Velocity (eBook)

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FORGE AN UNSTOPPABLE MINDSET

Get ruthless about your mindset. It’s the engine room for sanity, liberation, prosperity and growth. This chapter is close to my heart as it was the catalyst in developing a transformative shift within my beliefs. It made me realize what we are truly capable of. I’m dedicated to unravelling the essence of such an unstoppable mindset, a trait that transforms obstacles into stepping stones and every adversity into opportunity. It’s about cultivating a spirit so resilient and a will so unyielding that every challenge faced is another chance to prove your mindset is fortified for anything that comes your way. I truly mean this, as I have lived it. Over and over.

At the heart of this transformative journey is the understanding that resilience is not a gift bestowed upon a fortunate few but a forged characteristic, shaped in the fires of personal trials and tribulations. If you feel that you’re not quite there yet in your journey or endeavours, it’s okay. It’s about developing a core of steel, not through avoiding challenges, but by embracing them as necessary elements of your growth. Every challenge in your life is an opportunity to strengthen and increase your mindset and resiliency. Your own mental threshold. You essentially raise the bar with every victory. It sets a precedent for any future trials. It increases your thermostat that little bit extra. And I urge you to embrace the trials when they arrive. Trust me, they will come eventually.

Life will undoubtedly throw us hurdles, bumps, and heartbreak. It’s important to start priming your mind that you will encounter seasons of loss and defeat. It’s also imperative to remember that life will also bless you with many seasons of triumph and success. The quicker we prime our minds that this will undoubtedly happen, the better we are for it. And I don’t mean this lightly. It will literally change the trajectory in your life and how you handle every decision (whether big or small) in your journey moving forward.

The mind is a magical organ that has the ability to create or detonate. I remember the moment I lost full control of my mind. It’s such a painful and debilitating experience that I don’t wish it upon anyone. I honestly thought there was no turning back. I felt as though I’d reached a depth so low that I could never climb out. Every day felt like a struggle, every moment a battle against my own mind. It was a darkness so profound that it seemed endless, swallowing every shred of hope and joy. But in that abyss, I discovered a strength I never knew I had. It was in the deepest despair that I found the spark of resilience, the flicker of a fighting spirit. In order to transform my situation, I understood the only way out was to firstly embrace the pain. This journey taught me that our lowest points are not our end but the beginning of our rise. It’s in these moments that we redefine our limits, rewrite our stories, and rise to greatness. Remember, no matter how deep the fall, the climb back up is always within reach. You are stronger than you think, and your story is far from over.

Sitting in a cockroach-infested cell at Long Bay Maximum Security Prison in Sydney, I found myself numb, lost, and deep in thought. It wasn’t just any thoughts. I had become so petrified of prison and my surroundings that I started creating these recurring imaginary scenes in my mind that weren’t true. I found out later that this is a mental condition called ‘Intrusive Thoughts.’ Yet even though there was a one in a billion chance that these fabricated events would never happen in real life, my own mind started to believe it. It had repeatedly been playing in my head. Like a broken record stuck and skipping on the same tune, over and over.

My fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system was on overdrive continuously for months on end. It started to break me down to the point where I had given up. I wanted to end my life. In these moments of despair, the pain was unbearable. It was debilitating and ruthless. Intrusive thoughts are real. Very real. And if you don’t know how to control them, they’ll start controlling you. Mental health can lead an individual to places they haven’t been before. In a short space of time. Although negative thoughts can be detrimental to your health, there are effective methods you can use to combat them and take full control. For good.

Intrusive thoughts were only one part of the equation. The reason why these thoughts literally ‘stuck’ and manifested in my head so intensely was because they were mixed with deep feelings of emotion. This created a mental and psychological imprint. It stuck like the strongest glue you could ever imagine. I clearly remember the cold rush of blood going through my body when they officially rooted themselves deep within my brain. I remember the moment so vividly. I was literally paralysed for a few minutes. The minutes turned into hours, weeks, months, and continued for almost two years. The eerie feeling of being incarcerated for life in prison numbed my soul. The words ‘never to be released’ haunted my mind. Could you imagine? I thought to myself. It literally traumatized and plagued me. I was already suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and now this was compounding the situation and testing my mental capacity which was already shot. Remember, I was raised in a good Greek family and I had never been in trouble with the law. Ever. Now I found myself in one of the oldest, seediest, and unhygienic prisons in the country. From one extreme to another, literally overnight. If I had to paint a picture of what hell looked like, this was it.

You’re probably wondering what these thoughts were?

Well, because I never wanted to see the inside walls of prison ever again, my mind started thinking of all of the unrealistic ways I could find myself back inside after my release. At this stage, I had no idea how long I was looking at. It was at the start of my journey, and I was stuck in remand. The remand yard is where individuals are kept that are going through the court system and awaiting sentencing. The devil knew I was vulnerable, so the little pheasant thought it was a great time to attack. Whilst I felt hopeless with my back against the wall. I was up for the fight – one day at a time.

The worst of these thoughts was me thinking and imagining I would commit a heinous crime whilst ‘sleepwalking’ when I was free and back home. Even though I hadn’t experienced sleepwalking since my youth, it’s amazing how the mind can come up with the weirdest things in an attempt to defend the unrealistic risk and consequence. The chances of me sleepwalking and grabbing a knife or something of that nature to hurt someone was absurd. I started to believe it though. So, I thought of ways to eliminate the situation. Lock myself in a room at night? Get someone to cuff me to the bed? Sleep alone in my own place? The list went on.

What if this was truly possible? What if I unknowingly hurt someone I love? What if the Police didn’t believe me that it was an accident?

The term ‘head miles’ in prison refers to someone overthinking and causing themselves unnecessary pain through their thoughts. My brain odometer would have easily clocked a million miles with all the fucked-up thinking that was going on in my head.

The repeating ‘what if’s’ that rolled in my mind were hurting me. Badly. The more you try to eliminate these unwanted and abnormal thoughts, the more they dig deeper and take hold, like the root system of a wild fig tree which are spread long and deep. When you’re in this state, it seems like all hope is lost. But that’s not the case. It can be reversed much easier than you think. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was trial and error for me. Looking back, I know I was being guided in the right direction in search of the right answers.

I remember spending my last three months before my release in a minimum-security prison in Muswellbrook, NSW. They do this to normalize and prepare inmates before being released back into society. At this stage, I was still broken and not well, however, I was keeping myself busy by working as much as I could and training as hard as I could. This enabled me to sleep well and keep the daily dose of endorphins filtering through my body. It was my natural drug. I hadn’t revealed my pain or anguish to any inmates during my time in prison. I never wanted to burden anyone with my issues, even though I was always there for others. I knew everyone had their own battles to face. I even had the hardest and most violent inmates cry on my shoulder at times. It gave me strength being able to help others.

One afternoon, I started a conversation with a fellow inmate whom I used to work with during our work release program. He told me how he suffered from Tourette’s and intrusive thoughts. My eyes and ears lit up like a lion ready to pounce on its prey. Every detail he was explaining was the exact symptoms I had been facing for so long. I felt a sense of normality for a moment. I didn’t feel alone anymore, thinking I was the only one going through this pain. The confusion and fabricated tales that tormented me for so long started to show cracks and signs of weakness. I began to understand this condition was common amongst many people.

Later that afternoon, I had a hunch to go visit the prison library to see if I could find any books that had any information on psychology and mental health. I wasn’t expecting much as the resources were very limited. To my...