My heart didn't stop beating. I'm not done. And I always say that, you know, whatever hard thing it is, um, that if, um, you know, once we've lived through it and we realize, okay, yes, this is hard, but it's not going to kill me. You know, like you, like you mentioned going to the doing the public speaking, you know, whatever it is, um, no, it's, it's just like, it's not going to kill you. It's not going to harm you. Push through, press through. And in the case of, you know, having experienced violence or whatever, I always think, okay, I had to live through it. I couldn't do anything about it. I was too little, but I refuse to give people who have harmed me one more moment of my joy. I'm controlling my joy. I'm controlling my happiness. I don't give it away. And I don't tolerate for very long. Somebody might steal my joy in the moment. You know, you hear about something terrible happening or whatever. You know, you can't help it, but go there. There were think, I mean, stuff is happening in the world all the time, right? But I always try to say, okay, luck is ticking. I need to pull myself back into my place of peace and joy and wellness. And I usually can do that through conversations with the good people in my life with whom I have healthy relationships. And so, you know, whether it's a coach or, you know, for me, the people in my life, pastors and foster parents and social workers, all these amazing, wonderful people who have dedicated their lives to helping others. It's those connections are invaluable. You know, beautiful. And it's whatever works for you, right? Whatever works. You've got to go and do that. Exactly. Well, Adam, this has just been such a joy. I appreciate you sharing and I appreciate what you do. And it's not lost on me. The hard stuff that you went through to get to this place of being able to help people to find and to fulfill the good purpose for their lives. I will always say there is nothing like it. I think there's no more important or significant profound even thing to do in this life, but to find and fulfill the purpose for which we were born and perfectly matched. So, I agree. So, I hope I'll agree with that. If it's okay with you, I'd like to make an offer to your listeners. Absolutely. I'd like to offer the first five people who get in touch with me and just mention Ronda's name and the show. A free session, a free coaching session. That's awesome. And that goes both if you're considering working with me as a coach or if you are in a place where things are not good and you just want to hand. There's no obligation love to help people please reach out and see what we can do for you. I love that. Okay, Adam, tell people, tell everybody listening how they can find you and I'll make sure that it's in the details of the podcast as well. Sure, sure. So my website is adamtalame.com. That's T-A-L-L-A-M for Mother Why. You can find me on all social media, Google Life Purpose Coach. I'll come up and yeah, just drop me a line mentioned Ronda and we'll book in a time and hopefully make a big difference for you. Ah, that's wonderful. Thank you and thank you for joining me today. I'm so glad we got connected. Thank you. Likewise, really good chat. Thanks for a lot. All right. All right, everybody. See you next week. Things that you've been through have changed the way you see the world. They've qualified you to do what you were born to do and perfectly matched to do. Is there anything more important than finding and living the purpose for which you were born? I don't think so. I think that's the point. 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The life you deserve to live. The life you were, yeah, born to live. There is no feeling worse than being rejected, being left out, ignored. But there's nothing more empowering than loving others and being loved and returned. People who feel loved know that no matter what challenges life throws at them, they will persevere and succeed. They know that their value is not diminished by setbacks or mistakes. But how do you get love? How do you bring love into your life? Well, it's not focus, focus. There are 30 practical ways that you can bring love into your life. And when you do everything changes, I hope you'll get a copy of 30 days to love, daily meditations, inspirations and actions for creating a life of love. Thanks for joining us at the Find Your PurposeNow podcast. Listen, we do this for you. It's all about helping you live the purpose that you were born to live because when you do that, you get the peace, enjoy and good relationships that you strive to have. 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