A blueprint for life. Moving on from extreme narcissism.

Derek Newborn is the owner of a worldwide online health and fitness coaching programme that focuses on the mind body and spirit. He has also set up a website, thenewbornblueprint.com which aims to help men who have had massive emotional setbacks and want to reclaim their truth and connection to the world.

Derek initially worked as a personal trainer and built a highly successful personal training business. He was then discovered by a modelling agency and became a fitness model but the further he went down that path, the more he lost himself emotionally and mentally. His relationships with his friends and family went down and it seemed that the more successful he appeared externally and the more recognition he got for his physical appearance, the more the emotional and mental aspects of his life went in the opposite direction. He suffered from a massive clinical depression, two suicide attempts and as he went through that journey, he realised he had become a narcissist.

Derek felt he had lost himself. He had always had a vision of how his life would be and that he would like to make a successful career in the fitness world. He achieved that, his partner at the time was his ‘dream girl’ so on paper he had everything he thought he needed and wanted. On the inside though personal issues from his past meant he felt extremely empty. He used self-sabotaging behaviours, cheating, lying and hurting the people he loved the most to try to find the peaceful feeling he felt he was missing. The only thing he was concerned about was filling the emptiness so although on outside everything seemed great but on the inside he was disconnected.

Derek feels his feeling of emptiness stems from abandonment issues from his childhood. This fear outweighed any love he had for his family and partner so he was just focused on not being abandoned. The process of not being abandonment however actually pushes people away through his self sabotaging behaviours, Derek created everything to was trying to avoid.

At the same time he realised he had become a narcissist. Everything was about him and making himself feel good. A narcissist isn’t concerned about taking advantage of other people, they are self-centred and don’t worry about the repercussions or damage they create. Derek started to work on his narcissism initially by addressing his abandonment issues. He had to connect himself to his truth and believe that no matter who comes and goes in his life, no matter what his financial situation is, he is not going to be abandoned

In the past if relationships broke down Derek would just go out and find somebody to entertain him but now he is able to do things alone and can be happy and content with himself. He had to be honest with people about why he did or said things and from there it was about reverse engineering everything that he had done. After his first suicide attempt he had to go though some therapy and has since done several different versions of conventional therapy. He found that the most effective therapy for him was reconnecting with his past traumas and working through them. He felt therapy kept reliving the bad things and it was hard to see himself as a new person if he kept reliving the past.

Derek built his website thenewbornblueprint.com for modern men. Derek defines a modern man as somebody who is comfortable with themselves and knows exactly who he is. He feels that modern society makes it easy for a man to lose himself and that it’s more about keeping you controlled as a man. It is rare for a man to talk about struggling mentally or of being a narcissist and things like social media are easy to get wrapped up in. A modern man takes ownership of the good and bad in his life and is always trying to improve it

Derek believes its harder than ever for a man to be a true man, especially in America where people think of men as being very macho, very brave, of working super hard and being tough. Many women now exhibit more of these characteristics and abilities which makes it difficult for men to cover off or invent a new set of purposes for themselves. The Blueprint is also for partners so they can better prepare themselves and understand that no one is born a narcissist, that things have to happen and people show up in their lives to strengthen the characteristics.

Health and fitness is incorporated into Derek’s approach. He feels that if you are severely out of shape or not physically confident it can be hard to be mentally confident. Originally his programme focused just on physical fitness but he soon realised how much of an emotional and mental attachment there is to the fitness journey. Derek feels that if men want to be successful in relationships they have to be completely connected to their truth. He thinks that every man has a purpose and as they go through life their truth gets blurred and they lose themselves. They go through life unfulfilled because they aren’t aligned with their truth and sometimes get so far away they don't even want to face that part of their truth. They then coast though, knowing that they aren’t living at their full potential but too scared to go down what can be a lonely road.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Derek here.. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Derek at https://www.thenewbornblueprint.com/

The body, mind and PTSD

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - The body, mind and PTSD.

Laura Khoudari is a trauma practitioner, certified personal trainer, and corrective exercise specialist whose work grew out of her own experience healing from trauma. She is based in New York and works with her clients to turn movement practices into healing practices so most of her work is done in the gym.

During the winter of 2014-2015 Laura designed a holistic program to support her own treatment for PTSD that combined talk therapy, mindfulness, bodywork, and strength training. As she put together a program for herself, she realised that practitioners who worked with the body (doctors, massage therapists, meditation teachers, and physical therapists) often did not fully understand how trauma impacted their clients.

Frustrated that there weren’t more people in the fitness space who were equipped to help clients living with trauma, she decided to become the trauma informed personal trainer and coach she wished she had had. Her holistic programs draw from body-based trauma healing modalities, neuropsychological models, psychodynamic theory, mindfulness practices, and exercise science.

Laura feels that when people think of trauma they link it to medical trauma or emotional trauma and ask why they are working with her in the gym. Trauma can mean many different things but Laura thinks it is unprocessed nervous system energy that is left in the body after you’ve gone through something overwhelming or had to deal with something to fast so your body didn't get the chance to process it.

People generally come to Laura in two different ways. The first group are people who have a trauma history and want to bring movement back in their life but are having a hard time doing it – people who are suffering from things like PTSD or CPTSD and can’t get back to the activity they used to do or their doctor wants them to do. Others are currently in treatment for trauma and are working with a therapist and want to build skills they can use in therapy to process trauma.

Laura feels when you are in therapy you need to be in touch with your body. In therapy you are talking about your thoughts and, to process your emotions and experiences, it is useful to be able to stay with sensations and what happens in our body we are doing this. This means it has a lot more meaning rather than just talking about what’s going on in your head.

Laura’s clients do not have to tell her their trauma story. She feels there is a lot of pressure for people to prove that they need help and to put their story out there through social media. Her clients have suffered a wide variety of trauma including addiction, eating disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, sexual assault, and abusive relationships. Laura has had her own trauma experience and her own fitness story. As a child she didn’t like sport or gym but when she was 20 she suffered a back problem.  Her doctor recommended physical therapy and strength training but it wasn't until she was 27 she decided to commit fully to strength training. Over time she started to love the gym and the fact she wasn’t in pain any more so in her mid 30s she took up the sport of Olympic weightlifting. Outside of the gym she experienced an acute trauma and suffered from PTSD. Her relationship with the gym changed then and it went from being fun to training ten times a week. She got injured because she wasn't resting enough and when she came back after a number of months of physical therapy and strength training she realised what she had been doing was a problem and not the culture she wanted.

She found it difficult to find a trainer who understood that trauma overwhelmed her ability to go to the gym so she figured out how to do it herself. She decided she wanted train people who liked her loved the gym and found it empowering but understood the impact on physiology and the nervous system and work together to get you back to where you were in a slower, structured way.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Laura here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can get in touch with Laura through her website laurakhoudari.com where she writes a regular newsletter and shares resources. Laura is also the author of Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time