157 – The Darkest Part of My Life

Hey it’s Dr. Dave here, the “vaygan” and welcome back to The David Madow Lifestyle Show! It’s the show where I help you live stronger, thinner, healthier, and happier. And a lot more! A heck of a lot more! If you’re with me, you know that. You know I underpromise and overdeliver. That’s kindof the motto of my life. It’s always good to underpromise but overdeliver.

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Right now you happen to hear some noise behind me because I happen to be in Union Square in Manhattan. It’s a very popular area. A lot of people are around me. I am at Broadway and 14th just kind of catching the vibe, hanging out, and broadcasting to you. And it’s what I do. I love inspiring. I love helping. I love teaching. I love motivating. I love YOU!

You can tell I’m pumped up and the reason I am is that when I come to New York I do a lot of walking and a lot of thinking. Yoko happens to be For those of you that are new to the podcast, Yoko is my wonderful wife. She is from Japan and right now as I am speaking she is visiting with her parents. Her Dad underwent some knee surgery so she is back there helping out her family. And I am speaking in a couple of days in New Jersey and I said to myself that what I am going to do is to take a few extra days and I’m going to hit up Brooklyn and Manhattan and spend some “Dave” time here. Then go right to my speaking gig from here. And that’s what I’m doing now. Here’s what I do. I come to New York, I  walk around a lot, I look around, I think, I plan, I strategize, I mastermind with myself. I think if you mastermind with myself, it’s still called masterminding right?! I don’t know if it would be called “mastermind-bating” since it’s by myself 😉

What I’m trying to do is to always improve myself. If you get to the point where you think that your life needs no improvement and there’s nowhere to go, you kind of stagnate. And as much fun as I am having in this lifetime and I am doing things I want to do. I’m only 61, 61 years young, and I think I’ve got a lot more time on this planet. You never know because life is very very fragile. We never know for sure but you have to live as though you have a lot of time left because if you don’t do that and then you have a lot of time left, you just gonna screw up 30 or 40 years. [Dave laughs] So don’t get old before your time. That’s tip #1. I don’t have this scripted or outlined or anything. I don’t have 10 tips for you, I just kind of came up with that. A lot of times we think, oh well I’m old now so I can’t do a lot. No matter how old you are chronologically. There are people that are 80 or 90 years old that are still learning new things and starting businesses or exercising. It’s never too late. I don’t care how old you are. I’ve seen people in their early 80s go back to school. It’s incredible! It’s never too late!

So that’s what I’m doing. I brought my backpack, my macbook, my notebook, things that I can plan, I can write, I can work, I can do anything. I just I really really love it!

A short time ago somebody sent me a Facebook message and I promised that I would answer it here on my podcast. I don’t have it in front of me but it was something like ‘Dave, you’ve got a great life but you’ve talked a lot about some struggles you’ve had in the past and how you’ve overcome them and I was curious to know what your greatest struggle ever was?”

I’m going to answer it in a way but I’ve got to be very careful because there’s one period in my life that totally stands out as the toughest, the biggest struggle by far, the most difficult. And I’m going to share that with you right now. It may not be what you’re thinking. You may be thinking oh he was an alcoholic, probably into drugs, or maybe he was addicted to something else like porn or gambling. But it wasn’t anything like that.

Thank God that I’ve never been addicted to anything except for a healthy lifestyle. I am addicted to a healthy lifestyle. I am addicted to healthy food and I am addicted to running. But I think my addictions are good. And they’re not really addictions. I could stop running anytime I wanted to but I love it. And I guess I would say that I could stop eating anytime I want but I guess I am addicted to food. I kinda have to live. I kinda have to nourish my body but I do it with extremely healthy plant based whole foods.

So it’s not any of that. But I will share with you the toughest part of my life. It was approximately 10 years from about 1990 or 1991 to the end of the year 2000. The reason I remember that so vividly is because those are about 10 years that I had a very very bad relationship with two people in my life that are very important to me. But I had a very very dark 10 years with these people that I really love. And I always loved them. They are my parents, my mom and dad. And you might be thinking, “That’s crazy! If they’re good people and you love them why would you ever have a bad relationship with them?”

Well it’s really really complex. There’s only so much explaining that I’m going to be able to do here on the show. But the reason it came about is because it’s not like I’m just in a vacuum with my parents and there’s nobody else in my life. I was married, had two wonderful kids, I had a life going, but unfortunately somebody that I was extremely close with had different thoughts for us. I want to be clear that I don’t have any bad feelings and I have moved on. This person, for some reason, learned to have hatred towards my parents. For good reasons? No, I don’t think so. As crazy as my parents may be, and we’re all crazy in one way or another, but my parents are basically really really good hard working people. Really good people. I’ve known them for my whole life. Do they have their idiosyncrasies? Of course they do, everyone does. But they would never do anything to anybody that would warrant hatred. To have a son and daughter in law to be on bad terms with them, that’s like that last thing they would ever want in their lives. But for some reason, somebody has other plans for me. And she pretty much said “hey, your parents are bad. We’re not going to have a relationship with them. We’re going to see them as little as possible. And when we see them we are going to be not as nice.”  And like a total idiot, I went along with it. But it’s very very complex and there is no way I could ever give it what it deserves.

When you have kids and when you have a wife who’s asking you to do something a certain way and if you don’t you’re going to be in big trouble. It’s not quite that easy. Looking back, yeah I would do some things totally different. But you know something? That was a learning part of my life.

Once I split up with my ex-wife and started a brand new life, I’m happy to say that my relationship with my parents is just incredible. It’s been incredible for the past 16 years. There’s no turning back. You can never get thoses years back. But I don’t really think about those years too much. And I don’t hold any kind of hatred or bad feelings towards anybody that had any part in it but I am just happy to have the years I’ve have had with them now. By the time you hear this my dad, Selvin, will have celebrated his 87th birthday! Gotta love him! You gotta love him as crazy as he is. You gotta love him. And my mom is going to be 82. Things are really good. I will miss them when they’re gone for sure. I will always be sorry about those 10 years that I lost with them.

How about you? Is there anybody in that category that for some reason you have a bad relationship with but you don’t think you should be in a bad relationship with them? In other words, you know in your heart that things should be better within the heart of this person or these people? Do you know anybody like that? Why don’t you think about making it better then? Why don’t you think about giving them a call? Or sending them an email and getting together with them? Maybe telling them that you love them and that life is too short to go through crazy things. Life is way too short! Try that. If there is anybody, get in touch with them. Rekindle an old relationship that for some reason went bad but you don’t even know why. It could be a really cool thing to do. Maybe one of the most powerful things you’ll ever do. In my case it was because it was with my parents. It was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Well there are a lot of good things I’ve done in my life, having my kids, meeting Yoko, I mean God a lot of good things are going on in my life. Absolutely!

But there’s something else that I shared with you a couple of months ago that I want to re-share if that’s possible? Again, it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve ever learned and I learned this when I went on my first #hippieroadtrip. I wanted to run this by you. I went from Phoenix, AZ to Memphis, TN on Hippie Road Trip #1. I did a lot of thinking. And one of the things I started thinking was, it sounds really crude and it’t not a nice word, but one of the things I started thinking was to get rid of the mother fuckers. And by mother fuckers I don’t really mean that these people are bad people. I use the term because I had people in my life that just kind of took up space and they did not give me positive energy back. I always throw positive energy or at least try to throw positive energy towards certain people. No names needed at all just certain people that were in my life in one way or another. And I just wasn’t feeling the positive energy coming back at me so I started kinda drifting away from them. No hatred whatsoever. No bad feelings. No dislike. Would never wish any harm on them. It’s just that they weren’t really participating in the positive energy in my universe.

Life is too short! It goes by quickly. Why would you ever want to spend time with people that you don’t really really enjoy being with. Why would you want to take your precious time and spend it with people that you don’t really want to be with? I learned this on Hippie Road Trip #1.

But since I started getting the people that are not aligned with, people that are not sending me positive energy when I try to send them positive energy, a sense of total peace just enveloped me and it’s not going away. It’s not going anywhere. Wherever I go, I feel this peaceful feeling. Think about it. Try the same thing. Get rid of them. No hatred. No dislike. Just walk away. Move away from them. That’s all you have to do. It’s easy. It’s easier than you would ever think. Trust me.

I’ve got a lot to think about in my life. And so do you. I know that you have a lot to think about. I’m going to recommend something. Next time you are out on your walk, your “Magic 4”. I’ve talked about the “Magic 4” before. If you are new to me and you don’t know what the “Magic 4” is, it is going out and walking 4 miles. It’s the best exercise you can possibly do. It will take you a little over an hour. And if you do it often, as in every single day if possible, it’s going to change your life. I swear to you. Oh you’ll think a lot. And as you are out doing your “Magic 4” just start thinking. Think a lot. Plan out your life. What do you want to be doing tomorrow? What do you want to be doing next year? Next month? 5 years from now? Where do you want to be living? Do you want to be doing the same thing you’re doing now? If you want to be that’s fine. Just think. Plan your life because if you don’t plan anything, another day will go by, another month will go by, years will go by and you’ll be doing the same thing you’re doing now. Maybe that’s ok with you. It’s not with me. I’m always looking to see what’s on the horizon. Do that. Trust me. Just trust me.

– I’m Dr. Dave!

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