Stop Living in Fear | Getting Real with Gary Lane

Does the world see the real you? Because for Gary Lane – psychotherapist, transformational coach and the subject of today’s podcast – the answer to that question would’ve been ‘no’.

Gary spent a large chunk of his youth trying to fit in – to be someone he thought other people wanted him to be.

Growing up in an isolated house in the countryside, his father spent most of his time at work, and his mother, plagued with mental health issues, was often sectioned.

“I was sent here, there and everywhere while she was recovering,” says Gary.

“Often I was told off, so I learned to behave in a certain way.

“I learned to be very quiet and tidy.”

When his parents eventually divorced, Gary was sent to an all-boys boarding school. Coming from the quiet, open countryside into a very strict, very regimented environment was a total culture shock.

He immediately felt the pressure to fit in.

But it took him a long time to feel settled – especially as he was struggling academically.

“When I was at school, ADHD wasn’t a thing.

“So teachers treated me quite harshly; I got wrapped across the knuckles quite a lot with rulers. I had board rubbers thrown at me, and the cane a few times.”

Sports helped. Gary threw himself into athletics, cricket, hockey, swimming.

They were an outlet for him. 

His talents were recognised, and it wasn’t long before he became captain of the sports team, leading the school to victory in the Surrey Cup Final.

But despite his achievements, Gary often felt like he was on the outside looking in.

He still felt the pressure to be accepted.

Pressured to always anticipate what was expected of him. Moulding himself into different crowds, he tested out different personas in an effort to fit in.

By the end of his time at boarding school, he’d adopted a personality that seemed to work; a larger-than-life, stereotypical alpha male who played hard.

But it was nothing more than a character.

And it was eating him up inside.

“I was literally playing somebody else; this persona who was outwardly hardworking but emotionally closed man who was often overwhelmed.

“It really started to impact my mental health because I didn’t really know who I was.”

Fast forward some years, and Gary was living in Spain with his second wife and their children, running a successful business as a kitchen fitter.

But when the marriage ended and his ex-wife and children moved back to the UK, Gary realised something.

He was more alone than ever.

“I went out and got smashed every other day. This went on for about seven months until eventually, I reached the point where I’d had enough.

“I was either gonna take my own life, or go home.”

So he threw all his clothes and possessions in a bin bag, jumped in a car that wasn’t even roadworthy, and made the long journey back to England.

But back in Blighty, things only got worse.

His emotions were volatile and his mental health was unstable.

After a while, his ex-wife had moved abroad again, but this time his kids asked if they could stay in England with him.

Suddenly, he was a full-time single dad, taking care of two young children.

With a job that wasn’t conducive to childcare.

He had no choice but to go back to the drawing board.

Gary had always felt a desire to help others, though he was still too scared to show people who he really was.

So he went back to college to study counselling and social care.

It was one of the best decisions of his life.

Gary immediately felt he’d found his calling.

He started volunteering at Derby Youth Offending Service and was offered a part-time role working with kids in care who’d grown up in families where there was chaos and abuse.

Families like his own.

Running a community service for young people, Gary’s course quickly became the best attended in the country.

“People were asking me what model I was using.

“But it was basically just me spending time with them and connecting with them. Eventually I started working with them as a support worker, and went on to qualify as a psychotherapist.”

Having spent his life trying to be someone else, Gary finally started getting to know himself; a relentless pursuit of authenticity, as he calls it.

“That’s when the real me was born.”

For him, that meant embracing his vulnerabilities, his flaws, his limits as a human. Gradually, he began to understand that his vulnerabilities were his superpower.

“No one could hurt me because I already knew everything that was wrong with me, and I was really comfortable with that. In fact, I don’t even see it as wrong anymore. The traumas and challenges I’ve had have made me who I am.

“And I’m comfortable with who I am.”

But even after qualifying as a therapist, old habits still crept in. Gary still sometimes drank to excess.

It wasn’t until he started training in fostering and adoption that he began to learn about the nervous system and the impact of trauma.

That training, combined with developing his mindset with the help of coach Paul Mort (also my coach) was – as he describes – the ‘golden ticket’.

The final piece of the puzzle in his healing.

“I started to understand how trauma had impacted me and why my behaviour was volatile. Because my nervous system was always dysregulated, always in ‘fight or flight’, my temperament was either at one or 10.

“I could swing from chill to f**king furious.”

Gary learned that these responses were defensive reactions to perceived threats, because of what he’d encountered in his childhood.

By increasing his capacity to handle these threats, he was able to gain more control over his responses.

He was able to think clearly.

And these learnings have proved invaluable in the business world, too. So much so, that Gary started a coaching business – The Real Me Therapy – to support male business owners in their 40s and 50s facing burnout.

“A lot of business owners have developed a tremendous capacity for stress. They can work really hard for long spells, but they have no capacity left for anything outside of that.

“As a result, they’re burned out.”

Gary’s coaching programme is designed to help clients first understand their nervous system and learn to regulate it. From there, everything else – like developing a strong mindset and creating a compelling future – becomes more achievable.

But he also discovered something else.

Most of the business owners he worked with were also people pleasers.

Just like Gary had been.

“I had a client who was always busy and burned out, so I told him to take half a day off to go for a walk in the Peak District. Then I told him that if his business fell down in that time, I’d refund him everything he’d paid.

“After that, he realised that he had really bad boundaries because he was doing literally everything in his business. Answering the phone, being the secretary, constantly responding to staff questions; again. People-pleasing.

“But people pleasers also catastrophise and have a fear that if they take their foot off the pedal, everything will go wrong.”

This response comes back to the nervous system.

Gary explains that we’re inherently coded to adopt the fight-or-flight response. In ancient times, that response protected us – if we were being chased by a tiger and we stopped or slowed down, we’d die.

That’s why when so many business owners get close to burnout, they tend to pick up more stuff; to keep going. But what they really need to do is let some stuff go.

And the thought of doing that terrifies them.

Because their nervous systems are screaming that they’ll get eaten by a tiger. But Gary teaches his clients not to trust those thoughts. That they’re merely a psychological representation of our nervous systems; not reality.

“Our culture perpetuates the flight-or-flight response. Marketers, media, politicians, the news cycle – we’re always getting bombarded with something.

“And when you’re always in fight-or-flight, the front-thinking, logical, rational part of the brain goes offline. So what we’re doing then is making decisions based on our emotions or fears.

“But that’s never going to end well.”

Gary encourages his clients to challenge their thoughts to identify whether they’re responding from a grounded place or a fear-based place.

The key to doing that, he believes, is to practice mindfulness and become more aware of what’s happening in the body so we can slow it down and regulate it.

For example, when you get a difficult email from a client and it sends your nervous system into overdrive, Gary suggests taking a deep breath and removing yourself from that tension.

Your response will be 10 times better.

The problem is that so many of us are stuck in that mode, and we need to learn to regulate it.

“Two or three years ago, I experienced bird song for the first time. I’d never noticed it before because I was stuck in fight-or-flight.

“When you slow down and start practicing mindfulness, you’ll start to experience the world differently.”

Gary also knows the importance of boundaries.

“Two million years ago, a boundary was basically a four-sided fence. It was about protecting yourself and your territory so that nothing could get in and attack you.

“And that’s still basically what a boundary is; protecting yourself, your peace and your mental health.

“When people start putting boundaries in place, they thrive.”

You can connect with Gary on Instagram and LinkedIn or find out more about The Real Me coaching programme on his website.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.