Helping Men to Be Confident

How To Heal Emotional Trauma

Sumelevate Life Coach Sume Chatz recently interviewed me for his video podcast about how I work with my coaching clients to help them heal emotional trauma from the past so they can move on to a happier future.

The interview packs a heap of information into a half hour, covering topics like:

  • How family of origin issues can set you up for emotional problems down the track
  • The impact of poor communication skills on our world view as children
  • How to heal overwhelming anxiety
  • The role of the subconscious and how to work with it
  • Mindfulness and the importance of living in the present
  • What I actually do in Skype sessions with my clients
  • How to coach someone in emotional trauma
  • How to get motivated towards your goals

That’s a lot of valuable information for one half hour! I recommend you check it out.

emotional traumaThe one thing I didn’t mention explicitly was what exactly emotional trauma is: the emotional residue left in our brains and nervous system attached to memories of any emotionally overwhelming past event that we weren’t able to fully express and release at the time.

Healing trauma is important because emotionally charged memories from the past restrict our ability to be freely self-expressed and get on with life in the present.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Finding Hope When All Hope Seems Lost

I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately on the theme of “The Hero’s Journey” that every man must take in order to grow from being a boy into being a man. I’ve been particularly drawn to movies that talk about hope and masculine empowerment, such as The Shawshank Redemption which is currently rated number one on the IMDB list of the top 250 movies.

Obviously the reason why this particular movie is so highly rated is that it strikes a chord deep in the soul of everyone who watches it. I’ve seen it several times before, but this time it’s struck some nerves with me that hadn’t quite been hit before.

Wisdom from The Shawshank Redemption

Wisdom from The Shawshank Redemption

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Boost Your Confidence by Growing a Mo during Movember

Want to help other men suffering from prostate cancer and depression, while also boosting your own self-confidence all at the same time?

Movember LogoOne of the simplest ways to overcome self-consciousness and boost your self-confidence is by changing your appearance… like growing a moustache if you don’t normally have one. And Movember is the perfect opportunity.

You’ll be helping yourself and other men all at the same time. Close to 3,300 …men die of prostate cancer in Australia each year and one in eight men will experience depression in their lifetime. Movember is about raising funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and depression.

By joining in Movember, you get to feel doubly good!

So participate in Movember this November. Get your friends and family to sponsor you online, and help raise funds to support men suffering from prostate cancer and depression.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Another Happy Customer…

I literally just got this email, unsolicited, from a recent purchaser of The Confident Man Program:

Subject: Thank you – this stuff is gold

I bought your program just earlier this week and my results have been amazing in the only four days I’ve used it. My confidence is booming and I can’t wait to see where I’ll be in the time I’ve gone through it all. Thanks for such a simple and straightforward approach that is so practical. You’ve done a great thing here and I wish you the best going forward.

Made my day. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Cheers, Graham… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Do A Theatrical Improvisation Course to Build Confidence

Hey guys, it’s Graham here again, and today I want to tell you why you should do a theatrical improvisation course. Now, you may have heard of theatrical improvisation or improve or theater sports or theater games, and they all refer to the underlying concept of improvising.

Now, improvisation is an incredibly valuable skill to have, and so I want to tell you why it’s so great to be able to improvise as far as self-confidence goes. Of course, the first reason why you should do theatrical improvisation is it’s simply a lot of fun. You’ll get out there, you’re mixing with some really cool people, you’re doing stuff that’s just coming into your head spontaneously and it’s a really great space to be in.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Confidence, Cats In The Cradle & Your Relationship With Your Father

I’ve been learning to play the Harry Chapin song, Cats in the Cradle, which really reminds me a lot of my relationship with my father. Now, I had a pretty good dad. He was always there for me physically when I was a kid. He was a good provider and family man. He wasn’t perfect, but he was okay.

But I found him a very difficult man to connect to emotionally, and the line in the song that really hits me is right at the end where the man says, “He’s grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.”

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Audition For A Play Or Musical

Here is a tip for you that’s really going to boost your self-confidence and push you outside your comfort zone and get you doing something completely different that’s also a whole lot of fun. Wondering what is it that I’m talking about? Well, I’m talking about auditioning for a play or a musical, getting up on stage and performing, doing a bit of a performance in front of your friends and your family.

Now, this is a whole lot of fun, and the way you do this is that you hunt around for some amateur theater companies in your local area. Every big city has groups of people who get together to do some amateur theater. They put on plays, they put on musicals where people get up and sing and just have a whole lot of fun.

This is really great; you’ll just love doing this. It’s going to scare the crap out of you, but at the same time it’s really a lot of fun. So the way you do this is you look around to find what amateur theater companies are operating in your area. Just do a Google search for “amateur theater” or “musical theater” or “theater companies”, and have a look for the ones where they just put on productions purely for fun.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Improve Your Relationship With Your Father

Today you’re going to learn about improving the relationship that you have with your father. Your relationship with your father has a massive impact on your sense of self as a man and your general level of self-confidence. And this exercise is going to be particularly easy for you if your father is still alive.

If he’s not still alive or you don’t have any contact with him, that’s going to be a little bit trickier. But this is primarily for guys whose fathers are still alive, and the idea here is that you go and connect with your father in a way that perhaps you haven’t done before.

If you’ve already got a great relationship with your father, that’s cool. If you see him regularly and you spend some one-on-one time with him, then that’s exactly what you want to be aiming for. But if you haven’t, here’s how to make that happen.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Create The Life That You Want

I’ve literally just finished reading this great book that I really want to recommend to you called The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz subtitled Learning to Become a Creative Force in Your Own Life.

Here’s what I’ve found fascinating about this book: Firstly, he outlines that most of us spend a lot of our lives living in what he calls the reactive responsive orientation, and what happens in this orientation is that generally we’re moving between what we don’t want and what we do want all the time.

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By Graham Stoney, ago