From riches to rags, success to failure, liberty to incarceration and then repeat

As I could pretty much have my life story broken into many chronicles due to the way I chose to live - I shall tell the one that changed my whole mindset. 

This was the second time I found myself incarcerated. Having this time been remanded and then sentenced to a 3 year sentence for the second time also, I was absolutely devastated. 

I was so confident that I learned the first time and I was certain beyond belief that with my education, job experiences, family support, drive and self belief that I would never find myself close to anything like that again. Yet here I was. Broken.

it was time to change. But how? I knew if I didn’t change the way I viewed almost everything that I could end up in here over and over. 

I figured I had far too much pride. I was too jealous. I took things far too personally. I wasn’t actually confident in myself. I needed approval for myself from everyone. I couldn’t control my emotions. I took life far too personally. I realised I had a lot of points to change. 

So day by day Id work on one of my issues. I’d replay many previous scenarios in my head of that particular issue and think about how else I could have dealt with it. This took a lot of time. But a lot of time I had. I didn’t watch TV in my cell. I read occasionally. But for the majority i just lay down and thought. 

After a while, I began to think about life in itself. How fragile we all are. How different we all think. The different views and values we all have. The enormities of distance between one persons life to another’s. 

I began to consider the miracle of our existence itself. WIth all the spare time I then had, used to only think and think and open my mind so much, I was released a completely different person. 

I quickly became a personal trainer. That soon became a business with 5 employees. I opened a protein shop and soon owned a gym. I competed in many bodybuilding shows and was pretty successful winning the majority I competed in. Whilst doing all this however, I began to feel more compassionate about my clients lives. Also my friends and families too. Anyone who’s had a personal trainer will probably know that as a client, you open up to this trainer. It’s someone who you can let things out to and not have to worry about anyone else finding out. Truthfully, I loved it. Now more so than the body training. I have found a new love for mind training. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, this really is a fraction of my life. I’ve had many more ups and downs and will continue to learn until I die. However I have spent the last 2 years sat up with friends and even strangers providing different ways to deal with and overcome any issues they are experiencing. I hope to turn this into a profession now. With almost as extreme an experience of every walk of life I think there is, I want to offer advice for all those I can.