https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-can-manage-forever-remove-allan-galang-helen-fong-hgifc/

I was sitting in a martial arts school waiting room.

20 minutes before class.

I hadn't moved in 15 minutes.

My assistant instructor was calling my name.

"Allan. Allan. Hey — Allan."

I didn't hear him.

For two minutes, I was completely gone.

I'd been teaching at that school since 2009.

I'd never missed a class.

That day, I didn't want to be there at all.

My dad was dying.

And the image of him in that hospital bed — helpless, in pain, fading —kept playing on a loop in my mind.

Over and over.

I couldn't stop it.

In my head, I was already planning the conversations.

The texts I'd send to clients.

The businesses I'd pause.

The version of me who would sit alone in a dark room.

Helpless.

Because I couldn't save him.

I almost did it.

What stopped me wasn't willpower.

It wasn't discipline.

It wasn't a motivational quote.

It was one question.

My colleague Helen — who I'd been studying Mind Edge Methods with for years, sat across from me in our studio office.

She looked at me and said: "Let me help you."

She used a technique called Subconscious Image Reframing.

I'd studied it. I'd used it on others.

But I couldn't do it on myself.

Not in that state.

Before the session, the pain in my chest was a 9 out of 10.

I was holding back tears constantly.

Shame. Worry. Fear.

The image of him in that bed wouldn't leave me alone.

After the session, it dropped to a 2.

Not because the grief disappeared.

But because something shifted in how I held it.

I had a wish I couldn't feel.

That when my dad passed, he would leave all the pain behind.

The disease. The hurt. The regret his body had been carrying for years.

That somewhere above all of it, he would be free.

Clean. Smiling. At peace.

I wanted to believe that.

But I couldn't feel it.

Helen's work removed the internal block that was stopping me from believing it.

Not because she talked me into it.

Because she helped my subconscious mind build the belief from the inside.

Now, whenever I think of my dad, that image is automatic.

Him floating upward, smiling down, whispering:

"I'm always with you, son."

That belief didn't exist before the session.

Now it's permanent.

I didn't shut down the businesses.

I didn't send the texts.

I walked back into that dojo and I taught the class.

And then I spent all of 2023 and 2024 doing this for others.

A woman came to me whose husband wanted to keep her small.

Every time she moved toward a bigger career, his voice would fire in her head.

"Stay safe. Don't risk it. Who do you think you are?"

After one session, the voice stopped.

Not because he changed.

Because she did.

The charge behind his words had been removed.

She moved forward without it.

Single mothers. Business owners. Executives.

All of them carrying something they believed was permanent.

All of them discovering it wasn't.

Here is what I know now.

When you are in a dark tunnel of repeated painful thoughts —

you are not broken.

You are not too far gone.

You are not the exception.

You are one skill set away from getting out.

But here is the part most high performers miss:

Sometimes, the skill set you need is not yours.

It belongs to someone else.

And the only thing standing between you and the breakthrough

is one question.

Tony Robbins taught me this when I was 24 years old.

I had a small business, a new car, money for dinner out most nights.

And then everything fell apart.

In 2004, my relationship ended.

I couldn't manage what I was feeling.

I attempted suicide.

I had bought his Personal Power II training and left it on a shelf for two years.

Because I didn't think I needed it.

That changed fast.

A year later I was living in a friend's apartment. Cat-sitting while she was away.

Two dollars a day. Noodles and watermelon in portions.

I needed $1,500 to start a business online.

I applied for credit cards.

50 applications.

11 conversations with companies who laughed at me and hung up.

One night my sister took me to dinner — she paid.

She handed me a stack of bills.

I sank in my seat.

I sifted through the pile, trying to keep my chin up.

And then there was one envelope with something inside it.

A credit card.

$2,000 approved.

Without a single phone conversation.

Robbins had one principle that kept me going through all of it:

"If you think you can't — you must.

Or else you submit yourself to a limitation you don't need to have."

That credit card started everything.

The breakthrough in 2023 continued it.

Here is what both moments had in common:

I didn't have the skill.

I found the person who did.

I let them help me.

That is the upgrade.

Not the hustle.

Not the grind.

Not pushing harder on a path that has already stopped moving.

The upgrade is asking.

If you are a professional reading this and something has been firing inside you for longer than it should

a reactive charge that keeps surfacing,

a pattern you keep managing but never removing

you already know what I'm pointing at.

The question is not whether it can be resolved.

The question is: are you still waiting to ask?

Written by: Allan Galang