Why Every Person is Capable of Healing From Within and How To Start Now with Michael Coles
In this week’s episode, I sat down to talk to Michael Coles; holistic health practitioner, and health strategy coach. Years ago, he made the decision to go from unhealthy, obese, and addicted to substances, to healthy and thriving. We talk about a bunch of simple ways to begin your own healing process and Michael shares how he got to where he is now along his own journey. He also had a bunch of tips on self-care, habits, and changing for good.
Who is Michael Coles?
Michael is on a mission to teach the world that we are all capable of intrinsic healing and transformation into the envisioned version of ourselves. Michael overcame, healed, and transformed from having Tourette syndrome, severe asthma, ADHD, obesity, and an eating addiction.
He is a US Marine, a Holistic health practitioner, and a health strategy coach. He helps business professionals and entrepreneurs create a foundation of health using sustainable health strategies “by strengthening our physical, mental, and emotional health we can use this foundation to build our brand, relationships, and vision of success.”
A Decision to Change
At the age of five, Michael was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and bad asthma. As a result, he developed a stutter and had to beat his chest to get certain words out. He soon developed a feeling of being broken and not normal. Then around the age of 12, he was diagnosed with ADHD. He had a hard time fitting in and making friends because he couldn’t sit still in class. He was on medication that literally made him sleep for the rest of the day. So from an early age, Michael struggled with his self-esteem and self-worth.
In high school, he was able to regulate the medication that he was on, but it still wasn’t the same as everyone else. They were healthy, had girlfriends, and made more friends. So, Michael found comfort somewhere else: watching TV and eating. “Because other people didn't understand me, you know, and I was teased, so that caused me to become obese and have an addiction to eating to the point where those neural excitons that they put in chemicals, or the MSG and all that stuff, my brain needed that.”
By 11th grade, he knew a change was in order. He “got sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Michael has always been intuitive, but he suppressed that when he was younger. Then late in high school, he decided to allow himself to receive awareness from his higher self. He wanted to finally listen to what his higher self had been trying to tell him all along, he had just been ignoring it.
“So I listened to it. I was receptive. And it told me to go to the bulletin board in the high school, I walked past that every day, never looked at it. This time I looked at it and right in front of me was the signup sheet for track and field. And I'm like, oh, heck no track and field? Like what fat kid wants to run?” At this point, walking up the stairs was a struggle for Michael, but he still pushed forward and listened to himself. So he signed up. He pulled the coach aside, told him that he was there to get healthy, and then he ran, walked, and crawled two miles while his teammates cheered from the sidelines.
That was all the motivation he needed, he finally cared about his growth and now he had support. “And from then on, I just decided, I'm going to do whatever it takes to, to be like my other peers that are healthy and, and vibrant and can get good grades and class and, you know, everything that I wanted.”
The Path to Health
Once he made the decision to make a change, he made it a point to always listen to his intuition and take action. To live a healthier lifestyle, Michael knew he needed to eat better. So he learned to cook at home and even took a culinary job in a restaurant. He was able to learn which foods make him feel vibrant and healthy, and the ones that make him not feel so great. Making the change to a healthier lifestyle helped Michael to be more alert, his asthma started to go away, and he had a feeling of overall health.
The decisions Michael has made throughout his life to become healthy, to grow, and to always be better, lead him to the decision to open his own practice, that doesn’t just look at the area in the body where the problem is, but also at all other areas, physical and emotional, that could be the cause. He has gone on to energy healing, acupuncture, Eastern medicine, etc.
Because he works in this field, he constantly sees patients who are always going and moving and doing something. But he stresses the importance of taking care of your health, getting enough sleep, and eating right. Everyone is always so focused on being successful, but what we don’t always think about is that health and success go hand-in-hand. It’s important to create a “foundation of health” within your body, that way you can build on it and then resonate at a “frequency to attract what we want in life and to be this glowing, energetic person.” Michael’s goal is to help everyone find the root cause of their “illnesses” and then move on, so we can become the best versions of ourselves. “Each day is a new day, there's always new stuff to learn and new perspectives.”
Healing From Within
Michael says that the first step to really making a change is altering the way you talk to yourself, “really understand, what are you saying to yourself internally and out loud.” It’s 40-70 times more likely that something negative will happen if you say it out loud. Now, don’t take that too seriously, you can’t literally create these things, but negative energy invites in more negative energy. Michael recommends really focussing on having good self-talk, speak positively towards yourself, think empowering things.
One thing that can mess with our self-talk is the ideas we accumulate as we grow up, and they can end up running wild. So in order to help with this, that Michael practices frequently, is meditation. Sit with yourself and listen to your thoughts, without judgment, and “separate yourself from them.” Michael’s analogy for this is to envision his thoughts going across the bottom of a tv screen, like a ticker tape on a news show. He visualizes himself going through his thoughts, keeping the good ones, and getting rid of the bad. Michael says to try to understand “this is a recurring thought, why am I having this thought? Am I willing to feel the pain of this so that it can release?” Don’t let it simmer inside you until it all explodes.
Another tool Michael has made part of his life is EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing). He does this with a practitioner and on his own and goes through a series of tapping on his arm or leg; “just having that sensory input of both sides of the brain going back and forth and really communicating” allows for our brain to create an image that turns into an emotion that you can sit with and release. EMDR helps Michael feel more in tune with his feelings and thoughts which allows for letting go of negative emotions easier. Learning how to be in tune with your emotions and then how to control them is helpful in taking steps towards positive, healing actions.
Self-Care is Key
For Michael, one of the most important things we can all do to better ourselves, and our lives is to develop a routine of self-care, practice more self-love. These days, we all pour ourselves into our jobs and the other people we have to take care of. It has become so easy for us to forget to take care of ourselves. If you’re giving everything you have towards everything except for yourself, you can become so burnt out, or sick, or injured, that you aren’t of use to anyone. So, if we can make ourselves a priority, everything else will fall into place.
Michael says to do this by taking care of your mindset. Do something nice for yourself, “take a spa bath with like lavender or whatever, just something simple” to give yourself love and have time for positive self talk. Doing this is “going to set the stage for each day to help uplift you to actually be your best and give to other people. It's like that phrase, he said, fill up your cup first. And then once the overflow comes, that's what you give to other people.”
Next, saving mental power is extremely important. Don’t make things harder on yourself than they need to be; “we are creatures of habit, and if we have healthy habits, we're going to be more productive.” So take a look at the habits you already have throughout each day and determine whether each one is good or bad for you. “Staying up until midnight watching Netflix, and then trying to go to sleep and then not getting enough sleep” isn’t going to help you be more productive the next day. For Michael, he makes his life easier by meal-prepping every Sunday so that when he’s too busy to make food, he can just grab it. Work on getting rid of your bad habits and replacing them with ones that more positively benefit you.
Affirmation
I embrace the nudges from my inner wisdom and allow it to guide every decision I make.
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