The ego is who you think you are: Your higher Self, or soul, is who you really are. This is my 50th blog post. So let's spice up your life with a few songs that are metaphors for life and transformation.
When you are fearful you forget who you truly are. You react, rather than respond. Why do you act so big when you are not so small? The Spice Girls had it just right in their song about the risks of fame: "You have got to reach on up; Never lose your soul." How do you never lose your soul? There are two ways of BEing: Frightened ego or higher Self, which are the same as fear or love, respectively. What we forget is that which of these two we choose is a choice that each of us can make in every moment.
As the Spice Girls sang: When you reach up and never lose your soul (your higher Self), you can't go wrong. In reality it is far more difficult to deny who you truly are: You are peace, joy, light, love, compassion, forgiveness, courage, strength, and a teacher. You are the deepest wisdom and the highest Truth. Know your Self as these things, always. At moments in your life you have known your Self as these things. When we were born, before our parents and our dysfunctional 'civilisation' got to us, and in moments of presence such as when we observe a panorama or beautiful sunset. Why don't you choose to be your higher Self in every moment? So, who do you think you are? These concepts are not just lyrics from a pop song. At the Temple of Apollo in Delphi the inscription above the entrance is "Know Thyself."
Albert Einstein, arguably the greatest scientific mind of all time, wrote "I want to know the mind of God." By this he meant that he wanted to choose his highest Self in every moment and in all his choices.
As William Shakespeare wrote “To thine own Self be true.” It's time to find your highest Self, your voice and to speak Truth to 'power.' So, who do you think you are? Let's dive in shall we?
Who Do You Think You Are?
To quote the Spice Girls' song (please forgive my frivolity here) "Who Do You Think You Are?":
The race is on to get out of the bottom
The top is high so your roots are forgotten
Giving is good as long as you're getting
What's driving you is ambition I'm betting
I said-a who do you think you are?
Do you think you are?
I said-a who, some kind of superstar?
You have got to
Swing it, shake it, move it, make it
Who do you think you are?
You're swelling out in the wrong direction
You've got the bug, superstar you've been bitten
Your trumpet's blowing for far too long
Climbing the snake of the ladder, but you're wrong
I said-a who do you think you are?
Do you think you are?
I said-a who, some kind of superstar?
You have got to
You have got to reach on up
Never lose your soul
You have got to reach on up
Never lose control
'Who Do You Think You Are?' by the Spice Girls
Why do we not choose to be our higher Self in every moment?
The answer is simple: Pain. Life is like pulling a thorn from your finger: It hurts for a second if you do the right thing, and pull it out, and then afterwards all the pain is gone. The ego is afraid, like a child who doesn't want the thorn to be pulled out. But the highest version of you knows that the Hero's Journey that we must take can be painful at the beginning, but it is only through embarking on this journey that we really live and become authentic. This is why we invariably need a catalyst for change. Sometimes we have to hit a rock bottom before we realise that we can't go on. Anaïs Nin wrote "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through."
Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience. It's what the philosopher Alan Watts used to refer to as "the backwards law" - the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. The more you desperately want to be rich, the more poor and unworthy you feel, regardless of how much money you actually make: Many millionaires and billionaires are some of the unhappiest people I have ever met. It's not surprising. The more you desperately want to be sexy, beautiful, and desired, the uglier you come to see yourself, regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more you desperately want to be happy and loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become, regardless of those who surround you. The more you want to be spiritually Enlightened, the more self-centered and shallow you become in trying to get there. You are not broken. You are whole and complete. You just need to remember that you are. And that's why I am here for you. This is the only road to peace, love, joy, and personal power. Trust me: I have tried everything else.
Let me be open, honest, and vulnerable with you in order to explain. With your permission, let me share the pain and the emotions of the three stages of my life: My traumatic childhood; My adult years; My awakening. Emotions are the only way to know the Truth. Everything else is a poor imitation; a false narrative, conjured up because of bias, a lack of clarity, or an ulterior motive.
1. My childhood pain
The emotional pain that I suffered as a young child, as far back as I can remember, was unbearable. The childhood trauma that I suffered, along with the emotional abuse from my mother, was made worse by the lack of an empathic witness. When all you feel is pain and you don't experience real love as a child you cannot receive it or give it as an adult unless something changes. As Anaïs Nin wrote "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." The people that we meet in our lives are sent as teachers or guides. Whether we have a grievance with them or a miracle is based on whether we are choosing to come from a place of fear or love.
I have suffered severe childhood trauma, with my father leaving against his will due to my mother's affair when I was two years old. My mother was mentally ill but at that time she had not been diagnosed. She suffered from depression, anxiety, severe mood swings, and an addiction to external validation.
I was full of unbearable pain, fear, shame, and unexpressed anger. Shame is the most excruciatingly painful emotion. I became shame. However hard I tried to prove my Self I never felt that I was ever enough. To quote from 'The Greatest Showman' song 'Never Enough':
All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the stars we steal from the night sky
Will never be enough
Never be enough
Towers of gold are still too little
These hands could hold the world but it'll
Never be enough
Never be enough
'Never Enough' from The Greatest Showman
My fear came from my dysfunctional family: My mother was deeply unconscious and didn't know how to show unconditional love. She had a number of husbands and we moved house six times, with as many changes of schools and friendship groups. Nothing in my life was permanent. She used to give our pets away or kill them, every time we moved. She had two people living insde her, like we all do: One was light and love, and the other was dark, stern, fearful, and angry. She mostly lived in the latter. She attempted violent suicide twice in front of me an my brother and forced us to watch: One with a large knife and one by trying to jump out of the car on a motorway. My brother and I just managed to hold her in the car until my step-father could pull over. This was all by the time I was seven years old.
My mother wanted me to get straight A grades, which I always did. She wanted me to go to Cambridge, which I did. She wanted me to be a doctor, which I did. And so on and so on. All of this was effortless for me. She spoke of making her proud. But what she really wanted was to feel validated, through me. Why did she want all these things? Because she felt unworthy, and she wanted me to live the life that she was expecting for herself but hadn't. I did not live my life: I lived hers. If I deviated from the plans that she had for me she would not speak to me: Once she gave me the silent treatment for a whole year. It was better than her screaming with a face full of fear and hatred. She was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, mostly being the latter. She would humiliate me if I didn't perform. Once, when I came last in a sports day race, she screamed at me and stormed off in the family car, so I had to walk home. She called me a "loser" before she left. I was only seven years old and the walk home alone took an hour, walking and contemplating my lack of self-worth: An hour full of shame. Our mother never came on holiday with us. She was out every evening, conducting her affairs. She used to have violent rows with everyone in her life. I used to sit at the top of the stairs every night for hours, listening to her screaming and smashing things. All I could do was cry and shut down my emotions; and close my heart.
I was bullied at school for not being 'sporty'. I was never picked for the team. At best I would be the goalie. Since then I have run five marathons, not knowing that this was driven by my mother's performance on sports day that I described above. I was so full of anxiety as a child that I even wet myself at school when I was eight years old, with the whole class watching, with guffaws of laughter. Of course, I didn't know that it was anxiety as no-one picked it up. I thought the pressure in my chest was drive: It wasn't - it was heartache. I tried to kill my self through drowning, when I was still a child, at around the same time. I was rescued by a passer by. No-one ever talked about it again in my family and I was not seen by any doctor.
In my teens my mother abandoned me so I lived with one of her husbands who was an alcoholic who shortly after died from cancer. My brother moved to France in my teens. I felt very alone. I have now forgiven my mother and dropped all my resentments towards her. She was ill, and she didn't know. My childhood trauma was not deserved. Her parents had failed to give her unconditional love and she never woke up to who she truly was. She has recently developed dementia and her soul has left her. Despite this, I have looked after her for the last three years. We are all victims of victims, which is why we need to replace a blame-culture where no-one wins with a compassion culture as we all suffer this human condition.
75 percent of superachievers are unconsciously driven by childhood trauma. I spent four decades subconsciously trying to prove my self worth, with ten A grade GCSE's, five A levels with top grades, a Masters degree in philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge, a medical degree from The Royal Free Hospital, London, a PhD from University College, London, other higher degrees and surgical diplomas, and I became a reconstructive microsurgeon: I unconsciously chose a career path in plastic surgery which recreated the toxic schema of my childhood as it was a highly sought after and highly regarded role with a toxic judgemental culture, especially in the cosmetic sector. This sector is based on selling joy in the form of surgical procedures to people, which never brings them joy, as joy can only come from within. I can see that with clarity now. I would never return to work in that field. I had a series of mentors who failed me due to their own out-of-control egos. It's not their fault, almost everyone is sleep-walking through life as their seven year old self. Sadly they will stumble and falter too. Despite excelling at everything I did and achieving what I thought were my 'dreams' I felt totally unworthy, unfulfilled, full of despair, and became increasingly dissociated, with my old 'friends' anxiety and depression settling in. Subconsciously when my addiction to work and external validation failed to make me happy, as it always does with anyone (I have met billionaires who are suicidal) I turned to people, looking for crumbs of love, when I already had a banquet of love from my own family that I could not see. I had never been loved unconditionally as a child and felt abandoned. I was unable to receive love and searched for imitation love as described brilliantly by Greg Baer in his book 'Real Love' : A US-based surgeon who became an addict, and then found joy through personal transformation.
The collapse of my career as a result of my total mental breakdown at the peak of my success because of the cognitive dissonance that could not rationalise my success with my lack of self-worth, resulted in my two suicide attempts and a very deep depression with severe generalised anxiety. I lost two stones in weight and slept for over 20 hours a day for three months, requiring hospitalisation for suicide watch for 6 weeks on three occasions, three months of intensive psychotherapy with CBT, REBT therapy, over 200 hours of therapy, a full course of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment for childhood trauma, 100 hours of coaching, weekly psychodynamic therapy (a modern form of psychoanalysis) for 18 months, reading over 200 books on personal transformation, joining, forming, and running recovery groups, starting regular meditation and yoga, taking up running again, and an awakening of my true self. I now dedicate my life in service of others. I have been where you are. I know the path. All is well. You will see.
Publicly available data shows that two out of three surgeons in some surgical subspecialties have mental health conditions. Over one on five UK surgeons are alcoholics, with many more having mental health issues. Surgeons have a six times higher suicide rate than the general population despite our resilience. The burnout rate in the NHS is 75 percent. Mentally ill surgeons have a six times higher complication rate. 36 percent of UK surgeons have trauma symptoms, and 12 percent of UK surgeons have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. According to "The Body Keeps The Score" by Van Der Kolk, nearly half of childhood trauma survivors numb their feelings with addictions. Trauma is trauma regardless of the cause. It is the same for childhood trauma survivors as it was for returning Vietnam Vets. There is no compassion for mentally ill doctors. Especially from the medical profession, it's supposed 'recovery groups', which are not actually recovery groups, and the institutions that 'govern' doctors. My experience of them has been absolutely horrific. Doctors can be patients too: We are all human beings the last time I checked. We are sick patients trying to get well, not bad doctors trying to become good. It is well recognised that compassion is essential to recovery and wellbeing. Medical institutions should be ashamed of themselves for consciously heaping further trauma and shame on these doctors who are patients. They are broken, they have been told it, and they know it, but they don't know how to become compassionate leaders. So they press on, destroying lives. They speak of diversity and inclusion, yet forget to include those with mental illness. Their words are hollow and just a nod without any substance.
To have suffered childhood trauma and the unbearable pain of abandonment from one's own family and then to receive the same from one's profession after so many years of dedication to it is very challenging to bear.
Since 2005, 33 doctors have committed suicide whilst under professional investigation: 33 families that have been detonated for generations. When up to two thirds of the medical workforce are mentally ill it seems easier for 'leaders' to decapitate those who put their heads above the parapet rather than address the reality of the situation. Mental illness should not be a death sentence. One would think that doctors and those that supposedly look after their wellbeing should know that. Well, they really don't have any insight.
Human beings are inherently biased because of their own internal unresolved conflicts. We all suffer from the human condition. That's the only thing anyone is guilty of: Being human. Those who judge do not understand or have compassion. Those who have compassion and understanding do not judge. Mental illness affects one in three people: It carries so much stigma, which is astonishing in 2023. Dr Gabor Maté talks about 'The Myth of Normal' in his brilliant book of the same name. No-one is 'normal.' Anyone could wake up tomorrow in total meltdown. It could be you, your child, your wife, your best friend, or a colleague. It's a normal response to an insane dysfunctional world. There is a solution.
Dr Gabor Maté on 'The Five Levels of Compassion'
When fear, pain, and shame are unbearable we bury them deep inside. But emotions don't stay buried forever. They are buried alive and have a life oif their own. They always come back up, like when you try to keep a football under water. I have never been angry. Anger is a healthy, assertive emotion, as long as it doesn't turn into agression. The cocktail of buried pain, fear, shame and anger was intolerable to me as a child. I shut down emotionally, completely. To let go of emotions you must face them, feel them, and then surrender them. This doesn't happen when they are buried deep inside, for fear of not being loved if you express them. You put on a mask, just to be loved. In this battle between attachment and authenticity, attachment to your parents always wins as we are terrified of not be loved, not being lovable, and not being worthy as we feel that we will be abandoned and therefore that we will die.
The brilliant Dr Gabor Maté on the battle between authenticity and attachment
These are subconscious coping strategies that set the scene for your whole life until you wake up and your soul, who you really are, steps out into the light.
We need to become a compassionate society. When you know people's Truth you can have compassion for them: You can understand why they are as they are. The problem is that those who judge are deeply asleep and unconscious, and project their negative emotions and shame onto others as it points to something in themselves that they cannot or will not face. People love, then seek to destroy, then love again. Sadly this is the human condition. But it needn't be this way.
Paradoxically, as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the Swiss American psychiatrist, who described the five stages of grief, wrote "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen... Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings."
Albert Einsten wrote "God does not play dice." Despite my unhappy childhood, I realise that it was all necessary to teach me how to be. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote “There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from... We often tend to ignore how much of a child is still in all of us.” Can a seven year old child sin?
2. My pain before awakening
My pain bubbled up inside me for decades. I didn't know what it was. How could I? No-one had ever pointed it out to me. I lived in constant terror of being abandoned and of not surviving, as I had done throughout my childhood. I never let anyone get close to me emotionally in case I might get hurt. I abandoned my Self. We carry these coping mechanisms with us into adult life, until we wake up. As Carl Jung wrote "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it Fate."
I used to feel dead inside, empty of emotion, when really it was buried deeply inside my suit of armour that I had made psychologically to protect my Self from getting hurt. I would wake up every day joyless, needing several expressos to get me going. I slept badly. I would smile when I was in company, but I did not smile when I was alone. My smile was a mask to conceal my inner turmoil from my unresolved trauma. Self-care went out of the window. My life was out of balance and I didn't know it. You see, as I felt unworthy to the core, I kept my pressure cooker on high heat just to keep going. But it will always need release. No-one can keep that pressure going indefinitely my psychologists and therapists told me when I had my nervous breakdown: No-one can.
My life imploded. My father died as well as my stepfather. I did not take time to grieve: I was not given the time. My unresolved trauma, my severe depression and generalised anxiety disorder could no longer be pushed down with work and numbing through seeking external validation.
When my life crashed, which was the catalyst for change, and the inevitable result of unprocessed childhood trauma, I went from feeling numb to feeling incredibly vulnerable and in excruciating pain. It was the same pain that I felt as a child, before I put on my armour. It made me think that there was no hope left at all. Yet through trauma there is transformation.
Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma leads to Transformation by Dr Steve Taylor, Psychologist
When we crash in life, the ego will naturally try to survive. It will not go gently into that good night. It will "Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Dylan Thomas). Our ego-centred fear (our wounded inner child) is who brought us here. But they are totally forgivable.
The collapse of our ego-based sense of self is an ominous, tumultuous, disruptive, disorientating, disruptive and disconcerting experience, like an earthquake. The ground upon which we have constructed our lives, without foundations, as our parents did not show us how, is beginning to quake and tremble. It will feel that everything is breaking down and falling apart, which it is: In the same way that a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. There is a period of intense suffering, even thoughts of death, that will precede our ascension into the light in union with the Universal divine. This earthquake is of our conditioned, acquired, mind-made self concept; what we have held as true. For the first time we realise that we are not who we thought we were.
The inner earthquake is a death knell for a system of consciousness that is to be no longer. Our prevailing system of thought begins to collapse. This is a good thing: It is losing its grip on us. The collapse of any system means significant change, and significant change always engenders resistance. It's time to let go and be what is. Our fear came from our ego's need to control. Our egoic fear-based unconsciousness is being replaced by soul consciousness.
At this point I didn't think there was an actual 'me'. Without my achievements, accolades, and successes, I was unable to define my Self. I didn't know who I was. That was the beginning of my journey to my higher Self. I began to sense that there was far more to who I am than I had come to believe. I was beginning to realise that I couldn't define my Self by anything external to me: How I look, what people think of me (remember that what they think of you is a mirror of how they judge themselves), what I own, and what I do are all irrelevant. All that matters is who one chooses to BE.
How do we not know all this? Because we are never taught this. We learn geometry but not wisdom.
Do you want to continue to be asleep, unconscious, creating drama based on false narratives, judgement, fear, and shame? Or do you choose to become the highest version of you? The divine you. If you are courageous enough, and awake enough, you will choose to embark upon your own Hero's Journey of self-discovery that will shine a light of a higher Truth upon the illusions and shadows of your limiting self-concepts. You will become a light for others to do the same.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra' "Some can not loosen their own chains and can nonetheless redeem their friends. You must be ready to burn your self in your own flame. How could you become new if you had not first become ashes?”
Carl Jung wrote "Man can meet the demands of outer necessity in an ideal way only if he is adapted to his own inner world, that he is in harmony with himself." You need to look inside, that is becoming clear to you now, but you don't know how. You need a guide. We all do. My coach saved my life, or rather, guided me to saving my own life, by introducing me to my higher Self.
3. My higher Self
To find your higher Self, also known as your soul, or your true Self, (I would suggest, respectfully, that you look at the two following links before proceeding, if you are new to the journey of Self-discovery) you need to go on a journey. There is a` plan for your life. The Universe gives you a download of infinite possibility. It is just that we get in our own way. You can't avoid your destination, but you can change how quickly you get there through your choices.
Once you take the red pill and awaken, live reveals all its miracles to you. You become peace, joy, light, love, compassion, forgiveness, courage, strength, and a teacher. Do you resonate with my story so far?
Your highest Self is love. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote “There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety, and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear... The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours... There is within each one of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining; for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgement; for loving unconditionally... Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.”
You have to search for the hero inside your Self. M People sang this beautifully:
Sometimes the river flows but nothing breathes
A train arrives but never leaves, it's a shame
Oh, life like love that's walked out of the door
Of being rich or being poor, such a shame
But it's then, then that faith arrives
To make your feelings alive
And that's why, you should keep on aiming high
Just seek yourself and you will shine
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself
Search for the secrets you hide
Search for the hero inside yourself
Until you find the key to your life
In this life, long and hard though it may seem
Live it as you'd live a dream, aim so high
Just keep the flame of truth burning bright
The missing treasure you must find
Because you and only you alone
Can build a bridge across the stream
Weave your spell in life's rich tapestry
Your passport to a feeling supreme
'Search For The Hero Inside Your Self' by M People
Summary
We only have one life. It is really worth being awake for it, and that you do that which brings you joy. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote "It is very important that you only do what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do. Otherwise, you will live your life as a prostitute, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived. and you will not have a pleasant death."
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote “We think sometimes we're only drawn to the good, but we're actually drawn to the authentic. We like people who are real more than those who hide their true selves under layers of artificial niceties.” I describe this in my article on authenticity and the masks that we wear.
This is your journey from pain to peace and from shame to Self-love. Struggles will become blessings. Suffering will become light. It’s when times get tough that you forget who you are and the tools that you have available already. Your suffering may end up becoming your greatest gift. Khalil Gibran wrote "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
I know who I am now. I have connected with all my emotions, including my healthy anger. I am ready to speak my Truth. Who do you think you are? Are you ready to come alive?
'Come Alive' from 'The Greatest Showman'
I am here. I see you. I hear you. There is nothing to fear, and nothing to be ashamed of. I have total compassion for you. I will never judge you. I will see the highest version of you until you see it for your Self. Let me be your guide.
Please let me know if you would like to join my 'VOICE for men' group: 'Vulnerability & Openness Is a Choice Ensemble', where men can find their strength, courage, and authenticity, by dropping their egocentric fears and instead communicate openly with vulnerability. It will change your life. It will empower you. This community is a safe space for men to connect and discuss philosophy, spirituality, positive psychology, and timeless truths, to share our experience, strength and hope, and to find solutions to our pain and fears.
Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
My gift is to be your guide. Let me know if you would like to continue this conversation...
Email me: hello@transformativelifecoach.co.uk
“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.” Olly Alexander Branford
My coaching themes and services - I work 1:1 and in groups with men who are looking for: Transformative Life Coaching, Transformational Coaching, Life Coaching, Personal Coaching, Positive Psychology Coaching, Recovery Coaching, Trauma Informed Coaching, Work Addiction Coaching, Workaholism Coaching, Addiction Coaching, Mindfulness Coaching.
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Hello,
I am very pleased to meet you. Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my website for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching. I am here to serve you.
See you soon,
Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have published over 50 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for four years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.