#22 | Will Adolphy (P2) - The Path to Self-Worth and Emotional Recovery

I describe it as I was in freeze for many years. There's a difference between self-esteem and self-worth. One way I had of coping with the loneliness that I felt in childhood was and it was just a big game changer. And during that time, you know, the voice in my head was getting really loud and it was saying you know, you need to do this. You're an idiot, you know it's getting really negative. And yeah, doing that time without my phone, without my laptop, it really brought a lot of things to light and I just kept writing in the journal, writing in the journal. And it was on this retreat, in that space, where I got guidance to train to be a therapist. No, I knew, yeah, I knew. When I came back from that I was like, right, book it let's do this.

Did you know? That was your sort of calling. From then you were like that's exactly the direction I want to go in. I do, I just find it very. I was just trying to wrap my brain a second ago on the jamie episode. He says something very similar is, but he was like when was the last time you've ever sat there for five minutes and just allowed yourself to be in your own head? And that kind of reminded me of that when you said it. I just thought it was very interesting, uh, that we brought that up on the last episode as well yeah, and I think I really resonate with what jamie said there yeah because I think, in essence, that's what recovery is, you know it's recovering the lost self, right, the self that is lost to trauma.

The essence of trauma is the loss of self. So that's what was starting to happen to me, like in giving myself that space and that time, and I was around trees as well, nature, and I put the phone down and I actively said, right, I'm going to try and feel this. And I remember the first night I was so nervous, you know, and I wrote down in my journal and I still remember it was something like okay, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling lonely, I'm feeling excited, and it was all these things. I'm missing my ex-partner here goes, nothing Right, and it was kind of like a leap of faith. And I came back from that experience and a friend mentioned sex and love addicts, anonymous, which is a 12-step program that kind of focuses on relationship, codependency, fantasy, obsessive thinking around romance, and that really appealed to me and I I'm always someone that kind of tends to go 110 in. I don't know if you guys can relate to that.

Yeah, Completely the same You're all in or you're doing nothing, right.

Yeah, and I think Jamie, in your last episode, alluded to that the kind of three pillars of a successful person, which I really really enjoyed hearing. And I do have that drive in me. And I think what I did with my recovery was I was very militant, right, so I went all in there. I did a 10-day silent retreat, I did the Hoffman process, I did 12 steps, I did IFS and I just went. I said, right, I'm going to feel my feelings no smartphone eight months, right, no social media and I just went straight in there and I wouldn't recommend that. And when I'm working with clients now, I don't sit there on the first session and go, hey, right, you're not doing any of these things.

I don't do that.

I just want to clarify that I don't do that, um, but I decided to do that. Yeah, um, and cause that's? There was a part of me that was like right, we need to heal, and it was very, very militant. I'm grateful for that experience because I went into the militancy of the meditation and the feeling, the feelings, and now I'm finding my middle ground and it's really lovely because in the middle ground it means I'm allowing some flexibility in, you know, and, as I was saying, uh, yeah, just play, and moments where I'm not working on myself, because I did get addicted to recovery, or let's say I did get obsessed with recovery it's probably a better phrase and that happens.

My whole life became around. Retreats became around. You know, I didn't have a fiction book on the go, it was always Gabor Mate or some sort of trauma related book, and I used to make a joke about it, like I'd be there reading Alice Miller, the drama of the gifted child, like just before I went to bed. You know, um, and my mum would be like god, do you not have a break? Yeah, and I'm just like I'm not interested in the other stuff. But I I don't think it's that I wasn't interested. It's that it didn't feel valuable, whereas now it feels valuable. You know I listen to talk sport in the morning and I love it. You know I love hearing a manchester united fan.

You know like cool up and just moan. I don't know why. I love it, I just love it. I'm the same right, yeah, yeah it appeals to you to kind of have that for the same reasons.

Would you say there was a co-dependency from all that time, from 2011, 2012, all the way through when we're finishing school, to that point so with drugs I did predominantly it was weed, um and mdma, and I would say that I was able to knock weed on its head when I was went to university because I started to have panic attacks and so the weed just really wasn't medicating me in that way, actually elevated my anxiety, right, oh goodness, it really did. And so I was able to drop the weed and I focused on acting, right, and that was my thing. I wanted to be an actor and I got really obsessed with that, and so I put the weed down. I was still drinking very heavily, um, I'd say I knocked the drugs. Though when I went to, best of all, uh, when I was about 21 and I ended up in the A&E tent, um, because I had done so many drugs that, uh, I couldn't breathe, you know, and um, yeah, and I don't know what it was, but I kind of felt like I got it out of my system really, and I went to A&E three times, I believe, in my years of taking drugs.

And then, when I stopped taking drugs, it's like I went into fight or flight. So it's like I describe it as I was in freeze for many years, so disconnected, dissociated from my body, to protect myself. You know, I couldn't, wasn't ready yet, didn't have the resources. So my body helped me by that disconnection. And then, when I stopped medicating myself, that's when all the um, the fight or flight or the panic or the repressed stuff just came flooding up and so, um, I kind of coped with that through various ways.

You know, I I was listening to David Goggins and going to the gym a lot of the time and I, you know I could talk a bit about how I see kind of Goggins and now and stuff maybe we'll get to that later, but it, you know, going to the gym I wanted to build my business up and I had a girlfriend and in that brief moment in time I remember feeling like I belonged, you know, like I was a competent member of society, um, a man, yes, but an adult, right.

And I remember walking the street feeling like, yes, yeah, this is great, but it was very fragile because then lockdown came, business crumbled to the ground, broke up with my partner, and it turns out that maintaining a six-pack and muscles when you're going for a stressful period and you want to have a pizza, or you know, it's just not it wasn't feasible for me, um, and it was held together by the shame. As soon as I had one bit of pizza, there was a part of me going hey, mate, that's gonna. You need to be careful with that because you're trying to maintain. Because so it was a very fragile way of coping with existence, and it wasn't until I got into 12 steps that I stabilized that's really interesting.

I wanted to come. What's the most important lesson you've probably taken from this experience of when you did have your business and you felt on top of the world and then it came crumbling down? What was your most important lesson from that which you took?

there's a difference between self-esteem and self-worth. Self-esteem is what others think of me and it's built on a foundation of external resources, so maintaining my muscles. So you look at me, I've got muscles right my business. You look at my business, I'm earning. You look at my girlfriend, my partner. She's attractive, she's fit right. So this is an external image that I am relying on. Society, or at least I am imagining of what society. So for me, it was always what would my mates think of my partner?

what society.

So for me it was always what would my mates think of my partner? Interesting, yeah, right. So I would go to a birthday and a friend would be like, wow, is that that's your girlfriend? I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, beautiful, she's so beautiful, right, yeah.

And so there was this shadow what we call shadow, right? What we hide, repress or deny, something that's lurking beneath the surface. There was some shadow to my wanting to build a company, wanting to maintain my muscles and wanting to have a girlfriend. Now, none of those things are innately wrong at all at all. I still love going to the gym. I still I've got a business now as well, that's doing better than ever, and a partner is something I really value and see in my future. So it's just what was driving it Right.

And so there's a difference between self-esteem and self-worth, and self-worth is something that is innate. It comes from within and it's not dependent on external resources, and that is something I still grapple with. I have to have a chat with my, with my guy who wants to be famous. He's still there, right? He's still there Cause, like I said, I was wanting to be an actor, um, and as I start to go public with my story and writing the book and doing, you know, podcasts. Um, like this one, I'm really having to check in with myself and that part of me that does want to be famous and that does want the self-esteem piece of it. Because, yeah, it was. You know, it was one way I had of coping with the loneliness that I felt in childhood was I had hope that I was gonna be famous, you know I got told when I was in hospital that I was special, and it was hard not to believe that I was at great Ormond street.

My first memory is of playing PlayStation with a boy that had no hands, and I grew up in hospital and so receiving that message of you know you're, you're special. Well, I wanted to feel that specialness all the time, and that part of me is still holding that a little bit Right, and so I am aware of it now more, I'd say, and I kind of meet it with a sense of, okay, I get it, I get you, um, I hear you. However, it's not necessarily about me anymore. I've got on my wall in the morning every time. I'm a part of something bigger than me, right?

I love that. Yeah, I like that that really helps.

Helps to ground me do you feel like going through everything you've gone through has allowed you to sort of relate to the your clients now and the people that come and see because we talked about this all the time when we had dr mark rackley on is like he's so relatable and people going through those problems and then going into a role like psychotherapy counseling is for me, if I was to go through what I've gone through again and I was to go and see you, it would give me a load of reassurance, knowing that you've also gone through a lot of things and you've you've found your way through. Do you feel like it helps you with your clients now and able to better understanding them?

Definitely, yeah, definitely now, and able to better understand in them. Definitely, yeah, definitely.

I mean, there's that, this archetype of the wounded healer, right, and I'm I'm confident that any sort of therapist that's experienced and working with clients and effective in some way has has an experience that they're drawing upon right and I wouldn't say it's like everyone the way I think of it is not everyone's like me, so I have to remind myself that, that everyone's having their own unique experience, made up of different colors, right, different set and scenery, different people, different experiences, but at the same time, the colors that make up their experience.

They're not in the same order, but I know them, some of them right in through my own experience. And, yeah, definitely going through recovery and stabilizing and going from having panic attacks every day and severe bouts of depression and actually like going to bed at times now, excited to get up in the morning, it just blows me away but moments of just complete joy, throwing a stone in. I live by the shore, by the way, I live in St Leonard's, I live by the coast now and throwing a stone into the sea, or, you know, waking up and just going on a walk on my own, without anything in my ears, but just breathing and just feeling as like I'm just continuing to land and land in my body and land in my body and open up and it's taking me to places that I could never have perceived If you had told me two years ago that I was going to be going around schools talking about masculinity and Andrew Tate. I didn't want to get involved in that. That's so scary to talk about a conversation that feels so charged.

But I went to the psychotherapy course and I told you how I landed on that was when I went on the retreat and got the guidance and then from within, and, and then on the course, I in my class is, oh, I was like hang on, I know this person, I've read his book, chris. And then he's a colleague now and he runs the business that he got me involved in. So he's on my course, we're in the same class, you know, and I see him, yeah, and it's. And now I'm here, you know, chatting to you and joe from my part, it's just, it's amazing, and so the way I see it is it's opening up. So there's, that's the first step for me, opening up. And then, in opening up, I start to feel a sense of stability and security. Right, I feel like I have support because I'm opening up to people.

Once I had that support and that stability, I then felt I could start to show up, right, and that's the scary part. Well, actually the support is scary in a different way. But then leaving the support, which is secure attachment, right, so you have a secure attachment, a sense of support, a sense of safety that you can come back to and then you can go exploring. So you leave that and you go exploring, and then you come across challenges. And it's in those challenges where one gets activated and then comes back processes, learns, grows, oh wow, right, and then you can continue and go on, and that's the way I look at things. I'd say what's kind of happening right now?

yeah, you mentioned support there. Yeah, now, support for you is something you didn't really have a lot of growing up in terms of. You know, I don't know your parents per se, but the your parental relationship sounds like a complicated one now. What do you have in the way of support now in the last couple of years since that? Is your relationship with your parents better or is it worsened? Is it what do you? Where's your support system right now, other than yourself?

yeah, so. So, yeah, it started off by going into 12 steps. That was a non-judgmental space where I began to share what was beneath my bravado right, the fear, the loneliness, and I started to piece myself back together. Now I developed friendships in this community, which I've since kind of stepped back from, which you could maybe touch a bit later, but I developed friendships and it was in these friendships that I started to develop an understanding of how to support friends and also receive support.

Holding space Right Um, and I was very fortunate to meet two guys, uh, ben and Rid, my two best friends. And years ago actually before, just before recovery I read a book called, uh, the Gulag Archipelago, right Um, and it was written by a guy called Solzhenitsyn, and for those of you that don't know, the only thing that's relevant is that he was in Stalin's Russia, he was locked up, right, and he described a part of him being in a prison cell where it was him and lots of other kind of scientists types, and he said that every day they'd wake up and they'd just be talking to one another, they'd give talks, so for 40 minutes he'd be talking, we'd just all be tuning in, and then we'd ask questions and he said he'd never felt more free in his life in that prison cell connecting with these other people. So I said to the my guys, I said, actually I don't, ben and rid, I'm not claiming that it was my idea. I was like, hey, it wasn't your idea, whoever's idea it was, I think it was mine. I said, let's say, I said I said, guys, why don't we try that? And I'll never forget this night. They came over and we each had 15 minutes to do a talk and the other two just completely listened. And then we asked questions. Now we chose subjects that scared us and I chose feminism. At that time it really scared me, really scared me to even go near. I was in kind of floating around the manosphere, which is what it's called now, back then, completely sober, one of the first properly sober nights that I've had. And then we had fish and chips and we had a uh, fried halloumi burger as well, which I'll never forget. And I've got to say, guys, I remember texting them, that's the best night of my life, wow, best night of my life.

Because it felt like two people were really listening to me and I started to see oh my goodness, am I paying attention to people. I don't think I am. When I'm like, when I'm in a conversation with someone, I'm thinking about what I'm going to say next. That was the first thing I noticed, and I'm finding it uncomfortable on a somatic level. Within the body, there is a very subtle level of discomfort when someone else is speaking that is intruding upon my ability to really listen, and so I started to realize that I don't think I'm co-regulating with people, and what I mean by that is that when we're having a conversation where two people feel heard, it actually does something to our physiology. We feel more regulated, we feel more connected. I kind of feel it right now. To be honest, you know it's not listening to you, but I don't know what do you say?

right, right, right yeah, actually yeah, and so that was a big game changer for me. Yeah, because I I realized that on some level I was absorbed in my own pain, completely understandably no judgment here towards my previous self, but there was at the beginning, but now I can understand. I was so absorbed so I don't consider it selfish, I consider it self absorbed. I was absorbed in my own suffering and because of that I found it really hard to have capacity to hold space for others and experience co-regulation. Now, now that I have capacity for that, it's my social life has never been more full, and before I always used to be someone that would like look at other people with all their diaries that were full up and I'd be like how is your diary so full up? I feel like I struggle to fill my diary up and I used to wonder why do people not want to spend time with me? And they still love me? Of course they did, and a lot of these friends are still my friends now. But it was an uncomfortable truth that I had to realize that, unfortunately, I didn't have the capacity to hold space because I hadn't held space for myself first. I had to do that. I had to go away and give myself space. I had to give myself self empathy before I could empathize with others, and this is something I bring to the students at school when this empathy workshop we do. And God, it's so amazing sometimes to see things click, because it's so empowering to know if you're able to hold space and support someone, then you are an incredibly resourceful person, or a person that people will probably want to be around as well.

And I think what's happened now is I've got a men's group. So I've got two men's groups. One of them's with Rid and Ben still, but it's mostly online and we meet up every few months. And then I have an in-person men's group every two weeks. We meet up and, uh, and I have friends where we have a system. There's a check-in call and there's a support call, so check-in is more casual. That's just like anyone got time for a check-in, yeah, when I've finished work on the weekend, support call. This blew me away.

Something that happened the other day. Something came up for me and I messaged Ben, who's in the group. I said you've got time for a support call. He messages me back. I'm in the car with my folks. Say the word and I'll pull over, and I showed that to my dad and I just thought, holy shit, can I swear on the show? I'll keep that in mind, yeah, yeah, so I.

I tell that story now because it's it's genuinely, it's something I'm so blessed and grateful for to have a friend that you know say the word and I'll pull over it. It really touches me. And then one thing I will say about my parents is that we've been on this incredible journey like started off incredibly disconnected. As I said, there was violence, me and my dad, very volatile relationship. You know just just what I when I try and like explain it to people, it's like what it's like to be in a house where every day, you, you wake up and I've asked them, by the way, I did chat with them. I said are you okay with me talking about, you know our journey? And they said, yeah, go for it.

And that shows, I think starting itself to be able to do that yeah, I think so.

Yeah, yeah, to be that open with them now. But it the way I describe it is waking up every day and then walking into tension, right, arguments, you know, the tension at the dinner table just holding that on a chronic level and a consistent level over time. You know they call it attritional trauma or small T trauma, right, this kind of build up of storing resentment or emotions, or storing anger, which then becomes resentment, and, yeah, that's accumulated. And so I had to spend some time away when I was in recovery from my dad and my mum, and I had to go into a place where I had to deal with all the rage, the trap rage I had towards, um, my dad at first, and so I did something called the Hoffman Process, and it's this renowned retreat that really became a container for me to express what had been unexpressed in me for so long.

I did it with 23 other people, and there's one part that I can share about three other people and there's one part that I can share about, um. We were in a marquee and they gave us a pillow and we've been, you know, accessing the unexpressed and I had this bat, this uh, wiffle bat, and I had a pillow and they said, right, go, you know, get it out, sort of thing, exert cathartic, release, that sort of approach. And I felt self-conscious, right, and they had music on and everyone was just going for it and I just I couldn't do it. And then the facilitator said if you're self-conscious, bash the self-consciousness. And all of a sudden all this energy came in me and I was like I'm so fed up of being self-conscious and there's a part of me that had rage towards my self-consciousness that I had never expressed. So all of a sudden I'm bashing and bashing and bashing. And then I was able to access this kind of Trapped anger or rage, complete rage that I had in me, that I didn't even know I'd had in me. And that's when I realized, about stored energy, how it's real, like it felt real in that moment, all this relief, like I had never seen anything like it. And I got that.

There was a part of me that wanted to let me just put it this way actively harm my dad, right. And there's another part that goes oh, don't express that, he's your dad. It didn't matter in that space, it was in me. It needed to come out. And they said that doesn't matter whether it's true or not. If your five-year-old self believed that at one point in one time, it has a right to be expressed. But you can express it here and they didn't need to hear it. I needed to hear it, that was all. They had music on. Everyone was screaming. You imagine 24 people in a marquee it's pretty crazy.

Yeah, it's pretty wild, um, but it was one of the most profound moments, um, within my journey of release and then, moving through that rage, I then felt grief hey guys, tom here.

We hope you enjoyed part two. If you do enjoy these videos, please like and subscribe to the channel. It helps us massively. Here's a bit of what you can expect to see in part three.

Things are luring boys in, because it's not just Andrew Tate saying that, it's the world. I can't think my way to good action. I have to act my way to good thinking. I said to him, dad, two choices.