I FKD UP MY LIFE.
THE IDENTITY I BUILT
I was a 130kg walking trigger. Daring people to try me on.
I unfortunately loved the feeling of physically dominating another man. It was my way of regaining control after spending so many years with no control over how I was treated.
If something wasn't the way I wanted it, or someone wouldn't do what I said, violence solved it. I had zero ability to communicate, because to me it was weakness.
"Everything breaks with enough pressure" was my philosophy.
A man with my size and my capacity for violence got noticed. By the authorities, and by the criminal world.
I spent many years earning money chasing debts, trafficking drugs and weapons. I ended up a member of a 1% MC.
You can imagine what kind of man I was by then.
I'm not naming anyone from that life. Some of them are still in it. That's their story, not mine to tell.
It looked like strength. It was a lie. The whole identity ran on fear, ego and what other people thought of me.
BEFORE I BECAME THAT MAN
This chapter mentions childhood abuse. There is no graphic detail. If you'd rather skip it, the next chapter stands on its own. If you're struggling right now, Lifeline is available 24/7 on 13 11 14.
To be honest about how I got there, I have to go back.
I come from housing commission. Growing up was hard. My family did the best they could to provide, but the environment we were all in was extremely bad. Broken home, alcohol-fuelled violence, you name it.
From a very young age I was exposed to multiple forms of abuse, ranging from sexual to mental.
I was bullied through most of school. Beaten and teased. I was nearly abducted twice.
Somewhere in all of that I took on two beliefs. Being vulnerable got you hurt. Control kept you safe. Communication was weakness. I carried those beliefs into everything.
People say we're a product of our environment. There are two types of dogs. One will cower in a corner when you beat them. The other will bite you. I became the latter. I got to a point where I was so sick of being the victim that I became worse than what I was exposed to.
For years I used my past as the reason. "I do this because of the abuse. I do this because of where I grew up." It explained me. It never excused me.
None of what happened to me as a child was my fault. Everything I did as an adult was mine. Both are true.
YOU CAN'T OUTRUN YOURSELF
I moved interstate multiple times, trying to escape the drugs, the alcohol, the people I surrounded myself with and the life I was living.
Every time, I thought a fresh start would be enough.
A different state. Different people. A different environment.
But somehow, I always found my way back to the same behaviours.
I could change where I lived, but I was still taking the same beliefs, habits and patterns with me.
And until I was willing to confront those things, nothing was really changing.
I wasn't escaping my past. I was repeating it.
THEN I CRASHED
This was during one of the lowest periods of my life, not long before I left the club. I was still in it. My whole identity depended on what other people thought of me.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror multiple times during that period, questioning what the hell I was doing with my life.
I hated what was looking back at me.
And the more I confronted myself, the harder it became to ignore one thought.
"If I ever had a daughter, I wouldn't want her marrying a man like me."
I thought I treated women well. But when I really looked at my behaviour, I realised I was expecting my partners to put up with things I would never have accepted myself.
My standards weren't consistent. And regardless of what I believed at the time, I wasn't treating my partners the way a good partner should.
I couldn't keep expecting standards from other people that I wasn't willing to live by myself.
Then I left the club. After decades of this lifestyle I found myself with no club, no race, no gang for the first time in my adult life. I was chewed up and spat out. I had no house, no partner and no club.
Multiple failed relationships. I'd buried nearly all my immediate family. Nothing to show for risking my freedom all those years. Nothing to show for risking my life for people I don't even know anymore.
That left me more broken than I'd ever been. Now I didn't even have false hope or a purpose.
It forced me to face myself head on.
For the first time in my life I stopped blaming everyone else and started taking accountability for how I got there.
SO I DECIDED TO CHANGE
I swore to myself that I would never be here again. That I could do this on my own.
I didn't have a coach.
I went into solitude for about eighteen months.
I started with nothing left in the tank. The club and the relationship were gone, and years of drugs, alcohol and that lifestyle had left me physically and emotionally depleted. Training wasn't a consistent part of my life at that point.
So I went back to the gym. It had been part of my life since I was fifteen, and it had always been a safe place to get things out, physically and emotionally. This time I used it to turn my attention back on myself and on what I was actually feeling.
I got up early. I fed my dogs, walked them and looked after them. Caring for something other than myself got me out of my own head and my own circumstances. It became part of my everyday routine.
I made time for the people who weren't part of that life. The positive people in my family, and friends. I wanted to repair those relationships, reconnect with good influences and find myself again.
I took stock of everything that had happened and physically wrote it down. When I looked at it on the page, I saw a pattern. The same behaviours, repeating.
Then I wanted to know why. I explored the work of Jordan Peterson and Joe Dispenza. I learned about philosophy, neuroplasticity, metacognition, trauma, human behaviour, self-development and people-pleasing. All of it was aimed at one thing: understanding myself, my past behaviour and the patterns I'd been repeating.
It pushed me into deeper self-reflection, and into owning my behaviour.
It didn't matter what anyone else did. It was on me to control my life and where it was going.
There is a big difference between being aware of what you're doing and changing it. I had been calling awareness progress. It wasn't.
It was a mess. I was a mess. I'm not saying I did it perfectly.
The eighteen months ended. The learning didn't. In the years since, I've kept studying the human condition. How the brain works. How to use my past as a textbook for why we do the things we do.
I am the man who has died a thousand deaths. So I've learned a thousand hard lessons.
I CHANGED MY IDENTITY
I wasn't repairing the old identity. I was building a different one, on different values.
The man I'm working to be is loyal, honest, open, loving, caring. Someone who follows their conscience and does the right thing even when no one is watching. A protector. A provider.
I wake up with motivation because I believe I'm living for something greater than myself. I want to use what I've learned to help other people work through their challenges and rebuild themselves.
I believe in leading by example. So my standards apply to how I train, what I eat, how I coach, how I communicate publicly, who I keep as friends and how I show up in my romantic relationships. I try to be the same man in every area of my life.
I set high standards for myself and for the people I keep around me. I believe respect has to be given before you can reasonably expect it. I follow my conscience and my values even when it costs me something. That's what I mean by a self-governed life.
I don't sit around overanalysing everything until I talk myself out of taking action. I'd rather make a decision, move forward and accept that I might get something wrong. I'd rather make a mistake while moving forward than stay exactly where I am because I'm afraid of making one.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu gives me structure and challenge. I get to test myself against people who are more skilled than I am in different areas. It puts me outside my comfort zone on purpose.
Training exposes me to pressure and adversity. I believe that facing that regularly helps me grow, and makes everyday difficulties easier to handle.
I'm not finished. Some days I still get it wrong. What's changed is that I notice, own it and correct it.
"Now I'm the type of man I'd want my daughter to marry, if I'm ever lucky enough to have kids."
WHAT I LEARNED BECAME THE UNBROKEN MIND
Seeing the positive changes I'd made, I had to pass it on. Outside my one-on-one coaching, I wanted to build something people could do for themselves, in their own time.
I started writing the modules on flights to and from FIFO work. While everyone else slept, I was typing out course structures and learning from YouTube how to build them.
Every module in it came out of something I went through. This is my way of becoming the change I seek, and hopefully paying back some karmic debt from my earlier years.
It isn't magic. It's a framework. You still have to do the work.
The Unbroken Mind is an educational self-mastery system. It isn't therapy and doesn't replace professional support.
MY NAME IS WILLOW. THIS IS MY STORY.
My name is Willow.
I can't change what happened to me. I can't undo what I've done.
I can choose the man I am from here.
This is my story. This is why I built The Unbroken Mind.
For a long time I chased what I had and what I was to everyone else. It was never enough. Now I chase who I am.
Not broken. Not perfect. Forged through pressure.