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Your Journey

Updated: Jan 25

This is the itinerary of the journey of your life

I know, as I have walked this path.


Good luck: Not everyone makes it out alive. Not if you go it alone.


I am here. I see you. I hear you. I value you. You are so forgivable.


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Your path...


I will guide you with signposts along the way, (which are provided as links to my other articles and blog posts or audible books within the text, and videos), to deepen the conversation about where you are heading. I will guide you by asking you questions at the relevant forks in the road. You have all the answers inside you: You just don't know it yet.


Here are the stages of the journey of your life...

Childhood

You are born with a mind that is at ease and you revel in the joy of being alive. You are 100% you: Your true Self. Nothing bothers you, not for more than a few moments anyway. You are totally present in the moment, in the same way that your puppy appears to be.


Your parents are asleep, unconscious, but you don't know it: Neither do they. How can you know, you are only a little child? You are torn between wanting to be your true Self and being petrified that that will mean that you will be abandoned by your parents. Your survival instincts kick in. There is no choice. You choose survival, like every other child would. Like every other child does. The conflict between who we are and who we want to be is at the core of the human struggle. It's your struggle. It's mine. And everyone else's. We need compassion, not drama and hate.


Dr Gabor Maté on attachment versus authenticity


You see lions everywhere: Your parents don't protect you: They are also lions. My father left when I was 2 years old. My mother remarried 3 times, including to a man who suffered from depression, and an alcoholic who didn't like children. My mother tried to commit suicide in front of me using violent means twice by the time I was 7 years old. We moved house 6 times, with as many schools and as many different sets of friends. My mother would disown me if I ever deviated from what she expected of me. She would threaten to have me adopted. You see our parents are our lions. I forgive her. She was asleep. She was unconscious. The victim of a victim of a victim. This is the human condition. The human condition conditions your mind. You find an armour to put on: It stops you feeling any of your emotions: The shame, the fear. The shame is the worst, the most excruciatingly painful emotion. It's toxic to you. You are ashamed of being you. No, you are shame. Shame has become you.

You are by now unconscious. You are totally asleep. Like everyone else. If you were to fall upon this itinerary you would think that it was about someone else, just a dream. Occasionally you do fall upon this itinerary, but you don't see it.


Your ego is petrified. You are "King Baby'. You are a terrified wounded 5-year old running the show that is your life. You feel totally unworthy yet you want to be the best at everything you do.


Why is that paradox your constant companion?


Yet you do become the best at everything you do. No, you go beyond the best. Way beyond. But it's not enough. And it's getting worse: It's never enough.


Where are you seeking validation, or from whom?


You build a tower, a really tall one. That's all you have the energy to focus on. But it's made of cards. And it has no foundations. You see, when you build without purpose you don't have an architect or any help. You feel like you are fighting the universe: You are. But you feel that if you just keep going, you will eventually win. You won't.


If you have got it all so sorted, why do you get so frustrated or angry with people?

Freefalling

You feel invincible. Yet you feel empty. An empty suit of armour. You feel dead inside. You wake up every morning, joyless. Sure, you smile when you are in company, but you do not smile when you are alone. You feel a relentless pressure on your chest, it's unpleasant, and it's all you know. It drives you, pushes you on against all odds. Your life is out of balance. Self-care goes out the window. You run towards people, places, events, or things that make you feel good about your self: External things. But they only make you feel good for a few seconds. You want to make everyone happy; 'please' them. It's the only way you know.


Why are you drinking so much coffee?


Why can't you sleep?


Is this the life that you dreamed of?


Are you who you want to be?

You see, as you feel unworthy to the core, you keep a pressure cooker on high heat just to keep going. But it will need release. No-one can keep that pressure going indefinitely: No-one. You see you can't relieve the pressure safely unless and until you take the journey below. Otherwise it's not a question of if your life will crash, but when.

You don't see it coming: The self sabotage. You drive your car off the road. It's the only solution. It all needs to stop. You don't see any other way. How could you? You are asleep at the wheel of your life. You don't feel invincible any more. The crash shatters your armour. The pain is excruciating, overwhelming. It's the same pain that you felt as a child, before you put on your armour. It makes you think that there is no hope left at all.


How can a victim experience growth?


Your life has crashed: What do you do now?


Through trauma there is transformation. You drop your ego overnight and find your true Self.


Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma leads to Transformation by Dr Steve Taylor, Psychologist.

The earthquake

Your 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). Your ego-centred fear (your wounded inner child) is who brought you here. They has a loud brash voice as they speak with the voice of your inner critic, who no longer serves you. You need to begin to listen to the voice of your higher Self: It is speaking quietly, That is your true voice and speaks truth. Doubt and fear are not real: They are constructs of your mind, which so far has only listened to the loud voice of the ego. The collapse of your ego-based sense of self is an ominous, tumultuous, disruptive, disorientating, disruptive and disconcerting experience, like an earthquake. The ground upon which you have constructed your life, without foundation, as your parents did not show you 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 a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. There will be a period of intense suffering, even thoughts of death, that will precede your ascension into the light in union with the divine. This earthquake is of your conditioned, acquired, mind-made self concept; what you have held as true.


You are not who you thought you were.


The narrative you have told your self is made up of fables; narratives. What lies ahead is your life, the truth, not a story. Stop catastrophising: It's just thought, not reality. Stop listening to the people who are asleep, unconscious. They are just projecting their own shame. As the great Bard said "Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." As Jesus said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." Pray that one day they too will look inside. No one wins at the blame game. That is never the path to joy and peace. https://www.transformativelifecoach.co.uk/post/superachievers-and-our-shadow-unleashing-the-source-of-our-superpowers


The inner earthquake is a death knell for a system of consciousness that is to be no longer. Your prevailing system of thought begins to collapse.This is a good thing : It is losing its grip on you. The collapse of any system means significant change, and significant change always engenders resistance. It's time to let go and be what is. You fear came from your ego's need to control.


Resistance will be particularly acute when your emerging system of consciousness is born of an altogether system of consciousness: Your egoic fear-based consciousness is being replaced by soul consciousness. To the ego, any relinquishment of the status quo of limiting beliefs is perceived as impending death. Let that ego go. Let everything go: Surrender. Your doubt and fear came from the ego, so let those collapse with the ego. They are not real. There is no invisible lion. https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Invisible-Lion-Audiobook/B08R14WTC6?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp&shareTest=TestShare


Your guide will come, who will help you endure the suffering and pass courageously through it. They will guide you at every fork on your path, for they have been where you are: They have walked this path. They will walk side by side with you.


This is just a phase. Waking up is the best thing that will ever happen to you. The best is yet to come.


Here ends the first dynamic of transformation.

The impulse to transform

You don't think there is an actual 'you'. Without your achievements, accolades, and successes, you are unable to define your Self. You don't know who you are. You are beginning to wonder if there is a you. The inner earthquake and its passing away of your ego-based self heralds the second dynamic of transformation: An impulse or prompt which calls you to get in touch with your true Self: Your soul; and through that connection you will grow into higher ways of being and new paradigms of living.


You are starting to experience the impulse to transform by the arising of life's big questions: "Who am I?" "What is my purpose?" "What am I doing with my life" "Is what I have taught about myself and life really true?"


You see those that tried to hurt you, those unconscious asleep people, all also suffering from the human condition and who are so full of shame and fear, actually blessed you. They propelled you higher. Pray that they will try to save their life by looking inside too. Maybe if they are awake enough they will be inspired. But it's not your job to fix them. You are saving your own life. No-one else can.


You are beginning to question the foundation upon which your life has rested. You are starting to give your Self permission to Self-define what is good, true, important, meaningful, and purposeful in your life. This is a momentous step on your journey that is your life, when your veil of self imposed beliefs begins to lift and you glimpse another world of possibility. You are beginning to sense that there is far more to who you are than you have come to believe. You are beginning to realise that you can't define your self by anything external to you: How you look, what people think of you (remember what they think of you is a mirror of how they judge themselves), what you own, and what you do are all irrelevant. All that matters is who you choose to BE. 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 on a heroic journey of self-discovery that will shine a light of a higher truth upon the illusions and shadows of your limiting self-concept. You will become a light for others to do the same.


How will you start?


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, unless we are Buddha. And come to think of it, he had guides too. https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Siddhartha-Audiobook/B004FTE7EC?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp&shareTest=TestShare

Meeting your guide

When the student is ready the guide will appear.


Hope arrives in the form of a kind stranger, reaching out to you. They give you a book, something about a monk and a ferrari. You read it. You feel your Self waking up a little. The story sounds strangely familiar. You ask your self "Am I becoming aware?" Your guide is creating a space for transformation.


You will save your life but your guide will make that possible. They will show you compassion when there is only darkness all around. They will signpost you and allow you to see the cosmic view on the forks in the road.


My Guide is named Christopher. I did not know him prior to this journey. My father, who died three years ago, was also called Christopher. My Guide is a brother to me now. I owe him my life. I am repaying him by shining my light on the next fellow traveller. You will do the same.


What is balance in the wheel of life?


What are your core values?


What is projection?


What is the drama triangle?


The Karpman Drama Triangle. From drama to presence.


I see you. I hear you. I feel your pain. I forgive you. You are so forgivable.


How would live if you had a choice? https://link.medium.com/6Fxl3xwzWtb


Let me be your guide. https://www.transformativelifecoach.co.uk/post/transformative-life-coaching-your-guide-to-enlightenment

The road back - look inside

You realise that this whole journey has been all about meeting your self: Your true Self.


What if the answer was within you?

Meeting your inner child

Ask your Self: Can a 5 year-old sin? That is who was running your life. He controlled it from a place of fear, shame, and pain. He was asleep, unconscious. But now you are awake, fully conscious. Forgive your Self. Forgive the wounded terrified inner child in you.


Healing is painful: Because you feel the collective pain. But then you realise that through healing you have a greater purpose than you. You are collectively healing the collective wound.


You will become unattached to your old emotions. They are healed now. They served you when you were a child. But those dangers are long gone.


You just want to play, create, experience joy. Well do you know what? You can! And the higher you will love you and always show up for you. When you love your Self and have total radical compassion for your Self, when you accept your Self fully and forgive your Self, then you can step into the full light of the Goddess or God that lives inside you.

The cave

The cave you fear the most contains the greatest treasure. It is where you will find your true Self.


The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell.

The shadow

There is another inside you that you do not know. Your unconscious self: Your shadow. Everyone has one.


As Carl Jung said "The shadow is ninety percent pure gold." Facing the shadow is essential to our awakening. It is the penultimate step. Our shadow is our source of limiting beliefs in our Selves. Limiting beliefs are what hold us back in work and in life. You need to address these if you are to realise your true potential.


You have found your true Self already. You have ditched your inner critic and your ego in a bush on the side of your path. Meeting, accepting, loving, embracing and integrating your shadow is your key to becoming whole. It is your key to true personal power.


Your shadow is your golden nugget inside you, your nuclear force that will power the national grid (until now it was your ego that had the control panel and it risked nuclear disaster), it was so powerful that it carried the petrified 5-year old you through adult life. But now you have it at your disposal. It is your superpower. Uncage it. Release your gifts to the world.

The body

You have read philosophical texts, understood Stoicism and Existentialism, grasped positive psychology from first hand experience of recovery, worked on your mind, mental wellbeing, soul, and heart.


But what about your body? The body is the last element in your journey. The body, through physical sensation, is your master key to presence and bliss. It was your body, not your mind that kept the score of your childhood trauma. So now it's time to turn to the body, connect deeply to it, and allow it to bring you to enlightenment. You will do this through yoga, meditation, breathing, ritual, embodiment, and exercise.

You have arrived.


What is enlightenment? It means waking up. It means experiencing bliss: It means being in a state of bliss at all times. This is your consciousness becoming aware of itself. It's the feeling of pure universal consciousness as experienced by your higher Self, and being one with it. It means choosing every morning to be your Higher Self. You will be completely equanimous. Nothing will touch you. Every day will be the best day of your life. Enjoy! I am here if you need me.


Higher Self Mediation - lie down and experience bliss.



Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly

Dr Olly Alexander Branford MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD.

Fully qualified and certified coach


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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 email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching.

See you soon,

Dr Olly Alexander Branford MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD

Fully qualified and certified coach


“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.”

Dr Olly Alexander Branford


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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 over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works. I have written 400 articles for you and an eBook to guide you on your transformative journey, which are all available for free on my website - click on the link below:


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