Two Turns from Zero

by Stacey Griffith

  One of the concepts I’ve often discussed in therapy is the notion of being present for whatever it is you’re doing. This kind of mindfulness is important when you’re working out. You need to be present for yourself and not, for example, distracted by what you’re reading in a magazine as you slowly pedal on a recumbent bicycle. I do my utmost to be fully present for my students. I always show up 100 percent alert—well, okay, let’s say 90 percent of the time, because, as you know, some days are just a little harder to gear up, for no reason other than it’s just one of those days! Long gone are those days when I taught with a hangover or poisons in my body. I come shaman ready.

  My years in therapy also taught me that it’s the perfect place to talk about your demons and whatever is plaguing you. A good therapist will help you recognize the patterns that you click into in order to stay in your comfort zone. Only by recognizing and identifying these patterns are you able to break free of them. Just talking about things that happened to me decades ago—things that were so painful they’re still stuck in my memory—is incredibly cathartic for me. I think everybody can benefit from some kind of therapy. It’s not just for serious problems when times are really tough, or to treat mental illness. It’s the best way that healthy people can stay that way. Going to therapy when life is good can make life even better.

  I think a good therapist is the best kind of life coach, wanting everyone on the team to find the sweet spot and thrive under pressure. A brilliant coach gives you ideas, and then watches as a neutral third party, with kindness and empathy, but without judgment, as you implement them.

  Only you know what kind of help is the right fit for you. I also have my rituals that keep me grounded. You might feel more comfortable in a house of worship; or confiding in friends whose wisdom you value, going to a mentor, reading books like this one, or doing the kind of Moving Meditation you’ll read about in this book, the kind you can get in a class like mine. Whatever you choose, you have to respect and click with the person who delivers the advice you need to hear.

  You can also go on YouTube and type in “How to Find My Purpose.” There are more than four million results—talks, seminars, classes, and other videos. With help, you should be able to set up some sort of spiritual practice that refreshes your spirit and gives you the confidence to mentally process what’s going on in your life and focus on your goals, dreams, and purpose.

  There are lines in a spoken-word song by Baz Luhrmann called “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” (which was adapted from a column written by Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune in 1997): “Advice is a form of nostalgia.” That really struck a chord with me, as I realized that, when working on finding your purpose, you don’t want to totally wipe away the past, but to take inventory of it, to learn from it, to acknowledge the mistakes and successes, and to then move forward. If you look at yourself as constantly evolving, it’s easier to unstick yourself from those habitual patterns that might be comfortable, but that are holding you back from your true purpose.

  MAP IT OUT

  One of the best ways to begin to figure out your true purpose and what may be holding you back from reaching it is to create a MAP. MAP stands for Make a Plan. MAP it out. But where do you start on your MAP? At the beginning, of course. (You knew I was going to say that!)

  Get a piece of paper or a notebook, and make a list of all the important areas of your life: work, relationships, friendships, financial health, physical health, spiritual life, home life/physical environment, relationship with family/children, volunteer work. When you’re ready and you’re sitting there with the pencil, trying to decide where to put the X on your MAP, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself some important questions.

  Start with what gives you a sense of fulfillment and joy versus what you feel is draining you. Look at each area of your life and figure out what is working for you and what isn’t. What are you happy about and what are you unhappy about? Don’t try to make a list on how to change things just yet—we will save that for later when we discuss goals—for now, just go with your gut instincts, your feelings in each of these areas.

  Ask yourself this: Am I happy with my job? Am I happy in my life? Am I happy being single? Am I happy in my relationship? Am I happy with my dog? Am I happy with my children? Have I found my purpose? If the answer is no, then you have to ask yourself the even tougher question: Why not?

  There can be many reasons why we aren’t fulfilling our purpose or haven’t figured it out yet. Sometimes it is because we are too practical and trying to do what we think we “should” be doing rather than what we want to be doing. Sometimes it is because we are afraid of pursuing our true purpose because we think we might fail. And sometimes we just need a little push in the form of emotional support. Acknowledge that you can’t do it all on your own.

  This is where the help comes in, because if you are not happy in your love relationship, you have to be able to ask your partner to give you some joy, or you have to ask them why they aren’t acting happy to themselves and to you. (Which is probably why you’re not happy, because we react to each other, right? It’s all too easy for someone who’s in a bad way to make you feel that way, too.)

  PLAYLIST

  FOR FINDING YOUR PURPOSE

  These songs are full of meaning about doing what you’re meant to do.

  Alesso ft. Tove Lo

  “Heroes”

  Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynn

  “Rather Be”

  Coldplay

  “Fix You”

  Justin Bieber

  “Purpose”

  Janet Jackson

  “Special”

  Parachute

  “Something to Believe In”

  Pharrell Williams

  “Happy”

  Rihanna

  “We Found Love”

  Snow Patrol

  “Just Say Yes”

  Getting the help you need is the catalyst to you living a richer and fuller life. Inventory your spiritual practice today. What do you do to feel centered and grounded in the world around you? To me, that is at the root of what spirituality can be—nothing more complicated than your awareness and connection to the world around you and what’s happening in it!

  LET FEAR FUEL YOU

  The word fear is designed to put you on edge the minute you hear it, right? Well, being on edge can have its minuses, but it also has its pluses because it can spur you to action. So why not try embracing your fear instead of letting it hold you back? You can use it as a push.

  Remember when you were at the swimming pool as a little kid, and your parents stood behind you and told you to jump? You were scared shitless, but they gave you a little nudge, knowing that you were going to be okay. While I got gently pushed, you may have been pulled, or maybe your parents let you stand there and cry and didn’t make you go in if you didn’t want to. However this kind of experience happened to you, we all had our first brush with fear, and this is where it all began. That gap between standing on the edge and landing in the water is pure fear. But now as an adult, you know you can jump right through it.

  At least that’s how I’ve learned to manage it. The way I’ve done so has been by talking about it. It took me decades to learn that avoiding discussing things, not sharing them, only makes the fear that much worse. You need to pick your go-to person and honestly discuss your situation with them, whatever it may be, and use them as a sounding board to strategize things. Talk about pros and cons, discuss potential outcomes, and share what you are afraid might or might not happen.

  Usually, people get so into their own heads that they forget to share. Be vulnerable to people you trust. This totally helped me conquer my own fear. Maybe I see the fear a bit differently than you do. Once you jump through the fear, you’re so happy, so empowered, so proud. Of course you can do it!

  I learned all about pushing through fear thanks to Tony Robbins. He’s got millions of fans for a good reason—he’s a brilliant life coach. I met Tony thr
ough one of my Spinning students, Matthew, who was Tony’s hairstylist. Mathew was a very chill rider, a very sanguine Brit, and as I watched him progress, his entire demeanor changed, along with his body. He went from barely being able to pedal to crushing the beat in true testimony. The class was definitely changing him.

  After a ride one day, Matthew went to work with his adrenaline racing along with the endorphins, and he just happened to be cutting Tony’s hair that afternoon. Tony, who is one of the most perceptive people on this planet, looked at him and said, “Whoa—what’s going on?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Matthew replied.

  “Really?” Tony went on “Who’s the girl?”

  Matthew laughed. “There’s no girl. I promise you.”

  “Something’s going on, because you’ve changed,” Tony added. “Usually, people get really excited like you are right now because they’re dating someone new.”

  “Well, maybe I’m in a sort of relationship with my Spinning instructor,” Matthew said. “She reminds me a lot of you because she’s so motivating and positive.”

  So Tony then kindly told Matthew to invite me to one of his fire walks at his upcoming course. There was one coming up soon in Long Beach, California, for four days. With three thousand other people!

  When Matthew told me this, I was thrilled. I started listening to Tony Robbins’s color-coded cassette tapes in the 1990s. Like me, he’d come from nothing; he lived in a tiny apartment and did the dishes in his bathtub back in the days when he’d hand out fliers for his seminars. At first, he rented a little conference room and tried to get twenty people to show up and pay twenty bucks each to hear him speak. He started out with eight people and used the same approach I did. Start out with eight people, give them a guest pass, they come back and bring a friend next time for free. Then for Tony it went to forty bucks for forty people, then one hundred people, and then thousands. That’s how he did it, and that’s how I do it. Because “overnight success” is based on thirty years of hard work.

  Tony’s not hokey; he’s cool and doesn’t coddle you. He pumps your ass up. His course was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Tony was like a rock star; you’d have thought these people were going to see a Prince concert. The doors opened at the Long Beach Civic Auditorium, and because it was open seating, there were people literally sprinting to the front and climbing over seats to get close to the stage. Luckily, I was sitting in the VIP section in the front row with Matthew’s sister (he’d already done the course) and Tony’s family. It was one of the most energizing and motivating weekends of my life.

  On day three, I think, came the fire walk across twelve feet of glowing-hot coals. If you stop, you burn; and if you push past the fear and just do it, you’re fine. The trick is to chill your feet first so that your skin temperature drops, giving you an extra cushion of time before you might get burned. Once you take that first step, you keep moving. If you stop and look at the hot coals and freak out, you’ll get burned.

  It’s amazing what your mind is capable of compelling your body to do. It’s like watching little kids in a Tae Kwon Do class where four-year-olds can break a board with their tiny hands. You can do it when you know where to aim and how to follow through.

  You can do it when you push past the fear.

  After Tony’s seminar and my fire walk, I realized I had to stop lying. I’d parked my tent in the liar’s camp, as I called it back then, and I wanted to pack it up and go home to a healthier place. Like I said, when you are an addict, you do a lot of lying, starting with lying to yourself. So I went back to my apartment and told my then girlfriend that we had to fix things. I didn’t want to do drugs anymore. I didn’t want to drink anymore. And we did it. For nine months—until, like I told you, things went to shit the night before we left for Atlanta.

  But I still know that if it weren’t for Tony Robbins, I would not have been able to clear my emotional clutter. I would not be at SoulCycle. I would not be a sober, healthy person in a loving, giving relationship. I would not have a healthy body. I went to that seminar at the exact moment in my life when I needed someone to guide me so that I could push past the fears that were keeping me an addict.

  LEAVE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

  Comfort is the killer of opportunity. The only way to get out of your comfort zone is by taking a risk.

  Risk is one of those words, like fear, that makes most people click onto the negative, but I don’t see it that way.

  Risk-taking is throwing away the training wheels in your life while still taking a well-thought-out chance on yourself. Whatever it is you decide to do, you will see that visualizing yourself succeeding is one of the most empowering things you can do—I’ll show you how in the next part of this book. Careful planning, complete execution, and follow-through on every level, as well as financial safety nets in place, trustworthy partners, and an intuition that this is the right decision, will be ingredients you will need to MAP it out. With those elements in place, you will be controlling as much of the risk as you can—and that makes the risk a lot less “risky.”

  “Stronger than you were yesterday, never as strong as tomorrow.”

  IDENTIFY YOUR LUCK

  Even when I was at my lowest point as an addict, I still felt lucky. Why? Maybe being on drugs does that to you, but for me, I knew it was a gateway for me to discover my true self. For me at least, part of what held me in the addiction was that I found my addicted squad. In my Los Angeles group, as you know already, we were all functioning addicts. Because everyone in our squad was doing the same thing, it was sanctioned; we all thought, and tried to convince ourselves, that it was okay. At the time. Looking back . . . maybe not so much.

  It was only when I became a sober person that I realized my luck could have run out at any point during those years. Some of my friends died due to their drug habits. But here’s the thing—even when you’re enduring the very worst that can happen in life (loved ones dying, losing your job, needing to move, your children having problems, your partner wanting out, ill health), you can still feel lucky. You can still say to yourself, “I’m a good person, I’m going to make it, I’m going to figure myself out, I’m going to find my purpose.” Realizing this can be incredibly empowering.

  So I want you to think of the notion of luck not as an external notion, as in “Oh, he’s so lucky because he was born rich” or “She’s so lucky because she can eat whatever she wants and not gain any weight,” but as an internal notion. A lot of people use the idea that they’re not one of the lucky ones as an excuse to not push past fears or take risks. I don’t agree with that. You make your own luck inside. You can choose to feel lucky.

  Only you can identify your luck. The question you should ask yourself is, What do I feel lucky for? If you were standing at the gates of heaven, and had to tell Saint Peter what makes you lucky enough to pass through to paradise, what would your answer be?

  Answering this question will also help you find your purpose, because you will be asking yourself what your most positive quality or talent is. Everyone has something special. You are lucky to have this. It’s what makes you unique.

  Even in my depths of despair after Michael’s death, and my worsening addiction, yes, I was lucky. I was still alive. I’m not painting this picture like I was knocking on death’s door by doing drugs—the thing people forget is that all it takes is one mishap, one drive home where you’re not coherent, one wrong pill with the wrong pill with the wrong anything, and you’re a goner. I wasn’t in the despairing place Michael had been in, so deep and dark that he didn’t want to live anymore. I feel lucky today to have had the strength to keep searching for the will to get me out of old patterns, even though it took me many attempts to do so. With the help of someone who really loved me, I did it.

  Obviously, there will be bumps on your journey, but you’re going to be like an Olympic gold medalist in freestyle skiing, navigating the moguls with finesse. I remember watching in awe the first time I ever saw that kind of skiing. How do
they do it without falling and breaking their legs? I wondered. Then I realized it all had to do with purpose. Those skiers loved what they were doing. They trained their bodies to have the strength they needed. And most of all, they taught themselves how to read the snow so they could find their way forward. They all had the perfect combination of desire, physical strength, and mental clarity. And you can, too.

  SG TRUTH I use athletic metaphors in just about every single aspect of my life. I feel like it is one of the most relatable ways of turning negatives into positives. You don’t have to be an athlete to do this, either!

  MEDITATION FOR FINDING YOUR PURPOSE

  This is a wonderful meditation when you feel the need for guidance.

  1.Sit in a comfortable room, in a cozy position, and take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes and raise your hands up toward the sky gently, with palms and heart open.

  2.Ask the universe for some guidance here while your hands are up, and if you do this right now, I know—and the universe knows—you’re serious about it. Open up to opportunity. Stay open to change; stay open to trust.

  3.Concentrate on what you’re asking for. You may have a very precise idea in your mind of what you want, or you may feel conflicted. It’s important that you state to yourself what it is you want to happen. You can whisper it out loud. Keep your breathing steady.