Trauma, Curiosity, Core Beliefs And Conscious Recovery With TJ Woodward The Mindset And Self-Mastery Show podcast

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Trauma, Curiosity, Core Beliefs And Conscious Recovery With TJ Woodward

2d ago 32:37

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“Curiosity invites us to go deeper.”

In this episode, Nick speaks with TJ Woodward to explore conscious recovery, healing from trauma, and the importance of self-awareness in personal growth. TJ shares his journey from childhood experiences to addiction and recovery, emphasizing the significance of understanding core beliefs and the role of curiosity in healing.

What to listen for:

Life is about returning to our true selves, not about attaining something
Childhood experiences significantly shape our beliefs and behaviors
Unresolved trauma, spiritual disconnection, and toxic shame are root causes of addiction
Awareness is crucial for healing, but it can also be painful
Curiosity can lead to deeper understanding and growth
Making peace with the past is essential for overcoming core false beliefs
The lens through which we view the world is shaped by our experiences
Healing trauma requires acknowledging and caring for our wounds
The unconscious mind often dictates our responses and behaviors

“Can I be in that in the midst of it? I wanna honor the pain. I wanna honor the experience. I’m not gonna bypass and pretend like it’s not happening. But in the midst of that, it’s like, I’m wondering what wants to emerge. What else is possible for me?”

Being present with pain is powerful, it’s not weakness, it’s deep self-awareness
Honoring what you’re going through creates space for real transformation
Emotional bypassing might feel easier, but it blocks growth
In every struggle, there’s potential for something new to be born
Asking “what else is possible?” invites curiosity, healing, and forward movement

“We can kind of change the past because the past is the narrative in our head and it’s the energy associated with it.”

The past isn’t fixed — it lives in the stories we tell ourselves
Shifting our perspective can shift how we feel about what happened
Healing is about rewriting the emotional charge, not denying the facts
Your story is yours to evolve, and that’s real power
Changing your relationship with the past changes who you become in the present

About TJ Woodward

TJ is a Revolutionary Recovery Expert, Inspirational Speaker, Educator, Addictions Treatment Specialist, host of The Element Q Podcast, and Best-Selling Author.

TJ Woodward is the Head of Conscious Leadership at Reconstruction Unlimited, the Chief Wellness Officer at Monima Behavioral Health, and is a featured thought leader on WholeHearted.org along with Brené Brown, Marianne Williamson, Dr. Gabor Maté, and Mark Lundholm.

Resources:

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Nick McGowan (00:01.051)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self-Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan McGowan. Today on the show we have TJ Woodward. TJ, how are you doing today?

TJ Woodward (00:11.266)
Doing well, Nick. I’m so looking forward to this conversation.

Nick McGowan (00:14.331)
Likewise, I’m excited to get into all the things we’re going to talk about. So why don’t you just get us started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

TJ Woodward (00:24.07)
my gosh, or bizarre, I’ll have to think about that for a moment. So I do a lot of different things. an author have written three books with a bunch of accompanying workbooks. I have the honor of really, I would say a spiritual teacher, but also work a lot in behavioral health. I’ve created a modality of treatment called conscious recovery that helps people get down to the root causes of their addiction instead of just treating symptoms. And also,

not looking at themselves as broken. So if there’s any through line with all of my work, it’s that we actually come into the world as whole and complete beings and that life is about returning to that, not about attaining something. So whether it’s my book, Conscious Being, Conscious Recovery, Conscious Creation, that’s the through line. It’s really, there is this place within us that’s unharmable and unharmed. So that’s kind of that. And I love to speak, I do podcasts, do a lot of different things, facilitate trainings, but…

Nick McGowan (01:02.682)
Hmm.

TJ Woodward (01:18.97)
My greatest passion is helping people do the deeper healing so they can remember who they really are. That’s the bottom line. I don’t know this is a bizarre thing, but very rarely do I talk about it. But when I was young, young, like from seven to 17, I sang in a very traditional men and boys choir and went and sang in England for the Archbishop of Canterbury and like sang at Westminster Abbey in St. Paul’s. So like I had that experience of

Nick McGowan (01:27.994)
you

TJ Woodward (01:47.01)
being in this choir that was this very traditional, was very outside of like life in my family. There’s a lot of layers there, but that’s something I rarely tell anyone.

Nick McGowan (01:53.656)
Huh.

Nick McGowan (01:56.984)
That’s interesting. It’s always interesting to me to find out how people got into a thing, but also to find out things like that was probably 10 different versions of you ago. You know, like so many different things that just people don’t think about or just, yeah, by the way, I forgot this whole thing happened. But how did you get into that if that was different than your family? Because my brain instantly went to, was that part of your family? Were you guys just going to church constantly or what have you?

TJ Woodward (02:23.832)
Well, it’s interesting. My dad did sing in that choir as well. But the reason I say it was different than my family is it was kind of like this really a beautiful experience, honestly. Like a lot of people that I who I know have like some trauma around church or maybe they didn’t resonate with it. But for me, like that was the happiest place I was. Like the vibe there was so great and singing really helped me come alive and home life wasn’t quite like that. You know, there was a lot going on. So if anything.

Nick McGowan (02:39.449)
Yeah.

Hmm.

TJ Woodward (02:50.654)
strangely enough, that experience was sort of like my escape from the difficulties at home. And that was the beginning of a long pattern of escaping from things.

Nick McGowan (02:59.883)
man, yeah. It’s interesting because I’ve played in church bands. I played probably the better part of a decade playing lead guitar for different bands. And I used say to people like the reason why I was still staying at church was not because of like the surface level messaging but

TJ Woodward (03:06.992)
wow.

Nick McGowan (03:18.457)
because of the music and then I would feel God through that music and different things that open up and it’s interesting how that stuff can pull you in but how there’s also the different variations that people feel, the things that you get from it, the systems that you just envelop into. So how did that shape you to where you’re at and what you’re doing now?

TJ Woodward (03:36.994)
You know, it’s fascinating because I reflect on that often because here I am doing spiritual work, but it’s really not connected with religion. But I think it ties back to that because kind of like you, like I don’t remember what the message was at that church really, but I do remember the feeling that I had, especially through the music, right? And again, this is very traditional music, like, you know, British music from the 16th century kind of music. So it wasn’t exactly like a lot of contemporary music.

Nick McGowan (03:44.121)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Woodward (04:05.08)
But I think that was where I first had a passion for music and also realizing that spirituality wasn’t really in the mind, it was in the body. It was an experience. And some of my most profound experiences in my early life were connecting through the music and the idea of God or the idea of spirit somehow. That’s where I discovered it. So I think it really was in many ways the roots for me of what has made my life have more meaning.

Nick McGowan (04:08.473)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (04:32.033)
Yeah, well the work that you’re doing is incredible and I could tell even reading through some of this stuff, seeing some of the clips.

You had a PR company that reached out to me. So it’s not like you reached out directly. And I do have people reach out directly that I can tell there’s like a heartfelt message, something that it’s like, you totally just pulled this out of a can and you’re blasting out to every other podcast. But one of the things I noticed about you is that there was a through line throughout everything that I saw that had to go back to actual healing, but at a deeper.

TJ Woodward (04:49.698)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:03.929)
depth then a lot of people will kind of let themselves go to. There are often times where I talk about the different modalities and people kind of live at one like therapy, talk therapy. Whenever somebody’s like well you have a problem go talk about it and at this point it’s starting to get easier to open up to say that you talk to a therapist where even 10 years ago or 20 years ago nobody talked like that and certain circles of people

segmentations of people absolutely didn’t talk about those things. So now people are there talking about talking, but not actually going into all the different depths that they can, which is why I like to have people like yourself on to talk about those things. I think most things probably come back from childhood trauma, at least some sort of trauma that was in our formative years. So what about you? What do you think when it comes all the things that you’re doing and really where that stemmed from?

TJ Woodward (05:34.702)
100%.

TJ Woodward (05:58.348)
Well, 100 % what you’re saying, you know, I think in particular, I think about men, men, you know, even 10 years ago, like you said, it was like, you know, we just need to man up, not have feelings, not talk about feelings, certainly not talk about needing help, certainly not talk about mental health or mental wellness, or definitely not talking about feeling feelings or healing trauma. And in my own personal experience, and that’s where all of this came from, ultimately, I do remember being a little child and being so happy. So

open and so connected with myself and the world. And I remember a lot of things happening in the world that caused me to shut down. And I had a profound experience at seven years old of closing my heart. And that became like the operating system of my life. I’m broken, I’m damaged, I’m not good enough, I’m unlovable. And this was like a vibration that I was walking around with until I discovered drugs and alcohol that brought relief.

Then I got sober at 21, so there were these seven year cycles, but that sobriety was only the beginning because I actually found myself suicidal when I was about 18 months sober. And the paradigm at the time, this is 1986 when I got sober, and the paradigm at the time was definitely not talking about healing trauma, healing childhood wounds. They were just like, don’t drink, be of service, don’t worry about anything other than that. And I went…

Nick McGowan (06:58.091)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (07:05.333)
Hmm.

TJ Woodward (07:21.256)
on this journey with a woman who changed my life that really had such a profound impact on me and a profound effect on me that it has become my life’s work.

Nick McGowan (07:30.967)
If you think about the time and place of that, the context of things in 86, it was totally different. I don’t really know firsthand I was two, but in all reality, knowing that how things were throughout the course of time, I oftentimes will think back to what my parents went through. I think my mom was 22 when she had me. So the experiences that they had, that they felt that they couldn’t talk about that now we can.

TJ Woodward (07:39.726)
totally different.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (08:00.975)
It actually feels like there’s a bit of legacy that we all have a part in that we can help usher throughout the course of time. Instead of just perpetually putting things deeper and deeper into a box that’s deep inside of us. But there’s still people that have a hard time opening up to those things, even within themselves. The whole point of this fucking podcast is for people to go, I’m safe in a spot where nobody can hear what I’m listening to. But this guy’s got something. Maybe not even me, like you specifically, or somebody else of just like,

Well, what do I do from this point? So for people that are in the early stages of like, they’re self aware enough that there’s something, what sort of advice do you give to them and how does that bridge into the work that you do?

TJ Woodward (08:43.438)
Well, think going back to the childhood experience is one of the things that I think is important to recognize is that we come into the world as these wide open, you I call it a whole imperfect spiritual being that terminology might not work for everyone, but if that doesn’t work, at least we’re a blank canvas, right? And our brains aren’t even developed. This is why early childhood trauma is way more significant in many cases than something that happens later in life because we absorb it, right?

And so like my parents weren’t a loveless marriage. My parents got married when they were 19 and 20. My dad was told that he would marry my mom. He told me just two years ago that he never wanted to marry her and they stayed together for 22 years and had three kids. He was having multiple affairs. Everyone knew. My mom would look at the ceiling and say, Tom, if you’re having an affair, please don’t tell me. Like, and that was just a very small part of what was happening. So a little…

Nick McGowan (09:24.511)
Jeez.

TJ Woodward (09:37.87)
And I promise I’m getting to your question, but a small person absorbs things and it doesn’t need to make sense logically because when we’re little kids, we’re very concrete. So if one of our parents is upset and yelling at us rather than thinking, maybe mom has some rage issues that she hasn’t dealt with, that’s true for me and my story. I thought there was something wrong with me. And then we get into adulthood and we say things like, well, that couldn’t have an impact. mean,

I remember I was on a show or I did a talk and I was talking about how when I was in kindergarten, I couldn’t tie my shoes and how for some people that would be nothing. But for me, it was a dramatic shift in my awareness because I remember everyone staring at me and me feeling really stupid. And a person in the comments said, come on, is this guy actually, actually said, is this a Saturday Night Live skit? Is this guy saying he has addiction because he couldn’t tie his shoes? So.

Nick McGowan (10:12.532)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (10:20.594)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (10:34.84)
perhaps not that simple, but what I was pointing to is at that moment, something that could seem so insignificant became a moment where I absorbed and decided and then ultimately concretized into my unconscious, this belief in my unworthiness. So yes, it actually did lead to addiction. And though these traumatic experiences can be something severe or it can be something that seems insignificant to one person, but for another, it really isn’t.

Nick McGowan (10:36.607)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (11:02.794)
Yeah, it’s so hard for some people to see the additional layers to things because they don’t want to at times. And then there are blocks that just won’t allow them to. So even the guy in the comment, like, come on, man, are you saying because you couldn’t tie your shoes? Like from one perspective, you can understand just looking at it from surface level, like two and two typically equals four. So you can’t tie your shoes and there’s trauma. The fuck does that mean? But

TJ Woodward (11:23.757)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (11:31.586)
Right, exactly.

Nick McGowan (11:33.055)
But there could be anything that happened to anybody that meant anything and the recipe and the situation, the context and all of that, who the fuck cares what anybody else thinks? That’s what it meant to you. So if it was tying your shoes or somebody kidnapped you and kept you in a hole for a week, like that could be the same feeling. And we have no right to be able to tell somebody else.

TJ Woodward (11:47.596)
Right. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (11:55.817)
That doesn’t make any sense, that’s stupid or whatever. I think often times that can be a cry for somebody to go, well I want to understand. But what do you mean? And that doesn’t make sense to me.

I was molested by 17 people or whatever it was, it’s like, well, this isn’t a competition. So everybody listening, whatever you’ve been through, sucks that you’ve been through it. We can work through it, but there’s no competition to that. But that thing that stood out to you that had the recipe and the context and all the situation that had led to the addiction and everything else, there’s shame, there’s guilt. That’s what the addiction actually is. So when you break those layers apart, what does that look like?

TJ Woodward (12:33.272)
Well, it’s interesting that you’re saying that because in my book and my model conscious recovery, I identify the three root causes of addiction as unresolved trauma, spiritual disconnection and toxic shame. So you’ve already spoken about two of them. And that really to me is the deeper work. And we come into our adult life and then many of us try to figure it out. And the key to this that I think is really important is my four year old, my five year old, my six year old.

did not logic that. My brain wasn’t even developed. So we absorb these things, we decide these things, and the deeper work is not a logical process. This is why sometimes talk therapy, and I’m not saying it never helps because talk therapy helped me a lot, but there can be a place where it’s like, okay, for me, it was like, now I see all the patterns, I know where all this came from, but now what? Like that didn’t change anything for me. I needed to get down and start caring for myself.

Nick McGowan (13:02.227)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (13:20.624)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (13:25.314)
from the point of origin, which is much deeper work than just saying, I’m gonna bury this. And you I think about, you were talking, I think about my dad’s generation. Like my dad met his own dad one time. He shook his hand once. That’s the extent of the relationship. He was from a generation where no one talks about emotions, right? So everything, men just buried it. just, know, man up, be strong, be brave, be the breadwinner. So like, I have compassion for that.

And at the same time, we know that that’s not actually healing. That’s just trying to move on from something that on some level, like you said, we know it’s there.

Nick McGowan (14:01.982)
That’s fucking your kids later down the road because they’re just generational trauma, just being stacked and stacked and stacked and stacked. And that’s one of those things that I think we can sometimes think about just as people. I don’t have any kids. I’m not going to have any kids. And I know that there are people that have kids that say, I wish I’d done things differently, or I’m glad that I’ve done things differently now because of the way that I was brought up. And there are conscious decisions we

can make, but then there are really unconscious decisions that are made for us because of the shit that we’ve been through. So if somebody’s in that spot now, they’re like, look, I’m a leader in what I do. I’m a leader in my family. I feel like I have a responsibility to heal so that I can help the rest of my family live a better life without giving secret sauce and getting in all the details of things. What’s that piece of advice you’d say, look, this is what you can start with. And here’s how you can get to work through some of it.

TJ Woodward (14:58.158)
Well, it’s really interesting because in my third book, Conscious Creation, I actually created this five step process, even though I promised myself I’d never be that guy. But the reason that I think it’s relevant right now is many people want to start with like intention setting, right? We do it the first of the year or we get into the law of attraction and we’re like, let me just change my thinking and I’ll attract different situations. And all of that is great, except to me, we have to do what I call the clearing steps first. And in my model, it’s making peace with the past and overcoming core false beliefs.

So if I haven’t made peace with the past and everything that we’re talking about, and I don’t mean that it will just be gone forever, that being in a different relationship with our past, much less about what happened and much more about what we decided. We do absorb, have these core false beliefs that becomes the operating system. And no matter how much work we do in the outer realm, whether that’s therapy or go to another motivational seminar and all that’s great,

Nick McGowan (15:43.282)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (15:56.724)
At some point it’s like, I believe I’m unworthy. So no amount of goal setting is going to change anything. So making peace with the past and overcoming some of these core false beliefs is so important so that we can get to a place where we start to ask kind of our inner knowing, what do I really want to create in my life?

Nick McGowan (16:14.854)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (16:19.107)
You’ve brought up a couple times about a child and adult and we’ve kind of jumped to that pretty quickly and When you think about it, like you could probably think back to being a 15 year old kid You can think back to being a seven year old kid. It probably doesn’t feel that that long ago But you know long enough, but at the same time like there’s so much life that has happened thousands of hours Decades whatever it’s been where we can then just say well, this is how I am and that

you know, 30, 40, 50, whatever it is, this is what it is. And there’s a lot of different stuff that just like stacked in front of it. It’s almost like a dirty filter and like an air conditioning or something. Like there’s just so much stuff that you can’t actually get through it. So everybody has different core values or core wounds and they’re different flavors, but there are categories of these things. And when you look at those,

How do you help people kind of self-diagnose of like, well, this is how I get back to this. And the reason why I ask that is we can go, well, this thing triggered me. And then stop at that point, say, well, it made me upset. I got angry or whatever, or I didn’t like that I was, this thing happened. But there’s like 15 other layers to get deeper and deeper and deeper to go, fuck, when I was a six year old, this one thing happened that totally led me to believe that blah. So what are those steps you take people through for that?

TJ Woodward (17:41.57)
Well, I I love everything you just said. And it’s so important to kind of like lean in a little bit to me because the analogy I use, like you use the filter, I use the lens, right? If there’s a piece of lint on our lens, we are literally seeing it everywhere and we think it’s happening in the world. Now it could be happening in the world, but you, my favorite thing, trigger, right? We talk about triggers and most of the time when we think about triggers, it’s something outside of ourselves. She said something that upset me. My boss shouldn’t act this way. My partner should be more available.

Nick McGowan (18:05.51)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Woodward (18:10.84)
for me for a whole decade is my mother should be more loving, right? All this externalization, but when we look at, rather than calling it a trigger, we say activation, the womb got touched. So you’re asking what are the steps? Awareness, awareness and awareness, right? Because most of it, for most of us, it’s in the unconscious. So we just project, right? We see that in politics, we see that in rants on social media, right?

Nick McGowan (18:13.883)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Woodward (18:36.15)
And if this person weren’t in office, then I could be free. But then that person leaves office and there’s a new person, right? So like, you know, the pendulum swings and there’s always someone or something outside of ourselves. So the intention here is to be aware, first of all, that I’m projecting, but only 100 % of the time. Now that can be a big pill for people to swallow because they will say things like, yeah, but this is really happening in the world. Yes, it’s happening, but I’m the one creating the meaning.

Nick McGowan (18:41.999)
Hahaha

Nick McGowan (18:53.626)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Woodward (19:03.776)
And if I’m only focused on trying to change the world, which I tried my entire decade of my 20s, didn’t go so well, or I can start to clear the lens and start asking these deeper questions.

Nick McGowan (19:03.835)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (19:10.533)
Yeah, how’d go?

Nick McGowan (19:15.437)
yeah.

I think there’s systems problems too, like we’re raised to this is what you should do. You should go to school, you should do this thing, you should look at life this way, et cetera. And then there are also the problems where people say, well, I don’t know what to point at, but I think this person’s the issue, or I think this system’s the issue, or the other side’s the issue, or whatever it is. And there are times where I think from different perspectives of talking to people from a business perspective, like, hey, I want to get new sales, or I want to bring in business,

TJ Woodward (19:20.13)
Of

Nick McGowan (19:47.139)
or whatever, or I want to have better conversations, or I want to understand how to help my clients better, or I want to work with my counselors better, or whatever that it is. It’s understanding that projection can happen at times, but to also shut up and listen more, and to ourselves first, that can be really difficult. So even when you talk about awareness, I had somebody at one point go, fuck you and fuck your awareness, because I’m aware that I’m annoyed by this whole situation. And I was like, cool, we’re getting somewhere with it, you know?

TJ Woodward (20:14.51)
That’s right, we’re touching something.

Nick McGowan (20:16.188)
Yeah, exactly. Like, what did I just hit? You know? Pouring salt, basically. But we have to be able to experience that pain to go, until we don’t have to experience that pain anymore. So how do you help people understand how to figure out that awareness or at least sniff it out to go, I think it’s close.

TJ Woodward (20:19.191)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (20:33.902)
Yeah, well, to go, the way I say it is nothing’s more painful than 99 % surrender. So if I believe that I’m projecting 99 % onto the blank canvas of the world, then I’m gonna suffer. If I say, oh, it’s all a projection and I wanna be clear, and you said this well too, it doesn’t mean stuff isn’t happening. It doesn’t mean there, know, cause it’s very popular now, like this person’s toxic, I need to get rid of toxic, or this person’s a narcissist. We call everyone a narcissist now.

Nick McGowan (20:58.68)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (20:59.476)
And the message is like, I’m good over here. It’s this other person. And if I can learn how to not choose narcissists, I’ll be free, right? And so the deeper work is going back to these early experiences and asking not so much what happened, but what did I decide about myself? What did I absorb? And I keep saying that because that’s really the deeper work going back to the, we don’t have to re-experience the trauma over and over again, but an awareness that it.

has created the lens, because that lens, I didn’t come in with the lens, the piece of lint on the lens. The world did in some way put it there, but it’s my responsibility now to clean it, right? So I like to say, if you’re under 30, you can blame your parents, but once you hit 30, it’s time to let that one go. And I don’t mean people hear that sometimes to think that like that means nothing happened or nothing affected them. No, it’s like the blame is the key word there, because blame keeps us stuck. Where curiosity, it’s like,

Nick McGowan (21:31.685)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (21:44.24)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (21:52.889)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (21:55.392)
Okay, this stuff happened. This is what I decided, not about the situation, but about myself. And then it becomes an unconscious, we have strategies to manage it. I call them brilliant strategies rather than coping mechanisms. So like for me, when things got difficult, I would go into my room and I would close the door and I would escape into playing with my toys and fantasy. So later in life, something would feel intense or something would hurt my feelings and I would find myself checking out.

Nick McGowan (22:02.639)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (22:17.284)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Woodward (22:24.3)
And I used to think, I shouldn’t check out. I should learn how to be present. Well, the checking out is an automatic response because that’s what kept me safe when I was young. So unlearning is such a big part of it. And then reminding myself or letting myself know that I can actually care for these wounds now and it’s safe to actually feel these and they can be healed. And in that way, and I like to be a little provocative,

Nick McGowan (22:33.423)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (22:49.676)
We can kind of change the past because the past is the narrative in our head and it’s the energy associated with it.

Nick McGowan (22:52.163)
yeah.

Nick McGowan (22:56.313)
Well, there are two other things that are kind of through lines of this or at least major pieces. The interpretations. Just overall interpretations. We interpret so many different things. Say based on patterns before, based on biases, based on all this different shit. This is what I think this thing is. This is what I think this situation is. And we believe that and we just own it. I also read a book a couple years ago by Tracy Goss, The Last Word on Power. Totally fucked me up and rocked my world.

about our subconscious winning strategy and how we develop a strategy as a child to go, this is how I stay safe. This is how I stay loved. This is how I succeed. And then that just runs. It’s the operating system just keeps running. And that awareness, think it’s funny because I have conversations with people at times like the more you’re aware, the more you become aware. And then the more you’re aware, the more you’re fucking aware. And the more you’re aware, yeah, then it’s like, my God, like there’s just more and more and more.

TJ Woodward (23:31.662)
Yep. Yep.

TJ Woodward (23:48.248)
That’s why I say awareness, awareness, awareness.

When does it end?

Nick McGowan (23:55.215)
Yeah, never. And that’s kind of the good part of it. It’s like, none of this ends, but we’re also here. And I’m glad we got to this point. You’ve talked about suicide. I was suicidal. I attempted a few times. I think most everybody, assume most everybody has at least had the thought once. Maybe this is too much. I just don’t want to be here anymore or whatever. And maybe there’s some that aren’t and good on them. Everybody else has had some experience.

I think there are certain pieces of this where we can look at those situations and say, I didn’t want to be here. And now if I’m going to be here, let’s fuck around and find out. Let’s do whatever we can to just learn the most that we can and explore these things. So I’m glad that you brought up curiosity because even if we just change the wording of it and go, well, well, I’m actually just curious. And when we think of curiosity, I’m sure all of us can go, well, it’s like kind of playful almost like what’s that thing? What does that do?

What do I do with it from here? So let’s say somebody’s self-aware and they’re at the point where they’re like fuck you and your awareness because I’m now I’m super aware and They’re trying to figure out how do I get deeper and back behind those things and that’s where professionals come into play That’s where those frameworks do work I’m glad you pointed out you didn’t want to be that guy because there are people that are like here’s my six steps that only work for this person and this archetype and like if you have any drama in context doesn’t matter That shit boggles my mind

But the fact that you figured something out that helps you, how does that relate to other people that maybe it doesn’t work directly for them, but those components and those pieces can? Because I know you put a lot of work and effort into this. So like, what does that look like for those people that are like, fucking get it, I’m self-aware. Help me with the next steps.

TJ Woodward (25:38.786)
Yeah, well, I mean, the phrase ignorance is bliss. This is where this came from, right? Because when I’m not aware, in some ways it’s easier. In some ways it’s easier to blame the world for the conditions of my life. In some ways it’s easier to blame my parents, even though I’m fully adulting now. But when we’re aware, it can be more painful. And that was my experience. So like, I thought, I’m going to be aware and suddenly I’m going to be free. No, I was aware. And then it was like, this is really heavy.

Nick McGowan (26:04.259)
Mm-hmm.

TJ Woodward (26:04.268)
And I think maybe that’s what happened when I was like 18 months sober, know, 21 or so and like, it’s not the world, it’s something about me. And it felt so heavy and I felt like there’s no way I could get through it, right? And I met this woman and I’m answering your question through my experience with her. She began to see something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. And she would see me through the lens of my potential rather than my wounds.

And I was living from my woundology, as my good friend, Temple Hayes says, living from my woundology, right? And I think the curiosity piece, I’ll be practical for a moment. One practice that has changed my life, I call living in the question. It’s just choosing a question that’s open-ended and just asking myself that, right? So imagine, for example, let’s say you lose your job rather than saying, why does this keep happening to me? You know, right? Which is by the way, an open-ended question.

but it’s not exactly an empowering one. Instead, I can say, wonder what wants to emerge here. What am I making this mean? What am I really feeling? What’s actually happening here? What are the infinite possibilities? And so you can choose a question, set a timer for three minutes and just be with that question. know, sometimes someone will lose their job and then when we kind of start to explore, they’re like, well, I mean, I hated it. Right? So like,

Nick McGowan (27:07.084)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (27:28.365)
Then you’re welcome.

TJ Woodward (27:30.702)
Isn’t that great? I mean, we don’t want to minimize the experience of a fear someone’s having, but like these moments, how many times in retrospect do I look back at something that was really difficult? mean, honestly, the most painful experiences of my life in retrospect have become the most useful. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt, nor am I trying to minimize that. But you know, shit happens is the phrase, but with one mindset shift,

It’s fertilizer. So fertilizer happens, right? So, can I be in that in the midst of it? I wanna honor the pain. I wanna honor the experience. I’m not gonna bypass and pretend like it’s not happening, but in the midst of that, it’s like, I’m wondering what wants to emerge. What else is possible for me?

Nick McGowan (28:00.983)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (28:15.725)
I love that. If we break that…

a little bit further down, there’s, are different times where we can ask that and we’re in a healthier spot where we can go, Oh cool. I can see the shit is fertilizer. So I appreciate that. Um, and being able look at those things because you are not hurting from other things or other interpretations or whatever. So somebody loses their job and like six other things happen. Like, you know, whatever, just make up the craziness of the world. Like your tire explodes, you drop your lunch, you know, whatever. And you keep adding these things on and saying, well, this

TJ Woodward (28:28.834)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (28:49.07)
Is an interpretation I interpret these things to mean whatever it means where in all actuality if you go even further back and go I was just really upset with this thing But I didn’t like the job that I was in and I really just don’t know what to do right now Great. Can we fucking start from there? Can we have the conversation from that point to be able to get to that?

Again, the interpretations of it all, where we all just get stuck in those things and look at it and say, it must mean this and we all want this pain. I don’t actually believe people want the pain. I think they’re just so used to it. Like when people say misery loves company and misery loves miserable company, it’s easier and it’s more familiar because that’s what we’re used to. So, and I really appreciate you being on where…

For the people that are walking down this path and they’re trying to figure this stuff out and they’re taking those steps and they’re like, I’m self-aware, I’m doing this, I hear what you’re saying with these things. What’s your advice for those people that are actively on their path towards self-mastery?

TJ Woodward (29:47.758)
I mean, for me, there’s always a deeper level, right? And you said it earlier, there’s always another layer of awareness. So I remember one time asking myself the question, what have I not given myself permission to see? Like that question just blew my fricking mind. And like, I don’t know where it came from. I just woke up with it. And so like, and then I modified it to be a little more positive, right? What else is there for me to know about this? And just to be in that curiosity because

Nick McGowan (30:01.323)
Hmm.

TJ Woodward (30:16.382)
Once we’ve started the work, and I love what you said, because people will say, isn’t healing trauma painful? And I’ll say, yes, but the only thing more painful is not healing it. And I know because I did it for 20 years, right? I ran from it in many different ways, not just when I was drinking or using drugs and alcohol, but well through my 20s and the outer projection and trying to change the world. And my friend said, trying to change the outer conditions without doing the deeper work is like,

changing chairs on the Titanic, right? And so like, and my other friend says using affirmations without doing the deeper work is like putting icing on stale bread and calling it cake, right? So at some point, and usually not always, but usually it comes through some major life event where we’re like, it’s time to go deeper. Some of us just say, okay, I just, is this all there is? know, someone watching or listening right now might be the person that’s like, I’ve succeeded.

Nick McGowan (30:54.442)
Ugh.

TJ Woodward (31:12.012)
I’ve done everything that I wanted to do. I have reached this pinnacle and I’m saying, is this all there is? When someone says to me, is this all there is? I think it’s such a beautiful moment. And then I, with one small switch, what else is there for me to know? What’s the next level of growth for me? These are questions that will invite us to go deeper and do some of, and you know, we keep saying the deeper work. So what does that actually mean? It’s like,

Nick McGowan (31:36.853)
Yeah.

TJ Woodward (31:37.536)
realizing that the unconscious is running the show and beginning to be curious about that so that we can start to change the automatic responses and become more conscious. And in that way, it’s very simple.

Nick McGowan (31:50.804)
Beautiful way to put that. And with that, TJ, it’s been awesome having you on here. I appreciate your time today. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

TJ Woodward (32:00.814)
Well, thank you, Nick. And I’ve loved our conversation as well. So I really appreciate that. TJWoodward.com is the best. All my socials are there. And also, I post three times a day on Instagram as well, TJWoodward underscore. And you can find all my books and everything on my website.

Nick McGowan (32:16.37)
Awesome. Again, it’s been pleasure having you on. Thank you for your time.

TJ Woodward (32:19.128)
Thank you, Nick.

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175 episodes