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

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, a little quick update. This is kind of interesting. I've never done this before because when did we connect? 2 weeks ago?

Yeah, about that.

2 weeks ago, we kind of had our first session.

Mm-hmm.

And I've actually never had somebody back on the show 2 weeks later.

Okay. I'm honored.

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.

Mm-hmm. Well, you really helped identify the core based on my past and stuff, the, the core root of how I struggle with decisions. And trusting myself, um, and trusting that, you know, I can make good decisions. Uh, and, uh, through that process, we, um, yeah, we really, um, 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, different ones, but the, the first one was starting out with my sort of drug-induced anxiety episode, you would say. And then the other with my mom's passing and how, 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 change the outcome.

Still feel like that's true?

I can say it. I don't fully believe that's gone yet. That one's going to take a while.

It'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 a 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 decided to. And staying in on a night rather than going out and sitting at a bar and having a beer or doing a chore that has been sitting around for a while. Just little, little things like that. So kind of breaking the day up that way. And, and if I did make any bad decisions, like if I, if I, I can't think of one off the 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. Mm.

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, um, starting a new relationship has been a little tough for me since my marriage and making the decision to stay in the relationship and whatever comes with that rather than run from the unknown and the scary part about 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 language that's like, this is what's happening. So I'll reframe 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, the impact that trauma can have on us, especially at a young age. And then to have that, you know, a traumatic, another traumatic event happen, you know, a decade later, sort of, I guess it's 14 years later. How old were you when your mom Connor Beaton.

Connor Beaton. Uh, 18.

18. Okay, sorry, 2 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. You know, generally speaking, the way that people talk about it online and, you know, in the therapeutic practices, they talk about it as insecure attachment styles, right? Anxious, avoidant, disorganized. And those are kind of all the manifestations of how our behavior changes when we don't feel safe or 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.

Right.

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 ruminations 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 hypervigilance cognitively in their mind, and their thoughts constantly go towards their primary attachment. And it'll constantly go towards, is my relationship okay? Am I okay in this relationship? Is this the right relationship? Is the other person all right? And everything surrounding it, right? 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 you're looking to improve your relationship, then I encourage you to check out the Man Talks Alliance. You can go to mantalks.com/alliance. 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 leader in your own life. So check it out, mantalks.com/alliance. So let's start off at the beginning. Talk to me a little bit about some of the things you think about. What are some of the ruminations that you have?

The main ones are basically, is this right for me? Should I be in a relationship? Am I ready for this again? I was just with someone for 10 years and what was it? In hindsight, it was 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, 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?

Um, 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—

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, 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. It sounds 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, um, 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, um, not focus on me and then, um, you know, work as a— as, as two, you know. And we had been growing apart in— like I said, in hindsight, because we had been growing apart for years looking back on it, even before my struggle with mental— my increased struggle with mental health. But that period, even before that, we had grown apart. We were more friends than partners, you know what I mean? Yeah.

And I'm just going to interject there. Couple of 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 learned that they're not the only tool in the toolbox before because I was put on these medications at a young age and it 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. And 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 realize now that they're not just— it's not a do-it-all solution, right? It's, it's a tool just like diet, exercise, therapy. Yeah.

Tell me what happened when you started to come off them and to the best of your knowledge, what led to you making an attempt?

I was working with my family doctor He was just my GP and I said, "Hey, I just want to give this a shot. Let's see, life is good. Just got a house, just got married. Let's give it a go." And tapered off them very, very slowly. And then one day it all just, it came, I hit a wall in that. It must have finally left my system.

And, well, there's— have you— sorry to interrupt. Sorry to interrupt. I'm gonna come back and I don't mean to interject. Have you seen any graphs or charts about— because you were on an SSRI. Have you seen any graphs or charts about what happens when you taper off and 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, um, from my experience, yeah, old school. I like, I like the old school stuff. Um, my music and my SSRIs. Um, well, here's that one has the longest half-life from my research of those. Yeah, that class. And it's, it's a tough one, but I'm at, I'm at a much low— I'm at a much lower dose Good. Now, because I've— the diet and the exercise and the therapy, like, has filled in a bit of the gaps, I was able to reduce that a bit.

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 right at the very end.

Yeah.

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 off SSRIs. Guys is that they feel good and they're reducing the dosage, reducing the dosage, and it's like, "Oh, everything's going great." And then, they're at the last sort of 25% and all of a sudden, they 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 at the very end, you're almost off of them entirely. And, that's when there's a big sort of collapse or we'll call it a calamity. Tell me what was happening inside of you that led you to that line of thinking, that line of contemplation and action.

So what happened after that was I had 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 Paxil because it's so there are quote better ones out there. But, and through trialing these medications, it just, I don't know, it just, my brain was in the blender, man, like panic and anxiety and dissociative manic episodes. And yeah, and I can't really remember what led to the incident, but it was during that time where I was trialing meds and my brain was just like a ping pong ball rattling around in my head. So I can't really speak to what, because it was very, maybe I'm blocking out what happened and what led to that, but it was during 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 ex— having your experience with the— when you were 16 with the marijuana, with the weed. And having a pretty big sort of like psychotic— or not psychotic, but like psychosis, you know, of like dissociation and like a psychedelic-induced NDE, I guess you could say, near-death experience, psychedelic-induced panic. And, and anxiety that you were experiencing after that. How familiar do those two things, to the best of your recollection, feel?

Uh, very— yeah, pretty similar.

Okay.

Especially the dissociation, that is, um, and the panic caused from dissociation.

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 I should be and as nice to myself as others are.

Okay, what do you say to yourself about those experiences?

That why did it happen to me, or, um, shouldn't have happened. Um, you know, I didn't deserve those things to go to, to feel that way. Um, I didn't, 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.

Okay.

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, 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 and 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 and it makes me feel like I can do anything.

I think you probably can. I mean, within reason, you know? Yeah. Well, yeah, none of us can flap our arms and, you know, actually fly like a bird, you know, like there, there's limits. But I think you can, you know, who the, the, the man that I've, 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 the other side.

Yeah, I often, I do often kind of remind myself that, you know, everything I've been through has made me, you know, building me up. Each one has made me stronger. But then there are also times where, you know, 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, you know.

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, let's agree to stop learning from the collapse.

Stop learning from the—

the collapse. You've gone through a lot of hardship, and some of it was out of your control, some of it was, um, 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've ever let yourself actually see that.

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 like an 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. It was modeling in a simple way. I was treating you the way that you need to treat yourself. Plain and 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.

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, 3 or 4 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'm going to 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 system's 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 get, uh, that 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, um, to work towards a, a mental state in which I feel free or I feel, um, okay, you know, where I can let my hands off the reins a little bit and say, okay, life, like, let's go. So the existing mode, I guess mode, there's the existing mode and the doing mode. Yeah, 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 going to keep going. And what I want you to— 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 to 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, okay, keeping track of all that. But for people that are tuning in, they can do this along with us. All right. So the next stage, you're born. Huzzah! You come out. And as you come out in the world from 0 to 18 months, there's another developmental stage. And this developmental stage from 0 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.

Okay.

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 umbilical cord is cut, there is still an umbilical 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 ruminating 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 is an okay or safe place to be" super activated. Okay, so take another breath. Exhale out. And then the next stage. Okay, so 0 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 3 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.

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 son's just come out of this stage, uh, a little over, I guess, I guess 2 years ago now, uh, 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. The child says no, they're 2 years old. Parents start screaming and yelling or they start to punish the kid very young, and it can start to interrupt the development of that internal experience of, am I okay? Bless you. Um, 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 am 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 on to 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? What I 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.

Mm-hmm.

So take another breath in. And all I want you to do is just check in internally and get a sense of what's been happening as I've been sharing what I've been sharing.

And just say what it's been.

Yeah. What's been happening?

I've been thinking about how how much time I've spent trying to answer those questions rather than, you know, trying to figure out life rather than live it. And how much of my mental energy throughout these years has been devoted to, um, just being okay or just being— just existing. Or— and it also feels like those developmental stages that you talked about, I've, I've— I was connecting different, more recent timelines with those, um, with those events or those, um, 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, um, 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? 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, um, is my world— is the world okay, you know, um, in a sense of my world, her world. And constantly having to ask myself if I'm okay.

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 gonna mess it up? Is it the right time? You know, that, that type of stuff. Is it okay for me to just be? Is it okay for me to be here?

Yeah.

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 and a lot of cognitive bandwidth 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.

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 and why you're okay. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay. How does it land?

Softly. That's definitely something to start with baby steps for sure.

Yeah. 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, as a real embodied nervous system truth. Because each of those stages has a physical response that happens inside of us. 'Is it safe for me to be?' is 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'll spark the, oh, that should— I shouldn't feel that, or that's weird, or okay, what does that mean?

Uh-huh, 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?

Okay.

Is what does it feel like somatically? What does it feel like physically for you to just be okay? 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 am okay right now.

Yeah.

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, our knowing of the experience of like, oh yeah, I actually am okay, 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? That's a big one. That's a big one. Okay. So, okay, what are, what are some of the thoughts, the ruminations that you have about the relationship? 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.

Okay, say what it's like inside when you start to go down that path.

Um, 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?

Frustration, a little bit of anger at myself, but at sort of the, yeah, the situation of where my head's at.

And 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 like religious or spiritual belief? Like, is there a higher power in your life? Is there a God? Is it— is nature the, the greater, like, the universe the greater?

I believe, as far as my beliefs go, I, I believe we have a soul. Um, you know, we're not just— I don't think we're just, uh, cells, you know. 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 done 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 I did at first, and accept 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.

Yeah.

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 F off, you know? Like, it kind of was the energy that I got. But I think there's—

if I, if I did believe in, in God, he'd be getting a word, right?

Well, give it to life. Give it to life, brother. You know, I think a part of you needs— we, we all are held by something bigger than us. You can call it the world, you can call it life, you can call it universe, you can call it God, you can call it Source, like whatever word 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 yeah, 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, this— look at this shit that I've gone through. Why?

Yeah, like, give me a break. Yeah, yeah.

Well, what would it sound like? Give me, give me a couple 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 it to fuck off. Yeah. And leave me alone.

Take a breath. You're doing great. You're doing great. Yeah, life is— life has given you some hard cards, buddy. It's really tested you, man. It's really tested 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, 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 say it in your own way. You don't have to scream and yell. Let it be authentic and real to you. If that feels authentic and real to you, do that. Close the eyes. Tune into some 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 I— you put me through.

Yeah, just to let down— 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.

It just felt like I just exhaled some of that frustration out.

Yeah.

Let my shoulders fall and 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 inundate you too much in one call. But just see what it's like to like flex on life a little bit. Yeah, push back on it.

Like, yeah, fuck off, fuck off.

Yeah, give me some space. Enough of this bullshit. You're Canadian, right? Newfie?

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So drop the maple leaf off for an hour. You know, just like, I understand, I'm Canadian too, but yeah, push it. Voice your— 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 retroflexion 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, yell at a tree, you know, like, fuck you, leave me alone, let me live. I've had enough.

Okay, so I think before I would just take it out internally on myself, like 100%. That's the internal monologue. Yeah, it's all inward, right?

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. You're 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 expression 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. Okay, 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 5 minutes as loud as you can.

Yeah.

And maybe that feels too big, so you have to, you have to find what feels right for you. Okay.

Yeah, I might start with some pen and paper first.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah.

Okay. Last thing I want to leave you with is with your partner, I want you to do two things. Whenever you are— whenever you're 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. Connor, I'm here with you. I love being here with you. And I 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. Okay.

And let me know how it goes. Any final thoughts, comments, questions, snide remarks?

No, just thanks again. Your insight has been very, very interesting. You're— feels like you're hitting the nail on the head with each suggestion and your— not diagnosis, but your You're pulling at the right straws is what I'm trying to say. Got it. And 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, if you have any questions about what we talked about, don't hesitate to reach out. You might want to like put the episode through a ChatGPT or something like that. What are all the things he told me to do? Because I gave you a couple of things on different areas. And I'm trying to— I hope I didn't sort of overwhelm you or inundate 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 really implement them, you'll see things shift quite rapidly. And it'll be incrementally, but you'll notice this incremental shift where it's just doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. And all of a sudden, you'll start to feel, "Oh, I am okay." It's okay for me to be here.

Okay.

All right, all right. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me, and, uh, we'll chat again soon.

Take care.