Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 166. The Brutal Truth about Why You’re Stuck in Toxic Cycles

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Everyone says they want to change… but most people stay exactly where they are because they keep repeating the same behaviors in the same toxic environments expecting a different outcome.Here’s the truth:The lesson you refuse to learn will keep punching you in the mouth.And you will never heal in the same environment that made you sick.In this episode of the Bedros Keuilian Show, I break down the two realizations that flipped my life: the ones that pushed me into therapy, forced me to confront my past, and made me cut the people, habits, and environments that were keeping me weak.Growth hurts.Healing is war.And becoming unbreakable requires courage, the courage to face your trauma, set boundaries, and walk away from anything or anyone that sabotages your potential.If you’re done repeating the same patterns…If you’re done living as the lesser version of yourself…This is your wake-up call to man up, do the work, and take your power back.DOMINATION DOWNLOADSTRAIGHT FROM THE DESK OF BEDROS KEUILIANYour weekly no B.S. newsletter to help you dominate in business and in lifehttps://bedroskeuilian.com/MAN UP SCALE BUNDLE: $29 (100% Goes to Charity)Get your Digital Man Up book + Audiobook + 2 Exclusive MASTERCLASSES & Support Shriners Children’s Hospital. https://www.manuptribe.com/limited-offerREGISTER FOR THE LEGACY TRIBEGet the Life, Money, Meaning & Impact You Deservehttps://bedroskeuilian.com/legacytribeJOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE:Transform into a Purpose-Driven Manhttps://bedroskeuilian.com/challengeTHE SQUIRE PROGRAM: A rite of Passage for Your Son as He Becomes a ManA Father and Son Experience That Will Be Remembered FOREVERhttps://squireprogram.com/registerTruLean Supplements | https://www.trulean.com/pages/bedrosGet 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save BundleUse Code: BEDROS Few Will Hunt Apparel | https://fewwillhunt.com/Get 20% Off Your Entire OrderUse Code: BEDROSOPEN A FIT BODY LOCATIONA High-Profit, Scalable Gym Franchise Opportunity Driven By Impacthttps://sales.fbbcfranchise.com/get-started?utm_source=bedrosPODCAST EPISODES:https://bedroskeuilian.com/podcast/STAY CONNECTED:Website | https://bedroskeuilian.com/Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilianTwitter | https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian

If you're willing to take the action and make the moves, do the healing work, start journaling, work with the therapist, create boundaries from the people and the things that broke you, you will become unbreakable. Welcome to the Bedroft's Koolian show. Guys, there are two quotes that absolutely changed my life 15 years ago. The first one is that the lesson that you refuse to learn will repeat itself. The second one is you cannot heal in the same environment that God, you sick. Guys, welcome to the Bedros-Coolian show. My name is Bedros-Cooley. In today's episode is about

developing to your highest self at a whole new level. Listen, I'm a big fan of quotes. And quotes have literally changed my life. Quotes about business, quotes about stoicism, quotes about personal development. All types of quotes have changed my life. But these two quotes 15 years ago are what led me to therapy. These two quotes, right? The lessons that you refuse to learn will repeat themselves and you cannot heal in the same environment that got you sick. And when I learned those quotes, and I learned them literally within the same month, about 15 years ago, I realized that there's a lot of change I have to make. Now, here's the thing with change.

Everybody wants change. Everybody says they want change. Everybody's looking for change. But when it's time to make the change, nobody wants to do the things that will lead them to the changed diversion, right? I'm guessing if you watch or listen to the Bedros Kuggan show, you're maybe a little different. You're the type of person that doesn't necessarily run away from an opportunity to grow and evolve. You're the type of person that is willing to face the challenge.

And you're the type of person to do something about to create change. And if you are, this episode is for you. So for me, listen, man, I learned very quickly that no matter how many times that I try and run away from something, the lesson will continue to show up until I learn it. And as I thought back on my life, this lesson really first showed up when I was 15, maybe 17 years old. I've told this story before many, many years ago on the podcast. It's worth telling you guys the story again.

There was this place, this golf, mini golf place that my friend worked at. He had found a box of the little scorecards that you would keep scores on, right? Like if you and your honey go play mini golf, you would buy, get two clubs and two balls, and you would pay the money and they'd give you a scorecard for two, three or four people, right? And so he had found a box of scorecards. And so those scorecards were kind of fell off the truck, if you know what I mean. And so what he would do is he would sell those scorecards instead of selling the scorecards that the store or the arcade has, he would sell his scorecards that were kind of off the record.

And when people paid with cash, he would keep a mental tally. of that cash at the end of the night, $600, $800 in cash from these scorecards that he sold that were kind of off the record. Well, then he needed a way to get that out of the arcade. And that's where I came in. So I would come in from the outside window where you actually receive the golf clubs where there is no camera because there was only a camera back then inside the facility. And so obviously if it looked like he was taken out hundreds of dollars from the cash register, that would be impocketing it or something, that would be pretty evident of wrongdoing. And so I would come in at the end of the night and I would buy a soda from the outside window.

I'd give five bucks and I would get like $600 back in change and a soda. And that's how we move the money outside of that place. Now here's the crazy thing. We would do that about two or three times a week. So you can imagine as young men 16, 17 years old, we were making a good amount of money. He obviously kept the lion's share of that. I got a smaller amount of that, but it was still a few hundred bucks a week for me that I was making, right? And so as a young man, I would go and buy shit with that money.

I wasn't smart. It's not like I was going to invest it. I should have. But at that time, that was the era that I was getting involved in police helicopter chases and carjackings and all those things. It was definitely the 1.0 version of me, the unevolved human animal version of me. And so it seemed like, and I remember feeling this way too, like, man, every time I take money from this place, I steal money, I get pulled over and get a ticket where then I have to like essentially spend that same amount of money that I stole on this ticket or my car breaks down and I have to spend that same amount of money that I stole to get my car fixed or some unannounced bill shows up that I wasn't ready for that I have to spend the same amount of money. So it's like each time I felt guilty and I felt bad for stealing that money, I would learn a lesson by losing that money. Yet I still wouldn't fix my habits of being an accomplice in stealing that money.

Right. I share this with you because there was so many things that would go wrong in my life in that era that would cost me money. I never truly got to enjoy that money that I stole because it was ill-gotten money, right? and God or the universe was doing the right thing by punishing me. I was too young and stupid and thick-headed to let the lesson sink in until one fatal night when I got my ass beat by a whole bunch of gang members in that very arcade and I came to this epiphany that, you know, this might mean that I'm getting punished. This might mean that God or the universe is punishing me for this stupid thing that I'm doing

helping this guy steal money from this place. And so maybe I need to stop. Ironically, maybe it was coincidence, but I'm here to tell you it wasn't. When I stopped stealing money, all those unforeseen expenses that showed up in my life, went away, went away. And so I realized back then. And so since then, of course, you grow up,

you go into business and you realize like, oh, hey, I've got a business partner that I don't jive with. I should do something about this, but then you put it off because you don't want to have that hard conversation about, hey, we need to part ways as business partners, who takes the business? Do I take it? Do you take it? And this was one of my bigger businesses back in the day, right? And so that lesson kept repeating itself over and over again until I finally had the courage

to be like, hey, man, sit down, we need to talk. You and I cannot run this business together. Either you go or I go, but one of us have to buy the other out. And so I share this with you because when you think about your life, If you think about how many times that the lessons show up because you refuse to actually learn the lesson and so the problems keep showing up until you've learned a lesson and moved on, right? And the same thing with healing.

How often do we end up healing in the same environment that we got sick, right? Like if you're in a shitty relationship where you're walking on eggshells, you're anxious, you are your heart races, you're depressed around this person, you just, you're, you just, don't feel any sort of connection with them, right? Because maybe they're verbally, physically, emotionally, mentally abusive towards you. And believe it or not, plenty of men are verbally, mentally, emotionally abused and manipulated by their women. Trust me, I know this. For five years and 20 classes, I ran the project and half of the class was, you know, they're all men,

but half of them were men that were dealing with women that were absolute bat shit crazy. narcissists and they were mentally and emotionally abusive to the point where they would put out shit on their social media. I had so many guys tell me this. Yeah, man, she puts out shit on her social media to bait other guys to get attention, to make me feel like I might lose her. And then when I call her out on it, she's like, no, I didn't do that. I was like, bro, just leave her.

Just leave her. It's like, yeah, really? You think I should? Right. If you are hurt and that person's hurting you, leave them. they're not going to get any better. And if they're doing things and saying, no, I'm not doing that.

I just put this out because I look good in this picture. Well, guess what? Send it to me. Send it to me if you look good in that picture, right? Don't put it out. And that's what I told these guys. And they're like, huh, you make a lot of sense, B.

Right? So anyways, so whether it's that or whether if, like, you're a woman listening to this show because I know 7% of my audience, seven or 9% of my audience are women, you're in a bad relationship. Like, I used to know someone, this woman who was in a,

very bad relationship, verbally abusive relationship, physically abusive relationship. It wasn't until 13 years of abuse went by and her young teenage boy got physically abused by the dad, her husband, that she finally drew a line in the sand. She thought she can keep making excuses for him. She thought that she would be able to heal in that same environment that got her sick. And that's not how it works, my friends, right? If you're like, every time I drink, I seem to find problems. I find a DUI. I find a string of bad decisions that I made

because maybe you can't control your inhibitions and you say something stupid or you do something stupid that you regret. You're like, okay, next time I drink, I'm just going to drink less. The lessons are going to continue. You cannot heal from your stupid alcoholic decisions until you stop the alcohol.

And you only stop the alcohol when you stop putting yourself in the environment. So you see how lesson one and lesson two go hand in hand, right? That was my big epiphany. I had to stop hanging around with idiots that were robbing places, that were carjacking people, that were taking advantage of people for me to be able to heal into a better human as a young man. As an adult, I had to do the same thing.

I couldn't hang around with losers who were business partners and then expect to have people speak positively of me. Those two ships don't ride together. Hey guys, quick interruption to the Bedroskulian show. It is cold and flu season, and I want to make sure that you have a strong. strong immune system and that your body is fighting off inflammation because right now lots of people around you have the colder flu and you want to make sure that one you don't get it and if you do get it you want to get over it as quickly as possible so you can go back to dominating your day and stacking winds right so most of you out there are probably taking a whole bunch of supplements like vitamin c vitamin d

echinacea ginger turmeric astragulus b12 zinc and while all these things are great for building your immune system one they cost a lot of money and two the quality of the ingredients in here are not Great. So I want you to throw all these away. And instead, what you're going to do is you're going to get the Trulene everyday wellness shot. Taste delicious. You can feel it working. You're going to boost your immune system, fight off inflammation, have more energy, and keep your body hydrated because we recently added pink Hemelan Sea Salt for Sodium and Potassium and Magnesium to keep you hydrated. So here's an offer that you can't refuse.

Go to truleen.com. Use my name Bedroast to get 50% off the Truline subscribe and save offer. Plus, you're going to get free shipping and a 30-day uncondent. money back guarantee. This product is so good such high quality, strong efficacy, and third-party tested that I want you to try it out at no risk. So use my name Bedrose to get 50% off, plus free shipping and 30-day unconditional money-back guarantee. Now back to the show. And I share this with you because oftentimes you want change in your life, but you feel the pain is not great enough. Or maybe you feel that you're not worthy enough for the better version of that

life that could be available to you. Or maybe you feel that if I shake things up, it's going to be too painful and to some degree you're right the pain might be higher as you shake things up and you leave before it gets better but trust me when I say it's worth it right because if you are in a relationship whether it's a personal relationship a professional relationship or if someone is mentally financially abusive to you they're holding money over your head I can't tell you how many times I've heard this and men are notorious about doing this They'll be the breadwinner, but then to hold the money over the wife's head. Right?

Hey, you know, I make the money. And if you don't like it, the money can get cut off. Like, bro, don't tell your chick you want to be the breadwinner and you want her to stay home and you want her to raise the kids and you want her to provide peace and all this. But then inevitably, you guys are human. You are going to get in a fight, you know. And when you do, if you throw the money thing in her face, soon she's going to have so much resentment against you she's going to be like fuck man maybe i should just go out and get a job if you're a man and you feel like a sense of responsibility to pay for her and your family

fucking do what with zero expectations now obviously if she's spending way out of line if because i've heard men say this too dude she's just spending way more money than i'm making and i'm not saying a word about it well you can have that conversation but don't have it when you're angry because you're going to throw it in her face have the conversation by sitting her down and be like Hey, baby girl, we're making this. You're spending that. You can't keep doing that because I can't keep working overtime or creating more companies or more businesses or like you're stressing me out and teach her money etiquette, money intelligence, right? It's okay to do that. But when you hold it over her head, it's not. Now, why do I share this with you? Because you might be the person that she

needs to leave because you are using money as a way to control, right? Women use more covert tactics of controlling and manipulating, men are more overt in the way that control and manipulate. Both are absolutely wrong. So anyways, why do I share this with you? Because if you want to learn the lessons and finally have these lessons stop showing up in your life. And if you want to create change and heal, you have to get out of the environment. And that means you have to go to war. You have to go to war. You have to go to war with this inner conversation that you're having in your head. that if I do this, what will people think? What if I rocked a boat and then, you know, my reputation suffers?

Or I lose family members because of it. Listen, I've lost family members. I've lost business partners. I've done everything I can in the last 15 years to optimize my health mentally, physically, emotionally because I realize I only have a fine out amount of time left on this planet and I still have so much more work and servitude to do. I cannot have people around me that are negative, that are toxic, that are limited in their belief systems

who are going to stop me from achieving my goals or who are going to be passive aggressive or act entitled or intentionally or even unintentionally sabotage my mission that I'm on, right? Because of their insecurities. I can't have that. So I have to go to war with every single person and every single thing that takes place in my head.

It ain't easy going to war because it's so much easier. to look for comfort and complacency. It's so much easier to go, I'd rather stay with what I know, even though it's shitty and uncomfortable and it's not good for me, then go into the unknown and explore what I don't know

and potentially experience more pain or frustration or it's scary. I get it. Change is scary. But this is why you have to go to war. And so what do you do to go to war? I can tell you what I did. One, I started working with a therapist, right? You guys know the story.

About 13 years ago, I had a massive panic attack so big that I thought I was having a heart attack. I didn't even realize it was a panic attack. I thought I was having a heart attack and I thought I was going to die on the spot. It wasn't until I went to the doctor. The doctor's like, dude, you didn't have a heart attack. We tested you. You're fine. But what you had was probably a panic attack and anxiety attack.

And if you don't fix the things that are giving you these panic attacks and anxiety attacks, you will have a heart attack soon. And so that's when the doctor put me on Xanax because what do doctors do? They want to lean towards some kind of a pharmaceutical prescription, right? Five days on to Xanax and I was like, dude, I don't want to do this. Like I have no motivation. I have no drive. I also wasn't feeling anxious, but I still had no motivation and drive.

So I call the doctor. I'm like, I want to get off to Xanax. What other drugs do you have? And to his credit, he's like, well, there's another drug. They're all going to make you feel the same way, kind of lethargic and slow and not motivated. But have you tried talk therapy? And that's what led me to talk therapy. That's when I started working with Kevin Downing, right?

My therapist, what I've talked about before. He's in Brea, those of you live in Southern California, you're looking for a good male therapist. Look up Kevin Downing, Turning Point counseling in Brea, California. I think I've sent close to maybe close to 100 people to him. I don't know how many of the people that he's worked with. I know I get text messages from him all the time saying, hey, thanks for referring people to me.

I guess this is how I refer people. And by the way, I don't make a penny from Kevin. And he doesn't ever tell me like, this person's really fucked up. Man, I can't believe you have a fucked up friend or you have a fucked up business partner or your fucked up listeners or whatever. He just works with you guys

and he will heal you if you give him the time, right? And you got to do the work like I did. But I share this with you because it starts with doing some kind of therapy to realize that you can unwind the habits that got you into this position, right? Because what got you here isn't going to get you out of there.

So you have to have someone who can help you unscramble your brain, your habits, your belief systems and help you figure out what your next path would be. And then with that comes some journaling, would that come some acceptance of your past, would that come some forgiveness that you have to have

of whatever took place in your life? In my case, there was physical abuse and sexual abuse that led to being such a control freak and being so intense and angry and all these things, right? And I realized, wait a minute, I didn't do anything to attract being sexually molested by two older boys.

The whole time I thought I did something like it was my fault. And so I felt unworthy, unlovable. I felt like I could just be thrown away like I was trash, right? When in reality, I was the one as a young boy, four or five years old, getting abused. See, a good therapist will help you figure that out. Journaling will help you figure that out.

And when you do these things, it is painful. I remember plenty of times walking out of Kevin's office feeling like I was walking through molasses because I was just so my head was like in this fog because like so many wounds get opened up when you're talking about things and you're processing through things, things that you put in the back of the mind that you put in a box, you put far way you don't address and you think you solve through it you didn't it only pops up when you get in a fight with your business partner or your honey or or something happens and triggers you and all of a sudden you're getting back to this you're getting back to your emotional body your trauma body your

trauma response and you're like I don't know why I freaked out like that well because you never solved the problem in the first place you just hit it you avoided it you just ignored it to solve through it to heal from it takes a very different type of work you have to go to war with the demons within. And if you are willing to do that, I promise you, you will learn the lessons and you will heal. And understand that that healing sometimes takes leaving the environment, you know, and it might literally be leaving the environment of work because if you're in a bad work situation or bad business partnership, it might mean leaving the relationship. It might mean leaving the town that reminds you of the abuse or the lesser version of you,

truth is I live about 35 miles away from Anaheim. When I go to Anaheim and certain parts of Santa Ana, where my memories of my youth were not so ideal, I don't feel good about myself. I just don't. So I try and avoid those areas as much as possible. So could you imagine if I still live there in the environment, but I'm trying to heal, I had to move away.

I had to move away. And it doesn't take much distance. But I had to move into an environment where, like, there's horses and cows all over where I live here, much more peaceful, less city-like. Just 35 miles away. And I share that with you because if you're willing to take the action and make the moves, do the healing work, start journaling, work with the therapist, create boundaries from the people and the things that broke you. you will become unbreakable. Guys, I hope you got a lot of value from this episode. If you did, you're watching this on YouTube,

74% of you watching this are not subscribed. Please do me a favor and subscribe so we can really tell the algorithms to share this with more people. If you will subscribe, like, and leave a comment. It would mean a world to me, and it cost you nothing. Above all, remember this, that average is the enemy,

that success is your responsibility, and change can take place in an instant if you are willing to flip the switch. I'll see you next time. between me and you back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo I was banging with a gang of instrumental