Can Personal Transformation Fix Relationships?

I was asked a very interesting question this week on LinkedIn about Personal Transformation, my relationship to my family who I have not seen for 15 years or more, and if I could you be truly transformed when relationships are not balanced in all parts of my life. This got me thinking on a very deep personal level and I am very glad it did.

I have often wondered if when faced with a truly direct question about my family, feelings toward that part of my life and my honest relationship to those memories in my own mind at this time in my life, how I would react. Regardless of what I may think to myself over the years in private about how I feel, it is easy to protect myself internally without ever facing a direct external question. However, once a person is bold enough to ask such a potentially emotive question in a public forum like LinkedIn, it opens the doors of the subconscious and it was interesting for me to see what lay behind that particular door, while taking the same brutally honest approach I have been taking to Personal Transformation generally.

The question in question was from Peter Klien ... Dan when you spoke to my class at Brunel University London in 2012 you talked about your relationship with your family. One of my students asked about how you are fixing that, can you share how that fits into personal transformation, Is it more difficult to fix one relationship than walk across England? Can transformation fix relationships?

In thinking about this question I decided to go deep into my own soul again for an answer, I revisited all of my emotions, feelings past & present and tried to be as objective as possible from an adult mind today, rather than a subjective mind of the young person I was back then.

In doing so, I was reminded of this, the only picture of me as a child which was actually sent to me recently by a wonderful lady (Carla Bettles or Pomeroy as I knew her) who connected with me on Linkedin from my Primary School. I am the cute one in the purple robe with the crown. :-)

She thinks this is second infants so we would have been about seven years old in Mrs Blakely's class.  It was the production of The Little Fir Tree (how on earth you remember Carla I do not know!). What it is to be 7 years old and a crowned Monarch. This was a very happily recalled emotional experience for me to think about, which may not have been the case a few years ago.

All of this was a really interesting process to think through in depth how I feel and in doing so, carefully watch and analyse my own emotional response to the thoughts that arose. I was really prepared to face my inner demons and be engaged in an archaeological dig into my own soul, genuinely I was. Unfortunately, there was really not much left to find, as it dawned on me, that through the extreme Personal Transformation journey I have been on in recent years, I have already subconsciously stripped the "I" in me back to the raw material and rebuilt myself removing all negative addictions to vices (smoking, drinking and drugs), along with negative people, situations, and emotions, all of which were attachments to negative neural connected pathways to old feelings in my physical brain and conscious mind.

So in answer to your question Peter, Yes, the process of personal transformation fixed me but maybe not in the way you might have considered. In life, we have to accept free will and the fact of no control over another human being, any perception of control is just that, a perception. What I fixed was me, myself and I, and in that process I fixed my relationship to relationships, long held emotional stories of my own mind, personal addiction to negative emotions, people, situations, vices & unhelpful thought processes, while also providing me, with a powerful way to be clear about what is truly important to the future and not living in the past.

I genuinely wish no person in life ill will, I encounter people all the time who seem intent on destructive behaviors and I simply now offer them my indifference. I have no bad feeling toward anyone and no longer harbor negative emotions about myself based upon past feeling that have no relevance to me or my present moment. I am responsible for my judgment of an emotion, how I choose to feel, act and behave in all situations at all times.

I am not the person I used to be, physically, mentally or neurologically and the future for me isn't what it used to be either. I am very comfortable with the person I am, happy within myself, I have a very clear vision, purpose and goals in my life, and will only act in accordance with my accountability to myself to be calm, positive, loving, peaceful, focused and fueled to live a life of action in the moment.

The greatest point of Personal Transformation for me which I found deep in my own mind, was to clearly understand that I am responsible for everything, there is no growth in comfort, there is no value in blame for the past or worry for the future, life is challenging and to be ready for the challenges I need to be able, capable, responsible, accountable to me and most importantly present in the moment.

And have a Norman in my life!

I hope this answers you question Peter and gives the insight you required. I would advocate sharing with your students of 2020/21 and beyond that there are three constituent parts manifested through total personal ownership within Personal Transformation, and they are of the most value to happiness, well being and a holistically wealthy life. They are simply ... Education, Will Power and Choice.