Hey everyone: this is a BIG piece for me. (BIG!). In light of my recent commitment to lean WAY into my genius, I am leaving nothing behind, and this really means exposing myself. PLEASE ONLY READ THIS IF YOU HAVE A DESIRE TO KNOW MUCH MORE FULLY what it is like to be me, Andrew Goad, and what the experiences have been to shape me and who I am. I hope this post aids you in some way. Be forewarned: this is VERY vulnerable for me ... Read on if you dare - - - MOTIVATION FOR WHY I AM DOING THIS (why I do what I do in life). I AM GIFTED SOCIALLY:::But only after A LOT of practice and trial and error. I come from a place of being very empathetic and sensitive to my environment and the emotions of those around me. AND I have come from a place that contained alot of darkness and sadness. Through out my childhood things were very shut down for me…I couldn’t really access the situations or skills that I wanted and even though my parents worked really hard and were relatively well off, I felt completely isolated from them and my world at large. I really had no idea how to exist in the world at all. SO many gifts, and no way to express them or connect to the people I loved. Looking back in retrospect in was pretty horrible. However it would be high school and the begining years of university that were most formative for me. I had a fair amount of friends, but I felt VERY shy, not knowing how to cope with my own natural abilities, sensitivities and other gifts I *now* realize I have but at the time presented themselves as a severe hindrance for me. I also had a very poor self image and viewpoint of what I was capable of; I thought I was utterly useless and was severely limiting myself without even realizing it. High school passed with a dull whirl and I was thrown into University (College) fresh out of high school. I was an hour away from home at a University Called the University of Guelph with as many as 5,000-7,000 new students transitioning into dorms each year. It was A LOT. My experience of that transition during the time I moved into university was exciting, terifing, messy, and restrictive all at the same time. There was SO MUCH stimulation, so many possibilities, so many things I wanted to do, and so many new people to meet. Things were going relatively well, and I was somehow managing to keep it all together until about two months into the school year when I broke up with my first long-term girlfriend. I didn’t realize it at that time, but that relationship with my girlfriend; the thing that had just ended so abruptly and sharply, was the only thing that held any solidity for me in a completely chaotic and more increasingly complex and challenging world. Before I knew it, things were unraveling faster then I could get a handle on. In those few day after my break up, many things began to become INSTANTELY clear for me: -For the first time ever, I realized I did not have any trust in my relationship with either of my parents. -My barely, just “budding”, relationships with almost all of my classmates and floormates did not have any depth or level maturity to come close to even supporting me in the way that I ultimately needed to be supported in. -School was extremely intense, and from the get go the variety of pressures in academics, relationships with class mates and women, and all the social challenges that come with university life were extremely challenging and hard to deal with, -I had been removed from anything that I had know was familiar just 2 months prior, -I was under severe emotional trauma and withdrawl from my breakup with my ex-girlfriend a few days before… -AND While on top of all of that, I was a complete mess and had no idea how to deal with my life or any of the other insecurities in my life… …I was a complete mess. I reached a point where, from a newly initiated 17 year-old university student’s perspective, life was just TOO MUCH FOR ME TO BEAR. With my sensitivies and empathic nature, I had reached and thoroughly surpassed the point and limit to handle everything that was being thrown my way. THERE WAS WAY, WAY TOO MUCH SENSATION GOING ON FOR ME TO DEAL WITH. I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to get out of what was going. It was just too much. So what happened??? Well I broke down; I had a complete and utter emotional breakdown. I just broke down. Somehow, somehow, I managed to keep it together for the next 2 months. I painfully struggled over those next 2 whole months to maintain some semblance of control over my life and in my school life. It was not pretty. It was not pretty at all. Finally in Janurary of ‘08, everything, and I mean literally everything, just came crashing down. At that time I had really reached my leash’s end, and had absolutely no idea how to cope with my experience and how to go on. I felt like my life was in absolute ruins. I was lost with no sense of control. I got help in the only way that I could think of that might get me out of the hell hole that I had found myself in. I made a call; …which at that point, was the hardest thing I had ever done, or would ever do for the next 3 years… I called my dad, and I told him everything… You have to understand; I was incredibly scared, incredibly ashamed, and incredibly loathing of myself that things had become so utterly horrible and miserable in my life. To come to terms with all that and tell my dad everything that had happened all at the same time was the hardest thing I could have ever done. It was only made worse by the fact that I had to reach out to someone who had thought that everything was going absolutely fine and that his “perfect” son was doing just fine and dandy. Well it wasn’t. It was going fine at all. I felt absolutely horrible about myself and felt disgusted with every respect of myself … I was utterly disgusted, and ashamed of who I was and what I had felt I had become. I must have only talked to him for 5 minutes before I broke down into an absolute barrage of tears and sorrow. I couldn’t believe how bad things had gotten, and how they had all unraveled so much in so little time. I had no idea what to do, honestly I don’t think my dad had any idea of what to be either. I thought my life was over and things were all coming to an end…it was horrible… : ( This is just the begining of the story because this cycle more or less goes on for the next 4 and a half years of my life, in a vicious vicious circle. Low self-esteem, leading to anxiety about my worth and who I am as a person and who I am as a person leading to anxiety, leading to worse feelings about myself leading on about me feeling depressed and disgusted about myself leading to me feeling horrible about every aspect of my life leading to me feeling absolutely with-drawn from life and my friends and the potency of my being and who I am and am absolutely being, and am capable of being in this life… The truth is that we are all capable of SO SO SO much. RIDICULOUS amounts of amazingness as matters have it. As things have begun to come full circle in my life, I have realized I have come an absolutely triumphant distance and degree through my journey of hell and back again and can now stand here and say in my solidity that I am back and that I have always loved every one of you. Every one of you in the audience, every one of you watching at home, everyone listening to audio, everyone of you in the world no matter where you are or what your from or who you are, please know this. I love you. No matter what and no matter who you are. I know this because this is the journey I have had to experience to take and overcome my demons and my absolutely horrendous experiences. And it doesn’t even matter why or how they happened or what the impact is or was. All that matters now is what I am and who I AM becoming because of ALL of it. And who am I becoming because of it? I am becoming the absolute most greatest and most equisit individual I can become and now have the ability to catalyse absolutely life changing experiences for people I am coming into contact with. So please, know one thing. I love you and I will always love, you no matter what. Here is to our-greatness and our-absolute-brilliance to over come anything that is thrown at us and in our way. And our ability to over come and transcends the depths of hell in order to reach the gates of heaven. Amen. Andrew P.S. Please know that there is always help for you where ever you are and that no matter what they are people that will powerfully love you for who you are. No. Matter. What.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 08:45:27 +0000
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