About Neil

My story begins in childhood because that’s how life works. First you have a childhood, then an adulthood, then retirementhood or grandparenthood (which aren’t really words, but I like them since I made them up, and I’m using them (maybe grandparenthood is a word (hang on, I’ll google it (Yup, Grandparenthood is a word!)). If it worked the other way around like Benjamin Button, I would tell the story from that perspective. Now that I’ve scrambled your eggs a little bit with some nonsense, let’s begin…

I grew up in an environment filled with alcoholism, addiction, and abuse. From an early age, I internalized the belief that if someone was unhappy, it was “my fault.” No one explicitly told me this; it was just something I created in my mind, shaped by the misery of those around me. I wanted happiness so desperately that I believed I could only achieve it if others were happy too. This led me to develop a people-pleasing personality.

As I tried to change others’ unhappiness into joy, I only found more things “wrong” with me when I failed. The harder I tried, the more I failed, and the more I failed, the harder I wanted to try! For decades, I morphed into whoever I thought I needed to be, driven by deep-seated beliefs that I wasn’t good enough as I was.

I allowed others to control my thoughts and take advantage of my low self-esteem, creating a conflict within my mind, body, and soul. Nothing felt in harmony as I scrambled for answers to “feel better.” I lost sight of the fact that self-care should come firszt (see what I did there with my last name?).

All of this led me to see myself as a victim of my life rather than a creator or participant. As a victim, I found excuses to seek addictions, and as the child of alcoholic parents, I subconsciously felt entitled to choose alcohol. Over the years, I became addicted to much more than just alcohol.

At one point, I thought it would be easier to be more miserable than everyone else, hoping to gain their pity and stop my people-pleasing ways. Spoiler alert: that didn’t work either. In fact, it made things exponentially worse. I slipped into a lifestyle filled with self-hate and various addictions, never giving myself the chance to be true to who I really was.

What did this lifetime of believing I wasn’t good enough create? A 40-year-old man, 75 pounds overweight, standing naked and crying in front of a full-length mirror one night in November 2017. It was an intense moment of self-realization that turned into days of releasing old stories, resulting in an avalanche of “ugly crying” that had been building for decades.

Over the following months, I began eating better, exercising more, and meditating. I felt healthier than I had in years. I started to discover who I really was by doing things the “old Neil” would never have done—taking actions rooted in self-love. By April 2018, I had lost 75 pounds, had no cravings for alcohol, and even published a 30-page book titled “How I Lost 50 Lbs., Beat Alcoholism, and Changed My Life for Good, Using Meditation and My Mind.” Writing that book was a huge leap for me, revealing secrets I had hidden for years about my fears and feelings of inadequacy.

In June 2018, I went to the doctor for tests and blood work to check my organ function. My last diagnosis during a detox had suggested my organs might not survive the year. Yet here I was, 20 months later, not only alive but thriving! The test results were so astonishing that even my doctor was shocked after hearing my story.

Soon after, I realized that everything I had done had transformed my life from near death to health and vitality. I had escaped the prison of anxiety, addiction, and constant pain, healing my internal organs in the process. I took my mental and physical health and made a complete 180-degree turn! The next question was, how could I teach others to find their freedom from pain?

Now, I am an author, blogger, content creator, a handyman, and founder of BeHigherBeings. I made a promise to myself and the Universe that if I ever freed myself from my prison of anxiety and addiction, I would do my best to help others do the same.

I’m not here to fix your problems. I’m here to help you remember how to use the tools that you forgot you had.

My mission is simple. I want to help people reach their full potential by helping them understand their limiting stories and learning to leave them behind. This leaves the space for creating new stories, goals, hopes, and dreams that align with who you are today, not who you once were. In doing so, you will begin to live again and realize how powerful you truly are.