Coach Spotlight

Living from the Inside Out

- William Sinclair

How do you sum up 57 years of life in one article? I guess you don’t.

We all have a story and this is mine. I hope it will inspire you to also move into living your life to its fullest potential, humanly and spiritually, because really they are both one.

Like the constant movement of salt water that erodes entire rock faces by the ocean or the desert wind that shapes sand dunes and can fire sand particles into your face with the strength and speed of a bullet, I allowed my story of childhood abuse and my own self-talk to both erode away my life and keep me hiding in the trenches.

When she was a young adult, my mother had tried to kill her stepfather with a pair of scissors, while he slept, to eliminate his abuses on her own life. Take that anger and now give her children and you get some very dysfunctional life experiences.

My dad, who had introduced me to pornography earlier in life, tried working away from home as often as possible. “I’m just waiting for your mother to die so I can start my life,” he once told me.

Don’t get me wrong. I remember lots of loving things my parents did and sacrificed for me as a child. Dad sold his accordion to buy me my first drum set. Mom worked three jobs so she could send my brother and me on a holiday.

However, as I looked back on my life, whether perceived or real, there were many stories of abandonment, mind games, physical and emotional abuse, self-punishment and a sense of not being worth anything. These stories resulted in my lack of self-confidence, lack of self-worth and the unknown desire to keep abusing myself and sabotaging almost everything I put my hand to.