Trusting Yourself Again After Trauma (Part 2): Rebuilding Inner Safety - Coaching Session

[MUSIC] All right, my friend. Welcome back. How you doing? I'm good. Connor, how are you? I'm good, man. I'm good. Give us a little quick update. This is kind of interesting. I've never done this before because when did we connect two weeks ago? Yeah, about that. Two weeks ago, we kind of had our first session. And I've actually never had somebody back on the show two weeks later. Okay, Connor. This is kind of cool. Actually, I like this. I feel good. This is like a-- It really is kind of like sessions that I do with guys. So maybe if you can, in your own words, in case people didn't catch the first one, which if you're listening to this now or watching this now, you should definitely do that. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Check out the first session that we had. But I'm sure you're going to get a ton out of this. Maybe just in your own words, recap what you feel like you got from the first session. What we dove into, what you feel like you got. And then we'll talk a little bit about how it's been since then. Well, you really helped identify the core based on my past and stuff, the core root of how I struggle with decisions and trusting myself and trusting that I can make good decisions. And through that process, we-- Yeah, we really got to the core of how my past has leaked into my future and the different life events I've been through have really shaped how I approach certain situations. From your vantage point, what was the core that we got to? There was a couple, maybe different ones. But the first one was starting out with my drug-induced anxiety episode, you would say. And then the other with my mom's passing and how deep down I feel somewhat responsible and that I could have changed things. And how if I had made a different decision back then, I could have changed the outcome. Still feel like that's true? I can say it. I don't fully believe it's gone yet. That one's going to take a while. That's totally fine. And trying to-- before I go at that one with this mindset of trusting myself, I'm trying to tackle smaller decisions and approach those in the mindset which we talked about. How-- maybe just lay out for folks what I gave you to work on at the end of our session and how that's been going. What's it been like for you to start to implement some of the things that we talked about? Yeah, it's been-- I took away from it a practice of reflecting on my day and identifying choices that I had made. Even ones that are so small because of normal day, you think about the run of a normal day. You're not making any life-changing decisions, but your day is a series of small decisions that you consciously or unconsciously make, whereas going to work. Yeah, that's something we all do every day, but you still decide it to. And staying in on a night rather than going out and sitting out of bar and having a beer or doing a chore that has been sitting around for a while, just little things like that took kind of breaking the day up that way. And if I did make any bad decisions, like if I-- I can't think of one off top of my head, but it might be something so little that I didn't do, which maybe I could have, identify those little decisions and start to build that trust in myself. Good. Good. So again, this is more for the listeners, but also for you and me. Reinforce for us what it is that pulled you here. What are you trying to address or confront or resolve inside of yourself or your life? I think I am at a point in my life where I'm starting a new relationship has been a little tough for me since my marriage and making that decision to stay in the relationship and whatever comes with that rather than run from the unknown and the scary part of the new relationships. And I had been ruminating quite a bit on just whether this was the right thing for me right now. Right. Good. So here's what I want to do. I want to do two pieces to start us off, and we'll see where it takes us. The first is I want you to-- if you're comfortable with it, obviously, you have choice in absolutely everything that we do. Sometimes I use-- It's like, this is what's happening. So I'll already frame that and just make sure that you know you have a choice in everything that we're going to do. You can say no to anything. I would like for you to dig a little bit deeper into some of the things that you ruminate about. And then I want to talk about the different developmental stages, because one of the things that stuck out to me after our first session was the impact that trauma can have on us, especially at a young age. And then to have that-- another trauma that could happen a decade later-- it's sort of-- I guess it's 14 years later-- how old were you when your mom took a-- 18. 18. OK, so a few years later. For some reason, I thought it was 26. So right back to back, there's something that happens from a developmental stage. And so I want to touch on that and kind of unpack. From a teaching perspective, here's what happens, because a big piece that stands out for me about what you're dealing with is a form of attachment trauma. And attachment trauma can show up in a lot of different ways. Generally speaking, the way that people talk about it online and in the therapeutic practices, they talk about it as an insecure attachment style, anxious, avoidant, organized. And those are kind of all the manifestations of how our behavior changes when we don't feel safe for trusting of relationship. And that usually isn't always because of the relationship that we're in, but because of the relationships that we had growing up. And for you, you're experiencing something that-- I don't know if I said this in the first session, but part of what you're experiencing is actually what I would categorize as attachment rumination. And so notice that a lot of your rumination revolve around the relationship itself. And this is something that I've seen a lot of people deal with when they have traumatic circumstances or really hard circumstances in their upbringing. Whatever those circumstances might be, is that they can have a hyper-vigilance cognitively in their mind. And their thoughts constantly go towards their primary attachment. And it'll constantly go towards, is my relationship OK? Am I OK in this relationship? Is this the right relationship? Is the other person all right? And everything surrounding it. So how we could say how the wound manifests or how the trauma manifests is in a kind of chronic rumination about the relationship, about the attachment itself. Does that make sense so far? Yeah. All right, guys, really quick aside. First off, thank you so much for tuning in to the show and to the channel. If you are wanting to go deeper, if you're a man that's working on himself in some way, shape, or form, you're wanting to be more self-led, you want to trust yourself more, you want to have a deeper level of self-worth, or maybe looking to improve your relationship, then I encourage you to check out the ManTalks Alliance. You can go to ManTalks.com/aliance. We have over 1,000 men in this incredible community from around the world, men who are just like you, working to better themselves, to be a better husband, a better father, a better life. leader in your own life. So check it out mantalks.com/aliance. So let's start off with the beginning. Talk to me a little bit about some of the things you think about. What are some of the reminations that you have? The main ones are basically, is this right for me? Should I be at least chipdo, am I ready for this again? I was just with someone for 10 years. What was it? In hindsight, it was kind of a prolonged growing apart, but one day it all just came to a halt and it was like, okay, we're done right? And, you know, can I am I healed from that yet? Do I need more time? Can I heal from that? And still tend to this new relationship the way it needs to be tended to. And how long ago was the divorce? Divorce actually just finalized, but we separated about a year and a half ago. Okay, that's always a strange question depending on the state or well, we got separated and then we had to wait a year and then we could file, we had to wait another year for it to go through and yeah, okay. Maybe just say a couple words about the end of the marriage and what that was like on your side. Like it was maybe a surprise that it came to an end or it was kind of shocking or maybe just speak a little bit about your personal experience in reference to the end of the marriage. Yeah, so it kind of started when I had my struggle with, I tried to come off my anxiety medication and that all kind of led into my self-harm incident. And it really caused us both to shut off from each other. I really put a lot of focus on myself and my mental health like improving myself with the expectation that like, oh, I can. I'll get myself straight, get my head on straight, get, you know, get my head above water and then come back to the relationship and it just never got to a good enough point where I felt like I could not focus on me and then, you know, work as as two, you know. And we had been growing apart in hot, like I said, in hindsight, because we had been growing apart for years looking back on it. Even before my struggle with mental might like increase struggle with mental health, but that period, even before that we had grown apart, you know. And we were more friends than partners, you know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm just going to interject there. A couple questions. One, are you, did you successfully transition off of those medications or are you back on them to a limited degree? No, I still take them, but. I've never heard that they're not the only tool in the toolbox before, because I was put on these medications at a young age and they kind of took care of everything right because it numbed me to feel any, you know, there was some joy, but for the most part, I didn't feel anything emotionally. That was my mindset before like I took the meds before and I'm good, but now it's much after trying to get off them. It's much different like I realized now that they're not just going to do it all solution right. It's a tool just like diet exercise therapy. Tell me what happened when you started to come off them and to the best of your knowledge with lead to you making an attempt. I was working with my family doctor. He was just my GP and he. I said, hey, like I just want to give this a shot. Let's let's see, you know, life is good. Just got a house just got married. Let's let's give it a go and tapered off them very, very slowly. And then there were one day at all just. It came I had a wall in that they must have finally left my system. And well, there's. Have you started interrupts or interrupts? I'm going to come back and I don't mean to interject. Have you seen any graphs or charts about because you were on a SSRI. Have you seen any graphs or charts about what happens when you taper off and what what actually happens neurologically in the brain and the body. No, I know the one that I've been on is is Paxil. It's an old one. It's one of the older ones. So. Yeah, I like the old school stuff. My music and my SSRIs. Well, that one has the longest half life from my research of those. Yeah, that class and it's a tough one. But I'm at a much lower I'm at a much lower dose. Now because I've the diet and the exercise in the therapy like has filled in a bit of the gaps was able to reduce that good. Good. Good. Good. Yeah. I mean, generally when coming off an SSRI, the hard part is that the. The impacts that you feel of the reduced dosage don't actually really hit until like rate at the very end. So it's misleading, right? This is what a lot of people don't talk about is and I've seen this happen with a lot of people that come up SSRIs. Is that they feel good and they'll reduce reducing the dose is reducing the dosage and it's like, oh, everything's going great. And then they're at the last, you know, sort of 25% and all of us in the fall off cliff. And that is pretty much what it's like for everybody. And I'm saying that because I think people can benefit from that knowledge because I don't think it's common knowledge that that's what happens is that generally you can be filtering off and then you know, at the very end, you're almost off of them entirely and that's when you know, there's a big sort of collapse or. We'll call it a calamity. Tell me what was happening inside of you. You know that led you to that line of thinking that line of contemplation and action. So what happened after that was I had. I started working with a different doctor to try and get my head back above water right because I was I was in pretty bad shape. And was trying different meds was trying different SSRIs because she didn't want to put me back on pack because it's so. They're called better ones out there, but. And through trialing these medications that just. I don't know, just my brain was in the blender man, like panic and anxiety and dissociative manic episodes and. And I can't really remember what led to the incident, but it was during that time where I was trialing meds and. Go and my brain was just like. Like a ping pong ball rattling around in my head. I can't I can't really speak to what because it was very. Maybe I'm blocking you know what happened and what led to that, but it was during the the trialing of different medications that that happened. It sounds it sounds like the experience that you had was as you were coming off the medication and then really came off the med medications. The experience that you started to have does sound similar to the way you described having your having your experience with the when you were 16 with the marijuana on with the weed and having a pretty big sort of like psychotic or not psychotic but like psychosis you know of like the association and. Psychedelic induced. And E I guess you could say near the experience. Psychedelic induced panic and anxiety that you were experiencing after that how familiar do those two things to the best of your recollection feel. And then you know that you're very. Yeah pretty similar. Okay, especially the dissociation that is. panic caused from association. Yeah. It's a hard thing to go through. So just take a breath. And we're not going to dive into that part specifically right now. But what I do want to say to you and what I do want you to know is how incredibly resilient I think that you are. Yeah, thank you. I think that you are incredibly resilient psychologically to go through that twice. Yeah, I appreciate that because I don't often give myself the same credit. I understand. Say what happened internally when I said that to you. I felt some sadness come over me because I'm not as nice to myself as as I should be and as nice to myself as others are. Okay, what do you say to yourself about those experiences? That what had happened to me or shouldn't have happened. You know, I didn't deserve those things to go to to feel that way. I didn't do anything wrong to feel that way, but still had to go through some pretty awful times. Well, take another breath for me and see if you can just let what I'm saying occupy a little bit more space inside of you and see if you can let it affect you. Because what I'm saying is genuine. I really mean it. I think that you're incredible to have gone through that at 16 years old and I've worked with many men and many individuals who have gone through something very similar to that and have experience with that and it's brutal. It's really brutal. Yeah, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. That's right. So to go through that at 16, buddy and then to lose your mom in the way that you lost her at 18 and to still be here today and to be as you feel like if we hung out, you're probably a very kind person. Like I would feel like you would be very kind to me. So I think what you're doing and what you've already done is amazing. So take another breath. Just see if you can let that into your heart, into your body, into your mind. And say what that's like. Again, to just let it occupy a little bit more space. It's calming. It makes me feel like I can do anything. I think you probably can. I mean, within reason, you know, well, yeah. None of us can flap our arms and actually fly like a bird. There's limits. But I think you can. The man that I have seen that I've gotten to know in this very brief period of time seems pretty exceptional to me. To have gone through what you've gone through and to have come out the other side every time as brutal as it has been. That to me is rare. Because I know many people that haven't made it through those things in one way or another. They might still be alive, but they did not come out to their side. Yeah, I often, I do often kind of remind myself, you know, everything I've been through has made me built me up each one has made me stronger. But then there are also times where the anxiety hits or the rumination hits and it feels like I'm right back. All that work I've done, all this has been wiped clean slate and I'm right back where I started. I get it. Well, yes. And there's a kind of lesson that I don't know if you've actually let yourself learn that's necessary. And what I mean by that is let's agree to stop learning from the collapse. Stop learning from the collapse. You've gone through a lot of hardship and some of it was out of your control. Some of it was by choice. A lot of it was out of your control. But we there is a there is a kind of gift in the collapse that you're talking about. And I wonder if you'd ever let yourself actually see that. I'm you might have to lead me in that direction. Okay. That's a no. That's a no. Yeah. Okay. Let me lay something out. I'm going to maybe teach something this feels going to appropriate time. I want to give you a kind of framework and then we'll see where that takes us. Okay. First, I want to ask you, what do you think I was just doing before? In that like little exchange where you got emotional. What was I doing? You were validating. I felt validated for how I felt and you were acknowledging me and you were talking to me in a way that I should talk to myself. Yeah. That was modeling in a simple way. I was treating you the way that you need to treat yourself. Blading simple. And it's not more complicated than that, but it is harder than that. Yes. I've learned about that method too and it's not really comes and goes. Okay. So here's the model I want to give you. Okay. There's a developmental model and the developmental model shows the stages that we go through from our conception to our adulthood. And it basically walks us through the different developmental eras or epochs, I guess you could say. And there are specific things that are attached to them. And I'm only going to give you the first couple stages. The rest of them are okay, but I'm going to give you the first like three or four stages and I'm going to tell you about why I'm teaching you these stages and then there's going to be some maybe like assignment that I can give you towards the end to work on. Maybe it'll lead to a little piece of work we'll see. But I think this will be helpful for you and for anybody listening. So after we're conceived and we're in utero. During that period of time we're going as we're developing, right? Our brains are developing, our nervous systems developing, our limbs are developing, our heart, you know, is starting to beat and whatnot. Our digestion is coming online. We're going through the developmental stage of am I safe to exist? Is it okay for me to just be here? And that is a very specific developmental stage where if you're in utero and mom has complications or there's complications in the birth, that can get interrupted, it can get interfered with. And I but ideally you go through that stage and it's safe for you to exist. Okay? And that gets imprinted in your nervous system. And it gets imprinted in your neurology. It's safe for me to be here. It's safe for me to exist. But if that stage, if something happens while you're in utero or right before the birth, that can can get interrupted. It can get hindered in some way, shape, or form, where we start to question, is it safe for me to be here? Is it safe for me to exist? Okay, with me so far? - Yeah. - How does that one feel? When I say it's safe for me to exist, do you feel that that's true for you? Or do you feel like there is something that's challenging about that, or foreign, or hard? - What I find challenging about that statement is just existing in the sense of not doing anything to work towards a mental state in which I feel free, or I feel okay. Where I can let my hands off the reins a little bit and say, okay, life, let's go. So the existing mode, I guess mode, there's the existing mode and the doing mode. I feel very uncomfortable a lot of the time in the just existing mode. - Great, I mean, not great, but thank you. Thank you. Okay, so I'm gonna keep going. And how I want you to listen to what I'm saying is through the lens of two things. Number one, I'm giving you a map of a direction that you are going to walk. - Okay. - And two, listen to it through the lens of how do I feel in relationship to this developmental stage? And I'll keep prompting you, so you don't have to worry about like, keep intractable that. But for people that are tuning in, they can do this along with us, all right? So the next stage, you're born. Hazah, you come out. And as you come out in the world from zero to 18 months, there's another developmental stage. And this developmental stage from zero to 18 months is the stage of, is my world okay? Is my world safe? When you're in that stage, you are a dependent. You are 100% dependent on your, usually your primary caretaker, which is usually your mother. And in that stage, your nervous system is tied to hers. Your neurology is growing and going. But a lot of that development is very contingent on what's happening in your world, because as an infant, there's not a lot of differentiation. In fact, there's almost no differentiation between me and not me, between me and outside of me. So if mom is upset and livid and she's angry all the time, that's what world feels like. Then that is a part of the self that starts to form. And so there's a, is my world okay? Because what mom goes through, you go through. So even though you come out of the womb and the ambilical cord is cut, there is still an ambilical cord between your nervous system and hers, okay? So for a lot of people later on in life, they have these big questions of, is my world okay? And they're constantly walking around through the world, feeling like I don't know if my world is all right. I don't know if it's safe for me to be in this place in the world. I don't know if it's safe for me to be in the home. I don't know if it's safe for me to be in this relationship. And it can cause a lot of reminiding of, I don't know if my external life is all right. I don't know if the world is a safe place. And if you look online right now, you will see a lot of that. You will see a lot of people whose I don't know if the world is okay. I don't know if the world isn't okay or safe place to be super activated, okay? To take another breath. Exhale out. And then the next stage, okay? So zero to 18 months is my world okay? You're trying to sort that out. Your nervous system is trying to sort it out. Your brain's trying to sort it out. And then the next developmental stage is 18 months to three years. And in this stage, you start to differentiate. I am not mom. I am not dad. These are my hands. This is my body. These are my toys. This is my food. These are my grapes. This is my chicken nuggets. (laughing) Right? And what you're trying to figure out in that stage is, am I okay? So is it safe for me to exist? Is my world okay? And am I okay? And this is usually the stage where you see kids, my sons just come out of this stage a little over, I guess two years ago now. But usually in the stage, this is where kids start to find, no. No. I'm not doing that. No, you can't make me. No, I don't want to. Because they're trying to differentiate. They're trying to, in some ways, individuate a little bit. And when they push back, what can happen is, this is usually the stage where people get, adverse responses, we'll call them, right? Parents can't regulate. They don't like it. They'll, you know, the child says, no, they're two years old. Parents start screaming and yelling, or, you know, they start to punish the kid very young. And it can start to interrupt the development of that internal experience of, am I okay? Less you. So there's more stages than that, but those are the three primary ones. Right. So when you connect to is my world okay, and I okay, how do you relate to those two? I'm definitely asking myself constantly if I'm okay. Yes. I need, you know, checking in mentally. And I think I, I'm okay with the world, the world is okay, but my world isn't always okay. And having to kind of address that. Yeah. So here's the kicker, okay? Is that as you grow up, you go through more developmental stages. You go through what can I do? How, how much can I do? How well can I do it? And then who am I? That's kind of like the final stage that you go through from teenage years onto adulthood. When we have a traumatic event like you did at 16, and then again at 18, what happens is that psychologically and internally, we move out of that developmental stage of who am I, which you were trying to figure out at 16, and you were trying to figure out at 18, you were trying to figure out who am I? You know, what do I like? What do I not like? What do I want to do? I don't want to explore. What's my identity? When a traumatic event happens in our adulthood, we go all the way back down the chain. And depending on our core upbringing, our sort of early, early, early attachment, people will either go all the way back down to is my world okay? Or is it safe for me to even exist? Is it safe to just be? Yeah. And what I've really been present to in our work between last session and this session is, you go down right to the very bottom bottom, which is is it safe for me to just be? Can I even exist? And I think in part, that's because your existence, your sense of existence was really hurt when you had that experience at 16 with the weed, where you had that traumatic event. So take another breath in. Now all I want you to do is just check in internally and get a sense of what's been happening is I've been sharing what I've been sharing. I just think I've been, yeah, say what it's been. Yeah, what's been? I've been thinking about how much time I've spent trying to answer those questions rather than trying to figure out life rather than live it. And how much how much of my mental energy throughout these years has been devoted to just being okay or just being just existing or and it also feels like those developmental stages that you talked about life. I was connecting different more recent timelines with those with those events or those stages as you described. Say more about that. What were you connecting to them? Well, I was connecting to the more recent sort of trauma with the, trying to get off the meds and self-harm and how that was kind of, after that was the stage of like, can I exist, you know? And then throughout my marriage was, am I okay? Is everything okay? And then after the marriage has kind of been, there's been more self-discovery. Say what stage you feel like you get stuck in when you ruminate about the current relationship. I definitely, I think I get stuck in the, is my world, is the world okay, you know, in a sense of my world, her world, and constantly having to ask myself if I'm okay. And yeah, I would just throw, I would offer that perhaps you are in a state of, is it just safe for me to be more often than you're letting on? Because even in the relationship what you've asked is, is it okay for me to be here? That seems to be a lot of the questions. Am I ready for this? Am I going to mess it up? And there's specific ways to work with this. But the one thing that I want to say out the gates is we have to move from question asking to evidence gathering. You have spent a very, very, very long time in a lot of cognitive bandwidths asking the question, am I okay? Is it safe for me to be? And that causes a lot of panic and anxiousness because if what we come back with is, I don't know, what are we left with? More questions, right? More anxiety, more worry, versus a retraining of the mind of the body of your internal experience to begin to somewhat ruthlessly and relentlessly evidence gather for why you are safe to be here. And why you're okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. How does it land? Softly. That is definitely something to start with. Be safe, for sure. Take another breath. Any other thoughts or questions about the developmental model when I just laid out, I'm going to give you a little bit of a practice at the end of our conversation. But any other comments or questions I want you to just like, I want you to get this in not as a mental construct, but as a real embodied nervous system truth because each of those stages has a physical response that happens inside of us. It's not just a mental question, it's a physical discomfort that happens inside of you. That makes sense, yeah. Am I okay? Has a physical discomfort that's associated with it that predates the thought. It's the precursor to the question. It's a physical question before it's a cognitive question. Okay. I know I'm in theory with you right now, but does it make sense? Yeah, I think I'm understanding it as I will, the way I connect to it is I will feel a sensation or a, yeah, or not so much physical, but I'll feel something and then that's what I'm thinking. And that'll spark the, oh, I shouldn't feel that or that's weird or okay, what does that mean? Exactly. Yes, yes. So good. So one of the things that I'd like for you to start to tune into and I would like for you to keep a journal of what I'm about to give you. Okay. Is what does it feel like somatically? How do you know unequivocally that you're okay? What does it look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like in your body? What are the things you hear yourself saying? What are the things you see yourself doing? What are the things that you experience internally when you are just okay? You're not questioning that you're okay, it's not a rumination, it's just like, oh yeah, I'm okay right now. Because one of the things that can happen when we have really deep interruptions to these different developmental stages is that our knowing of the answer to those questions are knowing of the experience of like, oh yeah, I actually MLK gets disrupted. And so our body stays in this state of like, oh, I don't know. And the more that we can gather evidence for like, oh, this is what it looks like sounds like feels like to just be okay. And the more that we can do things that put us into that state of, I'm okay, like the way you talk to yourself. Your voice will be in my head, don't worry. Nudge, nudge. Right? Right? That's a big one. That's a big one. Okay. So okay. What are some of the thoughts, the ruminations that you have about the relationship? Let's just touch on that and then we'll close out the conversation for today. Yeah, just is this right for me and for her and is it going to be okay? Is it going to work out? Is it, yeah, is the same thing going to happen that happened with my marriage or am I, yeah, those are the big ones. Say what it's like inside when you start to go down that path. It sucks because I just want to be with her. I just want to enjoy being with her, but my brain or subconscious or whatever it is won't let me. What just happened inside? I'm a little bit angler at that on myself, but at sort of the situation of where my head is. Do you have, this is going to be a strange question maybe, but do you, and I'm going to give you an exercise to traverse that with your partner? Do you have any religious or spiritual belief? Because there are higher power in your life. Is there God? Is it nature the greater, like the universe, the greater? I believe, as far as my beliefs go, I believe we have a soul. We're not just, I don't think we're just cells. And whatever, I don't really know what that means yet or don't really question it, but that makes sense to me that there's a soul inside. Tell me what you think your anger and frustration was about just now. What was it actually directed towards? Because I think you're starting to see a lot of these experiences, the weed, mom taking her life, the experience that you had with coming off the SSRIs. Those aren't necessarily. Those are almost like things that life handed you. Yeah, that you've had to deal with. And what I really have received and got in the last little while is how much you took that on as something that you had done to yourself. Or something that you should have been able to fix or adjust or prevent or have known better. Yeah, for sure. You know, I've done a bit of work in forgiving myself. Well, there's nothing to forgive. I haven't had anything wrong. But right after my separation, some work on that, because at first I blamed myself a lot for that outcome. But I've come to accept it more, not fully, but definitely more than at first. Except that it's not my fault. And I didn't do anything wrong for that marriage to end. Well, you were going through a hard time. That's for sure. And I think in all of these instances, you've been going through a pretty damn hard time. And to me, maybe I'm off about this and you have to discern whether this is true for yourself or not. It really feels like there's a part of you that's frustrated and angry at life. You know, at first I was like, it feels like he needs to tell God to have a lot of energy that I got. But I think if I did believe in God, he'd be getting a word. Give it to life. Give it to life, brother. I think a part of you needs, we all are held by something bigger than us. You can call it the world. You can call it life. You can call it universal. You can call it God. You can call it source. You can call it whatever word works for you. We are smaller than that which we have come from, whether it is nature or whatever. And if nothing else works, use life because life is bigger than us individually. And life can take some of that frustration and it can take some of your anger. And I do. That's that sounds. Yeah. And I think you got a bone to pick with life. You know, I kind of feel like you're like, man, just look at this shit that I've gone through. Why do you have like, give me a break. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what would it sound like? Give me a couple of examples. What would it sound like if you had, if you just got to let the anger and the frustration say some words to life? Like, what would you want to say to life? I'd say like, have I not done enough to just be okay? Like, give me a break. Let me just enjoy this thing I have, you know. What would it sound like if you weren't being so nice? I'd just tell the fuck off. Yeah. And leave me alone. Take a breath. You're doing great. You're doing great. Life is, life is given you some hard cards, buddy. It's really touching, man. It's really touching you. And you have, you're still standing. So tune in one last time a little bit to that anger. And I know there's a lot of grief and there's a lot of sadness that's mixed up. And I want to honor that grief and that sadness, but I want you to just let it be to the side for one moment. Because I think a lot of the times you meet life with that grief and that sadness. And what you need to meet life with for a moment is that primal force of enough. Enough. Or fuck you life. This is enough. So just see if you can channel a little bit of that feel some of that intensity and stay it in your own way. Don't have this screaming yell. Let it be authentic and real to you. If that feels authentic and real to you, do that. Close the eyes. tune in the command of that heat. Give it to life. Just leave me alone and let me live and let me just go forward. All this shit that you put me through. Yeah, just until I die. I want to live. I want to live. Yeah, I want to live and not not focus on how to just do it. Yeah. Good. Good, good, good. Say what that's like. What's happening in you? Just felt like I just exiled some of that frustration out. Yeah. Let my shoulders fall. I'm just trying to breathe it out. In the next week or two, I would encourage you and there's a lot of different ways to do this. But I would encourage you to let this continue to be a practice. When I don't want to overcomplicate it by explaining it, I've given you a lot of sort of like teaching or education today. So I don't want to end it in you too much in one call. But just see what it's like to like flex on my flow. Put your back push back on it. Like fuck off. Fuck off. Yeah. Give me some space. Enough of this bullshit. You're Canadian, right? Newfie? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So drop the Maybellif off for an hour. I understand. I'm Canadian too. But push. Voice, it's okay for you to be angry. And I think part of the challenge that it feels like you've had is that you do not know or you haven't known where to put that anger. And so a whole bunch of retroflection has happened. That anger hasn't had a place to go. And so it comes back at you. It's okay for you to be angry at life. And there's many different ways to do that. So if and when this comes up again, you know, maybe you could write an angry letter to life and read it out loud or take it out into nature. Y'all at a tree. You know, like fuck you. Let me live. I've had enough. Okay. So I think before I would just take it out internally on myself. 100% that's the internal monologue. Yeah. It's all in order. Yeah. It collapses on us. And so it's hard because when you don't know who or where to direct it to, it just gets directed at us. I've seen this happen for so many guys. So start to put it where it belongs. Your angry at life. That's okay. Life has dealt you some hard cards. It is okay for you to be angry at life. It is okay for you to be frustrated with life. That's okay. Life can take your anger. Life can take your frustration. So I want you to find your own version of this, of your impression of anger towards life. You can be as creative with it as you want. You can write about it and journal about it. If you hit a wall and you're not too sure, reach out to me. I've got some ideas. But I want you to explore what that expression would generally look like for you. Genuinely look like. You know, maybe it's getting a tent and going out camping and yelling out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Just fuck you life for five minutes. It's loud as you can. And maybe that feels too big. So you have to find what feels right for you. Okay. Yeah, I might start with some pen and paper first. Yeah. Okay. Last thing I want to leave you with is with your partner. I want you to do two things. Whenever you are spending time with her, inside, I want you to say, "I'm here with you." I love being here with you. And I want you to say it out loud to her. I'm here with you. I love being here with you. And what really would encourage you to say, "I feel safe being here with you right now." And just start to let that be a practice that shifts you at a very deep level. Okay. And let me know how it goes. Any final thoughts, comments, questions, snide remarks? No, just thanks again. Your insight has been very interesting. Your head feels like you're hitting the nail on the head with each suggestion. Your not diagnosis, but your. Your pulling at the right stride is what I'm trying to say. Got it. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thanks, buddy. Well, thanks for being here. And thanks for being so open and I really mean it. I think you're doing great work. And yeah, if you have any questions about what we talked about, don't hesitate to reach out. You might want to put the episode through a chat GPT or something like that. What are all the things he told me to do because I give you a couple of things on different areas. And I'm trying to. I hope I didn't owe you any sort of overwhelm you or it endates you, but I want to give you real tools and resources to go forward. And I think if you implement some of the things that we talked about today and you like you really implement them, you'll see things shift quite rapidly, you know, and it'll be incrementally, but you'll notice this like incremental shift where it's just do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. And all of a sudden you'll start to feel, I am okay. It's okay for me to be here. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Joining me and we'll check it soon. Take care.