As an ordained minister and a life coach with a celebrity clientele, Tim Storey has worked with vastly different types of people. They've all had unique experiences and struggles, but there's still a common denominator that Storey has noticed at the heart of each setback. Whether they're rich and famous or live more modest lives, Storey says that the initial challenge of a setback is always the same.
"Part of it is, 'I've never been here before.' So, when they fall down, they don't know what to do to get back up," he tells Oprah during a conversation on "Super Soul Sunday." "They're living in the shame and the guilt of what they've been through."
In other words, he says, people tend to live in the past and oftentimes feel "stuck" there without realizing they're holding themselves back. Storey also explains that external factors, like religion, can push some people to fixate on the traumas of their past.
"Religion can almost do that to you if you're not careful, because there's so much talk about failure and sin and mistakes that you can keep going back to what you did," Storey says.
"And you can believe that that's what God wanted because that's the way it happened," Oprah adds.
"Exactly," Storey agrees.
What these individuals are really in search of, therefore, is a comeback. They need a way to rise up from the weight of the past. The trouble in pursuing that, however, is that too many people misunderstand what a comeback actually is. Their idea of it is to restore life to the way it was before the setback. Storey says that this should never be the goal.
"A comeback is not a go-back," he says. "So many people... want to go back."
This sentiment isn't unique to his clients, either. Storey encounters this mindset in all types of places. Recently, he tells Oprah, he was on an airplane sitting next to a wealthy Dallas businessman who hadn't even realized he was holding himself back and living out of the past.
"He's telling me about all these things he's done. And he says, 'My daddy...', 'my daddy...', 'my daddy...' I said, 'Well how old is your father?' because this man seemed about 70 himself. He said, 'My daddy has passed away,'" Storey recalls. "He was trying to prove to his father that he was worthy... He was trying to 'fix' something even though his father had passed. To prove something."
The way to overcome a setback is to stop trying to "fix" something in the past. Storey says that otherwise, you're setting yourself up for an impossible, never-ending task.
"So many people are there. They've been through something and now they're going to go back and fix it," Storey says. "But you cannot do that."
"Super Soul Sunday" airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET on OWN. You can also stream the program live on Oprah.com/supersoulsunday or Facebook.com/supersoulsunday.
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