From Survival to Self-Trust

02/07/26 – From Survival to Self-Trust on Spotify

Alright, let’s try it like this. Locked and loaded. I have no idea if this speaker is going to pick up. I just put my helmet down, which might actually block the wind and make it easier for my voice to be picked up.

Let’s set the scene. It is February 7th. I’m sitting on a motorbike driving back to where I’m staying in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. I have so much to fill you in on. I’ve been trying to figure out how to document.

Oh my god, I need to interrupt myself. I’m going past this incredible place. I need to know what this is. There are monstrous, gorgeous trees. Every time I drive past here, it’s dangerous because I get mesmerized by the trees and forget I’m driving. This area is so beautiful.

Right now I’m driving all over Bali on a mission to find a long-term home. I started looking for a place when I landed here on December 26th. I genuinely thought it was going to be easy. I’ve been here before. I know this island. I assumed I’d just land, find a quiet place, and the story would continue. That has not happened.

There are a number of factors I didn’t take into account. One of the main ones is that I’m going through a period I don’t fully know how to explain. This is why I need to document. I have to find a way to tell the story of what I’m going through right now.

About three years ago, while living on Koh Phangan in Thailand, I had moved there with the intent of staying in one place and focusing all my time and energy on healing. I had taken a leap of faith in 2018. I left Toronto because I was not going to survive the way I was living. I was an alcoholic. I had completely lost control of my life. I was blacking out constantly, waking up not knowing where I was or who I was with. It was really bad. I knew I was going to die if I didn’t get out.

I lost my job and received severance pay. I took that money and bought a flight to Chiang Mai. I packed my life into a suitcase. That was seven years ago. I landed in Thailand and got sober. I took a program called Hip Sobriety. I’ll talk about that more later. I got sober and the journey began.

Once I started living for myself and taking care of my body and being, things started to align. Synchronicities began happening. I followed the path. I became a digital nomad. It felt like a dream. I was making money, supporting myself, healthier than ever.

Then COVID hit. I was in Oaxaca City, Mexico. I wanted to stay, but as time went on I didn’t feel safe. Flights were shutting down. I realized I could be trapped if I didn’t move. I opened Airbnb and picked Halifax, Canada. I needed something affordable, somewhere I wouldn’t feel trapped, somewhere I could survive financially.

I ended up in Halifax. That’s when I met Mark, who introduced me to Randy, a clinical psychologist. Randy wanted help putting his intellectual property online. I was working in content marketing. We connected.

Randy started offering therapy in exchange for some of my work because I couldn’t afford full sessions. That’s when everything cracked open. He told me I had been severely abused by my family. That moment hit me like a slap. I had been gaslit my whole life. I believed I was just a bad kid with strict parents. That truth had not been safe for me to believe.

That was the beginning of the healing journey. I realized I had developmental trauma, CPTSD. I had been living dissociated, on autopilot, disconnected from my body. I started learning about the nervous system, about regulation, about trauma.

Together we built a group course called Get Unstuck. I went through his methodology myself. It changed my life. I began doing the work, integrating parts, allowing layers to come forward.

Randy also introduced me to spirituality in a way I had never experienced. I was never religious. I was agnostic, questioning everything. But something shifted. I began to experience awakening.

Winter was coming in Canada. I couldn’t afford to stay. I needed low expenses and low stress to continue healing. So I returned to Ubud, Bali. I spent much of COVID here. There were no tourists. It was quiet. It was paradise and also painful because everyone here depends on tourism.

That’s when my spiritual journey deepened. I started seeing the connection between emotional work and something beyond myself. I started living in flow.

The Get Unstuck methodology isn’t just a program. It’s a way of living. It’s about living in the present moment, following signs and synchronicities, allowing feelings to move through without overthinking or controlling outcomes. I spent my whole life trying to control everything to feel safe. This was the opposite.

I’ve been living this way for years now, trusting that I am being led. I know nothing for sure except that I’m here for something meaningful. I’ve lived a unique life. I woke up and realized I had been living dissociated and programmed.

Since then I’ve traveled everywhere from trust. I’ve had no savings, no safety net, no family fallback. I’ve always landed on my feet. I have a one hundred percent survival rate.

But I don’t want to survive anymore. I don’t want to live in survival mode.

“I was not going to survive the way I was living.”

“I had a one hundred percent survival rate.”

“But I don’t want to survive anymore.”

“I just need space and safety.”