Why I Love to Travel I've just come back from a trip to Tangalooma. We took the whole family.

while snorkling I saw one fish. I was so happy. I'd seen a fish in the wild. Then I turned around and looked down deeper. There were hundreds of fish. Yellows, purples, greens. So many colors. Fish the size of small suitcases. I was reaching out, almost touching them.

Why People Do Personal Development I've been coaching for twelve years now. I came up with an acronym: INSPIRED. Each letter stands for a reason people come to personal development.

Let me walk you through it.

I - Increase Income People want to increase their income. Why? Because they believe it will make them happy. And there's truth to that. Money gives you opportunities. Travel. Experiences. For your family.

But here's the nuance. Money and happiness rise together up to a point. Once you have all your needs met and some of your wants, more money doesn't create more happiness. Yet people keep acquiring, hoping it will.

N - Never Work for a Boss Again Why do people want this? Because bosses can give you a hard time. Micromanage you. Undermine you. Give you the work of four people. Come down hard on mistakes. Create stress. Tightness across your neck and shoulders.

People want to work for themselves. Choose their own hours. Remove the cap on their income. And they believe that will make them happy.

S - Spare Time More spare time means time for hobbies. Time for family. Time for friends. Time for activities that make you smile and laugh. That make you feel happy.

P - Personal Development Some people just love personal development. They love growing. It's been said that you're either growing or you're dying. Growth is part of fulfillment. The other part is contribution.

I - Influencer People want to become influencers. To inspire others. To lift others. To guide others. To be a coach or a leader.

When you impact somebody in a positive way, you get benefits too. It feels good. When someone says, "Thank you. You've changed my life for the better," that's powerful.

R - Retirement / Saving People prepare for retirement. But it's not just financial. You need to emotionally clear your past. Heal your inner child. Stop ruminating. Stop being depressed about what happened. Stop being anxious about what might happen.

I heard Barbara O'Neil tell a story. A couple came to her health retreat. They were retired professionals. Both earned lots of money. But they had health problems. They said, "We're retired now. We can focus on our health." And they changed their lives.

Here's a sad story. A man was driving to his own retirement function. He had a heart attack in the car. Died before he enjoyed one day of retirement.

Prepare your mind, your heart, your body, your spirit. Not just your bank account.

E - Enjoy Financial Freedom People fall in love with travel. With living the lifestyle they want. Money creates happiness to a point. Beyond that, you can find more happiness by using your wealth to impact others. Charity. Service. Getting your message out to help people.

D - Design a Destiny Personal development gives you the ability to design the future you want. Your love life. Your relationships. Your health. Your energy. Your vitality. Your finances. Your emotional well-being.

The Rear Vision Mirror We all have a past and we all have a future. But what we don't want to do is jump in our vehicle and drive out into our life looking into the rear vision mirror. You can glance at it momentarily. What you don't want to do is be looking at it in a fixated way because that's going to lead to an accident, especially at high speed.

Your past doesn't equal your future.

The Definition of Insanity The definition of insanity is a person doing the same thing the same way repeatedly expecting a different result. Some people do that. They beat a dead horse and wonder why it doesn't get up and run.

It's been said that a person who's worked in a job for twenty years may say, "I've got twenty years experience." That's not correct. They probably have one year experience repeated twenty times.I believed something different. I believed you could go from victim to survivor to thrive. I believed that you can change. That the past doesn't equal the future. That if you bring in different ideas, different tools, and work with your beliefs, you can shift not just your attitude but your behavior.

We had different belief systems. I think that led to our separation.

The Room and the Doorway Imagine you're in a dark room. There's a door. On the other side of that door is a spotlight pointing at the door. But the door has no gaps. No light is seeping through.

That's "not possible." You're stuck. Hopeless. Helpless.

Now imagine you open the door just a fraction. A sliver of light comes in. You can start to make out the walls. The objects. Everything becomes clearer.

That's "possible." That's the first step.

Then you move to "probable." I can probably heal. I can probably overcome this. I can probably change my situation.

Then you move to "definite." Absolute knowledge. Total conviction. Life coaching is grabbing that door handle and ripping the door open so the floodlight fills the room.

The Healing Process How do you resolve the past? Because it happened. You can't erase it. Here's what you do:

1. Recognize there's a problem.
2. Stop picking at it. Stop telling the same story the same way.
3. Forgiveness.
4. Gratitude.

That's the healing process. It gets you from "not possible" to "I know it."

My Second Marriage I remarried a wonderful woman named Rebecca. She helped me back onto my feet. Helped me get the confidence back to believe I could create and design a future I could absolutely love.

I've been with Rebecca for nineteen plus years. It's a relationship filled with love and passion. If I had believed that the past equals the future, I would have been destined to repeat the same pattern. I didn't repeat it.

Final Statement Wherever you are right now. If you're feeling stuck. Dealing with depression. Anxiety. Even suicidal ideology. There is a way forward. There is a way out. There is a light at the end of that dark tunnel.

Your past doesn't have to equal your future.

The Basketball Injury That Changed My Mind I was playing basketball. I landed on someone else's foot and rolled my ankle. My right ankle has been sprained many times. I went home, put a bandage on it, used ice. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate. The RICE formula. That was the plan. Reduce the swelling.

Then my mum spoke to me. She had been reading a book by Louise Hay. The book said every physical problem has an underlying emotional reason. Mum looked it up. A sprained ankle meant fear of moving forward.

I argued with her. I said, "Mum, it has nothing to do with my emotions. I landed on someone's foot. I rolled my ankle."

But later, I thought about it. Was I afraid of something? Was there fear of moving forward in my life? I realized there probably was. That idea stayed with me.

The Tony Robbins Shift Years later, I went to a Tony Robbins event. After that, my mind was more open than ever before. I started to believe that our mind has power over our body. If something isn't working physiologically, there is an emotional reason. I started working with energy healing. I started teaching what my mother once said.

The Spinning Technique (David Snyder) I found David Snyder on YouTube. He had a technique called the spinning technique. He worked with the physical body, the nervous system, and emotions. People were reducing pain in real time.

One demonstration stuck with me. A military person at an airport had a PTSD episode. Someone did the spinning technique on him. Afterward, he followed that person around the airport. He just wanted to be near them. His nervous system had been reprogrammed in moments.

David Snyder said there were three prerequisites for healing:

1. Play pretend
2. Full absorption
3. Have fun

Once those were in place, pain could be reduced to zero.

I didn't believe it at first. I had an ingrown toenail once. Even with anesthetic, it was painful. The idea that the mind could get rid of all pain seemed impossible.

But I tried the technique. I did it with one person, then another. Before long, I had done it 100 times. People kept getting results. Back pain. Headaches. Period pain. Cancer. Sprained ankles. I started to believe. Anybody could heal from anything.

The Frozen Shoulder Demonstration I had a frozen shoulder once. I tried the technique on myself. It didn't work. I'm stubborn. But I used it on a woman with a frozen shoulder. She could only lift her arm to 90 degrees. I did the technique. I said, "Now raise your arm as high as you can." She went over her head. She couldn't believe it.

I never promise it works 100% of the time. I just say, "Let's find out. Let's see if this makes a shift." And person after person has reduced or eliminated pain.

The Acid-Alkaline Balance We have an acid-alkaline balance in our body. Blood sits at 7.36, slightly alkaline. When your body chemistry moves toward an acidic state, disease, illness, and even cancer can be produced.

We think about diet. We think about rest. We think about oxygen. But what about emotions?

The Chemistry of Connection Couples who make love regularly produce endorphins and oxytocin. These create a euphoric feeling. They are good for the heart. Good for the circulatory system. Good for creating positive emotions.

Arguments, fights, conflict? Those create toxicity in the body. They create inflammation. They make you sick.

Final Thought Unprocessed trauma manifests as illness. Resolve the emotional challenge, and the condition can leave. That is what I have learned. That is what I now teach.

The Problem with Caloric Deficit We always hear about caloric deficit. But here’s what nobody tells you. If you’re in a deficit, your body doesn’t have the building blocks to create healthy, high-functioning cells. You can only push so far before you run into issues.

Think about the extreme. In the concentration camps, people were fed watery soup with maybe three beans. They lost a tremendous amount of weight. They were just skin pulled across bone. They were asked to march and work for hours, and people passed away daily. Not from old age. From malnutrition. That is what happens when the body has no fuel.

The Problem with Caloric Excess Now let’s look at the other side. Over-eating. Your body stores excess sugar. Where? In fat cells. And here is a key fact: Fat cells are unlimited in their size. They are storage containers. First, energy goes to your cells. Then your organs. Then your liver. Then, finally, to storage: the gut, thighs, breasts, and around the organs.

Everyone stores fat differently. Some get it on their buttocks. Some around the midsection. Some get visceral fat around the organs. But here is the non-negotiable truth: No amount of sit-ups will get rid of midsection fat. You cannot spot-reduce fat. It is holistic.

The Math of a Doughnut It takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes of rigorous running to burn off a single glazed doughnut (about 300 calories). Eat a six-pack? That is four to five hours of training. Who has that time? Unless you are an unemployed lottery winner, you cannot out-exercise a bad diet.

Success Leaves Clues People can fake wealth. They can lease a car or rent a house. But your body does not lie. It gives clues. You can tell if someone exercises. You can tell their diet by looking at them. Success leaves clues. And your body is the evidence.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) Here is a trap. People exercise hard, then lie on the couch because they are sore. They negate the total calorie burn. You are better off staying gently active all day than doing one hard workout and collapsing.

The Celery Fact Celery is actually a herb, not a vegetable. The calories in celery are less than what is needed to digest it. You actually lose weight eating celery. It is one of the only foods that does that.

The Acid-Alkaline Balance If you eat an acid-forming diet (no fruit, no vegetables, no leafy greens), and then you exercise like crazy, you create lactic acid buildup. Now you have acid from food plus acid from exercise. You become toxic. You can reach a tipping point called acidosis. That is why sometimes a 25 or 30-year-old drops dead during a run. Exercise is not always the answer. If you are toxic, exercise makes it worse.

Exercise Breaks the Body Down. Diet Rebuilds It. Without adequate protein, micronutrients, and healthy fats, exercise becomes a source of stress and injury. Protein is the building block of your cells. Micronutrients allow your cells to replicate at a high level. And healthy oils? They are the lubrication.

Think of oil in a car. Metal on metal grinds down. But with oil, the engine lasts 20 times longer. Your body is the same. When I started taking Omega oils (3, 6, 9, 12), my arms moved better. My body worked better. Don't be scared of good oils. Avocado, coconut, olive oil. They give you mobility.

The Vicious Cycle High performance requires high fuel. If you eat poorly, you will not have the energy or motivation to exercise consistently. A poor diet puts you in a food coma. You exercise once, and then you are wiped out for three days.

• Redefining Trauma: Trauma is not just major events like war or abuse. It is anything the body processes as traumatic, even small moments like losing a toy as a child.
• The Body Keeps Score: Unprocessed trauma remains in the body and does not leave on its own. It affects livelihood, relationships, and social function.
• Nervous System Link: Unprocessed trauma keeps the nervous system in a chronic "fight, flight, freeze, or fawn" state, leading to a constant flood of cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, this manifests as illness (autoimmune conditions, IBS, chronic fatigue, mystery pain).
• Identity Connection: After trauma, people often unconsciously adopt negative "I am" statements (e.g., "I am hopeless") that become their core identity.
• Repression as Survival: The nervous system encapsulates trauma and stores it in the body (liver, shoulders, etc.) to allow survival.
• The Healing Path: Moving from survival to coaching involves three steps: Acknowledge, Accept, and Appreciate. It requires releasing trapped emotions, often through breathwork and imagination.
• Responsibility: While you didn't cause the traumatic event, you are responsible for your response to it. You created the internal weight, so you have the power to uncreate it.

Quotes & Gems:

• "Trauma is anything your body processes as trauma."
• "The body keeps score."
• "Unprocessed trauma remains in the body. It doesn't leave of its own accord."
• "You didn't create the problem, but you created the problem because of your response to the situation. You've got to take responsibility for it."
• "It's not an age thing, it's a work thing."

Mindset Shifts / Reframes:

• From "Big T" to "Little t": You don't have to have a "major" trauma for your body to be impacted. Small experiences can be just as impactful if the body processed them as traumatic.
• From Thinking to Feeling: Healing isn't just about changing your thoughts. It’s about releasing the trapped energy from the nervous system. If you only change your thinking, you'll still react when triggered.
• From Victim to Creator: You may not have caused the event, but you created the ongoing internal response. Taking ownership of that response is the key to releasing it.

Key Teaching Points (bullet points):

• Energy is Cellular: Energy comes from the cells in your body. If you want more energy, you need to understand how your cells work.
• The 32 vs. 2 Units of Energy: The body has a 20-step process to get 2 units of energy from glucose and water. A separate 8-step process, powered by oxygen, takes those 2 units and turns them into 32 units of energy. Without proper oxygen (breathing), you are stuck with the low-energy output.
• The "Mud House" Analogy: Nutrition is not the primary source of energy, but it is the building material for new cells. If you eat poorly (low nutritional value), you build "defective" cells that can’t produce energy efficiently.
• The "Garbage Room" Analogy: Toxins that the body can’t eliminate are stored in fat cells. This buildup is the root of many health issues, and the body needs a detox period (a change in lifestyle) to clear it out.
• The Overworked Pancreas: Processed sugar, without its natural fiber, causes blood sugar spikes, forcing the pancreas to work overtime. Eventually, it can "quit," leading to conditions like diabetes.

Quotes & Gems:

• "If your lungs are not working at optimal level, unfortunately, we're not going to get this level of energy."
• "Think about your body as the house you live in."
• "When the glucose is wrapped up in the fiber, it acts as a slow release agent. It doesn’t harm your pancreas."
• "Your pancreas will quit on you."
• "They do not have your best interest at heart. They are not concerned about your health. What they are concerned about is the money that they will make from the food products that they put on the shelf."

Mindset Shifts / Reframes:

• From: "I need more energy, so I should eat more sugar or drink coffee."
  • To: "I need to get more oxygen into my cells so I can unlock the 32-unit powerhouse of energy."
• From: "Eating is about getting energy right now."
  • To: "Eating is about giving my body the right building materials so it can create high-functioning cells for tomorrow and next week."
• From: "Toxins are only what I eat."
  • To: "My body is a system that can store toxins if I don't give it a chance to eliminate them. I need to be intentional about the four processes of elimination (breath, skin, urine, feces)."

The Most Important Law of Health Health in general rests on a few fundamental principles, laws if you will. One of those laws is to breathe clean, fresh air. We know that if we're breathing in carbon dioxide, that's poison. If we're breathing in polluted air, we can poison ourselves from the inside out.

So it's really important for us to breathe good air. Clean air. Good oxygen. And it's important for us to learn how to use our lungs and lung capacity.

I've talked about this quite a few times in recent sessions, but the average person by the time they've reached 50 has lost a significant percentage of lung capacity. It's actually 40%. By the time the average person turns 70, they've lost around 60% of lung capacity.

Think about how vital lungs are. It hit me just last week, how vital breathing and breathwork actually is to the sustaining of life. There are studies that tell us we can go three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. That's the general average lifespan of a person. Three minutes, three days, three weeks.

Nothing—and I mean nothing—trumps oxygen. Nothing trumps air and breathing. The activity of breathing is so fundamental to life that it's a necessity. Deep sea divers must breathe. Even the people who can hold their breath the longest still need and require breath. We all do.

Breathing Is Automatic, But We Forget The truth is that we don't have to think about breathing. It's unconscious. It's like growing hair or growing fingernails. It's like our cells replicating themselves. It happens automatically below the level of conscious thought.

But here's the thing. Have you ever forgotten to breathe? I remember a mother whose child came over in such distress that the mother listened for a moment and then said, "Breathe. You need to breathe." The child's face was red, crying, all their energy and effort was in this dramatic scene. And they forgot to breathe.

When we're in distress, when we're dealing with something, when we're uptight, we can actually forget to breathe. Not that we're forgetting to do it entirely, it's just that our attention is so focused elsewhere that breathing becomes optional. But the trouble is, it's not optional. It's three minutes.

I've seen women in labour hold their breath. They go into a high level of distress, and they forget to breathe. I've seen people who are afraid seize up and stop breathing altogether.

So I want to get this idea through to you: breathing is fundamentally important. Yet in times of stress, when we're distracted, when we're heavily focused on something, when we're shocked, when we're dealing with extreme emotions, one of the first things that can go is the regularity of our breathing.

The Power of Belly Breathing Now, as I breathe in, you'll notice something. My shoulders aren't moving. Some people, when they first start doing breathwork, breathe in and their shoulders come up to their ears. That's incorrect. Every time your shoulders move, you're shortening your diaphragm. Your lungs can't expand the way they need to.

My encouragement is to do belly breathing. Breathe in and push the stomach out. Keep the shoulders in place. Practice diaphragmatic breathing. Just think of it as belly breathing. The belly goes out the way a baby breathes. When you see a newborn sleeping, the shoulders and arms don't move. The belly does.The Power of Belly Breathing Now, as I breathe in, you'll notice something. My shoulders aren't moving. Some people, when they first start doing breathwork, breathe in and their shoulders come up to their ears. That's incorrect. Every time your shoulders move, you're shortening your diaphragm. Your lungs can't expand the way they need to.

My encouragement is to do belly breathing.

When you experience back pain, or any persistent discomfort, it’s easy to see it as an enemy. Something to be silenced, masked, or eliminated as quickly as possible. But what if I told you that your pain isn't the problem? What if, instead, it's a form of communication? A message from your system that is desperately trying to get your attention.

Pain Is Not The Enemy We’ve been conditioned to think that all pain is bad. We reach for the painkillers, the distractions, or the quick fixes to make it stop. But pain serves a purpose. In fact, it has three very specific jobs. When you understand these jobs, you stop fighting your pain and start listening to it. That shift alone changes everything.

The Three Purposes of Pain Let’s look at what your pain might actually be trying to do for you:

• It Protects: Sometimes pain is a guardian. It’s a signal that something is wrong, asking you to pull back, to rest, or to move away from a situation that isn't safe for you—physically or emotionally.
• It Corrects: Pain can be a guide. It highlights an imbalance, a misalignment, or an area of your life that is out of harmony. It’s a nudge to adjust your course, to change your posture—not just in your body, but in your life.
• It Unifies: This is the deepest level. Sometimes, pain is a signal that your entire system—mind, body, and spirit—is trying to integrate something. It’s trying to bring a disconnected part of yourself back into the whole.

Beyond the Physical Now, when we talk about the back, we have to acknowledge that we are not just a collection of bones and muscles. You are an energetic being. So when we ask, "What is structurally wrong with your back?", we also have to be open to the question, "What is happening energetically?"

A client once shared with me that her back pain felt connected to her sacral chakra and a deep, old wound from childhood. For her, the pain wasn't just a physical issue to be fixed. It was a unifying force, trying to bring a traumatic experience into her conscious awareness so it could finally be released. The pain was the messenger of a much deeper story that needed to be heard.

Quotes & Gems:

• "Pain corrects, protects, and unifies."
• "Is that pain serving a purpose?"
• "When you understand the job of your pain, you stop fighting it and start listening to it."
• Mindset Shifts / Reframes:
  • From: Pain is a problem that needs to be eliminated. To: Pain is a message that needs to be understood.
  • From: Physical pain is only a physical issue. To: Physical pain can be a gateway to deep emotional and energetic healing.

  Client Testimonial

  Before: I had been struggling with persistent back pain that I couldn't explain or fix. I thought it was purely a structural issue, something wrong with my body that needed to be adjusted. It was frustrating and constant.

  What I Learned / Applied: In this session, Joshua helped me see my pain differently. He explained that pain has three purposes: it protects, corrects, and unifies. This opened the door for me to look deeper. I realized my pain wasn't just physical; it was energetically connected to my sacral chakra and a traumatic experience from my childhood. The pain was my system trying to get my attention.

  Results: Just by being given the space and the framework to make this connection, something shifted. I didn't need to "fix" my back; I needed to listen to what it was telling me about a part of myself that needed healing.