Journey to the Sunnyside

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Mike: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Journey to the Sunnyside, I'm Mike Hardenbrook, and today we're diving into breaking free from self sabotage with Stephanos Tsiphanos. Stefanos is the real deal. He's worked with top level athletes, CEOs, and high profaners around the world, helping them transform their lives through conscious empowerment.

He's guided thousands in areas of emotional healing and self mastery, and today he's here to help us recognize those self sabotaging patterns that hold us back. And more importantly, show us how to rewrite them. So let's get into it with Stefanos.

Okay, Stephanos, thanks again for coming on today. And today we're going to talk about self sabotage. So thanks again for being here. I think that we can. So the first question I had for you is, can we talk about some of the toughest forms of self sabotage in your own story that you've personally experienced and what helped you do to finally recognize them?

Stefanos: Yeah, rock [00:01:00] bottom, you hit rock bottom enough times and you hit rock bottom hard enough, you, you, you're able to see, generally speaking, if you don't. Literally kill yourself if you don't run yourself into the ground with excessive drugs or addictions or anything that basically shuts down your, your physical mind, your physical body and your mind.

If you stick around long enough, you allow those rock bottoms to really be teachers. And that's really how I saw that I was self sabotaging, but my take on self sabotage is a little different in the sense that yes, self sabotage is self sabotage. But the reality that sits underneath that. Is that self sabotage really is protection, and it's hyper protection of a very fragile self, fragile ego, and or a fragile heart, and so we create circumstances in our lives, for me, for example, I would constantly be in infidelity, I'd be cheating in my relationships, and I'd be [00:02:00] cheating, not because I wanted to self sabotage or hurt someone else, but of course those things were occurring, sabotage was occurring, obviously, and I was hurting other people and hurting myself, But because for me, it was a coping strategy.

It was a way to be with my unprocessed and unconscious pain that was coming up that felt so big that I couldn't look at it because I didn't want to look at it and I was choosing not to look at it. I didn't know how to look at it. So I went into peak pleasure behaviors. And for me, that was my drug of choice.

If you like, it was sex. It was orgasm. It was, you know, Validity through sexuality through sexual experiences. It was proving to myself that I am quote unquote free. It's very irrational It's not it's not meant to be rational these self sabotaging hyper protective behaviors The greater the pain the greater the pleasure is often needed to mitigate that pain and that's where self sabotage comes up You know, you're you're really stuck in your life You've lost a partner or you've lost your job or everything's just not going right or you think it's not going, right?[00:03:00]

You You know, you're in massive debt, and, you know, you start smoking marijuana, and all of a sudden, things feel a little easier, so you just keep doing more of that, and more of that, but then you need more of that, and you need more of that, and then sometimes marijuana just isn't enough, so you need something else, then all of a sudden, you know, you're three years into this journey of avoidance, essentially, and it's a journey of sabotage, sure, but it's not sabotage, it's, it's trying to feel safe.

And we have to understand that it's just us seeking connections, seeking safety, but we're, we're looking for it in the wrong places. You know, you've heard that saying, stop looking for love in the wrong places. Well, this is it. Like stop looking for refuge and safety and love in all the wrong places. But we do that because we live in a quick fix society.

So we need a quick fix.

Mike: Do you think that there's multiple? Sources of where the self sabotaging comes from. So like, for your example, I think in other ways, some people are around infidelity or potentially being not the best partner is that I'm going to hurt you before you hurt me because they want to get in front [00:04:00] of it because they already feel like that's going to happen to them for whatever reason in the past or for, you know, around alcohol and drugs.

A lot of people will go out and self sabotage because. This feeling of they don't deserve something. And yes, sometimes that drugs and alcohol is around seeking pleasure or pain in many cases, but also it is like, I'm going to punish myself and self sabotage. Do you see that there's different sources that come from self sabotage?

Stefanos: Human ultimately yes and no, uh, ultimately, and not to, not to distill it or minimize it or reduce it to just one thing, but a big part of that thing is, is we're just not, we're disconnected from our core. Yeah. In other words, our self esteem is low, our self worth is low, our self belief is low, our self value is very low.

And from that stems behaviors that are attempting to stimulate worth, as opposed to actually dealing with the pain and the grief that's in the density that's associated with these ways that we're experiencing the [00:05:00] world. And so, when we're able to do that, that's when the deep work happens, when we're able to really be in grief.

And, and experience our loss, our loss of worthiness, our loss of value, our loss of direction. We actually really be able to, we're able to experience that emotionally, viscerally, express that and be witnessed in that by another human being or other human beings. That's very powerful. We, I know, I believe one of the reasons why we've evolved to how we've evolved in terms of our intelligence, our social intelligence, and just our intellect in general is, is probably for some big events that have happened, discovery of fire, eating meat, uh, opposable thumbs, you know, whatever it may be, or the invention of certain things like the wheel, whatever, in, in, in various conditions.

But one of the things that I really believe, you know, psychedelics, I should brag, psychedelics rock. One of the things that I really believe has enhanced us is our ability to regulate with each [00:06:00] other, to co regulate, to, to learn from each other's nervous systems and to learn to feel safe with each other, and we've accelerated our growth because again, you can only really make meaningful change and heal trauma and make yourself or experience wholeness really through relationship, right, through being relational and feeling safe enough in your nervous system through the experience of another.

And then we grow out of patterns that don't serve us, patterns that are sabotaging, patterns that are, you know, hyper protective, patterns that are vigilant, patterns that are, that are tense, it's through another human being, essentially, that's safe, right? That's, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, the, the, the power play, if you like.

Mike: Yeah. Well, first of all, I like that you want to try and distill it, or, you know, Or bring it down to a more simple level. Cause I think that that's always necessary. Uh, complex tends to lead to less action and moving forward. Correct. So if we're talking about, you know, the rela [00:07:00] the connection to relationship, where's, where does somebody start to recognize maybe I am self sabotaging if they're not aware, but they're listening and they say, well, you know, where can I keep an eye out for these sorts of things?

Or do you think that it's just inherently known when somebody does that?

Stefanos: Few things. It's inherently known, but we ignore it. If, if you slow down long enough to really observe yourself, which requires discipline and focus and patience and self love and compassion and all of that, you will notice where you're fucking up in life.

You know. If you can get really honest with yourself, you'll know where you're hurting yourself and hurting others. And to answer your question even more directly, how does one sort of quote unquote figure it out, Well, we can't see the forest through the trees, often we can't, we can't see our own shit because we live in our own shit, so hence you need other people, quality people in your life saying, hey, tap you on the shoulder, [00:08:00] hey, you're doing this thing and you've been doing it for like seven years now, and, you know, I've been trying to tell you for seven years, maybe I haven't done a good enough job, but here is what's happening, and you should ask Binnie and John and Paul and Peter and Jane and, and they're probably going to say the same thing, and we're not shaming you and we're not criticizing you, we're just saying that, You can do better and we want to support you in that.

Give me a very simplistic example, but you got to surround yourself with people that aren't afraid to tell you, Hey, what about this thing to ask you questions about your life? Not surround yourself with yes, people, but surround yourself with people that are going to challenge you and going to call you forward and want the best for you and have the hard conversations with you.

That's what you've got to do. You just got to say, I want a better life or I want a great life. I need a part of that is surrounding myself with people that are going to actually tell me what I don't want to hear.

Mike: Yeah, well, yeah, definitely. Sometimes [00:09:00] you need people to tell you about yourself. That's for sure.

And you have to be open to that. It's not the easiest thing to listen to, as you probably very well know. You know, in my research in looking through this and the work that you do around self sabotaging, I came across the role of self compassion in recovering. And I know that you said that there's a lot of interpersonal relationship as being the source, but if we talk about self compassion, And maybe elaborate with your own story here.

How did it play a role in your journey or, or maybe others that you've worked with in regard to self sabotage?

Speaker 3: I hated myself

Stefanos: so long because I experienced self hatred and expressed hatred in my environment growing up. And it left a very strong imprint upon my nervous system and my psyche and my relational being, and I thought and believed that's how you do life.

That's how you work. Be with people. Just [00:10:00] be in defensiveness, be protective, and be hard on yourself. Very harsh and a critic. And, when I went into the world, and started noticing that not everyone is like that, it was A, very confusing, and B, very scary. And then, C, as a result of all that, I ignored it.

Because I didn't want to address that, because it requires effort and work to make those changes. And, It wasn't until, again, Rock Bottom can be a great teacher if you allow it to be, and for me, whatever reason, I allowed it to be a great teacher, uh, it started shifting me, and applying compassion, I could only do that when I witnessed others being compassionate to themselves, and being kind to themselves, but then also being kind with me, and initially I pushed it away, I thought, no, you Don't be nice to me.

I'm not, that's not familiar. That's not comfortable for me. Don't be nice. Treat me like shit. That's what I'm used to. And I'm gonna do the same to you. And then we'll make up and it'll be great for a minute and then [00:11:00] we'll cycle again. That's what I was accustomed to. I call it a fuck fight paradigm in romantic partnership, right?

And so, yeah, we'll fuck fight cycle. You can't. You have to fight in order to be intimate and care for each other, and it's these peak, peak experiences, but they're peaks and troughs, and you need the trough to have the peak, right, you need the peak to have the trough, and, and guess what, you need the trough to have the peak, and we're chasing that peak, but you can't have it without the trough, so they're tethered and addicted cycles, and so when you, when you start applying gentle compassion, and I, and I start checking myself, like I'll start checking my thoughts, for example, I drop something, and instead of saying, I'm such a fucking idiot, I would say,

it's okay, just drop something. No big deal. Start breaking patterns. Start really being that. And it's not easy to do, man. And I still, still happen to say, like, last night, I, I, um, dropped this glass thing. Water went everywhere. And I'm like, fuck. And then I'm carrying on. And because it's just such a, it's four decades of [00:12:00] reaction, you know?

And then I have to quickly pause and breathe for a second. And it's okay. It's all right. And that's, that's, that's a win the fact that I'm not, that I'm not ignorant to it and that I'm able to pause a second or two after it happens, even though I've got reactive initially, that's a win, change it slowly over time, we'll learn to be more patient with that as well.

Mike: Yeah, I love that. I mean, in my own journey, I've found that self compassion and self love is so important and it's so surprising, you know, in, in, in groups that I'm in the amount of. Hatred for, for themselves, you know, and even using the word so often, uh, many years ago, I actually decided that I would remove that word from my vocabulary because I just feel that hate is such a strong word to use in almost any capacity.

And you can pretty much, unless it's useful, like in the way that you just used it, but you can pretty much replace it with anything, but just seeing people say like F my life, or I'm, I, or just, [00:13:00] you know, hate yourself for something small, it's, it, you can't. Look, if you can't love yourself, it's so, so hard to love others in life and move through it with flow.

So what I'm thinking here is that if somebody's feeling like maybe potentially they are self sabotaging in their life, what's the starting point to start to address this? You know, I know that we talked about Maybe recognizing it. And in our last call, we talked about somatic healing. We talked about mindfulness practice.

Is this something that we can use here?

Stefanos: Absolutely. You can use self awareness practices, mindfulness practices, embodiment practices, grounding practices. All your life all the time as regularly as you want to really just keep being connected to yourself and ground and settling your nervous system. So it doesn't feel highly stressed and tuned.

The other thing, man, is [00:14:00] get support systems in your life, a coach, a therapist, a working group. Yeah, a men's group, a woman's group, whatever it is, do have experiential, um, uh, retreats, weekends, immersion retreats, you know, where you're learning and growing and challenging your nervous system in healthy ways, where you're expanding your window of tolerance, where you're learning more about yourself.

You're learning more about others. You're spending time with different people, homogenous in your day. Yes, routine and habits and practices are really important. Absolutely. And. Variety and novelty is really important as well, just don't look for it in the wrong places like I did for so many years, right?

And so, develop a healthy relationship with that, but surround yourself with different people and healthy people. That is key to really breaking these patterns of hyper protection or self sabotage.

Mike: Yeah, I like the overall strategy and I'm, my mind goes to How do we catch [00:15:00] ourselves or address it maybe in the moment?

So, I'm going to use myself as a guinea pig in the past, for example. Sometimes I'll, you know, I had a nightly wine routine that was problematic for me many years ago. And, during that time, I would, I knew that I was self sabotaging, did not align to who I wanted to be. Although, changing was a lot more difficult than saying that I wanted to change.

And Many times I would go for a while and do really well, and then I'd hit a speed bump in, in the road, and I'd say, you know, basically, I'm just gonna break my commitment, I don't, I don't give an F, I'm gonna go, you know, buy a bottle of wine and just have at it, and I knew that that was a self sabotaging behavior, what would you suggest, you know, and I know that you work with relationships and maybe with couples in other capacities and not directly when it comes to it.

What we're talking about here, but you know, do you have some strategies or ways to look at it from a [00:16:00] mindset or from, you know, taking a step back

Stefanos: here? Mindsets are only going to get you so far, but it's a great start because it can help you be disciplined and put structure in place. And so if you have a compulsion or addiction or something that's really challenging for you, you know, if you want to quit heroin, don't live and sleep in a smack house.

It's just sort of basic, you know, Life Choices 101, if you have a problem with wine, don't have it in your home. It's often easier to apply discipline multiple steps or a few steps before you get to the point of the action that is quote unquote addictive, right? And so don't have wine in your house, uh, be mindful of.

Maybe you can't really go out to restaurants for a couple of months or a month, or you've got to be disciplined in that way. You want to not feel the void or the hole with other addictions or compulsions, but rather [00:17:00] with healthy habits, right? And, and constructive habits that, that, you know, not so much occupy your mind or keep you busy, but initially you may need that.

And if you're deliberate with it, we can call it deliberate distraction or conscious distraction where. You're saying, okay, usually now at this time after dinner, I'm going to have some wine, uh, but there's no one in the house and I mean, you can go extreme where you can put your keys in a, in a safe as well, right?

And put your phone in a safe as well. That is a timed lockbox safe. And that means you can't get, you know, and same with your computer as well. You can do all that. So you can't call an Uber. Can't call a friend. You can't get outta the house, the nearest bottle shop or alcohol where you can get alcohol is miles and miles away.

So you're probably not gonna walk to it and walk back. You can do all that. But again, all of that stuff, man, it's great and it's, it's good conditioning and it, it can help and it's a start, but unless you're addressing the root cause simultaneously, it's all just fucking [00:18:00] junk. It's all just junk mindset.

All it is, is it's getting you from day one or night. Oh, okay. That's one night. That's a win. Sure. Another night. Sure. 350 nights later. Sure. 500 nights later. You're sober. Great. But are you addressing the root cause? Because otherwise it's a fight every day and that fight will wear you down. And eventually it will wear you down, whether you'll crumble and you'll go back to the addiction or the compulsion or the thing that you think is giving you the connection or the thing that you desire most or the, the avoidance, right?

Because now you're just avoiding it with mindset or it will literally kill you because you get such a jacked nervous system. And from there, many elements and illnesses come from that. So, and that's the sort of mind body connection I was talking about earlier with Dr. Sarno's work would elaborate on that far more than me.

I mean, he's got, I think, 50 plus years of a body of work in that, you know? It's. And so, so you've really got to address the root causes and it goes back to inner [00:19:00] child work. It goes back to what was, what were the unmet needs that you had growing up that you really, what did you need to have that you didn't, didn't have those needs met, you know, um, that's going to be really helpful.

But, but let me close the loop on one more thing. Um, because I did mention, you know, replacing those habits with healthy habits. So, yeah. You usually drink wine at night, you know, don't necessarily watch and binge, you know, four hours of Netflix either. That's not going to be healthy, but maybe you can take up a new hobby.

Maybe you play chess. Maybe you read a book. Maybe you do some inner work on yourself and you're committed to doing a course on, um, self hypnosis or whatever it may be, right? But, but healthy habits. And if you're struggling, if you're struggling to identify what a healthy habit is, go to three of your best friends or three people in your life that you trust, respect and revere and say, Hey, I'm wanting to change this habit of having a couple of glasses of wine every night and I'm wanting to replace it with this habit as a starting point.

Alongside choosing to work with my therapist, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think [00:20:00] these habits are a good habit? Do you think they're healthy habits? Get someone else's perspective? Because again, you can't see the forest through the trees, but your friends can because they have a more aerial view.

Mike: Okay. I'm going to hit you with a potentially difficult question.

And you talk about addressing people at the source of their problem. That's how they get results. But let's say people get to the source of the problem, yet they continue to repeat. The pattern, how do you work with that? Is there something that they're missing and what should they be doing?

Stefanos: Self love, compassion, non judgment.

You see the moment that we think to ourselves, and this is very natural, the moment we think to an organic, it's part of that actual healing process. But the moment we think to ourselves, Oh, I understand the source of my problem and the issue of it. I'm working with it yet. Nothing's shifting in the way that I want it to.

You're immediately putting a timeline on that. And you're immediately assuming that [00:21:00] you actually know what your core issue or problem is. You may not, you may think you do. And so the moment we put that timeline on it is we're judging it because why aren't I better yet? I'm on the clock. Why aren't I fixed yet?

I'm on the clock. Oh, fixed? Well, you're not actually broken. So there's a whole, there's so many layers of judgment just in that there. And so I want to orient the person when I'm working with them and say, Hey, I hear you. You're exactly where you need to be. More compassion, more non judgment, a little more love, and can you be patient, can you just really sit in this, and it's uncomfortable, man, no one wants to sit in something that's undesirable, no one wants to sit in frustration and anger, but the paradox is, the more we sit in it, and really surrender to it, just allow it to be, the faster it actually moves through us and transgresses, right, it's really, it's, it's, that's the truth of it, but it's so painful and so difficult to face that and continue to face it, but there's no, there's no Secret source other than that stay in it [00:22:00] be with it when it's too much find reprieve deliberate distraction Go for a walk put your feet in the water jump in the ocean have a bath Come back to it and revisit it when it's ready when you're ready and when if it's still alive there in you Which it would be be honest with yourself be patient and be loving and if it takes 18 years, then it takes 18 years But here's the thing it won't and if it's really You know taking a quote unquote long time You You can always try a different approach as well, but not from the place of it's not working or I'm broken, just from the place of, oh, I'm curious to see if I am in relationship with this thing within me in a different way, what happens?

Mike: Yeah, I love that because I, I think in this society of instant gratification, patience is probably The hardest, especially when you want to make these big changes and you're motivated and you maybe start them, but don't stay on track. Do you think that that patience or lack thereof is probably what derails most people?

Stefanos: I'd say it's a [00:23:00] big part, man. Yeah. I'd say, I'd say very, and very simply put being impatient actually lends itself to, um, a lack of success in us being with ourselves in new and improved ways. Yeah. Impatience play, patience plays a massive role because associated with patience is self care and self love and curiosity.

So there's these virtues or these characteristics that express themselves that are very beneficial to our mental, emotional, spiritual, relational, physical well being that, that are lacking if we're impatient with ourselves, because what happens is when we're impatient, we're generally agitated. We're generally, um, uh, frustrated, we're, um, engy, we're reactive, we don't listen very well, we're more in self loathing and self hatred, we see the world through the lens of glass half empty.[00:24:00]

So, patience goes a long way. Patience really is a virtue.

Mike: Absolutely, I mean, that's one that I've had to learn. It's almost like wanting to hit fast forward through life. It's wanting to not Value, the growth that's going on right now, the learning that's going on right now. It's not a destination that you necessarily arrive at.

You know, many times I'll sit, I think last week was thinking through my purpose. You know, my purpose is not something that I arrive at one day. That's happening right now. And so for me to feel impatient that maybe I haven't defined it in the way that I want to see it, or maybe the goals or maybe whatever it is that you want to get to.

I think trying to skip over that. Misses, misses the entire process and just your overall happiness on this day that we're guaranteed, because today is the only day that we're guaranteed. Yeah, true, true. So if somebody wanted to, you know, maybe move forward, maybe explore their [00:25:00] life a little bit more because they feel like something's off and maybe some of the things that we talked about today is hitting home or something that they want to go forward with.

You know, maybe talk about how you work with other people or other resources that you think that would be helpful for people that maybe learn a little bit more beyond this podcast.

Stefanos: Yeah, of course. Uh, so many of the modalities that I've shared, I think are amazing resources to begin with in terms of just a simple, uh, search engine search on, uh, in a child healing or breath work for healing or breath work for growth or emotional release techniques.

Or working with a therapist in my area or, um, working with self sabotage, you know, and, and just start educating yourself and getting familiar with it. And, you know, when you, it's the, it's a, what is it? The beta, beta Meinhoff effect. You know, you put something in your mind and you start seeing it. You know, if you think of a, I really like that red BMW, I'm going to get that red BMW.

Haven't really seen that much anywhere before. [00:26:00] And then all of a sudden you start seeing that red BMW everywhere. Right. So it's really, it's really that simple as well. And just start going to bookstores and go to the personal development or self help section or spiritual or religious section or whatever is that you're interested in.

And just. Pick a book and start, start reading, go on YouTube and, and, and just Google YouTube, uh, you know, self sabotage and how to heal and how to fix and you're going to get some fucking bad advice. Let's just be real for a second. You've got to be discerning and that's okay, but at least you're in the game, like you're in the game, right?

Um, and look really simply, if you want to work with me, I've been working with people for 24 years. Um, my background's in behavioral science, trauma, psychology, developmental psych, um, somatics, and other mind body modalities, and I'm continuing to learn and grow as well, of course, but if you want to work with me, coachwithstef.

com, or you go to my website, stephanosofandos. com, and you'll be able to apply for coaching there. I work with men and women, couples, I've, well, I've been very blessed, man, and this year, well, I made that comment about mindset. I'm a big believer in [00:27:00] mindset because it's an integral part of our healing journey.

But so many people it's it's also a surface level superficial and there's no negative connotation when I say that but it doesn't necessarily it can get us to depth but it can't necessarily keep us there and that's what I'm talking about with mindset specifically is because we need to be working with intuitively and semantically with the stuff that's fueling the need for a enhanced or positive mindset right or powerful strong mindset and what I was saying was I've been very blessed to work with amazing humans I Special operators, world champion fighters across keep boxing, boxing, Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu.

Um, I've worked with Olympic gold medalists, CEOs. I continue to work with people like that. So these people at the sort of upper echelon, tip of the spear, life or death, survival, need a very strong mindset. And in certain situations, that mindset is actually all you need, but it's not sustainable. And it's not a blank, a blanket statement [00:28:00] application to everything.

We're trying to blanket application to everything and every area in life. And so it's really required that you look at the self from a holistic perspective and through all my training and all my exposure and continued exposure to various modalities, including neuroscience as well in the way the interplay between the nervous system and our psychology and our relational selves, I really take a holistic and whole approach to the human being.

And, um, yeah, if you want to work with me, or if you're interested, you can apply at coachwithstef.

Speaker 3: com.

Mike: Yeah. I love all that. And I think one of the things that drew me to you, and especially in the research, and we have mutual friends that just speak so highly of you, but I can, it's obvious that you approach everything that you do with a, a healing mindset that comes from a place of love.

I think anyone listening to that can hear that in your voice.

Speaker 3: Thanks, man.

Stefanos: I appreciate that. I mean, it's something I'm very cognizant of and aware of and, and really, uh, you know, if you would ask me [00:29:00] and I, and I wanted to actually don't, I don't want to, um, just brush past it. I genuinely appreciate that comment that that's very kind of you.

And it means a lot to me as well, because it's very alive in me, you know, ever since having my daughter to about two and a half years ago, I've really been giving deep thought to my legacy. Thank you. And, you know, to sum up what you shared just a different way, a big part of my legacy, what I want it to be is that I'm remembered for the, the safe imprint that I left when making contact or communication with someone.

So I want to leave someone with an imprint of love and, Oh, that guy feels, they may not say it, but they feel, Oh, that guy feels safe. Like he feels safe to be myself. He, you know, he's just a nice human beings, genuine human being, authentic human being, not because I need people to like me. I don't. I'm not really interested in that to be honest, man.

I'm more interested in, and this is actually a selfish thing with this legacy piece, right, because If I can feel more grounded and regulated in my, [00:30:00] sorry, let me say it another way. If someone else leaves our relationship or our interaction feeling grounded and, and, um, safe in their nervous system, which is really what I want to do for my daughter, to be a safe space for my daughter to be herself and not have her feel or not impact her in such a way where she has to hide.

And of course, I can't protect her from everything and I get stuff's going to happen to her and all of that. But I don't want to be unconsciously out of control with that. That's why I'm working on it. But if I can, if someone can leave a conversation or interaction feeling better in their own selves, that means that I've had to do, you know, work to get to that place, not, and you can't fake that, man, like you've got to, you've got to be in the work constantly.

And again, like, I'm not lying here and sitting, oh, I'm always regulated and I'm, I've dealt with all my shit. Definitely not. Literally. Fucking 14 hours, 15 hours ago, I was cursing because I spilled some water, you know, like that's my reactive nervous system coming up. And that stuff [00:31:00] is an indication of deeper things that I'm very aware of and still working on.

And so for me, that legacy piece of imprinting on someone else is really also about me regulating my nervous system and healing my stuff or continuing to heal my stuff, you know? So I just wanted to create that distinction there and just be really honest and transparent. And, and cause I think the way that we connect with people as well is through transparency, vulnerability, relatability, and curiosity.

And I want to be able to just be really honest with where I'm at as well. You know, I mean, I don't know it all. I don't have it all together. Yeah. Um, but I've been deep in, in my own work for 20 years as well. And, uh, I definitely can see how I've improved and evolved. And these days, even, you know, six months ago, three months ago to who I was and who I am today, very different.

So I'm really committed to, to that growth.

Mike: Yeah. I love, well, first of all, I love the The legacy aspect and we could probably talk an entire episode on that i've even [00:32:00] gone as far as doing an outline for book for leaving a legacy for children, especially as fathers and You know not even not a legacy like many people will think around material goods But a legacy of kindness and love and how you can take The legacy that you were passed to and pass it on but to your other point about imperfection, you know, uh we're all born perfect, but the life is imperfection and it's Nobody's ever going to have a perfect record and, uh, so I identify.

With all of that. So I just think this was, um, such a beautiful conversation and I really appreciate you taking the time to bring your wisdom, bring your input and share with everybody here.

Stefanos: Yeah. Thanks man. I appreciate you having me on and thank you for a wonderful conversation.

Mike: All right, thanks a lot.

That wraps up today's episode of Journey to the Sunnyside. Big thanks to Stephanos Sifandos for sharing his wisdom on overcoming self sabotage, something I think that hits home for all of us. If today's conversation [00:33:00] sparked something in you to explore your own habits and patterns, head on over to sunnyside.co to 3 minute quiz and start your own mindful journey. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, and of course, I would love a review, that would mean a lot to me. Until next time, cheers to your mindful drinking journey.