From Homeless & Rock Bottom to 1,000 Days in a Monastery: How Piers Cross Found His Way Out

🔹 Want to break free? Join Unhooked Academy now:
https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

Piers Cross on Trauma, Addiction, and Self-Compassion

Most men walk around with stones in their shoes their whole lives. They don't know the stones are there. They just know something hurts, and they've learned to keep walking anyway.

That's one of the most powerful things Piers Cross said in this conversation. And it captures something I see all the time in the men I work with — unprocessed trauma quietly running the show, showing up as compulsive behavior, isolation, a relentless inner critic that won't let them rest.

Piers's own story is one of the more remarkable ones I've encountered. He grew up with an alcoholic father, ran away to boarding school, watched a friend die by suicide, and was then sexually abused by the priest the school sent them to for support. He suppressed all of it, built a successful career in finance, and slowly fell apart. At his lowest point he was homeless, struggling with drugs and alcohol, and tried to take his own life. What turned it around was ending up at a Buddhist monastery — where he stayed for over 1,000 days. He's been sober for 24 years.

In this episode we talk about:

• How suppressed childhood trauma shows up in adult addiction, even when the connection isn't obvious
• Why going back to touch trauma can re-traumatize you — and what to do instead
• What EFT tapping is, how it works neurologically, and why Piers uses it with every client
• The three ingredients Robert Moore says are required for real initiation to happen
• Why the monastery was a rite of passage from boy to man — and what that has to do with recovery
• The inner critic loop that keeps men stuck, and how to step out of it
• Why alcohol and porn relapse are more connected than most people realize
• A five-minute safety meditation practice you can start today
• What Piers wants every man struggling with addiction to hear before anything else

The self-compassion piece in this one is worth the whole conversation. The image Piers uses — of picking a child up 100 times when they fall — is the kind of thing that stays with you.

Connect with Piers Cross:

Coaching: piers-cross.com

Leadership work: compassionateleadersglobal.com

Podcast: An Evolving Man

Documentary: Boarding on Insanity

Resources from Jeremy:

Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com

14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset

Transcript

 going to boarding school was a bit like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. It was deeply traumatic, a friend of mine committed suicide when I was, uh, very low, jumped in front of the train, and then the school sent us to the priest to kind of get over the death of our friend, and he sexually abused us. And I just suppressed it, and that showed up later in my life as 📍 addiction. My teacher used to say in meditation that meditation's when we get distracted, it's like a small child falling over who's learning to walk. How do you pick that child up? Do you go, "You idiot, why are you falling over?" But that's what we do in meditation or when we look at porn, we're like, we're so hard on ourselves. It's like, no. You might have to pick the child up 100 times, dust them off. "There we go, darling." That's what I, I invite us to bring to our own inner being 📍 My guest today is Piers Cross. Piers is an author, filmmaker, and transformational coach specializing in working with men who feel stuck in their relationships. His personal story is one of the more remarkable ones I've heard. An alcoholic father, a deeply traumatic boarding school experience, addiction to drugs and alcohol in his 20s, and a period of his life where he was homeless and at rock bottom. What turned it around was ending up at a Buddhist monastery where he stayed for over 1,000 days, and he's now been sober for 24 years. In this conversation, we get into a lot of territory that's directly relevant to anyone dealing with compulsive behavior or self-sabotage. We talk about the connection between childhood trauma and addiction, how to actually work with trauma without re-traumatizing yourself, what EFT tapping is and why he uses it with his clients, the inner critic loop that keeps men stuck, and what it actually means to treat yourself with compassion rather than just beating yourself up every time you slip. We also talk about the monastery as a rite of passage, what makes initiation actually work, and why so many men are walking around with stones in their shoes they don't even know are there. I got a lot out of this conversation, and I know that you will too. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Piers 📍 Cross All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Unhooked podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz. Today, welcoming Piers Cross. Piers, welcome to the show. How are you? Hmm. Thank you, Jeremy. It's lovely to see you again. Obviously, I spoke to you on my podcast a few weeks ago and, uh, yeah, I'm good. It's hot here in the UK, which is lovely. I'm in Yorkshire, so it's not hot like it is down the south, down south. It's like 20, 22. It's just, yeah, very temperate, lovely sounds wonderful. And yes, we did, we had a wonderful conversation on your podcast and, uh, some fascinating topics that we got into, some of the ones that I actually wanna pull back into this conversation for the audience here. Um, just for the audience out there listening right now, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and the work that you do in the world? Mm. Thank you. Thank you. So I am a leadership coach, and I specialize particularly around the area of emotional intelligence, compassion, also working a lot with boarding school survivors, people who've been to boarding school. I've made a documentary called "Boarding on Insanity," which looks at the, the arc of boarding school and how many of our global leaders have been to boarding school, and how that impacts us as a s- as a global society. And I run a company called Compassionate Leaders Global Limited, which helps leaders to, to become more heart-centered and lead more from the heart. So that's, that's who I am. Yeah. Uh, what I love about your work, 'cause I've been diving into it recently, and so much... You know, from the outside, people might think, "Well, I don't have anything related to boarding school. I didn't go to boarding school, so what does that have to do with me?" But what's so fascinating is how much of that work, and the insights from that work, and the work that you do helping people is relevant to, to almost anyone, because everyone's got some kind of trauma and emotional issues and, and needs some emotional intelligence and regulation and learning how to actually work with, with all the different difficulties that have arisen in the past. Um, on top of that, you also have a background in, in the monastery, in being a monk and Buddhist practice, which is something that we connected over quite deeply. Um, so I'd love to, to kinda just dive in. Yeah, and you also, I guess, the other thing is you also have a, a history with addiction and recovery. So I'd love to dive in just a little bit of what was your story with addiction, with finding Buddhist philosophy, just so people can have a little more context of who you are as a person. Yeah. Thank you. So my addiction really begins as a child. So my father was an alcoholic, officer, and it was difficult growing up with him, very angry. age five he had of the liver, spent a year in and out of hospital, nearly died, and then he stopped drinking. But he came back home at that point, a lot of shame, very... a lot of anger, and I fought with him a lot. So I started to run away, and eventually I ran away to boarding school. I wanna get away. So going to boarding school was a bit like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. It was deeply traumatic, and while I was a success on the surface, good at sports, reasonable academic, it was, yeah, um, can't remember if I shared on my... the podcast, but essentially a friend of mine committed suicide when I was, uh, very low, jumped in front of the train, and then the school sent us to the priest to kind of get over the death of our friend, and he sexually abused us. And so it's a bit like, again, jumping out of the fire. And I just suppressed it, and that showed up later in my life as addiction. So I worked in the financial sector in London for a number of years, in Paris, and went to one of the top business schools, and on the surface I was succeeding. Great relationship, lovely house, good, great job, I just started to fall apart, and it was... I suddenly, you know, and I was struggling with addiction, with, uh, drugs and alcohol mainly, and, and workaholism really. I couldn't really stop. And so it was at that point when I was at my lowest, I spent some time homeless essentially, and A few years went by, but I, I found myself in the Buddhist monastery. So that's some of my background, to get me there. But I was, yeah, not in a... I tried to take my own life. I self-harmed. I was in a very dark space Hmm. Thank you for sharing that, and I, I really value you sharing that story because I know so many people listening to this have their own story of some kind of trauma earlier in their life, and then in order to cope with that, turned to success as an addiction to, you know, hyper performance and then to drugs, alcohol, other substances, and, and all the ways that trauma can manifest in, in addiction and hyperproductivity and, uh, perfectionism. Uh, it's, it's quite fascinating, uh, and sad, but amazing that you were able to see yourself through it Yeah, I'd love to say that I had-- I did see myself through it. It was more that I had amazing guides around me, the monks. I worked with a Jungian analyst who'd been a contemporary of Jung. I think she'd been one of the first people through the Jung's Institute in the '50s. She-- I worked with her, she was in her late 80s in the 2000, 2002. So I'd love to say, "Yeah, I got myself there." I was like, "No, no, I had absolutely amazing guides who supported me and just, 'Come on, Piers, you can do it.'" And I was kicking and screaming for quite a few years going, "No, I can't do this. It's too painful." And, uh, and so, yeah Well, I imagine there must have been, there had to been, uh, some ownership on your part to seek help, to seek a mentor, to seek the monastery. There must have been some component of you that h- got fed up with it and said, "I can't keep living this way, and I need to, to change something." Can you tell me what that moment was like for you? Or, or maybe there was a series of moments, but what was the turning point for you in the addiction story? Yeah, thank you. I think I, I'd spent a year in Africa, so this... 2000, my father died, and that brought up a lot of stuff. I spoke to my father, and I guess one of the things I've been able to do in my life is have difficult conversations. my father was on his deathbed, and I said to him, you know, he... I knew he didn't have long left, and he was lying propped up on... You know, it was d- two separate beds, and I was sitting on one, he was on the other. And I said, "Dad, I felt like you've hated me my whole life." And he started crying, and it was only the second time I'd ever seen, seen him crying. And he says, "Piers, my whole life's been a lie. It's just been an act, you know, I do love you." And yet that's what I grew up with. And so I started to question around that time, so that was 2000. But I didn't really understand. I didn't have a guide to guide me through it. And while I went down the psychiatrist route, fortunately or unfortunately, I ended up going to Africa instead. Africa, it was... I was living an expat life, meaning y- I'd go out drinking every night. Some nights I would stay up all night and go back to work the next day. And because I was working, 'cause I was a volunteer coordinator, I was socializing with the volunteers. So I felt like, "Oh, I'm at work. It's okay for me to stay up drinking all night." But for someone who struggles with addictions, it wasn't healthy. after a year, I basically... I think I either had alcohol poisoning or I got really sick, and I got put on a drip. And that same day, I was flying back to the UK, and I was just really ill. And I just... Little seeds of like, I was always helping other people, I wasn't ever... I hated myself. I, my, my inner dialogue was, "You're a piece of shit." And so I started to realize that I was always helping others. It was time for me to help myself. And I had that insight. This was probably November, December 2001. I then went on a bender for about 10 days, spent 2,000 pounds, which is like probably $3,000, something like that. And it was like I suddenly was like, "I need help." And I, then the synchronicities of the doors open. I was like, I need a space where I can just stop, I can work, get paid, you know, for food and accommodation. And again, the doors just opened, synchronicities, and I got an opportunity to go and visit a Buddhist monastery for, uh, uh, 10 days. And I spoke to the abbot. They were looking for, uh, to work in the kitchen. They were on retreat. They needed someone to come in. I could cook. I was very hardworking. And I went up to the monastery for 10 days, and I ended up staying over 1,000 days, so three and a half years. Wow. I didn't leave. What a, But what a lovely story Well, yeah, the truth is I couldn't leave. I was literally such a mess for the first few, few years it wasn't possible to leave. I was just a breakdown Mm. I- i- in the sense of you were starting to kind of unravel the things that had been suppressed and Yeah of going through the process of, uh, the transformation of... You know, it's interesting in the, the Goenka Vipassana tradition, Goenka often talks about going on a 10-day retreat, and it's like starting a surgery. And, you know, once you start, you can't just leave halfway through because you've started this process of being cut open, and you gotta stay through it till the end. Hmm. Yeah, it was that. I mean I, there was a teaching by Ajahn Chah, so I was in the Cha- Chah tradition Thai forest, and he used to say this idea of when you can't go forward, and you can't go back, and you can't stand still, that's where you practice. I was in that prac- in that place for a couple of years because I couldn't go forward, I had no future. go back 'cause it was like I was uncovering sexual abuse, and it was really horrible, and I couldn't be in the present moment 'cause I was just feeling such pain all the time. And in that moment, I remember one evening, I just, it was a bit like Eckhart Tolle, I had an enlightenment experience for about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and I had a few experiences like that over the period. But I just went into light and I was like, "Oh my God, it's just absolute presence." Because it was too painful in the future. I'd stopped speaking to my parents, my, my mother and my sister didn't-- and my friends, so have anything to go back to. I couldn't look at my past, and was too painful. It was just like, oh my God. And it was just like, wow, this is amazing. And a bit Hmm. Eckhart Tolle, it kind of diminished over time. Uh, but I had a few things like that where it was like, wow. the abbot, I'd go and see the abbot. I was like, "Wow, this thing's just happened." And he was like, "So?" I'm like, "What do you-- you don't understand. It's just been amazing. I did this, and I saw the kind of nature of the universe." he was like, "So?" 'Cause he realized that if I got attached to the enlightenment experience, I would get attached to the, the hell experience. sure enough, a few weeks later, I'd go into hell, or a few hours later be like, Mm-hmm. "Ah." And yeah, it was a, a journey of, yeah, an amazing journey overall. I, I think it's, it's like for me the, the monastic tradition, maybe you can corroborate this, it's like an initiation from boy to man. Suddenly you let go of getting your own way. You are there to serve. You're there being Mm-hmm. difficult. And we don't Hmm traditions, and obviously in Thailand they had that. It's less so now, where for the rains retreats, in order to get married, the young men had to go and do three months in a monastery. Mm-hmm. was a rite of passage. And for me it was a rite of passage Yeah. Yeah. It's so fascinating, you know, that you're bringing up this topic. My-- the last podcast guest I had, Alessandro, uh, Forsali, was, is really big on talking about, you know, initiation and rites of passage for men and this transition from, from boy to man. And, you know, people have really studied this for, for a long time, and people have kind of mapped out what is needed for a rite of passage, for an initiation, and there's certain kind of ingredients or components. And totally true that going to the monastery and spending time at the monastery has a lot of those ingredients o- of a rite of passage, and moving from that boyhood mentality to kind of a more of a, a mature man mentality. I think it's absolutely so important for, for people in our society to have those experiences of initiation Yeah. Thank you. Interesting. I think it's Robert Moore in one of his talks, or it might be in his book, The Archetype of Initiation. I think he says there's three key things that you need for an initiation to happen. First one is a safe place Second one is a some form of humiliation Hmm. And the third one is s- an elder, someone to hold the space. And I realized looking back is I had those three things in the monastery. was safe, the monastery, and I really felt that container, the rules, you know, the... I was on eight precepts. I wasn't on the 227 precepts. But I was celibate, no food after midday, no you know. Basically, I realized the only things I could do was eat, uh, exercise and work really, medit- and meditate. Those were really the only things. And obviously read and things like that, but. And then the second one's the humiliation. I, I had to shave my head, shave my eyebrows, wear white all the time. like, you know, Yeah. was quite humiliating on one level yeah, and I imagine, I mean, part of the... It's interesting the word humiliation can have such a negative connotation, but as you said it, the word that actually came to me was, um, to have humility or to be humbled, and I think going on retreat and visiting a monastery, it humbles you. You know, you, you find that humility of realizing, "Oh, I don't have it all together, and I, I don't even know how to sit without losing my mind. I don't know how to sit still without going crazy." And that can really humble you and, and humiliate you in, in a wholesome way, in a grounding kind of way. And beautiful that the first part is, is it a place of safety? Because only in a place of safety can then you have the humiliation in a positive context. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I talked on, uh, my own podcast about the word, root humiliation. If we feel humiliated, my wife used to say this to me, Michelle, was, "Where am I not being humble if I'm being humiliated?" And it's like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've kind of put myself... I've gone into ego. That's why I'm feeling that. And that humility humble, to go, "Hmm, yep" And that was one of the things my wife was looking for when we met. She wanted someone respect her. And I remember I used to kind of bow my head when I'd see her before we were together, and I'd learnt that in the monastery to, to just show respect, be humble Yeah. So a lot of, a lot of really deep lessons you learned in the monastery it sounds like Yeah, definitely. I mean, it was definitely transformational. Um, you know, at the end got chronic fatigue after a year and a half, so I really struggled to get out of bed, and it was a challenge to do things. and it was... Obviously I had to find ano- another level within myself to, to what's going on and understand now it's the, the chronic fatigue was a lot around just my mind. My mind was just going all the time, and it's like, "Right, how do I still my mind? Be more gentle made you... Yeah. W- I'm curious what made you decide to, to transition out of the monastery? Yeah, great question, Jeremy. It was partly to do with the abbot each year. So I became a novice monk, uh, June and I would commit for a year. At the end of the year, I would speak to the abbot again and go, "Yes, I'm gonna commit again," and I did that three times. Then in June 2005, the abbot asked me, and I didn't have an answer, yes or no, and he says, "Let me know within a week." And because he asked for an answer and I was like, "I don't know, I'm just gonna say I'm leaving," and so I just chose it. I didn't know. It was really tough because not eating after midday, I wasn't well, and one of my friends was an acupuncturist, and he was like, "You know, you really need to start eating meat again," was his recommendation. You know, I'd been for a number of years. And so it was just like, "Okay, time to, time to leave." And often the story was it takes about five years to transition a monastic life back into the outside world How long has it been since then? I guess that would've been quite a while ago Yes, two, 21 years now since I've, uh, uh, since I've transitioned. yeah, I mean, the abbot said to me leaving, he says, "If there's just one thing I'd recommend that you do, Piers, it's to drink." Because you've say, got your eight precepts, and if you stop, you start drinking, then you might be quite promiscuous, for example, or you might then be mindful with your words or your actions. there were quite a few examples of monks who left, started drinking again, and then suddenly all eight have gone. they're like, Right. Right have I done?" And so he said, "Don't drink." And it's now been 24 years since I-- took 24 and a half years since I've had a drink or Yeah. So You know, it's so interesting, this topic. This is something that's so relevant for a lot of the guys I work with and a lot of people who are listening to this, the topic of alcohol and intoxicants. And what's interesting, I remember hearing this story. I don't know if this is one of those, like, fake Buddhist quotes, um, 'cause there's a lot of fake Buddhist quotes. There was even a website called fakebuddhismquote.com or something, where you could check is this, like, a real quote from the Buddha, or is this, you know, one of these Hallmark, uh, quotes? But there was this story I heard where somebody had asked the Buddha, you know, which of the, the precepts was most important, and obviously there's, there's the five precepts, and there's the eight precepts. Most laypeople are on just the five, like don't kill and don't steal and don't lie, don't have sexual misconduct, and don't take drugs or intoxicants that cloud the mind. So somebody asked which of those is the most important, and most people would think, okay, not killing is the most important, maybe not stealing. And again, I don't know if this is a real story, but the Buddha apparently said the one about intoxicants is actually the most important because if you, if you act in, you know, intake drugs and intoxicants that cloud the mind, you lose your inhibitions, and you're more likely to commit all the other ones. And so guarding the mind in that way and really protecting it from, from things that cloud the mind and, and remove your sense of self and your sense of presence is so important. And I think for a lot of the guys I work with, they come to the realization that alcohol is one of the things that has to go because when they drink, it just , it so much-- it's so easy to lead to relapse when you lose yourself in that way Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, yeah, for me, I remember I started to write poetry probably while I was at university, and I would whiskey while I was doing it on my own. It would help the creativity flow, but it was a slippery slope. It's like I'm on my own, sat at a computer, and I was fortunate in those days 'cause the internet connections were so slow. This was the '90s, so if I wanted to look at porn, it would be like I'd have to go and make a cup of tea. It'd be half an hour till the next, next image came up and it was like, okay, you know, AOL like that. So, um Yeah, I almost, uh, you know, I almost see those as the good old days where you had to download a single image, and it took, it took an hour for a single image to download. You didn't know what you were gonna get. No and, y- you know, it's, it's quite sad because the, you know, the advances in, in technology and connection speed and what's available has made it just such a potent drug. I mean, it's like compa- comparing... Uh, the analogy, I've given this before, but it's like comparing porn back then to what porn is now. It's like comparing what smoking weed was in the 1960s to taking fentanyl today. I mean, it's just such a, a massively different drug and experience, and so hyper-addictive, um, that, you know, for people getting addicted to porn these days, it, it's, it's a real struggle because it's so much more accessible and, and novel and stimulating. Yeah. I do-- I wanna make sure we talk, you know, you kinda mentioned this a little bit, but about the trauma work. And you, you mentioned that beautiful quote from Ajahn Chah where he said, "If, if you can't go back, and you can't go forward, and you can't stay still, that's where the practice is." And you mentioned not being able to go back because there was trauma there, and you couldn't really touch it. And this is something I, that I'm really curious to explore is a lot of people have trauma, and there, there's a, seems to be a thin line between going there in order to work with it and going too far and getting sucked into the trauma and the negativity and almost re-triggering yourself. And I'm wondering if you could just talk to that. Like, how do you find that balance when you're working with trauma? Thank you. Yeah, so I find be- you know, my speciality is around boarding school, and the idea is that, you know, it's a trauma. We don't see it as a trauma, we see it as a privilege. And I think the first thing i- is, is to understand it cognitively. And most of us, we've normalized abuse or trauma. I often hear people say, "This happened to me, wasn't as bad as so and so," or, "It wasn't that bad." And what you're doing is you're just not feeling it. And I have found that if I go back and tell a story, that can re-trigger me, that can re-traumatize me, if I'm just speaking the story. But if I go back and I somatically... It might be havening, so touching the body. I might be... I'd use EFT with my clients, and that, there's so many... I think there's over 100 clinical studies now just showing the efficacy of that for people coming back with PTSD. And when you tell the story but you tap, you're regulating the nervous system, and it's almost it unlocks those receptors almost which say, you know, like, "Ah." You know, we get triggered by certain people. It's often because they represent, as Jung said, somebody earlier in our life, a shadow aspect. so when we connect physically to those feelings, tap, it just releases that from the nervous system. That's what I've found. So I agree, and there are people who say, "Don't go back and look at it." I see it's a bit like you're wearing shoes, and your negative traumatic memories are like having stones in there And yes, you can walk with having stones in your shoes, really we want to let those release those stones, you know? And I think Gabor Maté spoke about this, this idea when he spoke to people around addiction, nearly all of them had some form of childhood trauma And once we release that childhood trauma, we grieve that, we let that go from our nervous system, it's like we're emptying the stones from our shoe, and suddenly it's like, "Oh my God, this, this feels weird, but it feels good not to have these rocks in my shoes." Mm-hmm. So if someone is, let's say someone's listening to this and they feel that they do have some trauma that they have been unable to really work with because whenever they go back to it, it, it feels re-traumatizing and triggers them, and so they're scared to explore it, to touch it, to, to feel it. What can they do practically? What, what's maybe the first step or the first few steps that they could take practically to, to start working with it in a healthy way? Hmm. So one of the things I see is that, you know, in the monastery, the safe container. You know, it was the practice, it was the monks, it was the way of life. That's almost the safety I had then I could fall apart because I was safe. I could do, go into initiation. For me, or when we don't have the monastic experience, we can create a daily practice, routine. And Robert Moore in his work, who wrote about the archetypes, the king, warrior, magician, lover, he says the lover is all about rituals. You know, the addictions are all about rituals. We have our rituals that we, you know, we set up when we're taking drugs or we're looking at porn. It's, it's like these rituals. And he says, "Start to put in some positive rituals." And so the ritual is, is whether you create a shrine, you start a daily practice of meditation or exercise, bringing mindfulness, breathwork. You know, I find the tapping the havening where you're connecting to your body. It's like create that safety. And then if, you know, if it's severe trauma, then it's important to have someone guide you through it, to have that elder to go in and then come out again. And What does that usually look like if, if you're working with an expert or working with someone who, w- if it's severe trauma, what is it that they do that helps guide you into it? Yeah. So for me, it's creating a safe container. You know, my work, I'm different from a therapist. The therapist d- won't necessarily share their stories, whereas I do because Mm. that a lot of my clients don't trust people because their people they trusted most stuck them in an abusive institution. I will share my stories. And then for me, I use different practices. One of them is matrix re-imprinting, which is an offshoot of EFT. And we go in to, uh, the memory of the trauma, and we go and we tap, and we tap on that younger part. What Carl Dawson in his work, Matrix Re-imprinting, calls an echo. you're not becoming that young self. You're not re-traumatizing yourself. You're going in and you are supporting. And then what you do is you ask that young part of you, "What do you need? What, what are the resources you need here?" It may be they get taken out of the situation. You know, sometimes with my clients, it's like they just leave boarding school, and their nervous system resettles and recalibrates. it's like bringing people into that situation as supporters and guides. Again, it's like it's settling our nervous systems down. Most of us as trauma survivors, we don't feel safe. We're hypervigilant. so really, the work is to start to settle and find safety within ourselves Mm-hmm. Mm. This actually, this makes me... Yeah, this makes me think of something tangentially related, although maybe it's intrinsically intertwined more than just tangentially related, but the topic of... I guess it's related to the topic of safety or lack of safety, and that one of the things I see often is, is that feeling of panic or fear or, or lack of safety and, like, I can't open up to anyone. I can't open up to these people. I don't trust anyone, and nothing feels safe, and which leads to isolation, leads to running away, not wanting to be seen. And so I'm, I'm curious what, you know, what would you recommend for someone who notices that they're chronically isolating themselves or not connecting, not finding safe spaces? What can help? Yeah. So one of the practices I do with my clients is I get them to find a time that they were s- felt safe in their life. And that might be a memory, holiday time, it might be with certain people. It might... Parents might not have been safe, but grandparents or uncle or aunt, someone who was safe. Maybe it's in nature. And then it's to notice what happens in the body. So my memory is six. I went with my family to Australia, awoke one morning, and it was just a beautiful, idyllic morning on the Great Barrier Reef. Sun was rising, no one was around, 5:00, 6:00 in the morning. It was just like just bliss, that was registered in my nervous system. So I now go back to that memory all the time. That's my place of safety, so my nervous system is regulated. Once you find safety within yourself, it's like, the heart math shows that our hearts have a field of eight to 10 feet. people feel either our fear or our feeling of safety. And what happens is then you're more drawn to, "Ah, this is safe. That's not safe. No, I'm not going to that." We start to find the things which resonate. We're not drawn to certain people anymore. We might say, "Actually, I don't want to spend time with this person until I can find that safety and it becomes anchored into my nervous system." Are there any practices that you do to support that? I guess, you know, just what are the practices you do on a regular basis for your, whether it's for recovery or for, you know, just your mental health or connection to spirituality? Yeah, so my practice, I'm a bit of an extreme character. So I get up 6:30. I practice probably till 9:30, so three hours, ranges from everything, um, from meditation, breathwork, running, uh, being barefoot on the earth, qigong. There's so many things. would suggest the main one I found most useful is... One is that safety meditation. Five minutes, close your eyes, just connect into that place where you felt safe. Notice where you feel that in your body, and just that space. Become that you start getting used to being feeling, feeling safe. And the other one I found is just EFT. I first trained EFT in 2000, just after Gary Craig came out and kind of started teaching. I think it was 1997 he started to teach it, and it's just amazing, so many videos on YouTube that you can do. I have videos on YouTube teaching EFT or, or follow-alongs. Again, that's just an, a way of regulating the nervous system to go, "Ah, yeah, I'm safe now. I can let go. I What does EFT stand for? Is it emotional freedom? technique, Yeah. Okay. Emotional freedom techniques. And yeah And it involves, I mean, I, I imagine it's more complex than this, but tapping, kind of tapping your body in a certain way and in certain areas Yeah. So top of the head, top of the eye, side of the eye. These are all acupuncture points, the meridians endpoints. Yeah. So each point relates to a different part of the body. This is K27 on the kidney meridian. We've got ones under the arm. And so what you're doing is you're bringing the feeling up that maybe there's some trauma, there's something that's bothering you, and you tap, and that's sending a signal into the m- the amygdala, the fight, flight, freeze, which saying, "It's okay. You're safe now. Peace." So you're just recalibrating. You're bringing it up and then settling it, settling it, settling it. Um, You know, it's interesting. It almost brings to mind, like, as you were saying that, I was almost imagining in the same way that when a, a mother holds a baby and is kind of gently patting it on the back to calm it down, you know, as this kind of, "Hey, you're okay. Like, um, we're here." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I often will use this with my clients is I say, "I don't want you to stop the addiction. What I want you to do is when you have that urge to look at porn, to drink, to go to a prostitute, is just to tap for five minutes. what you're feeling in your body, and then go ahead." Hmm. of us, it's just this automatic, "I will go and do this." And it's like, "Yeah, go and do it. Just pause Yeah. One of the things that is difficult about addiction is that a lot of people who struggle with addiction know what they need to do. They know that there are tools that they can support them, and they know that the thing they're about to do is, is not gonna be helpful and is gonna cause damage, and yet they do it anyway. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice or techniques to overcome that component of, of self-sabotage, where it's like, "I know this isn't gonna benefit me in any way. I know this is gonna cause harm, but I keep doing it anyway and I don't know why. I can't stop"? Thank you. My own sense from seeing myself is it's often to do with the inner critic. It's like it's a loop. We just beat ourselves up. We've done the thing, then we, and we just... And actually, the, the practice is, and I talk about this with clients, is just step back, see that part that's criticizing you. I've just come off a session with a client just now. Just see that part, appreciate them, you alive. See they're very young, and just tap on them. You know, imagine just tapping on them. Just, "I see you." And it's starting to differentiate. If that part's inside of you, it's very difficult if you're just going, "You piece of shit, you sh- why are you looking at porn again, you idiot?" You're more likely to do it. Whereas if you can start to see you've got parts, and I do this system called the Inner Kingdom, where there's, like, an inner world. Often when we grow up, we don't have parents who guide us to have a, a- an internal structure. Robert Moore talked about this Grail cup, this cup within us that we're cut sculpting, and often it's cracked. really, the work is, is just to bring and h- bring healing to that inner world. To see these different parts and go, "Oh, there's the little boy or the little girl who's really upset," okay. I see you, but we're choosing a new way." And it's like stepping into the parent, stepping into the sovereign, that this is what we're going to do now And it might take Yes, beautiful weeks, months, years, and that's okay. Just being patient. You know, gent-- uh, my teacher used to say in meditation that meditation's when we get distracted, it's like a small child falling over who's learning to walk. How do you pick that child up? Do you go, "You idiot, why are you falling over?" But that's what we do in meditation or when we look at porn, we're like, we're so hard on ourselves. It's like, no. That same gentleness. You might have to pick the child up 100 times, dust them off. "There we go, darling." That's what I, I invite us to bring to our own inner being Such an important lesson. The, the self-compassion, the self-kindness, not beating yourself up, but just being your own, your own best friend and, and an ally and supporter for yourself. It's a really important part of the journey. Knowing that most of the people listening to this are, you know, are struggling with some kind of compulsive behavior or addiction or self-sabotage or inner critic, what's the most important thing you want them to take away from this conversation? You're a beautiful being Just to see that and to tell yourself that, to start believing that, that we're all beautiful beings. You're not separate from that. We're all amazing on one level, but we go, "Ah, but I'm not that." Yes, you are. To start settling in that that means to be kind to yourself That means when you're berating yourself, it's just to put a hand up. No to that, that, that voice. No, I'm not taking that Not, "Rah, go away." It's like just gentleness. "No. No, I'm a good person. I'm a good person." And then getting that strength. And sometimes it's, uh, Joe Dispenza talks about this, is breaking the habit of being yourself. It's, it's an addiction to that negative voice, gonna take some time just to go, "No, no. do I want? What am I focused on? Oh, yeah, come back to this, come back to this, come back to this." So that's what I'd say is, like, s- see you're sovereign, you're amazing, and bless you I love that. There's, um, a quote from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, who's a Tibetan teacher, and he says something along the lines of, um, you know, practicing-- doing Buddhist practice is like ending an abusive relationship with yourself. And so just putting an end to that, that abusive relationship we have with ourself, and like you said, putting your hand up and saying, "No, I'm not gonna harm myself. I'm gonna love myself." Mm-hmm. Beautiful. Yeah, do- Yeah d- doing Buddhist practices. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah Yeah. Well, Piers, this has been fantastic talking to you again. You know, I loved coming on your show, and I'm glad I got to bring you on mine, and, um, really important work that you're doing. I appreciate, you know, all the stuff around, you know, helping people who have experienced trauma and experienced that, that betrayal of trust, um, because that's a deep wound that is hard to break free from. So thank you for the work that you do Hmm. Thank you, and bless you for the work you're doing around, you know, men's work, porn, and addictions. I just think it's so, so important, and we just don't talk about it enough. And I think it's so Mm-hmm. for us to just go, "Hey." So you for your courage in speaking up yourself. So thank you Last question, where can people find out more about you and the work you do if they wanna get connected? Yeah. Thank you. So piers-cross.com is my website for coaching, and my leadership company is compassionateleadersglobal.com. I run every month or two around different topics around leadership. The next one at the end of this month is around why do certain people keep triggering us? it's sort of all Jungian, what's happening within me? And yeah, I run a podcast. There's a great guest called Jeremy Lipkovitz I interviewed a few weeks ago, so please go and listen Fantastic. Well, we'll link all of that down in the show notes, and, uh, I'm sure some people will go and check it out. So once again, just wanna thank you for coming on. It was a real pleasure to have you here. So that's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Unhooked podcast. We'll catch you guys on the next episode