 Hello and welcome to my program. Don't just age and gauge. I'm Larry Grimm and I am a coach for elder hood and I want you at all to have the most extraordinary elder hood that's possible Question today is does it matter what your life story is and how you tell it? I like to use the word life script sometimes, but does it matter how you tell your life story? we're looking at the power of story our second episode actually and Want to I'm going to introduce you to a really dynamic wonderful Life coach who has this at the center of his life coaching this whole topic. I Want to introduce you to what my program is all of my programs every second Tuesday with the help of Think Tech Hawaii great partners in in work here online What I use is of as centered to my coaching with elders is Five spiritual tasks. I call them that elders have to deal with as they go through this stage of their life It's a it's a growing up process You didn't know that you're still growing up even though you're an elder and The first one is grieving. We looked at grieving and the intensity of grieving and it really the many many Experiences of grief that we often have in the elder hood that we didn't have before The second is sorting out but sorting out our stories, you know, we love to sort out our stuff and many of us many of us get caught up in sorting out our our material goods and stuff and Discover what the stories are of our lives that are connected to that stuff Well, we're looking at the power of those stories right now in these two episodes And I'm happy to say that we're going to have another grand experience here of looking at that particular Spiritual task just quickly the last three are forgiving preparing and letting go and Now I have the great privilege of introducing a colleague of mine a coaching colleague Aaron J. Fulton And Aaron Welcome. Thank you so much for your your your work that you're doing with with people in their life Transitions and coaching and Aaron would you please just give us a brief introduction of yourself? Yes Thank you very much for that warm introduction. My name is Aaron J. Fulton, Jr. And I am calling in from Denver, Colorado I focus on helping men Or people rewrite their life story And live a more prosperous and fulfilling lifestyle So I'm happy to be here today. I Am happy you're here Again, it's on the second of the today's program is on the second of those spiritual tasks tasks of growing up in our elderhood of our story or our life script and One of the things that I had not considered and was Was wanting to focus upon is just what what Aaron does which is to look at the possibility of Rewriting your life story or rewriting your life script So Aaron, let's just get right into the topic for the day and from your perspective Would you first start by saying what do you see as the the power? Power of story the power of life story just in general Oh, the power of life story can in either place you in a place where you're thriving You're living in abundance. You're living a fulfilled lifestyle But the other side of that the shadow side of that is is your story can also lead you into a self-sabotaging place a place of limiting limiting beliefs and That's where a lot of people get trapped You know to get trapped in those limiting beliefs and those limiting beliefs become their their life's narrative and out at night Their life's narrative becomes their their reality. So they end up living a false reality So part of what I do is help people first identify those stories and rewrite those stories so they can live a more balanced lifestyle I Notice you focused on men that's is there a particular Need among men for this kind of work you've identified Well, absolutely absolutely Men oftentimes we create stories in our head We create these stories in our head and we end up bringing these stories that we created in our head and to our workplace We bring these stories into our household. We bring these stories into society and We respond impulsively a lot of times based off of the stories that we convinced ourselves It's true there's many times when we misunderstand a situation and When we misunderstand a situation and we create these false stories now we place ourselves in a Guarded place now. I said I deal with men. That's that's what my my niche is my niche to deal with men But these principles can apply to men and women Rewriting your life story because the same way men can bring false stories into the household You know women can also bring false stories to the household But before bringing these stories into your in your household Look at the stories that we're bringing into our own lives and to ourselves You know, some of these stories are toxic We bring these stories into our flow and it disrupts everything and now we're operating from a place of paranoia We're operating from a place where there's a perimeter and we can't fully Reach out to what we want we can't really Expand our our beliefs We only trust in what's in front of us and a lot of times that's limiting right there You know, it is holding this in a box Yeah, so so I'm curious just as we start this I'm curious about your own story and What would you share with us about your own story and It's impact on your life and what you've done with your story. Is it too early in our discussion? No To go there. No, not at all not at all my story Consists of several well, I'm gonna say my theme consist of several stories I had two marriages and in both marriages they weren't successful and I found myself pointing the finger at my partner and I blamed my partner and In doing so I place myself as the victim Well, when we place ourselves as the victim we're less likely to receive because we're so guarded all the time We want to protect ourselves So I had to dig deep into Why am I pointing a finger at everyone else? So that was one reason why I decided to do the work and dive deep into Rewriting your life story the second reason I had a step son that passed away from cancer and It was a very traumatic. Yeah, it was a very traumatic experience and later on down a line You know my son was was born and I remember when my son was was born the first time I looked at my son and I held him in my arms. I was afraid to love my son I was terrified to love my son because I didn't want to go down that that that that road of of Darkness or depression or hurt anymore because what if something happens to my son? So I was afraid to love my son 100% but Larry that didn't last long That didn't last long I was forced to rewrite my story on that one when I held my son and he's making his little noise and every now And then he'll touch my nose or touch my lip Without even a blink. I said I am all in Yeah, I am all yeah That that I was kind of forced to rewrite my story on that one right there And so Trey Trey taught you how to rewrite your story. Yeah, Trey I happen to know his son Yeah So I didn't realize that you really have made this shift in your life over the past how many months. Oh Months it's been years We're going on I start diving deep into the work After my divorce, which was like six or seven years ago. Okay, okay, but as far as My son that's that's three and a half years ago. That's when I really said I surrender You know, I started to learn the power of surrendering and the power of being vulnerable and That was my superpower So there's several things that just led me to this work and I'm grateful. I'm grateful that you know, I'm in this field Because I see transformations every single day in my life and in the lives of my clients I see these transformations and you're never too old. You're never too young to write your story Yeah, I find that so true and and I find that it's very important For people in my age group the elder hood that I'm calling out You have a childhood. You have an adulthood You have an elder hood and people in their elder hood have an opportunity to rewrite their stories in profound and wonderful ways And I've rewritten my own family story and it had a tremendous impact on me I'd like to bring up your website Aaron This is we're we're having a dialogue here today with Aaron J. Fulton who is a live coach Who an owner of embodied vision coaching? Yes, and and you'll find his website at Aaron J. Fulton calm Here's what it looks like To start off with So I hope you'll take click on that sometime and take a look at what he has to offer but what he really has to offer is the man he is and He's he's come to this obviously through tremendous Insights through life experience. I just saw a meme on Facebook that said What it what was it? Oscar Wilde life offers the worst Teaching it gives you the Gives you the experience and then gives you the lesson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing I was looking at I was I was I was I remember a quote from Aqua Jordan and He says I never lose Always when At first when I heard this quote, I'm like, oh, what a cocky quote But what he was talking about was even in his loss there is an opportunity to win because there's lessons that are being learned every single time and Once I understood that it's like regardless of what happened in your life Regardless of the situation regardless of the challenges regardless of the mistakes that we've made in our lives The win is the lesson that we've learned Yes, and those yes Yes So so here is some some other questions that I've had In mind as we prepared and some of these even come from our own own Folks that we are that may be viewers here What are some of the principles that are? Rewriting your own story so Rewriting your life story is actually part of my methodology My methodology is activate your awareness Rewrite your life story and connect with a cohort make strong connection. That's not that's that's my methodology But there's pillars that I've created for rewriting your life story and the first pillar is Compassion and it aligns with what you said forgiveness Compassion I wrote on my board. It says compassion frees us from judgment, which is closely linked to shame Yes, be compassionate towards others. But what about being compassionate? Towards yourself and forgiving yourself for missing a mark for so long with that compassion comes awareness Know what your current foot know where you were and now know your current footing know your current position So compassion is the first pillar that I like to implement with rewriting your life story Excellent. The second pillar is Perseverance now through the journey of feeling compassionate for yourself and when we look at the word compassion It means to suffer with so we usually apply that to someone else But we're going to apply that to ourselves So the second one is perseverance while you are being compassionate towards yourself and Removing yourself from judgment and removing yourself from shame There's going to be this thing that I call the saboteur or the limiting belief that you owe yourself forgiveness What's going to push you beyond that limiting belief that you owe yourself forgiveness perseverance. I Want you to think of perseverance as Say for instance, you want to go up a flight of steps You want to go up a flight of steps, but there's a rope that's holding That's that's holding you back and as you go up the first two steps. You're like, yes, I got it Third and fourth step you feel some tension, but you make it and you say whew, I still got it But now the the true task is going to come when you got to confront the things that you've done to yourself in The past and you got to forgive those things that you've done in the past That's the the rope getting tighter and tighter and tighter But you need support you need support so as you're going up the fifth and sixth step You feel this what this this rope getting tighter and you grab on to the wall and you you grab on to the banister and you Keep on pushing yourself up pushing yourself up because you know that the reward is at the top of the steps That's what I mean by perseverance Wow, Aaron. That is a phenomenal image and what a great metaphor for the real struggle of Coming in to count to contact with your dark side you mentioned dark side earlier. Yes, sir and and connecting with it and Forgiving and embracing it. Yes. Yes. I know Carl Jung said if we don't embrace our dark side, it'll control us Exactly. Exactly. So you're doing wonderful work. I'm sorry. I interrupted your discussion of the principles Please continue. Oh, no. So the third is four principles. So we have compassion. We're forgiving ourselves We have perseverance now that we're forgiving ourselves those old stories are trying to Come back to us and you know, we're still persevering through the past hurt through the past tears now our attitude has to align with our mission There has to be a shift in our attitude Our attitude is what we display is is our behavior and which we display towards situations That's our attitude is the way that we we we react or respond to things So now there has to be a shift in our attitude What's so important about the shift in our attitude is Is Now our inner leader that thing that we that that that that we we thrive off of that that thing that tells us that we can Go beyond this limiting belief that we created for ourselves our attitude Once it shifts Now we have to implement the discipline to maintain that attitude. So my method is compassion Perseverance attitude discipline Excellent X. I was just gonna say I when it comes to attitude also, I like to I Tell people I tell my clients to have like a mental trophy room I mean a mental trophy room and and and I encourage a lot of your listeners to tap into their mental trophy room And our mental trophy room is that place in our mind that we go to and Reflect on all of our past accomplishments that helps keep our attitude in that place Prosperity that helps keep our attitude in that place of thriving What what did you used to do when when you were in college? What was one of the exciting things that you used to do? Yeah You know, I'm asking you like what what was one of the things that you used to do in college when you were I was a I was a theater major Aaron and I directed directed plays I put together the whole production all by with the help of you know, my colleagues my fellow schoolmates But I I put together two or three I don't remember exactly but at least two One act plays and yeah, it was just remarkable to be responsible for it all and have it come out So I love that. That's that's a trophy for me. Yeah, exactly exactly So when you're feeling defeated or when you're feeling that those old stories that once held you back When you fill in those things start when you feel those things start to try to creep up There's certain things that you can tap into in your mental trophy room that that will remind you of How awesome Larry is How you can create stuff, right? May I ride your your coattail on that one Aaron? Oh, yeah One of the things that I emphasize in sorting out stories is that we we often come across people in the elder years Who continue to repeat their same story over and over and they'll say and you'll go back and It can happen with children will say why is he tell the same story You know, they're bold enough to say something like that But what's happening? I think is exactly what you're describing and that is the good feeling and experience of the past It's brought into the present. Yeah Now there's a technical term that I like to use because I'm a theologian and So proud of my theological background, but but there's a word called an amnesis in Greek and what it means is a refusal to forget and amnesia and This an amnesis we translate as do this like do this in remembrance of me the Remembrance of that past trophy as I like your your description and Telling the story of it is the experience of reliving it exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly job man. Good Exactly, thank you. Thank you. Thank you Yeah, and it's just discipline, you know, one of the things that I that I encourage my clients to do is once you You forgive yourself Come from a place of compassion towards yourself and and you persevere you push through those things that are holding you back and your attitude shifts around around life and and You know, you create a discipline. I tell my clients to write words of affirmation Probably a two or three or four words of affirmation and place these words in different areas of their home where it's visible because our mind is Is our mind can be our best friend or it could be our worst enemy and Oftentimes because we're human when we find ourselves Struggling to stay disciplined when we find ourselves struggling to maintain a positive attitude It just does a world of good to see your word of affirmation Right before you go into the bathroom or right before you go Just to remind you of who you are and what you're capable of do you do you recommend? Do you recommend repeating them out loud? Do you recommend just looking at them? How do you? Absolutely, absolutely. I Recommend repeating repeating them out loud one Because before you repeat them out loud the first thing that's gonna pop in your head is what if someone's here? What if someone hears me? Yeah All right, and then what if someone's here me? I'm not gonna do it because I'm gonna sound stupid I'm gonna sound weird or something like that and you start to create this story Out of nothing, you know, it's now you're you're you're limiting yourself From honoring your own words of affirmation. So before you even think anything you say More than anyone else can view me as I am a champion I am capable of loving beyond measures. I am capable of Rewriting my life story. I am capable of being the best that I can be I can I'm capable of being better than I was yesterday you know Words of affirmation that help remind you of who you are and If I may also observe what I I would also like to affirm in what you're saying is that you focused on being as Distinct from doing I mean, it's it's okay to Yeah affirm accomplishments, but what you're doing is saying Let's affirm who you are being the being yes, and there was a Theory about transactional analysis. It was called about strokes and people need strokes. We need Physical strokes. We need mental strokes. We need emotional strokes. Yes, and for every negative stroke It takes 10 positive strokes to counter that and that's and that's in our own It's strokes we can give ourselves to as you so well described Aaron But the their strokes for doing which we tend to focus on in our society But the strokes for being are the ones that really really make a huge difference So Aaron, this is this is just wonderful to hear you talk about how to help people rewrite their story and Reprogram if I may be so bold as to say reprogram their Subconscious mind about who they are exactly exactly repra you said it right there reprogram their conscious mind exactly you said it Yeah Yeah, you know and and just to piggyback off of what you were discussing strokes. I have a video on my Instagram page And also my Instagram page is Aaron a ar own in Bolton f u l t o n junior jr. So Aaron Bolton jr. No dot. No dot No, no dot. That's just my no that I'm Jr. Okay. Yep, and I talk about how we live they how we have daily deaths as well as daily births You know, I off and new things are reborn. So just to fall in line with what you were discussing regarding strokes Well, Aaron, we're coming to the end of our time and thank you so very much Eric would you put up his? Is a Website again the look of his website there it is again Aaron J. Fulton calm and We are so fortunate to have your Description of yourself your description of your journey as well as the description of what your work is and how people can benefit from Rewriting their story. I'd like to ask For Eric if I may also to put up my website and Give a flash on that this is In my work, I invite you to a global community for your extraordinary elder hood I also have a book that I've produced that I put together and on the website. Oh my gosh You can by golly. You can buy it And it's called don't just age engage and it follows on the same principles as what we were talking about Here and that we talked about throughout my program with the help of think-tech. Oh, I can also get a little podcast there of it little reading of it Aaron Does it make a difference in the way I tell my story and the story that I tell and the way I tell it Sounds like it makes all the difference in the world. Yes. Yes. Thank you, man Thank you. Aloha everybody. Thanks for joining us. See you in two weeks