S2E10: Success and Depression
Coming through decades of depression, addictions, life-threatening illness and a near-death experience, I have become the ultimate catalyst to help motivated people melt barriers, move mountains and mobilize superpowers to achieve their true desires. As a coach and keynote speaker, my masterful approach helps people get past old stories, change beliefs and create a life context to reach even goals that seemed impossible.
Social media and contact information: for future guesting opportunities e-mail me at coachkellanfluckiger@gmail.com
put "PODCAST WITH KELLAN" as the subject
website : https://www.kellanfluckiger.com/
facebook page :https://web.facebook.com/CoachKellanFluckiger
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podcast : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-ultimate-life-with-kellan-fluckiger/id1505919748
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the relatively damaged podcast by damaged parents where popular, fun, successful people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%. Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than.
Like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it.
There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person, the one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.
These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them
Today, we're going to talk with Kellen Fluckiger. He has many roles in his life, grandfather, father, son, brother, and more. We'll talk about how he struggled with domestic abuse, drug addiction, depression. And suicide attempts and how he found health and healing let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Kaelin Flueckiger and I think I said the name right? Did I?
[00:02:03] Kellen Fluckiger: Perfect.
[00:02:05] Damaged Parents: Score one for me. And, we were talking right before we started that. It's really easy to find him as long as you spell his name. So I am going to spell it for you.
It's F as in Frank, L U C K I G E R. So this is coach Kellan, Fluckiger. I'm going to say it like we're in the Alps because it just seems like a fun name. What do you say Kellen?
[00:02:30] Kellen Fluckiger: Exactly right. It is a fun name. We used to have the dots over the you and mispronounced Fluchiger
[00:02:36] Damaged Parents: yeah, now you have had, I would think you just, you seem like a kind of guy that has joy inside of. And yet when I'm looking at your pre-interview sheet, I'm thinking, man, this guy's been to hell and back. So how did you find and keep your joy
[00:02:56] Kellen Fluckiger: Well, that's a long, long process. In question I was raised in an environment that ended up leaving me depressed, starting with my early teens 13. I remember it was the first time I experimented with drugs, not because of peer pressure, but because I was trying to escape the discipline that I had at home.
Would have been felony child abuse today going to been removed from the home. I remember, getting dressed in the locker room in high school and waiting to last because I didn't want anybody to see the black and blue on my back. And so that was, I'm not angry at anybody that's long since passed the thing that's important about it is it left me with two things.
One is a feeling. that I was not good enough. I never would be nothing I did would be. Okay. And the second feeling was that it was all to be kept secret inside. You can't talk to anyone you're bad. And if you were okay, you'd be able to suck this up and fix it.
[00:03:52] Damaged Parents: Mm.
[00:03:53] Kellen Fluckiger: Sort of feeling we have about mental illness and stigma and everything only applied to everything.
For example, when those kinds of discipline was being administered, I remember thinking I wish I would die. So my mom was actually the one that did that, even though my parents were married, it was my mom who was the one that was principally responsible. I kept thinking out, remember wishing I would die.
So she would get in trouble.
[00:04:14] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:04:15] Kellen Fluckiger: Talking to someone just never crossed my mind. You just can't do that.
[00:04:19] Damaged Parents: Yeah. . I'm glad that you shared that. it was mom, because I think a lot of times I think society forgets that abuse doesn't just happen at the hand of a male, it can happen at the hand of a female too. We are all human.
[00:04:34] Kellen Fluckiger: Yeah. I remember as I think about this now, I realize how true that is and how powerful it was like the 15 and 16 year old boys in the neighborhood were afraid of my mother. walk out there and imagine this 14, 15, 16 year old boy, she would order them do this, do that. And they would all just do what she said.
She carried that kind of presence. And they were that afraid of her. My dad was working two jobs and he was gone a lot. He was not, I mean, he, whipped me a few times, but his level of discipline compared to hers wasn't even in the same universe.
[00:05:08] Damaged Parents: Wow. Now, You know, You said, you thought about you wanting to die. You, didn't do anything thankfully. Right?
[00:05:15] Kellen Fluckiger: Well, I left home at little over 17 and never really came back. So that's it. And here's the poison part. And this is why one of the things I hope to leave your listeners with, I took that with me. So I escaped, you know, I went to college, I went away to college, a thousand miles away. Never really went back.
But I took the pain with me. I took the conviction that I was bad. And so I spent my entire adult life. Number one, believing I was fundamentally flawed, bad and evil, wicked, wrong, whatever, and trying to get the approval of my mom. So all my life for 40 years, from 13 to 53, I spent my whole life.
I know this is going to sound weird, never talking to anyone. I didn't talk to his soul. I was trying to either earn enough money or get enough position or do something that would make me finally get that stamp in my forehead that said approved.
[00:06:14] Damaged Parents: Almost like you needed to arrive.
[00:06:16] Kellen Fluckiger: Exactly
[00:06:17] Damaged Parents: yeah. And like, from what you're saying, it reminds me of conversations that I've had with my kids where I tell them there's never a moment where all of a sudden you go, I'm an adult.
So even with all of that need for approval, do you think that's because you're pretty successful. I mean, you were involved in a lot. You were working with, the queen of England, you testified in front of Congress. I mean, do you think in some ways, all of that was still, I need that approval.
[00:06:45] Kellen Fluckiger: 100%. And here's how I know because even though I did, I had a wildly successful career. I made a lot of money. I had high ranking positions you know the resume reads really impressively and someone would say, well, you had everything there was except behind the scenes. I hated myself. I went in and out of relationships.
I never learned how to love because I only received conditional love. I didn't know what it meant to really support. I was terrified that my wife that I've been married, divorced three times during that period that two of the three women were kind of friends with my mom and I felt ganged up on all the time.
Like they were talking about how bad I was as a husband. And so I felt isolated and alone, all the time so the result of that was addictions. I would retreat into sometimes it was drugs, sometimes spending money. And because I, knew how to do one thing, the one thing I knew how to do is make money. I had enough money to bury all that, but I hated life.
I remember saying to myself several different times during that 40 years, I don't know who I am and I don't feel anything like a great method actor. I can be whoever you need me to be in any situation and do it convincingly powerfully but when the lights would go out I don't know who I am.
[00:08:09] Damaged Parents: That sounds really uncomfortable.
[00:08:11] Kellen Fluckiger: Well, it drives you to addiction. It drives you to be, want to hide. I remember one of my favorite phrases was I just want to be unconscious. Sometimes that would be asleep, drugged, whatever. I just, I don't want to be conscious.
[00:08:24] Damaged Parents: So what started the process of shifting to getting there to where you actually did want to participate in life? For lack of a better way to put it?
[00:08:34] Kellen Fluckiger: It's a very good question. Everybody's going to have different things. Some are gradual some are sudden. In August of 2007, when I was at the height of my awesome coolness making money, big dog stuff. I had a divine intervention. I was a very heavy cocaine users, thousands of dollars per week, but I was making so much money.
That was lunch money. I was divorced again for the third time I was single and living with four teenage kids I had 10 kids during all that time.
[00:09:03] Damaged Parents: wow
[00:09:03] Kellen Fluckiger: Kids were living with me as a single dad I was an absentee father. I was gone to work and, you know, they did dumb stuff like teenagers do, but I wasn't there to help much.
In August of 2007, I had a divine intervention God simply stepped in and issued an invitation. That's really important. One of the things I've learned is there's never any mandate. The invitation was incredible on Friday, on a Friday night in August of 2007, I came home from work. I was getting ready to go party for the weekend and that meant I would be high for the next 96 hours till probably Tuesday morning.
I was getting ready to go out. I was trying to figure out where am I going to go to start the party? And suddenly I had the desire to turn on the television. Now that wouldn't necessarily be weird, except for, I didn't know how to turn on my television because I wasn't a TV watcher. Now I had the greatest, biggest TV you could have, right.
Gigantic. And I'd had it delivered by the store and all of a sudden, but I didn't had never turned it on and I didn't know how to turn it on. So I'd ask one of the kids. How do you turn the TV on? So one of my teenage daughters turned it on and randomly it landed on a program titled Intervention. Now, if you know what that is, that's a reality TV show where concerned family stage interventions for busted loved ones. Right.
However, they're busted. I watched it for about 10 minutes and the protagonist was a high ranking executive with a cocaine problem. And I thought, okay, I've watched it about 10 minutes. And I said, screw this. I'm not watching it. I turned it off. I got ready to put it around. I was going to go out And then for some reason I felt compelled to turn it back on, which is really strange.
I turned it on, it was maybe half an hour, 40 minutes later. That very same program started over at the beginning, in the middle of the hour. And no, I don't have a DVR and no it wasn't on the schedule and no that can't happen.
And it scared the crap out of me. So I sat down and I watched the program and it didn't go, well, the guy refused all the help, told us relatives to piss off and everything else, but it scared me.
And so I didn't go out. I went to bed that night, as soon as I went to sleep, I went to hell and there's no other way to describe it. I was not in my body. I was somewhere and the whole parade of my life. All those years kind of went before my eyes, not in an accusatory negative way, but just like a play and I was just horrified.
I felt awful. I can't describe, I will say suffering the pain of just watching that panoply of events. So after some unknown period of time, there was a voice that said it is enough and it wasn't an angry voice. It just said it is enough. I woke up and it was five o'clock Saturday afternoon. So 17 and a half or 18 hours had passed.
I had no idea where I was, but that happened. I sat up and got up to shower and I thought to myself, okay, I have been issued an invitation to do something different and I don't know how much louder this noise could be, like, okay. So I threw away thousand dollars worth of stuff that I had. thought I have to quit the jobs that I'm in.
I have to walk away from all this, because if I keep going down the road, I built it'll be right back where I was. So that was the first part. Second part of the divine intervention happened exactly two weeks later because of the positions that I had, I used to get free stuff. I was making high-powered decisions, worth billions of dollars to different companies.
So I got free tickets, box seats, front row seats to sporting events and concerts and that sort of stuff. And I got two tickets to a concert by a fellow named Yo-yo Ma who's a classical cellist. And if you know who he is, it's like, Ooh. So I was single again for the third time, like I mentioned.
And so what am I going to do with two tickets? Well, I wanted to give one of them away to somebody. So I asked all the groups that I managed, who likes classical music and some lady in one of the groups said well I do, and I said, have I ever given you anything before, no okay.
Here, meet you there. And so the concert happened and this is after the other event. So I'm stone cold, sober for two weeks because I went from thousands of dollars a week to zero in one day. that was it. Boom.
[00:13:10] Damaged Parents: Did you have any desire at all to go back?
[00:13:14] Kellen Fluckiger: No, it was hard. Yeah. I mean, I didn't fix my depression. It didn't fix any of the mental illness. Didn't fix any of the attitudes, but it's like, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm just not that ain't the path I ain't doing it. And holy crap, I never want to go through that again. So we're not doing that. So we're sitting in this concert, she came by herself. I mean, so we met at this venue and halfway through the concert and it was an electrifying, super impressive concert halfway through. I had this feeling and I recognized it from two weeks before. And the voice said in my mind, oh, you need to marry this woman.
And
[00:13:50] Damaged Parents: Now you just put your hand on your heart. That was there a sensation that came through your heart to like, besides this voice in your head?
[00:13:57] Kellen Fluckiger: I don't know exactly where it was located, but it was, you need to marry this woman and it was visceral. And I argued, oh man, I argued. I said, you're out of your mind. I've been married, divorced three times. I've screwed that up badly. you must have your wires crossed you talking to somebody else.
And so later that night, we were backstage because of course they were backstage passes and it came back and said comma, and you need to tell her tonight,
[00:14:22] Damaged Parents: Were you terrified?
[00:14:23] Kellen Fluckiger: I was scared out of my mind, Witless. I thought this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I could be accused of harassment and all kinds of stuff, because she worked in one of my groups and I thought I argued like crazy, but you don't win those arguments. So I did. And it went about like, you would have expected, are you insane? But she didn't do anything. And within two weeks she had had her own set of experiences. Two weeks later, I resigned, she resigned and we took off on an unknown adventure 14 years ago.
[00:14:56] Damaged Parents: Wow. Now in that resignation and where both of you. I want to call it alignment a awakening, enlightenment, There's so many words, but I mean, were you both. Excited for this adventure or was it still a little bit like, okay, we're not sure what we're doing, but we're going to do this.
[00:15:18] Kellen Fluckiger: We have absolutely no idea what we're doing, but we're going to do this. I asked her later, I mean, everybody in the office knew I was playing with drugs and stuff. They didn't know. know but everybody, rumors and things. And of course my wife's name is Joy. And so I asked her, what on earth?
To say yes to walk away from that career. She had a good position. Like what in the world? She said, I have no idea. I just knew it was the right thing to do. And so what I'm saying, and what I want your audience to understand is I don't care where you've been or what's going on in your life right now.
If you're willing to listen,
And you're willing to say, okay, and accept invitations. Like nobody made me do it. Nobody made her do it either time. It was an invitation and I figure I'm thick headed. So the first one was like a big, two-by-four but I'll tell you that, that out of body 18 hours in hell, man.
I never want to see that again. So those invitations are there for all of us and Yeah.
it was crazier than anything. I was it. I don't know what we're going to do. No idea.
[00:16:23] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And you said earlier though, that for some people it happens slowly and for you, it was, it sounds like it was that big two by four. Now being a coach, I'm thinking you've seen this work in people's lives and how do they learn to listen or what are they looking for in that sensation? I mean, is there a way to explain that.
[00:16:44] Kellen Fluckiger: Yeah. It starts with learning to love yourself. The reason we don't pay attention to those invitations is we think we're not okay. We think we're not worth it. We think it's not for us. We think it might be for somebody else somewhere in other situations, but me, I'm not good enough. It's too late. I've done this.
I've done that. And so. we have a story that tends to put a blanket over that light. And the work is to understand and begin real self-love which often involves work and forgiveness. It involves work in making, maybe making amends for things. It involves lots of stuff, depends on the person, but the foundation is to really understand who you are.
[00:17:28] Damaged Parents: And hmm. How do I want to ask this question? But I guess as someone is learning to understand, cause I could, make the argument just being the devil's advocate, if you will. But my name is Angela and this is what I do. I'm on this podcast, et cetera, et cetera. I know who I am.
And yet maybe I don't know who I am. So how does that make sense? Do you understand where I'm going with that? So how do you, how does somebody shift.
[00:17:52] Kellen Fluckiger: It makes complete sense. And the first thing is do you Angela here on the podcast. I mean, you're doing this podcast. Your goal here is to add good to the world. That's a phrase I use. I mean, we all add something besides carbon dioxide so we can add indifference we can add malevolence. We can choose to add good.
So you've chosen to add good to the world through this venue as you sit with yourself about how, to distributed, who to find, what else you can do. Should I write a book? Should I create a course? Should I do these other things? Those intuitions come and training ourselves to listen and say, maybe to sit in the question and to test them and to touch them that's how you learn, like learn to be quiet, learn to meditate, learn to be still, because what I know is, yeah, there's a few two by fours, but most of the time, those things are quiet.
[00:18:45] Damaged Parents: I think meditation has a lot to do with loving the self. And so what I've run into is when I talk to people, oh, I fall asleep or it took me a long time to just get three minutes in, so what. Is your thought on that? And how did you start your meditation journey?
[00:19:05] Kellen Fluckiger: My thought on it is if you have one and a half minutes, if you have 67 seconds, you're great. There's no wrong way to do this. There are only three principles to meditation and I don't care. What style you practice, mantras or meditation or listening to some app on the phone? I don't care.
Principle number one is slow down enough to be where you are or of when you are, because most of the time our mind is either worried about something in the past or worrying about something in the future. I didn't do this or I should've blahblahblah or this thing blahblahblah. Or something's going on, but anywhere, but where we are.
And it's almost like we're afraid to be quiet and alone with ourselves. So just practice and every time those hundred thousand million thoughts come into your mind and they will just love them and laugh and return to the breath. If that's what you're using or a mantra or a sound of someone's voice or music or whatever you use so that's what slowed down enough to be where you are.
[00:20:04] Damaged Parents: Real quick. I want to say, I love that. You said love those thoughts that pop in along the way. Cause I'm thinking they're not always positive.
[00:20:13] Kellen Fluckiger: You know what you might think this is stupid. This is wrong on most of the time, what the crap is it time yet? All that just love them. That's just the old you chattering and this is a journey of development. It's like a person going to the gym and they do a workout and the next day they're sore and they go, that sucks.
And the choice is I'm going to do it again, or I'm not because it hurt a little today. Okay. You're free to not, you're free to give into the thoughts and let them distract you. Go to sleep and there's no guilt about it. Oh, well, you meditated for three minutes and you went to sleep. Cool. Maybe you needed some sleep, so sleep more and then do it again tomorrow and do it again.
Just have some fun with,
[00:20:55] Damaged Parents: Thanks for letting me sneak in there a question.
[00:20:57] Kellen Fluckiger: Please just do that because you wind me up. (imitates explosion) You know, I love people. I love this, and this is so important for our own development all of us. Principle number two is after you slow down enough. To be where you are, be still enough to notice what is there. And someone might say, well, what's the difference between being still in, slowing down.
And there's a lot of difference slowing down is just that just lovingly set aside all the other intruding thoughts over and over again, even if there's 27,423 of them. Boom. And then as you're still, even for a second, you'll notice thoughts And feelings to feel different than all those intruding things, ideas, and just notice them notice when you be quiet, there's like different kind of thought.
There's a different kind of idea. And at first it won't make sense. So if we live in this download and DoubleClick world, so somebody will hear this and think, oh, I can do this in five minutes. No, you can't. And don't feel bad about that.
[00:22:00] Damaged Parents: And I'm thinking what I'm hearing from you though is do it again the next day and the next day that, which lines up with sure. You can come and try this right now and keep doing it because that's where the change happens is what I'm thinking.
[00:22:15] Kellen Fluckiger: It is totally right. And as soon as I give you a number three minute to tell you an example of a client we've had for seven years, it took me five years to get six years of the 70, even try to meditate. And I'll tell you the story in a minute. So the number three is after you slow down enough to be where you are and be still enough to notice what is there?
Number three is trust what comes to you is truth because when you slow down enough and notice what is there, you're connecting with your higher self, the divine universe, whatever you want to call it. And the only reason it's hard is we're just not, we just haven't practiced.
[00:22:47] Damaged Parents: Yeah, and hearing it, I want to hear your story, but I also want to say like hearing and then following through
[00:22:55] Kellen Fluckiger: Yeah,
[00:22:55] Damaged Parents: with it can be scary.
[00:22:58] Kellen Fluckiger: it will be scary.
because it's especially in the beginning because you don't recognize you're not comfortable with that voice yet. And you wonder, is this right? Really should I do that? I don't know what if That's. wrong? What if I get embarrassed? What if that stupid? What am I doing this for? Anyway?
That whole parade just laugh and love yourself and do it anyway and do it in the every single day. I mean, five minutes, right? If you're worried your fall asleep set up, set an alarm. So you only sleep for five minutes and you don't wreck your schedule. No.
[00:23:27] Damaged Parents: I love that. I love that. So now we've got to hear your story about your clients that took what seven years you said.
[00:23:33] Kellen Fluckiger: And he didn't want a mediate he was too busy. He couldn't shut his mind. And he was talking about all the boys dahdahdah if only one day and he made great progress. We did some other stuff his business was doing well and all kinds of good stuff. And finally, he was facing this one situation and I knew that. That we could solve this if I could get him to start meditating.
So I got grumpy as a coach and I said.
all right, this is no longer an option. You will start tonight. You'll get an app on your damn phone and you'll set it for five minutes and you're going to do this every day, no matter what don't you dare come back next week and tell him you didn't. And he's a kind of a guy that loves to play with those apps and keep a streak going.
So I knew that if I could get him started, you wouldn't want to break his streak. So after a month, You know he's bragging 37, 14, 21, 30 days, 45 days, 60 days. Now he's up past, in the hundreds, but what he noticed he started telling me without relating it to meditation, he started using the words, you know what I noticed?
And he will start telling me things about his business conversation. I was noticing this. And then we talked about the relationship between his ability to notice those things. And his practice of meditation, and now he's really excited about it. And so this is someone who is wildly resistant, refuse to acknowledge that it would do anything for him.
And then finally decided to try it. Five minutes. And now he's, well, maybe I should do seven minutes. Maybe I should do nine minutes. And so he's playing this game with himself and he starting to now report to me, you know, what I noticed about not only himself, but how others think and behave and when he's interacting with them from a place of having experienced this kind of, centering. So that's fabulous success story. He's done all kinds of more progress and his success is not the topic here, but just, he was presenting to me sometimes. So overwhelmed. I got, I don't know. And he's a partner in a very successful business. But he was, he didn't know I got to quit. I got to walk away and duh duh duh, and now the business is growing faster.
They're having their best year ever. He's hired some people and offloaded a bunch of stuff, and he's able to focus on the things he wanted to. And I know. And so does he, now that all of this happened because he finally decided to give himself permission. To trust something that he thought was weird, stupid, and he couldn't do.
And his voice was just too noisy and he couldn't be quiet and sit still and all the rest of the excuses that everybody uses.
[00:25:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah, like it's woo woo and how dare I try that.
[00:26:00] Kellen Fluckiger: Yeah.
[00:26:01] Damaged Parents: There was a question that popped into my mind. I'm thinking, oh, it sounds almost like he's also gaining this trust in himself because now he starting to notice these things and maybe trust the intuition. I'm thinking that happened to you too.
[00:26:18] Kellen Fluckiger: It did you ask you know what was my journey? I started meditating when I was teenager, because I like martial arts and I connected martial arts and meditation. And when I was growing up, there was a television program on TV called Kung Fu. Which was a, there there's a character named David Carradine. David Carradine was the actor and he was some set in the wild west and all these weird episodes.
And of course, every episode he had to Kung Fu bunch of people. So I got really excited about martial arts when I was a teenager and we didn't afford to do any of that. So I had to do it all myself and I bought books and learned to meditate to the best I could with stretching and, martial arts and forums and things.
But the meditation practice stayed with me. And I didn't do it regularly, but I did it off and on and learned, tried different, all kinds of different styles, but all kinds of different books through the years. And it's probably the only reason I lived, like literally kept breathing during that 40 years. So , my use of it now has dramatically increased.
Like in the mornings today I have a two and a half to three hour morning ritual every day.
[00:27:22] Damaged Parents: Oh, wow.
[00:27:23] Kellen Fluckiger: But it didn't used to be that way. That's something that helped over time and people say to me now, oh, I don't have time to do that. You couldn't bah but I find is it creates time. I get two or three times as much done as I would if I didn't do that, I never skip it anymore.
But I used to, uh, I don't have time. And I used to, do all that kind of noise.
[00:27:42] Damaged Parents: So do you think that because you had that meditative practice before and you had tried to learn through the books and practicing and things like that, that when that spiritual awakening happened or that experience happened, that it was easier for you to listen or to hear.
[00:28:00] Kellen Fluckiger: Let's just say yes, because everything that we do that allows us to recognize who we are and connect to our divine nature is cumulative and it's beneficial. So I'm going to say yes without any evidence.
[00:28:13] Damaged Parents: Okay, well, I'm thinking there's probably not a tremendous amount of evidence for much, of intuition, right? There's no evidence except this feeling that happens.
[00:28:23] Kellen Fluckiger: I think you're right. And then there are things like, when people say, you can't see any of this, the easy one to go to us. Do you love your partner spouse well yeah, well show me. Can you show me a teaspoon of love? Can you bring me a cup of that Or are you afraid to do this?
Yeah, I'm terrified of that. Okay. I'll give you a million dollars right this minute. I'll write you a check here. Now, if you can bring me a cup of fear.
[00:28:46] Damaged Parents: Yeah, it's not going to happen.
[00:28:48] Kellen Fluckiger: We know there are things that exist that are powerful, that prevent us, or compel us to do things that are invisible. They all take place in the heart, in the spirit, in the mind, and they're, extremely powerful, but they're not visible. We can't measure them and see them. Love is one. Fear is one that connection to the divine is one it's there.
And you can pretend it's not, you're free to live your life like that. And you miss out on a lot.
[00:29:15] Damaged Parents: Yeah, love and fear. I hadn't really thought of that. They're both all of those emotions. I can't bring them to you in a bottle at all.
[00:29:22] Kellen Fluckiger: Give a talk one time I didn't have, I was at a talk and he was saying, I'll give you guys $1 million. And everybody was sitting on the edge of their seat. And he said, you bring me a cup of fear and everybody sat and then laughed. And he was powerful and compelling speaker, but then he went on to talk about how this thing that we can't quantify see or measure has such a powerful impact in our lives about what we do.
We don't do what we think is possible, what we view as impossible, what we can have, what we can't have. And yet it's, it's all imaginary.
[00:29:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah, and you're talking about self-love and I'm thinking that the other word that keeps coming up for me is self care. What is the difference between self love and self care? Or maybe there isn't a difference, but.
[00:30:10] Kellen Fluckiger: There is an evidence of self-love. So if I take care of my body, I exercise and I eat well and I get enough sleep. That's evidence. If I say to someone, do you love yourself? And they say, yeah. And I say, tell me how I know. And they say, well, I do this, this and this. They might list some self care rituals. I take quiet time.
I meditate, I eat healthy. I don't eat junk food. And I'm on an exercise program to get my health optimal and things like that. Okay That's evidence of self love at least of the physical aspect and then I would say, do you love the true energetic essence, your spirit? That the thing that's not the body.
Okay, good. Tell me what your practices are. That show me that. you know what I mean?
[00:30:49] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I do. And that got me thinking, because I'm thinking at first, someone may not be able even get there, right? Like, oh, self care. What is that? And I'm thinking Maybe at first it might be relaxing and watching Netflix, if you don't do Netflix, I mean, you know, if you don't ever sit down that, that maybe that is the first, just a little step and that, that step is okay.
[00:31:16] Kellen Fluckiger: That second thing you said is the most important. We live in an idea that if I take care of myself, I'm somehow selfish. There's a difference between self care and selfishness. I'm not talking about self-indulgence, I'm talking about the fundamental truth that if you break your body you're of no use to anyone.
Okay. If I mutilate my body with no sleep and bad nutrition and everything, with the idea that I'm busy, helping everyone else, it's just not true. You become less effective and less functional. The same is true with your energetic center, your spirit. If you don't take care of who you really are.
Because you're going to die someday. So am I, and that energetic piece is going to leave the body and do you want it to leave atrophied and broken and barely able to function or vibrant and powerful with connections to the universal intelligence and divine or God or whatever you want to call it? Like, how do you want the thing that is really you to be when you lay the body down,
At your feet are healthy.
[00:32:16] Damaged Parents: Like we were saying, like I was saying self care might just start by looking at I'm going to watch Netflix. Or maybe if it's, oh, I need to push through and get this done. And my gut is saying, go sit outside for a few minutes. Then listening to that gut inside of me that says, go sit outside for a few minutes and come back.
[00:32:38] Kellen Fluckiger: Yep.
[00:32:38] Damaged Parents: I think that's probably really, really, really hard for a lot a lot of people.
[00:32:43] Kellen Fluckiger: Well, if I can support and agree with you a hundred percent, you are not only justified, but at notch weak, we have the idea that you're weak. If you have to rest and all that sort of stuff, that's just not true. Okay. The truth is to honor. And if honoring yourself means to listen to your intuition, to relax, to smell the roses, to take a walk, to look outside and enjoy the beauty of whatever it is, the snow or the sun, and be refreshed and do that.
Do that, because that refreshment and care is important for your not only long-term, but even your short term joy, like we were put down here in this role to have a competition to see who could do the most crap
[00:33:31] Damaged Parents: You know, think you're so right on that point and I just kind of chuckle, some people are like, oh my gosh, I'm such a procrastinator and this and that. and what I say uh, One of my caregivers, God love her. She's very, very studious, you know, works really hard. And I tell her, she's like, yeah, I always get everything done in the last minute.
I said. are you having fun along the way? Number one and number two, I'm betting you're working it out in the back of your mind. And until that timeline comes up, she's like, yeah, you're right. Like sometimes it might take that, right? Like that just might be how we work. I don't know if that's just my thought.
what's your thought on that one?
[00:34:08] Kellen Fluckiger: Well, I almost asked somebody like that. Are you happy? Do you love your life living it like you do with the pressure of the last minute, or does that make you feel guilty bad or what? And if I say just thrill, I love every day and then I hurry and get some things done. If it bugs you and you wish you hadn't done that and you are under pressure, then the question is, there another way would you like to consider another option that lets you live in joyful appreciation all the time?
Like you structure your life so that you feel under pressure? Why would you do that? If there's an.
[00:34:42] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Unless for whatever reason want or need that for whatever reason. Gosh, that's really interesting for me to think about now.
[00:34:49] Kellen Fluckiger: Judge anybody. I mean, the coaching consists of first understanding what you're trying to do. Like you're talking to a coach that means you have a goal. You don't feel like you're doing it right fast or you're able to do it, or you've tried it a lot and you keep either failing or procrastinating or not making the progress you want.
That's fine. So you're looking to get some outside, help good. That's a good for you to go get the help he needs. You don't live in procrastinate, frustration. What do you want to do? And when do you want it done? Like my first two questions always are do what by when, and sometimes the simple question, like that takes a long time to answer because people don't know how to tell the truth.
They always thought, well, I should have already had this done and I should have this and should have that. If I had done this, then I could have, and we have to wait through all that. And they'll say, okay, fine. That's all true. Given what is where you are today? The resources and time you have today, what would you like to accomplish?
Like, I don't care what the answer is. You're going to do it. What do you want? And it's a staggeringly difficult question for people to answer. What do you want?
[00:35:55] Damaged Parents: inside of me right now, I'm feeling like, oh, that's kind of unsettling. What do I want? I don't know.
[00:36:01] Kellen Fluckiger: Like, that's the first part of the convo What do you want, when do you want it? Like, what do you want to give yourself a Christmas? What do you want for new years? What do you want for your birthday? And I use days instead of 90 days or something, because we tend to have, there's more meaning attached to that.
If you say, what are you going to have by Christmas? That we know Christmas or new year's or, you know what I mean?
[00:36:22] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:36:23] Kellen Fluckiger: You're going to give yourself for Christmas. You wake up Christmas morning and what's different. And then we can dive into that and say, okay, so here's where you are today. And here's what you're saying.
You want by Christmas. Okay. Now what is the slope? , is it like this? Is it like this? If you're telling me you want a goal, that's kinda like that. That sounds pretty good. If you're telling me you want to have this done by Christmas, I'm not going to tell you you can't, but I'm saying, dang, you better strap in because that's a really steep mountain.
You sure you want to live like that for the next sixty, ninety, a hundred and twenty days.
[00:36:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot. I love the questions that you're leaving us with. Usually I ask for three tips or tools and you've given us so many, but I think those questions are almost. They're the most valuable thing you could give us right now.
[00:37:13] Kellen Fluckiger: Well, one of the most important things that I help clients learn to do is to tell the truth. You would be really, you might not be, maybe you won't be. I'm continually surprised at how hard it is for people to tell the truth. Because, well, I want to do this, or and I always understand that they're lying when they use the phrase.
I am an a, I am AN A I'm an a this, I'm an a that because they don't want to talk about the present. Yeah. Next week I'm to this. And I'm going to, I'm an, I'm an, I'm an a, and that's a future focus. And that tendency means that something is very uncomfortable about today because, they don't want it today.
They want to talk about something that they imagine will happen if they do XYZ, which they're planning to do here. And by the way, if someone says I'm an a, I'm an a, that means it's a regular piece of their vocabulary. If it's not, they say, well, my plan is to execute this, or I'm going to that they don't use that contraction.
I'm gonna. Is a phrase that people use when it's really familiar to them. And they live constantly in the expectation of something that hasn't happened yet. And they don't like where they're at. They procrastinated, they didn't do it. They made commitments. They didn't keep whatever it is. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really key phrase.
[00:38:33] Damaged Parents: So be aware if we're using that phrase in our minds, it sounds like ultimately what I'm hearing from you is to learn to know myself.
[00:38:42] Kellen Fluckiger: That's the most important thing you can do. Who are you, what do you really want? Turn off everybody else's expectations and voice. When someone says, well, I have to this, or I need to, my first question is always okay. Who made that rule?
[00:38:56] Damaged Parents: Isn't that interesting. How many rules have I just lived by? Because I thought that's what they were and I actually made them myself, like it was in my head, not in anybody else's head.
[00:39:07] Kellen Fluckiger: Yeah. Are you adopted? Somebody said you're supposed to this, that and the other. I'm not going to argue with them, but I want you to be clear who made that rule and do you believe that rule condition boundary is truly in your highest and best interests?
[00:39:24] Damaged Parents: Yeah, what a great, I think we're going to end on that, because that is just a great question to leave off on.
[00:39:31] Kellen Fluckiger: Alrighty
[00:39:32] Damaged Parents: I think I have really, really enjoyed our conversation. We've had Kellen Flickinger here. You can find him on Facebook. He's got his podcast, your ultimate life with Kellen Flickinger, and you can find them at http://KellenFlickinger .com.
So thank you so much for being with us today. Kellen
[00:39:53] Kellen Fluckiger: It was my pleasure and anyone that wants to reach out, I'm happy to do what I can to serve you.
[00:39:57] Damaged Parents: Awesome. Thank you
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Kellen about how he recovered from depression, addiction and life-threatening illnesses. We especially liked when he talked about his awakening and enlightenment to unite with other damage to people, connect with us on Tik TOK.
Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then
