When I was 14 years old, my father passed away after a brutal three year battle with cancer.
As I held his hands, I watched him take his last breath. With it, incredibly, he said “I love you” for the first time in my life.
His passing dealt a blow of grief upon me that shook me to my core.
When a young boy watches his father grow weaker with every passing day, and the moment comes when he has to push the man who was his whole idea of masculinity in a wheelchair, something in that small heart breaks, and keeps breaking.
At his funeral, I walked as the first man behind his casket. I remember every sound the hearse made during the procession.
I became a man right there, in that moment, but my heart filled with grief, terror, and trauma.
As painful as that experience was, it set me upon the path of finding out what it means to be a man.
There was no men’s work and no men’s group where I grew up. I had no idea this work existed. I needed it badly back then.
As the years passed, I developed the habit of wandering in deep nature, sat in stillness for hours, worked with my breath, and filled hundreds of journal pages. And slowly, I became aware of my deepest wounds that were holding me back in every area of life, be it relationships, business or leadership.
Most men carry these wounds in some shape or form.
The first is the validation wound. A hunger to be seen that goes all the way back to childhood, to the little boy who didn’t feel recognized or understood for his own feelings and thoughts. And now he tries to prove himself to women, to other men, in his work, desperately hoping to finally be seen and loved.
The second is the abandonment wound. A terror so deep it drove the little boy to wear mask after mask, to become whoever he needed to be to make sure no one left. But underneath all of it was just a child, desperately afraid of being alone.
The third is the lack of safety. Never feeling safe in his own body. Irritable. Anxious. Always on edge, no matter the circumstances.
Maybe you recognize yourself in some of that.
The relationship where you get triggered by the slightest thing. Where an enormous response rises inside you, pain activated, flooding you, and then the shame hits.
Shame for being so out of control. Shame for feeling so much.
The insecurity that never really leaves. Feeling worthless inside your own being. Like you don’t belong. Like you have no space in this world and you never quite earned your place in it.
The constant fear that the ones you love will abandon you. That they are already slowly moving away. That eventually you will just be alone, left by the world, left by love.
Yes. That is exactly how I lived. Daily, for years.
What followed was an arduous journey of facing these parts of myself. And it was not poetic. There was no bliss, no graceful unfolding. There was only the abyss I had been running from since I was eleven years old, when my father was first diagnosed.
I sat in my pain. I sat in my shame. I sat in the wreckage of things I had done when I was out of integrity. It was brutal and raw.
I regularly felt like I was taking two steps forward and three steps back. My emotional storms would hijack me with such ferocity that I felt completely out of control.
But I persevered. I continued even when my mind told me it was hopeless.
And somehow, in the chaos of it all, I found my path.
At first it felt like a candle.
Then it became a wildfire.
My eyes were once filled with confusion and fear. Now there is raw fire and power in them.
I am telling you this because my story began in the fire, in the mud. And that is why men who sit with me, in my programs, in my groups, feel connected to me quickly. Because deep down they know:
This man has been in the mud. He has suffered. In raw pain, for years.
I did not choose this path.
The path chose me.
And now I teach this work to men around the world. Because I have walked through the darkness and I can navigate the path to the other side.
Now, a big part of my purpose is to help men with the right frameworks, tools, and guidance, so you don’t have to go through years of trial and error, repeating the same patterns, causing so much pain.
There is no shortcut. You have to show up and do the work. But with the right tools and the willingness, you can shift everything. In fact you can create such a fundamental shift that propels you forward in 9 focused weeks of deep work with like-minded men.
If you’re ready to go deeper, click here to see my upcoming training courses or click here to access past recordings.
