A Wink from a Guru: How I overcame Anxiety and reclaimed my life

By Aaron T Schultz and Paul Roos

This is my life journey. I share how I got into unhealty habits, poor mental and physical health, workplace stress and burnout and how I overcame them to become healthy, happy and well. I detail my upbringing and how it took me years to shake the habits that which were ingrained upon me in my youth that led me to thinking that happiness came fro

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outback Mind
• Release date: Oct 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780646809793

Book preview

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This book is dedicated to my mum Dorothy Enid Schultz.

I hope these words help someone who has suffered in silence.

I love you.

Foreword

Living in modern times is much different these days. We have seen more change than ever before over the last twenty years than have occurred throughout human history.

With the constant distractions we face on a daily basis, it’s easy to get swept away and our physical and mental wellbeing suffers. Having daily practices that ground us—like meditation and yoga—help us set ourselves up to manage our day much better. Aaron, through his journey, is living proof that we all have the ability in us to make changes in our lives which help improve our consciousness and our relationship with ourselves and others. The way he clawed his life back, and his passion and ability to help others to turn inward and learn higher levels of self-awareness, is remarkable.

We can all play a part in improving wellbeing in our respective communities by becoming positive role models and helping others that need support.

Change is sometimes confronting for many. Once we open ourselves up and adapt to accepting new ways to improve our wellness, we open the door to a better world and balance in our lives becomes more achievable.

Paul Roos

AFL Premiership Coach, Men’s Health,

Yoga & Meditation Advocate

Introduction

Thank you for picking up this book. What you are about to read has been circling around in my mind for many years, but the time was never quite right to put finger to key. Now is the right time. As you will discover, my journey to where I am today includes many twists and turns. However, I believe it has turned out exactly the way it was meant to. Like many, from the ages of twelve to thirty-seven, I felt disconnected. My life was controlled by crippling anxiety, poor physical and mental health, as well as copious amounts of alcohol. I occasionally had brief glimpses of who I actually was, but I never had the courage to step into my true self. Life was a battle, but battle was all I knew. Deep down, I never lost hope that I would one day step outside my shadow and into my full potential. I cheated death many times. I shouldn’t have made it past the age of four. I shouldn’t have made it past the age of twenty-one. At thirty-seven, I almost took my life. Somehow, I am still here. I’ve overcome many challenges, personally and professionally. I want you to know that you can change anything about your life that stands in your way. Through my story, I want you to see that there is a way through any block you encounter. It is simply a matter of giving yourself a chance to do so. Life doesn’t have to be a constant battle.

For much of my life, I thought happiness came from money. I thought happiness came through being fit. I thought that happiness came from being good at my job. But my journey has taught me that happiness comes from within. It comes from our soul and from following our real purpose, not from what we own, our status, or our circumstances. We have the ability within ourselves to reach a higher stage of consciousness—to overcome the self-defeating belief systems that have become ingrained in many of us from an early age. It’s a case of discovering something good about ourselves every day, and connecting with the soul, being grounded and living life in flow with our real purpose. One day, I chose to look inside instead of outside myself for answers and began to listen to the teacher within. I found someone inside who I didn’t see before this day, and I discovered that I had abilities within myself that I never recognised because I always thought I was not capable and was too busy putting myself down.

As I began to take control of my life, my brain started to work in different ways. My body started to do things it had never done before, and I discovered more about who I was and who I truly wish to be. It took a lot of self-discovery, sacrifice and mental and emotional unpacking to discover that inside me was a real passion for helping other people. But in order to help others, I first needed to help myself. I covered up my problems for many years by abusing alcohol and drugs. At the time, it was the only thing I knew, and it was what the society I lived in encouraged. I made poor decisions because I had low levels of consciousness. This book may help you understand how to develop and create higher levels of consciousness.

I want my journey to become part of your journey and for you to use this book as a point of reference. I want to help you be the best that you can be and act on what your heart is telling you. I hope that my experience will be a guide that helps you step into your higher self. If you give yourself a chance to tap into your internal wisdom every day, then happiness will follow. In Parts 1 and 2, I will share with you my personal story, including the changes I made and how I went about it. In Part 3, I will share some ideas that I found to be particularly helpful shortcuts to developing better health and wellbeing, and ways to function better in the modern world. I hope my story empowers you—particularly if you’re living in rural Australia—to live a better life and be confident in knowing that it is okay to step up. Know that it’s never too late to change.

Aaron Schultz

Part 1 – My life

It was a cool Autumn evening in Lewisham, Tasmania—March 18th, 2009, to be exact. Aged just thirty-seven, I’d somehow hit an all-time low in my life. My head felt like it was about to explode. I had just lost my job and was experiencing uncontrollable anxiety about my future. I had been close to this point before, but this time was different. This time, I couldn’t see a way out. I’d had enough. This time, I made up my mind to take my own life. Objectively, I had a lot to live for: two beautiful young sons and a stepson I’d nurtured for eleven years, a marriage that was solid, a magic house on acreage on a hill with 180-degree water views that went on forever. From the outside, life looked like it was going well for me, but I still felt like I was living every day in a bubble. Despite every positive thing in my life, my mind was clouded with a dark despair I couldn’t shake. Worn down and in a fog of confusion, I walked to the shed in the garden, locked all the doors behind me, and quietly began to prepare for my exit from this world. A moment of insecurity, which at the time, I simply could not see beyond. I’d lost close friends to suicide before, but I never thought that it would one day be me who would find themselves in this dark and lonely place. If it wasn’t for a fortuitous, brash interruption, my beautiful boys would be without a father, my wife without a husband, my parents without a son. Like so many middle-aged men before me, my life would have been lost to a senseless moment. Since that day, I’ve had to fight my way through. I’ve had to work to get to know the real me again. I’ve learned to take better care of myself and stay on top of my mental health every single day because I want to make sure I never find myself back in that dark and lonely place again.

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It’s important that you know the full impact that alcohol had on my childhood, the challenges that arose from it later in life, and how I overcame those challenges and unhealthy habits to reclaim my life. It’s important that you know this because many of you have faced similar challenges in your lives—with alcohol, with food, with drugs, with relationships with the wrong kinds of people, with whatever it was your environment seeded in you from an early age. I have overcome my beginnings and the suffering it caused me, and I believe that you can too.

Iwas born and raised in the country town of Horsham, Victoria. Horsham is a rural community three and half hours from Melbourne, and back then it was home to about 10,000 people. Horsham was a harsh farming and grazing community where life was all about sport. Everything revolved around footy, cricket, and how good you were at them. The men worked and the mums stayed at home. As kids, we were allowed to roam free. We never watched TV for more than a couple of hours a day and spent most of our time outside making our own fun. If you were lucky, the milkman would give you a ride on his horse and cart during his weekly delivery run up our street.

It was unusual back then that my mum was forty-three and my dad was in his late-thirties. They were married not long before I was born after courting for a few years. My stepbrother, Leigh, was from mum’s first marriage. He was born in 1950, so there was a big age gap between us. It wasn’t until much later, at the time of mum’s passing in 2014, that I found out about another stepbrother and stepsister that were adopted out before I was born.

In 1974, at the age of three, my parents noticed I was losing my balance a lot. After observation from my local GP, I was diagnosed with a large brain tumour and was taken to Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital for major surgery. I spent over three months in recovery before I was released home on my fourth birthday sporting a massive scar from the base to the top of my head, with a few additional scars from ripping drips out of my arms and legs. I was very lucky that mum and dad were so quick to act on my symptoms. If they hadn’t been so attentive, I wouldn’t be alive today. After the operation, I was blessed to have a large extended family around who provided endless support to mum, dad and myself as I recovered. Watching Hawkeye drink cocktails on the TV show MASH is now a memorable part of my healing process. My Pop was a constant companion throughout this time. His kind, compassionate nature was a blessing that helped me through my long recovery. I got pretty spoiled with presents at the time, so from an early age, I came to associate happiness with the acquisition of consumables.

My first real addiction became sugar. Mum’s lemon sponge, cream puffs and the dozen bottles of soft drink we got delivered to the door weekly ensured I was getting plenty of sugar into my young cells. We only had two TV channels back then, which meant we lived more in the moment, mostly outdoors, and were more connected in our community. If it wasn’t fish and chips on Friday nights, it was frozen party pies, sausage or chiko rolls and chips heated up in the oven, which I would then soak in a combination of tomato and soy sauce. Salt soon became my second addiction. My everyday school lunch was a Besselaar’s pie, super roll and a chocolate milk. Enjoyment of these foods stayed with me well