Steven Mills
Join me as I catch up with my coaching friend Steven Mills.
Steven & I spent quite a bit of time together a couple of years back as I was beginning to coach and he was a coaches coach...
After catching up with him, I felt I could detect a bit of a Heroes Journey... a spiritual tale as it were within him and invited him to share on this podcast.
I am a loving father to my daughter Evanna; I was born in
Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland and live in Glasgow, Scotland today.Ok a
little bit about me then, at the young age of 16 I joined the British
Army in 1998 and served for six years with two operational tours of
Iraq and Kosovo. I left in 2004 to begin my transition back into civilian
life.
This transition was challenging for me, and in the years that followed, I
resorted to alcoholism and anti-depressants, Living from a place of stress and Anxiety, Failed relationships, jumping from job to job, never really settling down or finding peace. I suppressed a lot of childhood trauma that would bite me in the bum later in life that stemmed from emotional neglect, physical and verbal abuse.
This was one of the main reasons I joined the forces to run away from this,
this wasn’t the answer as I found out the hard way later in life. The transition was a real rollercoaster ride for me, without the support I was used to in the army, life had its challenges, with uncertainty and no purpose to where my life was heading.
I got lost in a trail of destruction which impacted my health, finances,
relationships with friends and family and I had no hope and a feeling of
emptiness and hurt. Eight years of going round in circles, frustration, feeling useless, no peace and continuously busy, destroying a lot of relationships, emotional and spiritual health issues, and much more I decided to enough was enough, it was time for a change.
Through this process, I have gained so many transformational insights into
destructive patterns of not only my behaviors, habits, attitudes, and beliefs
but of others around me too. This has been an ongoing journey.
Moving beyond this season of life influenced me to evaluate my future, and take this vision for my life today, to facilitate and coach as many people who
were in my position as I am physically possible to overcome the common fears, blockages, limitations in order to heal and have a transformation in your life as I have, if I can do it, so can you.
Brandon Handley 0:02
4321 Hey there. This is Brandon Handley. I am on with Steven Mills, who's a coach and mentor, men's life coach, trauma recovery coach, online trainer, who's currently just recently founded. Core coaching business Academy is also the founder of social enterprise core connections, coaching and training. He's a experienced men's coach. And he's got over seven years experience in the coaching a personal development industry. He's a loving father. He's from Scotland, I don't even know how to pronounce where you're from. So I didn't even try except for Glasgow, which, you know, that's where you are right now. joined the military at the young age of 16. And you serve for six years there, two operational tours of Iraq and Kosovo. And this is when you left in 2004 To begin a transaction, transit efficient back into civilian life, and you were kind of that was kind of a challenge, from what I understand he resorted to alcoholism and depressants, living in a place of stress and anxiety. Not really being able to settle down and kind of seems like that stemmed from emotional, black, physical and verbal abuse. And and, you know, throughout all this, you know, you started to find your own path, right, you start to find your own path and you hooked on to coaching and others you've over the years, you know, I know you're passionate about coaching, that's how you and I met you, you helped build the coaching community, you've been a mentor and a trainer to that and more recently, as you and I reconnected, you told me that you know, you've gone through and I hope this is okay to share, because I know I didn't ask, but you know, you've had some more therapy over the past year. Seems like you may have had some kind of struggles in, in getting past this kind of like invisible barrier threshold, right that you felt like something was holding you back. And you spent some time work more time work on yourself. And a Pac Man, it seems with a fierceness as it were, as I like to say, right. So, you know, welcome. Thanks, Steven, for coming on today. And thanks for reaching out to me just to say, Hey, I'm sure you probably didn't have a podcast in mind when you said hey, Brandon, what's going on? But after hearing your story, I felt like it was something that fit with what we're doing here. Well, what I love to do is I love to start these off with like, you know, one or two things right? What is something that I can help you celebrate today? Or you know, what is is like spiritual dope, right? Like is the name of the podcast so what's like, your most recent spiritual high if you could qualify?
Steven Mills 3:00
And then probably place off NRP. So what's took about our journey, it took a lot of years to find that went around in circles and, you know, kept living and old patterns and dealing with childhood trauma, which was overpowered, and on me it's like a dark cloud over my head. And there was a lot of toxic shame in there that I used to live by. And I call them sub hub and a lot of self pity parties. So from going through that journey of healing from trauma, over a 12 month period, and really get into the trenches and do and be able to look the past and a deeper level than I have ever done before. And I was able to find that place off and a piece. So I guess that in our piece, you know, call it spirituality, call it whatever faith in that place at peace. I think we all want to find that in life. We all want to find that inner peace Inner Peace Center brings so much Joy brings so much, you know, you feel that sense of you're okay, you're settled yet there's no you don't have to worry about the future. You don't have to think about the back of the past too much, but actually just loving more and know if you like and I know that's probably a cliche to say loving on the note but actually, it's achievable. And it takes a lot of work by took me a lot of work to get there. But knowing the work of dead you know, I would always encourage anyone out there that's maybe going through things from the past as to really engage with that and be able to look at because you have a choice right or look at or we look away, we can look away and I for years, I looked away I denied I suppressed I didn't really address it properly. And then it came out like a volcano feel like it was like a volcano effect that just blew up. And just like fireworks go all over the place with Emma was my favorite Whole body. So finding that inner peace has been a big revelation for me. And it's allowed me to slow down. And everything I do know, because I believe slowing down as the best slowing down solves most problems. If we're able to find a place and a peace and slow down in life, we're able to see things from a different perspective. And we become more patient and much more welcomed set of choices. And that's been a big revelation for me a big breakthrough moment. I feel like a big aha moment. It's really changed my my life and many ways. And this allowed me just to follow my intuition, follow my gut and follow what's what I'm truly passionate about and, and find my purpose if that's what you want to call it. Your mission in life, your vision, all these things. So yeah.
Brandon Handley 5:53
man you got you got a lot in there, right. One of the things a few of the things that that you've gotten, there is The acceptance of you know what I think a lot of people call the shadow self, right? Or the darkness in themselves, or whatever you want to call it. But you know, by facing that pain instead of and welcoming it and seeing what it had to teach you, in your life sounds like one of the things that you've done there. And it also sounds like you know, the whole being the now thing. While it may sound cliche, it's very much so when the student is ready, the master will appear right? And that's when all of a sudden, it sounds like you're finding all these cliches have some place in reality, and you're like, man, I really did I just did I just say being the now did I just say find inner peace and everything will be okay. Yeah, I did. And the other part in there too is when you find here, those you Hear that chirping in the background? I've got chickens in my bathroom. Who knew that?
Unknown Speaker 7:09
little chicks in there? Yeah.
Brandon Handley 7:11
I always make fun of myself to those five chicks in my bathroom, but not what you're thinking. Um, and then, and then when, you know, you find that inner peace and this is a line that I heard from Bob Proctor finally, finally made some sense. It was like, I don't need to slow down.
Unknown Speaker 7:30
I need to calm down.
Brandon Handley 7:32
Right? I don't need to be excited because when something's excited that that's an indicator of your molech Moloch. You know, molecular level, bouncing around too fast. This excited. There's lots of energy there, but it's not focused energy. Right. And it's not calm and to your point, thoughtful energy, you know when you can pause in that intercom if you're not worried or thinking about yesterday and if you're not concerned, worried about tomorrow, you can focus on today and what's right
Unknown Speaker 8:04
in front of you.
Brandon Handley 8:08
In a sense of calm, right, like you said, Take a breath, think about what's right in this situation, think about what you should do right here and now versus this kind of react. And like I said, this excited motion, this excited motion says what? Oh, that's there. We got to go do this. This is what I know to do. We're gonna hop right to it.
Unknown Speaker 8:29
Right, that's not it.
Brandon Handley 8:31
And that's what you found. So I love it, man. That's, that's something to celebrate, for sure. And I think that that's also where we've, I'm sure heard it all throughout time while you're growing up, you know, you're the sum of all the choices that you make. Right? And, and you see now the power of choice. The power of choice is in that call moment that you're talking about. Got that all kind of sum it up all right for you my caption.
Steven Mills 9:04
Choice is quite a big thing. I mean, we all have, we all have choice choices every day. And certainly we make and how we live our lives and what we do as a career, what we do in relationships, we all have a choice to respond in a way that's, you know, whatever way you want to respond and respond from a place of fear or we can respond from a place of love. We can respond from a place of, you know, calmness, whereas more well considered, or we can respond emotionally and a reaction. And it's just, you know, having that knowing that we've got that free will to choose how we live is very important. And it's only through my experience of healing, that I found a place to choose more effectively. The biggest thing I learned through healing from trauma was you to feel as real before you suppress all the feelings of denial, but if you can set with these feelings as hard as they may be It's, it's the best way to heal as I lower it just to be and to release because emotions, emotions need to move. They're not they're not they're just temporary they have to move. You know, if you think of emotions come from a Latin word emotive, you know, as moving as a movement, emotions need to move. And a lot of us struggle with dealing with the hard emotions, the the tension, the shoulders, the butterflies, the stomach, the anxiety that may come through pain. And there's one of the biggest things I had to learn it was just stuff set, still allow it to come and go, allow it just to be and release it through different ways like breathing. I used to write about a lot. So I journal I write a lot about my domain recovery. I would write a lot of it and release it through writing, how I was feeling because a lot of us don't really engage with our definite emotions, a lot of us tend to only know a few, a handful of emotions, but actually, if you look at not the definitely, I have all the different emotions, that is, it's probably 50 4050 emotions, that we can all go through another and it's been aware of all them. And it's allowing them to come into your life and leave your life and we're, you know, we can react emotionally or we could just set with them. And his biggest thing out loud was just, I like the phrase to feel as real, to feel as real and life to just set with the feelings, no matter how hard to make beat do that. And that took a lot of practice for me. It took a lot of practice. And as I was going through my healing journey, because when you start delving into this, the dark shadow as you may call it, Brandon and we start looking into, you know, what's really going on deep down and and maybe some past, you know, trauma that really has hard it can be definitely To face up to them and that's where trauma can drive that addictions it can drive you know, relationship behaviors, it can, you know, just behaviors that maybe not, you know, healthy in a relationship it can drive all sorts of different behavior or patterns. And and unless we're in a weird on, we're never able to address them fully and actually be mindful of how we have been for our last domain for some of their patterns or habits and we have come from because these patterns and habits and sometimes creep up on us and be unhealthy but it could come from past traumas and and this is why I'm really passionate about trauma awareness and helping people with trauma and relationships because, you know, economically be that partner that's where someone with trauma doesn't see what the you know, the where these behaviors are coming from. They just actually react to the behavior and start Should I that's not good. I'm you. You've just been angry to me for Reason, but the anger could be coming from past arch. You know, the anger comes from past hearts really, I mean, behind anger, there's always pain.
Brandon Handley 13:10
So I believe 100% 100%. So again, you know, a lot a lot in there. Right. And I think that to hit it off with what you've discovered is something that I would assert is that Western civilization, you know, European civilization has been taught very poorly about their emotions, which is something that sounds like you found, right? You said you knew of like, maybe four or five, and it's like, all right, well, you've come across another 30 or 50. Right, and you're journaling and you're dealing with them and you're sitting with them and you're learning about your emotions. What are something you know, what are some other tools that you know, how did you how did you learn? You know, what would you tell me if I wanted to learn What these other 25 to 45 emotions are that I may not be aware about right. And then what are some other tools? You talked about journaling, right? As one of your big ones, what are some other tools that I can use to identify and deal with my emotions? And again, learn what some of these other ones are? Because I know anger. I mean, right? Like, How old's your daughter? Six, six. So you've probably watched it the Disney one right? Inside Out, have you watched it? All right. So I mean, those are like those, like the five emotions we know. We know like, anger, joy, happy, you know, sadness. And then like, you know, the the the other guy, right? So yeah, walk us through a little bit of that, right? We're learning
Steven Mills 14:46
about having the art of, I call it the art of curiosity. So it's been it's always it's always been curious of what's going on. Not you know, not just mentally but physically. How is the emotions of affect us physically as well as mentally? Because a lot of us focus on that just a reaction more than I'm gonna interrupt just one sec.
Brandon Handley 15:08
I'm going to as what would you because I see I see a pathway going down right now how about what if I asked you this question What about how are you teaching your daughter to identify emotions and deal with them when she said she went, which when she grows up she's able to to do what your it took you 30 some odd years to do. Right? How would you teach her to
Steven Mills 15:31
teach her the moment as I am? Get off to draw how she's feeling? I get to draw and expressions of how do you feel a foreigner? How do you feel right now? Can you draw me an emoji? Or can you draw me a sample emojis and can be okay, can you also draw me a picture of how you're feeling right now? And also teacher to it's okay to cry. It's okay to let your emotions out and the best wishes Sometimes it's okay to cry. Daddy sometimes cries. And it's okay. I mean, a lot of us don't like to admit, we cry, especially men, we don't like to admit that we have, we would like to see it be seen that we've got all together. But actually, if we allow it just the floor, sometimes the best release of emotions is through trial through 11. The tears to flow aluminum f meet hard not to change suppress them, but just allow them to flow. It's like a rubber bashes canal here, right? I fit in a river, the lava flows, right. Yeah. So So
Brandon Handley 16:32
yeah, a big part of it, though, is again going back to kind of like that Western civilization part is that, you know, we've been taught to control our emotions. Right. And as especially as men control your emotions, you know, don't let your emotions run you. Yeah, which is true, right, which is where we get to this point in kind of your stories set with your emotions, understand your emotions. make a conscious choice off of your emotions, don't react. Tear emotions, which is very hard to deliver to a young child because again we hear Don't let your emotions control you which translates to a child is an adult so your emotion so it sounds to me like you're you're you're you're helping her to identify them. You're helping her to allow her to express them. You know, tears is one way art is another right How can you translate, translate those emotions, identify them and share them. Awesome. I love that. Yeah, a little bit more. Go ahead. Sorry.
Unknown Speaker 17:35
Yeah, interrupt.
Steven Mills 17:36
No, no, it's cool as cool as you know, emotions are right and society we're not taught how to express them. We you know, and a lot of time has grown men don't try comes to me and I you know, man up and get yourself together. We you know, all these phases talk to young men and you know, don't you can't we you know, you can't be seen to cry because that's, you'd actually be shown a weakness but See it. The opposite is that's the strength as a strength to show your weaknesses. It's a strength to show your vulnerability at times. And it's a sense of speech was meant to be a vulnerable, and sometimes to show that we have pain and allow the tears to flow, because it's much more powerful and showing the vulnerabilities. Now, teaching children that as I feel is really important for white parents. I'll say stop crying, don't cry, just get on with it. Come on, yeah, you'll be fine. You, but sometimes it's about being patient. And, you know, 11 the children just to, to kick off and allow them to be angry. Because if you try and stop lying God, you're gonna, you're gonna just flare even more. Whereas if you just allow it to, I, you know, and it's about, I see that you're angry. I see that you're frustrated, and that's okay. Because in life, sometimes we get frustrated and we get angry and I'm not going to hold against you. Allow it to just release it, allow it to come out. Because of you, there's another statement I grew up with, and that was, children should, you know, shouldn't be heard, should be seen but not heard. And something's allowing children to be held by allowing them to release that anger, or at least start excitement, release of tears. And it's about just helping them become aware of that. as we as we go. because more people, more children become aware of their emotions, the better they're going to be equipped going in the adulthood. When disappointments come when things come that show up in life that causes on pain. After then aware of what's called going on, then there's no better place to respond, and then to deal with it. And this helps with self care. And it helps with managing expectations as the drawn toddlerhood so for me, not at score, export and just explore your emotions be widdle Take a look at you know, the stuff that works as I've said, there's frustration, there's anger, I'm happy and fulfilled. I, you know, I'm agitated. I, there's definitely words and there's different ways we can describe how our emotions put the quotes gone and our physical body what's going on with their emotions mentally, what's going on, Anders, the more we can slow. This is our lambda the last 18 months and it's the more we can just be patient and show yourself that bat grace and self compassion, compassion as an important ingredients when it comes to and keeping up you know, being being okay with ourselves and being okay with our own skin. And part of my healing journey was shown that compassion because as I see a lot of machine, and when shames around us like a dark cloud over here, but if you start being compassionate to the max, and that's the antidote for shame and compassion, as something again, we're not really shown too much when we're growing up. We're not sure how to be that sure sure that self compassion, you know, love yourself became to yourself that self kindness because a lot of think all of us Eagle, no it's not about Eagle it's about more about forget about the eagle. It's about fetal kidney on skin being your ability to love yourself and show yourself that kindness and forgiveness even when you make a mistake. But some kids grew up trying to be perfect because their kids the parents have these expectations on them. That's just jackal with expectations check with the mom to be perfect it's about allowing them to show that it's okay to make mistakes. So kill them and show that self coke self compassion is something that I know I love to help out with when I'm coaching and when I'm helping them find that place to show themselves that back crease and just come on. Tricia flat little bit several passionate because the more we can learn that Assaf compassion, because as an art, and it's something we need to practice, because we're a lot of people are showing this growing up to short self compassion. So it's almost like unlearning what was learned as grown up?
Brandon Handley 22:14
And you know, that's 100% 100%
Steven Mills 22:17
the
Unknown Speaker 22:19
year it looked
Brandon Handley 22:19
at the idea of that self compassion. The idea of learning that again for yourself, like you just said there at the end to having to unlearn everything that you you learned while you're growing up is something that you know, Alan Watts talks to quite a bit not sure if you ever listen to him, just kind of a beatnik type, you know, back in the day talking about different comparative religions, right. But he talks about it in the sense of like salted meat, right, you know, you salt it to cure it, but like before you can eat it, you have to put it in the water and desalinate it, right. You have to, you have to, you have to make it so that it can be Music but uh, you know, that's what I think of, you know, when you say that line, right? Just because that was kind of the first time I'd ever really understood or heard it. You also talk about, like, you know, look, the grace, right? To me, that's a super powerful word. Because again, we talked before we got started here, the kind of the gist of this is, you know, kind of the, you know, the spirituality, inner sense of self right. And when you look up the word grace, that's the, I think called, like, divine power. Right? And, and really, divinity is again, talks about the inside of you what's inside of you, right? That's divine, who you are, is divine. And when you accept like divine, when you accept grace, who you're accepting of power that, you know, it's just like, allows you to be in that place that you've been talking about that, that gets part of what gives you that
Steven Mills 23:59
sense of calm.
Brandon Handley 24:00
The sense of inner peace that's grace when you when you discover that for yourself that's man you can you can't I mean, I haven't tried but you could walk on water, that kind of thing, right i mean that's the kind of thing we're talking about. And and it really seems to me like you found it right seems to me like you found this space and you're really leaning into it.
Unknown Speaker 24:22
And, and you're using it
Brandon Handley 24:25
to fuel your life and your success and your career right now with your next coaching place, right and I've got it right here in front of me too, is like, you aim to help people discover their peace, so they can find their passion and purpose so they can fulfill their life goals and dreams. Right now, I would go so far as to say what you're trying to do. You know, this is and this is again, my perspective kind of coming from the coaching space as well is you're trying to Find people how to become aware of their own emotions, how they can find that grace within themselves. So they can, you know, accept themselves as who they are. And you talk about, you know, teaching kids how to accept themselves at an early age, as you and I are doing as fathers. I know that my son, and I think that, you know, they look at numbers like he'll come home and he'll say, I only got five wrong. I'm like, Well, how many did you get? Right? Tell me how many you got? Right, right. Let's celebrate your wins, man. It's okay to celebrate. You know, you got 15 right? That's awesome, dude. It's awesome. I always break down like, I'll break down a baseball batting average form, right? I'm not sure how big you are and American baseball over there. But if you if your batting average is 25%
Unknown Speaker 25:46
you're actually not bad.
Brandon Handley 25:48
That's pretty good. You get to 35% journalist, a hero, okay. And so it's really it's not about those numbers. It's about how you feel about what you've done. Did you bring it? Did you bring your best game? Did you did you prepare yourself for for this particular situation? And I'll even loop in jujitsu with him too because he's in Jiu Jitsu and I'll say, all right, well, you know, you learn more from your losses than you do from your wins because you know, your wins this mean that like you, you may train a little bit more than the other guy. But if you lose, you can see where your deficiencies are, you can see what you need to work on. Right But, but come out of there being strong, like you're saying, show yourself compassion, and learn, learn about all of that, that you can. And I think that sounds to me, too, like you're teaching your daughter to these things, right? You're teaching them as you're learning them to do Am I getting? Am I getting this all right for you? Or am I missing anything?
Steven Mills 26:51
Yeah, yeah, that's it. I mean, Greece as powerful graces really, you know, when you've got grace that takes away any guilt Grace is the antidote to guilt here. If you say
Brandon Handley 27:03
that's right, you said the antidote, the antidote, the antidote, hey, I will not interrupt the antidote to shame, right was compassion, right? I love that line man, the antidote. I love that line. So I mean, that's gonna be, that's gonna be a tweet, you just wait for that one.
Steven Mills 27:18
Cool, that's fine. You're getting a ticket ticket that said this was before. And, and grace is added to it to go. Because when you've got grace, there's no room for guilt, when you're able to just show yourself that that forgiveness for grace. Grace for me means that you're forgiven towards yourself, and Jana placed off, not being hard on yourself. You have been better on your shelf and grace just once famously, is a great ingredients that works well with compassion. And then if you've got grace and compassion, then it's only going to bring patience. You're able to show much more patience with others, you're able to show much, much more grace with a lot of because you've given it to yourself. And when you're in that place of patience, and you've noticed fixations, then you have not attached to the outcomes, all the results in your life tell you not to their results, and when you're not attached to the outcomes and results, and not bring space. Again, spiritual. No,
Brandon Handley 28:14
absolutely. I mean, I mean, that's, that's the whole gist of it, right? Like, it's and you know, that talks to Buddhism, right? To me it talks to Buddhism. See, it's the, the attachment to the desired outcomes. Right? That's right, that brings suffering, right, because you get to the point of, well, it's got to turn out this way. And if it doesn't turn out this way, I'm gonna be pissed and what was me life's Right. Yeah. What you're saying though, is let go of those outcomes. Have some faith in it? Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Man, there's a little bit of there's a little bit of there's a little bit of spirituality in that. Let's talk about, let's talk about, you know, this past. It says you said about 18 months about therapy. I want to talk a little bit a bit about The difference between especially you being a coach a little bit of difference between what therapy is and and what coaching is right and and and, you know, kind of when to use both.
Steven Mills 29:16
So therapy for me, I was definitely journey altogether and I learned a lot along the process and for me, it was a longer process than I would normally find coaching. So for me therapy as delving a lot into, you know, a lot of that deeper work. So, you know, not seeing the course and capable deep part but for therapy depends on what kind of therapy you go down. There's different tapes and different modalities, but for me therapy is about really jumping into the trench and delving into some of the past traumas that maybe affect who we are today. And and if you're not aware of this, it could really check out Cochin another hand a lot of it as progress. It's about setting goals and moving forward in your life coaching, you may not even get past this much. But if you can find a hybrid of coaching and therapy together, then you're finding the sweet spot. So a lot of the work I'm doing with trauma recovery coaching, as a hybrid between coaching and therapy. So as as given, it's been therapeutic, and it's so low in space and given silence and less than, but at the same time asking the right questions that allows the individual to explore. So for me therapy was, it was an eye opener I learned so much about myself, I said, I learned so much about my behaviors, about habits and patterns turned up in my life today. And I learned more about toxic shame hoshin was overshadowing everything I've done in my life and allow around our wars for others. And how are we keep everyone that that's obviously good at keeping people at arm's length And not allowing them and to affect my emotions are not alone. They're meant to. So I was very, I struggled to show up and vulnerable at times. And it was me learning how to be vulnerable and actually be completely honest, on a heart level, rather than my head level, just trying to tell people where they want to hear or so I showed up more vulnerable than I've ever done in my life. No therapy. At that age, the route I went was CRM, which is like compare comprehensive resource model. And it's about it's almost like there's about Shimano humanism and now, and it's about it's about shamanism and not therapy. It's very much similar. And there's also a hypnosis so it's about a hybrid between CRM a new model, now not like people will know about it was developed by an American woman, and Lisa Swann. And she, she developed this model, comprehensive resource model, and it's very especially specialist especially in trauma. It's a very very effective and modality for clearing trauma and it is quite safe it's a safe way of doing it and it's it's more prolonged it's more of a preparation and get into that place where you're mindful and you know allowing yourself to go back into some of the memories not really experienced none but remembering them. So you're unable to distill at least them so you know, living these memories to come off maybe abuse or these memories of you know, past things that happened and what that were that stuff actually to deal is just given that space, silly some and I've done a lot of work in that. It was fair therapy every week for 14 months and tall and saw caution. If you look at coaching, how is that different? coaching you might not be sometimes not, not not you may not go quality coaching for that length of time. You may only be coaching for some time. Six weeks or 12 weeks or three months or six months, but euro, and there's nothing to have, like a hybrid between coaching and therapy, and actually bring both together. So what I've done know, is what I'm doing from an acoustic portion as well as my men's coaching. I bring a therapeutic approach and based on where my journey, I've learned from the caution aspect of also having the counseling and the therapeutic. So when I put it all together a pitchman good stead to help us deal with some of the past hearts that may be affecting them. And it's so this is where I look to help people find peace because, you know, we can help people find a set of goals for their dreams going forward. But sometimes you need to have that that deeper and to really deal with the deep rooted stuff. So you're talking about limiting beliefs, but you're also talking about the trauma.
Unknown Speaker 33:53
Well, yeah, like, you know,
Brandon Handley 33:55
I think for you, right, you found In therapy, you went deeper. You found some things that were holding you back and I say I'd like to think of it as a plane right? Like, you don't think I'm thinking of like you know the actually thinking of like, God what is it just to say where those movies where they got too much like I'm thinking of like the cocaine transporters right like that they're always trying to smuggle but you know that it got to drop you got they got to drop off that stuff so they can make it over certain ridges right like and it sounds to me like you had some pain that was dragging you down. You had to address it. You had to identify you said is this still serving me? Does this serve me? Should they stay on the plane? Or should this be jettisoned?
Steven Mills 34:43
Yeah, and this is what I would use the three years and this is where we need to, first of all, acknowledge that we've got that pain there. Acknowledge. Then we look at accepted and coming fame Going to a place of acceptance that is going on. And then we address so acknowledge, accept and address, as we are looking at when it comes to trauma when it comes to any pain from your past, as we need to be look really explored on the seas and it's also about awareness, there's a 44th in the awareness and for not acknowledged and unaware of that, how it's playing out in our lives, that we're not going to be willing to accept an address. And that's what therapy did for me, it helped me do all these 40 years. And it also gave me a bit of give me more tools to, to throw in when it came to court, Jen, and it helps me my job when I'm coaching is to help people slow down and find a place of peace spot, because that's the don't do that fast, then they're going to struggle to follow that intuition. When it comes to the passion and purpose. They're going to struggle to tell themselves to listen to what's going on and say rather than and so my job As to get them from the head to their heart as soon as we can. Because when we get them to the heart is more authentic, the be the shop, maybe more more fundable. And it's true that that's when the magic happens is when when, when we get when we get more honest and authentic from a place of that heart and allows more flow. So this is my, my role when I'm coaching and also brings like, like, I see a hybrid with with therapy at the same time.
Brandon Handley 36:30
I love it. I love I love the four A's to write, acknowledge, accept, address and bring that awareness without being able to acknowledge except or and or dress and identify, right, give these things kind of a label. You can't be aware of them. You can't. You can't make a choice on something that you're unaware of. Mm hmm. So I love that. I love that I love I love the head to heart right now. Bringing them from The head to the heart. And, you know, to me, there's definitely a huge connection there. And, and I chased that one down to a few years ago, myself. And there's a booze lie. It's just, it's called the heart, the heart mind, right, connecting the two. And once you meet, once you make that connection to the two of them, and maybe you're feeling from your heart, and then your mind is able to as you kind of go back to right, what am I feeling in my heart right now? That's the acknowledgement, right? And then you have the opportunity to accept it, of whether or not that's true for you, in your mind, right after you've acknowledged it, and then you can address whether or not that's true for you. Right, is that my follow on kind of like, how I how I would use this?
Steven Mills 37:53
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, pretty much you getting down at your heart levels and as For me key and this is where you find your true answers in your life not in your mind, not what you you know you think people should be and the best way to get from head to heart is asking really powerful questions and allowing them giving them that space
Brandon Handley 38:17
have an example of a powerful question Stephen most
Steven Mills 38:21
powerful question would be
what's what's your biggest blockage? what's what's holding you back right now? Honestly, forget about external refer no forget about what's going on around you forget what's new mate. What's really holding you back?
Unknown Speaker 38:39
Well, what's, what's the blockers? Damn, like, I would answer that too. I'd be like I was like, Yeah, man that you know, for me.
Brandon Handley 38:49
It's it's what I'm doing right now. Right and it's fear. There's like tremendous fear and going ahead and and continuing to step into what I'm doing right now. Spiritual dope, right leading with spirituality. I mean, who does that? Right? Plenty of people do but it's the first time I've ever done it. So I'm terrified because I've never done this before. Is this the right thing for me to do? I don't know. So I'm blocking myself with a number of things invisible blockages, because I've looked all around and I see that society says, Well, you don't talk about religion and you shouldn't do this. And most people don't do it like that. And that's not the way it's been done in the past. And so man, for me, some of my biggest blockages are what we talked about earlier. These are all the things that I've learned. And I need to unlearn them, right. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 39:41
Now I need to face them and walk into
Steven Mills 39:44
a set and another good question is what you seek what you seek in within. What are you seeking right now? The what's missing as something that you're seeking on a heart level.
Brandon Handley 39:56
Great one brother. That is a that's a great one. I'm not gonna lie, because so what I'll do in the mornings, is, I have a, you know, mini practice as it were, right, a reflection period. And I go and I write these questions, I search out questions just like you're saying, What's missing? What am I seeking? And I don't you know, I would use the word God the universe, right, that connection to it. Right? And, and that's exactly what it is. I'm doing right now, with this conversation you and I are having I'm, I'm looking to kind of validate what I already know to be true. Mm hmm. Right. And and where can i Where else can I find this in life?
And that's exactly you know, so I believe. I've already established a connection with God divine divinity within right. I've kind of harnessed with it, come together with it, but every day. I feel like I'm still questioning that right. I'm still looking. looking looking for that. I'm still looking and that's the spirit dope right there, brother.
Steven Mills 41:02
Yeah, that's uh that's that's certain. It's a nice powerful questions. That's the more the more quality of questions, the better the more quality answers we'll get. And the more the more willing we are to search and like, go back to our on our curiosity and feel just curious in life. And when it comes to others, just asking questions, the best coaches, the best therapists are the ones that asked good questions and sharp after they ask the question, and just alone space lesson. Yeah. And then you pick it up on what's really going on. And you've given the most powerful thing here as allowing someone space to get everything out to release everything. It's maybe in the main so we can get down to that space. Most nuggets and coaching are found when once they've replied, You don't answer straight away. You give me back so silence is actually silence is golden, right? And silence in space that helps people explore much more when it comes to emotions explore much more what's on the heart, and it's about our curiosity. Another question I love to ask is, what do you need to do that you don't want to do?
Brandon Handley 42:15
Now you asked me that one a couple of years back, man, that sucked.
Unknown Speaker 42:19
I was like, Man,
Brandon Handley 42:20
you always know what you need to do. And it's just like you just do it, you know? Because that's um that shows your level of commitment to what it is you say you want to do to me, right? What you know, so if you know what it is that you need to do, because inherently you do right and you're not doing it, are you indeed committed to what it is that you say you want to do?
Steven Mills 42:51
So, again, it comes back to the choice love versus fear. are you choosing love in your life or are you choosing fear yellow in the future? To overcome you already moving beyond and choosing love, because when you're choosing love, you're much more you're following your true heart. You're trying to find your passion, you've got a love for others around you, your family and people. And love versus fear comes in every choice we make, I believe in when it comes to career when it comes to, you know, responsibilities in life, not just a family but our friendships. Love versus fear as the choice that we all have to make. Love comes from our heart fear comes from what's going on our mains, or what's what we are going to block our shelves.
Brandon Handley 43:36
So for me, the question ends up being you know, is that part of kind of what drove you? I use the word drive you into therapy? Is that part of what made you seek out therapy was it you didn't find yourself choosing love enough? And you were choosing fear more often?
Steven Mills 43:55
I choose fear much more often. Yeah, I load shame to crap on me. I upload shame to really orange Company allowed not to hold me back. So I was choosing fear for years, not through potential any fault at all. But it was my own fault was not actually addressing the traumas and not addressing the past that maybe has shown up in my life. So you talking about trauma reenactment here, I would gravitate to certain relationships in my life, because of my childhood. And they weren't serving me. And I didn't, I was vulnerable. So I know boundaries. And fear really troubled me for years. And it was only when I went to that journey healing, that I was able to then start fame than, you know, love and self. Also more love for people around me. And another only due to any trauma or addiction as healthy relationship. A healthy relationship, a loving relationship, someone that's there for you, unconditionally, on giving you that acceptance, as even when you're angry. Even When you're throwing a lot out there, and that's one thing that gave me hope and help me through much omnious as through the, my partner who was was just solid rock, and she, she was there constant. So relationships and love as another 92 you know, addictions, trauma?
Brandon Handley 45:21
Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, you know, it's so funny, like just kind of how similar, you know, parts of our journey are right? I can tell you that when I was vulnerable to my wife, Meg, years ago, when I was going through, you know, kind of my space, my journey, actually what even maybe even years before that, the whole the whole gist of of me packing everything up and driving 3000 miles across country in a vehicle that might not have made it was due to her ability to love me as I was on conditionally and then years later, when I was able to be vulnerable and she said, She says, I don't understand, you know, kind of what's going through what it is that you're doing, but I'm here for you. Right. And even even more recently, I think, you know, I just had a, you know, a minor just like blow up, but you know, you talk about that volcano and the eruptions just like, everything had gotten to me at a certain point. I was like, Listen, yeah, I've rarely Yeah, really express my anger, right. Which is probably not healthy. But, you know, I had expressed it and not in a violent way. I just like erupted. You know, I apologized, and I just said Listen, I you know, I really sorry, and just, nobody deserves to have to hear my shit just because I'm feeling this way. And she goes, listen, I get it. You know, everybody, just kind of everybody. We're all gone through some things. And you know, when you have somebody like that in your life, right when you have somebody that's accepting you as you are. That's powerful. And I think that that's also where do the things at home first, right The having a solid This is the importance of a good home life a strong relationship at home a strong relationship with your family because you can be who you need to be and be loved unconditionally for who you are every day at home. It makes it much easier to pass the threshold of your own doorway and into the world and accept that maybe somebody else is going to accept you as you are as you're being accepted at home.
Steven Mills 47:30
Yeah. Because no matter what we look at, we all look for validation, right? Everyone in life looks for validation. You know, Michelle or Oprah Winfrey used to talk about this everybody acumen I'm sure. You know, we'd see him sad cuz they're not for you. Even like Obama and all these different people would say at the end, was that good enough for you because we're looking for validation. So what we all want validation from others and our ways and that police acceptance is powerful, and it's powerful and it allows us It gives us more Peace knowing that we can be who we are with people around us and and that helps bring peace and come back to grace, about self compassion, if we're showing compassion does help us on our journey to find more self compassion. And no, it's not an easy journey finding peace. It's not an easy journey, finding a healing through recovery from trauma from from from past hearts, but as a oneness, what's going on. So then, you know, you can then enable yourself to love them, and a better place going forward, and you then allow joy in your life yellow, loving relationships, you allowed yourself to find your passion and your purpose. And one of the things no, as, you know, one of the biggest things I've learned is not to care what people think. And if you can come to a place where you don't care what people think it's quite, it's quite cool, because you can just do your thing, be yourself. And, you know, for me, I'll just keep somebody Thing simplistic, you know, coaching, there's so many different modalities. There's so many different things about coaching. But coaching for me is just simply allowing people that space to explore with that. And a good coach is someone that lessons effectively. And that's good questions. I said, and I, you know, I saw as a coach, all I can the best gift I can give someone is my time and space to explore where they are and really get down to delve into the heart and go that little bit deeper to then help them find the the AHA most breakthroughs I get some that sense of peace. So bear with
Brandon Handley 49:40
it. I think I think once you get to do right is you get to give people permission to find themselves to be themselves right and beyond hindered, and to allow them to share their dreams with you while you support them and helping them facilitate Let's state that right by giving them permission to be in that space with themselves as they are. And then I think the other part that I would throw in here for you is that you know, your whole journey as and where you are right now, I just want to highlight this is that you change the world outside of you by working on what's inside of you. Is that fair?
Steven Mills 50:26
Yes, definitely. Because the more you you more you work on yourself, the more you get a crack to help others and a much more effective way, and you can make an impact make a big difference. And, you know, for me, it's just one passionate team. I don't need to have a big audience. I don't need to have you know, thousands of people follow me as one passion. I tell you, if you can change the world to one passion, then I'm happy. I'm a happy man. I'm fulfilled on my journey. If I can change the life of one person per day, I'm living a life of purpose. Making a difference and the lives of others. One passion to another, just like,
Brandon Handley 51:07
just like Jim Rohn said, focus on the few. Yes, it's on the few brother. You know so Look, man, you're using the game that just to this whole thing, right is people who are kind of following their intuition, their inner selves and living a life that's true to who they are. And I can't think of anybody else that I know that fits that more than more than you are right now. So I appreciate you, again, reaching out sharing your story. What is what is uh, I always like to try and give some other tidbits to the audience to like, what is a book or some type of resource that has had tremendous impact. It's like, earth shattering for you. change everything about what it is and how you do it.
Steven Mills 51:54
And one of the books I read was recently in the library last year was the The mindful path to self compassion. And I think it's Dr. Christopher kalmar. Another book that I liked was the body nose score.
Brandon Handley 52:10
And I've actually had that one in my garage right now from a friend of mine. But uh, yeah. So tell me a little bit about that. What What does that What about?
Steven Mills 52:18
It talks a lot about, you know, traumas, it talks about past hearts, it talks about how our physical ailments and physical body can tell us what's going on in our lives. And it's been it's been able to then explore and be aware of what's going on in our bodies. And because more often than not, it does know the score at times. It shows up in our life when we feel that tension or we can feel something like a sore sore throat or it's a really good book to explore emotions, and know how to express them and how to be aware of them. And it just delves into a lot of different types of traumas and stuff. It's a really good book. I can't remember the same fun. I can't remember the guys name. It's a Dutch guy and phone number A couple other books there. And that's the only good bit and the book I'm reading at the moment is called Layton call and by Dr. Hawkins, and this is a very powerful because well and that's it's quite it's a path to surrender. So it's really about letting go over fears, letting go of, you know, it's very thing you know understanding acceptance, grief. So again, it's a very powerful book and letting go and all the different kinds of fears that we have in our lives and how they're showing up and it's about just as I love that word, surrender, and people see so the end of the war, belt, surrender to your shelf, surrender to your fears, surrender to, you know, the attachments you have in life, you know, surrender to, and the outcomes. So end up to say having faith and just, you know, finding that space, to just be and surrender to all our own. Everything is our own. Us, I surrender to expectations. So it's surrenders and really big what I discovered recently and really tried to understand much more. And so let go is a good book, and many other different books I've read so many over the years, I was a personal development junkie. I've not read as much I don't read as much as they used to. But I still doubt you will delve into books though. And again, but certainly These are some I would say recently that I've had a big impact. Also, the complex PTSD book by Pete Walker was another one and from thrive and survive from surviving to thriving. That was a really powerful book and understanding my my trauma, and yeah,
okay, so I recommend that
Brandon Handley 54:43
last one there, mostly for somebody who is seeking to understand more about their trauma.
Steven Mills 54:49
Yeah, or the complex PTSD or as well not so that's striving to survive is by Pete Walker, who writes a really really simple so really good book, I would say it was like the best have complex trauma. And yeah,
Brandon Handley 55:04
I love those. I love that all sounds great. So thank you for sharing those thanks for sharing kind of your story, your thought processes, you know, the dealing with emotions. Here's a couple of anecdotes, right. And I've just really enjoyed our conversation here. And I love seeing that you are out there, you know, still serving these coaching communities still giving all of this wisdom and all of who you are to your clients and helping them to build out their own communities and their own coaching practices. as it were, we didn't talk too much about exactly what it is that you're doing. But you know, I want I want people to who, for anybody who's been piqued and interested by you know what Stephen is talking about today and would like to find more About Steven Mills, where should we go to find out more and connect with you
Steven Mills 56:05
and you could check my coaching page on Facebook, Steven Mills coaching, I'm just revamping the website in the moment. And you would find me in the core coaching business Academy, and but the Facebook community that you're a part of Brandon. So you do a Facebook Live stuff in there and we give away a lot of resources and offer free, free events weekly. So we help development with we've got a pro program launching very soon. And for coaches that want to really make an impact and they're and they're, you know, practices and also help them thrive as a coach because 80% of coaches in the world and, and under $20,000 a year and we want to help people actually, you know, move beyond that and help them build a thriving coaching practice and overcome the fears of selling and overcome those fears of maybe associate them with what they're doing. So I my passion lies with helping coaches and find that passion and really start living by the purpose and start serving and making a bigger difference than they may be already doing. And
Brandon Handley 57:13
you're trying to teach them how to stop playing small, right? It's a
Steven Mills 57:15
it's a program that myself and my business partner Kevin Petri have developed. It's a 12 week program that will be launched very, very soon in July. So we are working hard on it, you know, we've got a curriculum ready and we're just going to be putting it out there. And that will be a part of my work over the next and years to come, I'm sure. As well as I still have my private practice. So you know, Stephens called Chen. And I've also got core connections coaching chain, which is the social enterprise, which we still do a lot about working there as well with some of the teams that have there. So a lot going on, and you're more than welcome to join me there. My email address you've got there and but you probably better Find me on
Brandon Handley 58:01
Facebook and you know Steven was caught Shen are the court coach and Business Academy. Hello, brother. Well, hey, thanks again for hanging out with us today sharing your story, like I said, and you know, just being being out there being honest with us and being sincere. Thank you so much.
Steven Mills 58:18
Thanks for having me, Brandon. It's been a it's been a pleasure.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai