0:00:02.540,0:00:08.680
We finished Part 1 of the conversation with Philip Hawkins' powerful statement:
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"I am no longer a victim."
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I asked him how that felt, and we shall present to you first his response before we start with Part 2.
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Although the descriptions of transgressions are not as explicit in this episode,
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we are still mentioning acts of violence, both physical and psychological.
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Therefore, if you are a recovering victim or a abuser, or if you feel unstable,
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it is advisable to watch this video in the presence of a trusted person, or to skip the explicit passages.
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They are highlighted in the description below the video and on our website.
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Thank you Philip for your candidness, your generosity, and your sound recommendations.
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In acceptance, I was taken power back.
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I was saying yes I did this.
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Yes I was a very violent person.
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Yes I nearly committed murder.
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But in acceptance that I am that person, I am still that person.
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It is a part of me.
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In as much as my childhood is a part of me, and like you said earlier on,
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I do what I do today not in spite of my childhood, but because of my childhood.
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Yes.
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And I am healed because of that.
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And you are doing a lot of good for your environment and
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I know how caringly you deal with your wife.
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I got that in the few sentences you said.
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My love and respect to her.
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And ...
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Thank you very much for that, Phil.
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We finished the first episode by the conclusion of let's be watchful where abuse is,
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mindfully and respectfully interfere always in a safe space
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and always be aware that healing of the most dramatic things is possible one way or the other.
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You know very often victims ...
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we see this mobbing in schools today.
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It's a known phenomenon that little Bob is being mobbed.
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And, you know, he's being helped.
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The school realizes it and people like yourself are making interventions, are helping to be assertive and so on.
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And all too often people who have been mobbed, pupils, they become mobbers themselves.
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So ... the victim becoming an offender.
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Do you know that in your own life, you've told us so impressively in the first part about your horrific experiences?
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Have you experienced moments where you know - there was the moment of course with your mother
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which was a turning point - but later in your life,
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have you found it difficult not to go over the threshold and become an offender,
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a culprit, perpetrator, an abuser, one way or the other?
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Can you talk about that?
0:04:05.020,0:04:06.860
Of course. Yeah.
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Abuser: no!
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Offender: absolutely!
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Because, many years ago, as a result of my childhood I was very violent.
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That same anger that was in my mother being bequeathed to me, if you like.
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It was what was handed down to me because I believe we all do that.
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We can either pass on our healing or we can pass on our pain to future generations.
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And so, my mother gifted me that uncontrollable rage and it was frightening because when it went
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I had no control.
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I had no control of what I was failing.
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I had no control over my actions.
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It was just destruct.
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Is that why you went to martial arts?
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I think so. I think so.
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Because I think it's wonderful to look back with hindsight.
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You can see the links.
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You can see the little defining moments in your life that if I went that way, that way is to oblivion.
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This way ... and I honestly feel that several times in my life I have stood on the edge of that abyss.
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And if I'd stepped off I would have been lost completely to mental health, violence, alcohol
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because as a child I had a dependency on alcohol.
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That was my escape.
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I could stop all of the noise, all of the pain, the mental anguish.
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I could sedate it for a while.
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I was diagnosed with depression as a child and given tablets by the doctor and I remember his exact words:
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"I'm going to give you these to help you cope."
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I was looking after my mother. I was my mother's care at 10 years old.
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One of my jobs was to buy drugs for her because she was dependent on anything she could get a hold of.
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So I'm walking around the estate with money and envelopes, knocking on doors
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buying whatever I could get to give to my mother.
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So because I didn't have that guidance, that love, that support.
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The only direction I could go was in the direction that was being created for me by the people around me.
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I was being taught that violence is not only acceptable, it's expected.
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And it's a way of life and survival.
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Absolutely. You do what you have to survive.
0:07:42.740,0:07:53.380
So back to my question, did you go into martial arts to sharpen your skills of violence
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or did martial arts help you to control your rage and like many sports are a very good therapy for psychological hygiene?
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I think it was a bit of both.
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You know when you hear a word and you think, oh, I like that word, but I don't know what it means.
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And I heard this word 'spiritual' and I'm thinking, is my life spiritual?
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No, definitely not.
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So spiritual might be something different.
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It might be ... And I heard about this martial arts called Aikido developed you physically and spiritually.
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So I thought, oh, that sounds good. I'm going to have a go.
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And for the duration of my training, I was very good and very committed to it.
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And I was helping the teacher to set up a training center and I saw a poster for Reiki
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and I thought, oh, that sounds ... that's a martial art. That's got to be a martial art.
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It's definitely Japanese or Chinese or whatever.
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And I made the phone call and of course I spoke to this lovely lady.
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We had a conversation.
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I went along, experienced it
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and it blew my mind.
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There came a point where the Reiki actually took over from the martial arts
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because the martial arts was a physical thing.
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Reiki is not a physical thing.
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In one way, it's totally opposite to the martial art, but it was given me everything that the martial art was given me.
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I was questioning my behavior and that's the key point.
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I started to question everything.
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... I am sorry ...
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No, no, it's okay. Would you ...
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I have ... My son is having a girlfriend for, they've been going out together for four years now.
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yet
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I was about to say I have a daughter-in-law.
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She is 28, 29 and she started to do martial arts.
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She's picked up box sport, not karate or Aikido, boxing is her choice.
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Would you with your life's experience and if you today had a 18, 20 year old son or a daughter, it doesn't matter,
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would you say, do martial arts for violence control?
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I wouldn't limit it to that.
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I would open it up.
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Because to me, it's about knowledge and understanding.
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If you want to empower somebody, educate them.
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That's the bottom line.
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You educate them.
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There are so many benefits in martial arts.
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Yes, it's good for physical health, it's good for mental discipline
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but it's also good for helping you to understand your emotions.
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To be able to - again, we come to this acceptance - to be able to accept what's going on inside of you without judgment,
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without guilt, without misinformed perceptions of what it is and
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just, okay, this is what I'm feeling.
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What is it?
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How do I deal with it?
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In a positive way, rather than how do I react?
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No, how do I respond instead of reacting to it?
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And for those things, it's fabulous.
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But I get exactly the same experience ...
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through going out in the garden
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and just simply asking the universe a question that I might have in my own mind, that I need clarity.
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So that's now my martial art.
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(René giggles.) I understand.
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Yeah, it works for me.
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I think it's important that people find their own path.
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I agree with you, fully agree with you, bearing in mind that we're talking on the subject of abuse.
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Absolutely.
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We were focusing very much on physical, sexual abuse, mental, manipulative environments and so on.
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In that context, of course, for physical protection, martial arts are offering a lot of answers.
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But I agree with you, there only a mean to an end.
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And that end can be met with many other ways.
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Very rightly, you say, it is very important to educate people so that they know, that they're well informed.
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Tell me ...
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We've established that the dysfunctional childhood, the abuse situation
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has been at a ground, a basis as horrific as it is, but from it sprang after certain turning points,
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also a lifelong which you described as a 'carer'.
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Obviously, if I look at your biography, you've done so much for people and you continue to do that.
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Isn't there a danger that, almost reactionary, I don't know whether in English expression exists too, a helper syndrome?
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Do you know what that is, the helper syndrome?
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Yeah.
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Isn't there a danger that with a biography like yours, people turn to be do-gooders and
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having a helper syndrome to the detriment of themselves and very often the people around them?
0:15:11.960,0:15:20.150
Absolutely, and I think I've come across a lot of people that do that either consciously or subconsciously
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as a way of diverting themselves from dealing with their own issues.
0:15:26.200,0:15:26.940
Correct.
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Yeah?
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It's like I'm a healer, so I'm going to heal people, but I'm going to neglect what is going on in my own life.
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I don't want to go in over it and accept myself and deal with my own issues,
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so what I'm going to do is go externally and help all of these people.
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One of the lessons, the first lesson ...
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Sorry, I to interrupt.
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Isn't that a way of abuse?
0:16:03.960,0:16:05.550
Well, of course, it is.
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Yeah, of course it is.
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Some of the worst abuse is what we do to ourselves.
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Yeah?
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It's so easy to talk about abuse as one person doing something to another.
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Over the years, the most abusive person I ... the person I have abused the most, is myself!
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Because of what was going on in here.
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On the wall behind me, that's my recovery wall, and one of the images on that wall
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is a self-destruct button.
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Yeah?
0:16:46.990,0:16:51.120
And I could press that button any and every day.
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But there's a little bit of text that says, please, do not press it.
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Yeah?
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Yeah!
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We abuse ourselves.
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I am with you. Can you explain the self-destruct button?
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In the wall behind you, that's your, what did you call it, a survival wall?
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That is my recovery wall.
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Recovery wall.
0:17:16.920,0:17:21.510
... Obviously there are ... I see a very masculine picture of yourself ...
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You probably look at that and it reminds you of your masculinity,
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of the good of being a man and having masculine traits.
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But there is also this other button, the self-destruct button.
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I need to learn a little, I'd like to know more about that. Explain it to me please.
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I've got mental health issues, even today. Yeah?
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There are days when I wake up that I really cannot be bothered with the things that I feel ...
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passionate about.
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Days when I'm just flat. Grey days.
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And I know that all of that stuff that happened to me in my childhood,
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the effects are still there. They are a part of me.
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They are the motivation for me to do what I do.
0:18:21.890,0:18:25.340
So yes, I can do all these wonderful things.
0:18:25.400,0:18:38.150
But at any time, any moment of the day, I can key in to the ridge that still exists in me, it's still a part of me.
0:18:38.430,0:18:39.840
And that's a choice.
0:18:40.250,0:18:42.170
Yeah, of course it is.
0:18:42.440,0:18:44.760
And that's what I hear you saying:
0:18:44.760,0:18:49.420
This button on your wall reminds you that you have the choice?
0:18:49.430,0:18:50.520
Absolutely.
0:18:50.650,0:18:59.920
On the wall, behind me, I've got an image of the knife that my mother used to cut my cousin's throat.
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I've got an image of the psychiatric hospital that I put myself into
0:19:08.920,0:19:14.450
after trying to commit suicide after trying to murder my mother.
0:19:15.030,0:19:21.020
So the images on there are not just to bolster my self-esteem.
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They are a map.
0:19:23.510,0:19:30.520
They are a chart of the different defining moments in my life.
0:19:30.760,0:19:40.920
They are the plan, if you like, they map out my journey from my childhood to this moment in time.
0:19:40.920,0:19:45.390
So I can look at that and see how far I've come.
0:19:45.950,0:19:48.540
But I can look at that and see it.
0:19:48.730,0:19:53.620
The person who tried to murder my mother is still me.
0:19:53.840,0:19:58.990
The person that tried to murder myself is still me.
0:19:59.510,0:20:05.440
The person that had that anger, that rage is still me.
0:20:05.640,0:20:09.620
The person that had the mental health issues is still me.
0:20:09.620,0:20:12.980
I'm a collection of all of those things.
0:20:13.550,0:20:23.160
What are an example or two examples of ... not of the terrible things,
0:20:23.250,0:20:28.040
but of the great achievements, of the wonderful things which you've done?
0:20:28.120,0:20:30.250
They must be on that wall too.
0:20:31.460,0:20:33.600
There is one thing.
0:20:33.940,0:20:35.290
Yes, there is.
0:20:35.290,0:20:42.720
There is a certificate, there is a notices of awards that I've won.
0:20:44.030,0:20:50.320
The 40, 50 letters of thanks that I've received over the years.
0:20:50.510,0:20:55.810
But can I give you one example that really touched me?
0:20:56.960,0:20:59.140
As you've said, I've written a lot of books.
0:20:59.140,0:21:07.690
I write a lot of articles and I post them on social media for the people that read them.
0:21:07.920,0:21:09.990
I wrote a piece of work once.
0:21:10.120,0:21:14.640
It was called 'Healing But Not As We Understand It'.
0:21:16.910,0:21:23.800
It's about that relationship between life and death and the process.
0:21:25.450,0:21:29.040
It was a very deep and meaningful piece of work.
0:21:29.400,0:21:34.290
Usually when I write a piece of work, I get feedback.
0:21:34.600,0:21:36.520
A lot of it is nice.
0:21:37.290,0:21:42.760
This one piece of work, the silence was deafening.
0:21:42.760,0:21:43.700
(René laughs)
0:21:43.750,0:21:48.390
It was making so many people so uncomfortable.
0:21:49.000,0:21:56.660
I thought, yeah, it's hit the mark, and then I got an email from a lady.
0:21:56.920,0:22:00.610
I think it was from South Africa.
0:22:01.520,0:22:02.990
I think it was.
0:22:03.890,0:22:10.360
This lady emailed me to say, thank you so much for that piece of work.
0:22:10.920,0:22:18.280
Her son had been in an horrific accident and he was on a life support machine.
0:22:18.680,0:22:24.500
There was no chance of his recovery or survival.
0:22:25.230,0:22:35.150
And she said, that piece of work gave her the courage, the strength, the insight
0:22:35.610,0:22:40.820
to be able to let her son go.
0:22:42.060,0:22:44.050
That's why I do what I do.
0:22:47.420,0:22:50.330
When you get that kind of feedback ...
0:22:50.900,0:22:55.490
I'm slightly choking up at this moment thinking about it
0:22:56.220,0:23:02.000
... That kind of experience
0:23:02.690,0:23:07.460
validates everything you go through as a child because
0:23:08.180,0:23:12.550
as a child that is damaged, as a young person that is damaged,
0:23:12.550,0:23:18.830
because I was robbed of my childhood, I was robbed of my teen-age years.
0:23:19.480,0:23:22.380
And you go through life and you think, why?
0:23:22.760,0:23:24.940
What is the point of this?
0:23:25.360,0:23:27.300
What's the purpose?
0:23:28.240,0:23:36.270
Then you realize that in that moment that you can take all of that pain,
0:23:36.410,0:23:40.880
all of that suffering, you can accept it, you can embrace it,
0:23:41.740,0:23:44.200
and you can go, what do I do with it?
0:23:45.150,0:23:47.190
What do I do with it?
0:23:47.490,0:23:56.100
And Reiki said to me, well, Phil, how about we get together and we use it to help people?
0:23:56.950,0:23:59.740
And I said, that will do it for me.
0:24:00.620,0:24:02.330
That's what I did.
0:24:05.470,0:24:08.220
This letter from that South African,
0:24:09.710,0:24:15.030
that's kind of an acknowledgement of a lifelong process
0:24:15.160,0:24:19.000
which started with and included a lot of pain,
0:24:19.230,0:24:25.510
but it served the purpose which expressed itself in that letter.
0:24:26.350,0:24:35.400
I guess that for many people, to have a recovery wall like yours behind you is a wonderful suggestion.
0:24:36.190,0:24:44.960
For many people, I suspect that it would be easier to put all the terrible things there
0:24:44.960,0:24:48.670
and all the challenges and all the failures and what have you.
0:24:48.840,0:24:53.590
For many people, at least in our culture, it would be a greater challenge
0:24:53.590,0:25:02.280
to put all the certificates and all the thank-you letters and all the slaps on the shoulders.
0:25:02.280,0:25:08.950
Because in a way that's something I find that our culture is not training us enough,
0:25:09.040,0:25:16.840
and that is humbly, in a dignified, not in a big-hearted way, to truthfully also say,
0:25:16.840,0:25:19.000
I've done this well.
0:25:20.100,0:25:27.350
I've achieved this and I can be proud of it in a constructive and humble kind of way.
0:25:27.640,0:25:28.640
Absolutely.
0:25:28.640,0:25:30.460
It's important that ...
0:25:30.460,0:25:37.210
I would recommend anybody to do this because it really is a fabulous thing.
0:25:37.710,0:25:40.200
To me, it's a resource.
0:25:40.200,0:25:43.540
It's important that it's truthful for you ...
0:25:44.010,0:25:44.700
Yeah.
0:25:44.710,0:25:51.560
... factual, so that there are things upon there that reflect
0:25:51.820,0:26:02.330
my defying moments that didn't work like the trip to the psychiatric hospital as a patient.
0:26:02.600,0:26:06.190
It's important that I put that upon there as well.
0:26:06.580,0:26:19.310
Anybody looking at this, I can see that this is a genuine and truthful expression of my journey.
0:26:20.120,0:26:21.560
I hear you.
0:26:21.560,0:26:29.770
I would suggest - as a teacher and coach - I would suggest that the positive sides are well represented
0:26:29.770,0:26:39.020
because there is a danger of wallowing in all the bad things which happened to me and, you know ...
0:26:39.090,0:26:40.060
Absolutely.
0:26:40.300,0:26:44.530
and falling in love with the licking of my wounds,
0:26:45.960,0:26:55.340
There's this wallowing in one's own misery and that becomes a perpetual maneuver.
0:26:55.940,0:27:02.440
To counterbalance that, one is also very much invited to put up on the wall all the
0:27:02.440,0:27:05.780
positive things and wonderful achievements we have.
0:27:06.850,0:27:12.510
Because they're equally a part, equally as important a part of our lives.
0:27:13.900,0:27:21.480
Things happen, 'shit happens', they say, particularly as a child, innocent as we are,
0:27:21.480,0:27:23.760
terrible things have happened to us.
0:27:23.890,0:27:27.170
And also wonderful things have happened to us.
0:27:27.260,0:27:33.090
It's not only that we didn't do anything wrong when something wrong happened,
0:27:33.090,0:27:38.150
sometimes something good happens without having needed to do something good.
0:27:39.000,0:27:47.640
They just happen and we can enjoy a sunset, we can enjoy a thank-you or a smile or
0:27:48.540,0:27:56.270
greater things in lives which just happen without having needed to first deserve them.
0:27:56.270,0:28:02.610
That's an important point I would suggest for anyone's wall of life.
0:28:04.100,0:28:05.430
Absolutely.
0:28:05.800,0:28:08.410
It comes down to knowledge and understanding.
0:28:08.410,0:28:11.090
It comes down to acceptance.
0:28:13.080,0:28:17.300
It comes down to acceptance that we are not just one dimensional.
0:28:18.600,0:28:24.980
We are made up of this kaleidoscope of all sorts of different emotions, different experiences,
0:28:25.030,0:28:30.520
good, bad, indifferent, black, white, all the colours of the rainbow.
0:28:30.520,0:28:33.350
We are all of these different things.
0:28:35.460,0:28:43.370
We've got to try to accept ourselves to where we are and to get to know the stranger
0:28:43.760,0:28:53.600
that lives our life for us, this stranger that was created when we were born by tradition,
0:28:53.840,0:29:03.970
conditioning in false family values and -beliefs that laid the foundation for who we became.
0:29:03.970,0:29:07.530
But that's not necessarily who we are.
0:29:07.820,0:29:09.980
That's mostly not who we are.
0:29:09.980,0:29:11.150
Yeah.
0:29:11.360,0:29:15.580
We've got to try to find out who we are
0:29:15.580,0:29:23.490
and the only way you can do that is by holding yourself accountable and challenging who you are.
0:29:23.800,0:29:25.480
Why are you having these thoughts?
0:29:25.480,0:29:27.970
Are these thoughts life-affirming?
0:29:28.030,0:29:29.510
Are they negative?
0:29:29.650,0:29:31.280
Are they destructive?
0:29:31.480,0:29:33.730
If they are, why are you doing it?
0:29:33.860,0:29:34.860
Yeah.
0:29:35.400,0:29:37.120
Very well put.
0:29:37.480,0:29:45.060
I think I'd like to close if you agree the second part of our conversation.
0:29:45.520,0:29:49.000
Thank you very much for sharing with us your wall.
0:29:49.120,0:29:51.230
I'm glad we got around to that.
0:29:51.230,0:29:56.080
Is there something final you would like to wind it up with?
0:29:56.550,0:29:58.070
Yes, I would, René.
0:29:58.070,0:30:03.580
It's something that I feel very, very powerful, very passionate about.
0:30:03.580,0:30:07.940
Yeah, we've dealt with the extreme of abuse.
0:30:09.590,0:30:13.590
But abuse comes in all sorts of different ways.
0:30:14.730,0:30:24.030
And I believe that if you do not challenge abuse in its many, many forms, you are actually rewarding it.
0:30:24.200,0:30:26.730
Because ...
0:30:27.550,0:30:37.070
If you witness abuse and you do nothing about it, you always favour the abuser. Never the victim.
0:30:37.900,0:30:41.900
Silence actually rewards abuse.
0:30:42.800,0:30:49.870
Whether it's a cruel remark, whether it's bullying in the school ground,
0:30:50.180,0:30:56.370
whether it's abuse in a domestic relationship,
0:30:56.370,0:30:58.060
it has to be challenged.
0:30:58.070,0:31:02.190
It has to be held accountable.
0:31:02.560,0:31:08.880
People have to say, well, hang on a second, sorry, but this is not acceptable.
0:31:08.950,0:31:13.490
Because if you don't, that's exactly what you were saying!
0:31:13.490,0:31:20.370
You were saying the abuse, the bullying, the intimidation is acceptable.
0:31:20.580,0:31:27.050
And by my silence, I am giving you approval.
0:31:27.440,0:31:29.610
We can never do that!
0:31:30.040,0:31:31.570
I so agree with you!
0:31:31.570,0:31:34.030
That's a very wise conclusion.
0:31:34.440,0:31:38.720
Let us not silence be the reward for abuse.
0:31:38.760,0:31:40.440
Let's speak up.
0:31:40.660,0:31:44.700
Thank you very much again for your time, Philip.
0:31:45.460,0:31:47.670
I wish you a nice day.
0:31:47.670,0:31:49.970
Please give my regards to your wife.
0:31:50.260,0:31:51.980
I'm saying goodbye to you.
0:31:52.300,0:31:53.210
Goodbye, René.
0:31:53.250,0:31:56.630
And thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you.
0:31:57.130,0:31:58.920
Thank you very much.
0:31:59.560,0:32:01.560
Dear viewers, please subscribe.
0:32:01.560,0:32:04.250
We see you in three weeks' time.
0:32:06.530,0:32:08.390
Bye-bye for now.
Arno Greter, Switzerland, 
