Rising Strong

“The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear more whole or more acceptable, but our wholeness — even our wholeheartedness — actually depends on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls.”

— Brené Brown

Hi there.

I have no clue where to begin, so I guess I’ll just start typing and see what happens.

The work I do as a coach is the work of a lifetime. Truthfully, and I mean this from the core of my being, this work is why I believe I’m here on this planet. My mission, each day when I wake up, is to love people, to help people feel better, and to make people happy. That’s it. Nice and simple. If I die today, I’d be able to say I tried my best in accomplishing my purpose (but I hope I don’t die today).

In the work that I do, when I’m in session, my focus is always on the client (or as I’m more appropriately beginning to refer to the individual[s] across from me on the other side of the screen: my friend). During this 45-minutes, it’s all about you. My role throughout this time is to ensure your needs are being met, you are receiving the support you are looking for, and you’re able to close out of the video session with at least a breath of relief and a sigh of hope. If you feel this way as we wrap up our meeting, then I’ve done my job.

This work is an energy exchange, and although it’s incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, it does take a toll on me. This is where my self-care routine of going to the gym, going for my evening walks, spending time with my friends, and prioritizing alone time comes into play.

Even more, although I’m in a helping role, I’m still human, too. In honesty, this is one of the biggest challenges I face within my line of work: how can I effectively lead clients through their situations if I’m stumbling over the same thing? Sometimes, it’s a mental fuck, but this is where compartmentalization and meditation come in handy, allowing me to block out all of my shit to empathically listen to my friends in our sessions, completely focusing on them. But then, once the session is over, it’s back to my “shit soup.”

For me, there’s only one way to reconcile my humanity with my role of leadership as a counselor and a coach, and that pathway is through vulnerability. And thus, this is where this post is coming to you from today. My intention here isn’t to overshare; however, my intention is to be real, authentic, and respectfully human so you get to see that, “Oh yeah, he’s not perfect. And he’s going through it, just like me. And he’s lost in the wilderness, but we’re walking this road together.”

If you’ve made it to this post, then you’ve been invited in to a part of my story. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

So, I fell down.

I stumbled a few years ago, but I’ve been actively falling down for the past 2 years. And over the recent six months, it’s been a full-out bloodbath.

What happened?

I failed in my relationship.

I was a fucking terrible partner and husband. And no, me saying this isn’t a cry for pity and for you to say “Oh, no you weren’t.” And no #2, this isn’t my depressive tendencies or my Enneagram 4 personality talking. This is the flat-out truth, and I want you to know that. I was an awful husband. And it reached a point so deeply and painfully that I had a suddenly wake up and see that, “OH shit, I’m absolutely destroying the person I love.”

Yes, there are multiple perspectives to every relational experience, and I’m only an expert in my own story, so I’ll share what happened to me.

Over the course of my relationship, I realized the structure of marriage is one that is not designated for me. I tried and I tried to fit myself into the box and the system. I tried to make it work, but I naturally rebelled, and the worst part of it all is that I continuously hurt the person who stood beside me through it.

Ever since I was a child, I have believed my role in life is to make people happy (I mean, I confirmed it earlier with naming it as a part of my purpose). I remember so clearly going to church as a young kid, and the old ladies would ask to see “that smile.” I would smile for them, and they’d smile back, happy as could be. And this felt great. I even started getting the nickname “Smiley.” The downside to this is that over time, I grew disconnected from myself where I’d push down my natural human emotions of sadness, anger, depression, fear, and worry in order to paint “that smile” back on my face to make the people around me feel good.

The side effect of this is my learned tendency to not listen to myself. Even deeper than that, I lost who I knew I was. As I got older, came out, and started dating, I rested my complete self-worth, self-identity, and self-acceptance on the hands of the boys I dated. I didn’t know how to respect myself because I was so scared of being alone. All I wanted was someone to “complete me” because I stripped away my own ability to make myself happy, and I placed it on the shoulders of my various boyfriends.

Then, it finally became legal for us gay individuals to get married here in the states. And I was so grateful for this from the pure fact that our rights were being expanded. And I knew that getting married was part of “the American Dream.” And, in complete transparency, I never sat down with myself and asked myself if this was something I wanted for me, if this was something that fit with who I was. Again, I didn’t know who I was. Knowing marriage is part of the storyline that gets thrusted upon us, socially speaking, I assumed this was the next step in my path. And I knew that doing so would make people happy because I was doing what was expected of me.

And so, eventually, I got married. But soon after that, the little voice in my gut started speaking to me, telling me, “No, my friend. This isn’t you.” I ignored it, as much as I could. I went to therapy for years, and I spoke with multiple therapists about this. I talked to my friends. I talked to my family. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was inherently “off.”

One of the beauties of relationships is that they help us to reveal who we are, similar to what drag does (as RuPaul would say). In the course of my relationship, I began to uncover myself, piece by piece. From small, minute, practical things to big picture things, I began to discover who I was. I began to learn the particular way I like to do chores, and I began to learn that — holy fuck — I’m an extremely independent person. I learned that my priority in life is my work. I learned that I value and cherish my relationships (including with family and friends), and that I absolutely need people in my life to be my family, but that I also need my alone time, and 9 times out of 10, I’ll always put work first, again because that’s my purpose.

Long story short, over the years, I learned that the structure of marriage didn’t allow me to be myself. Resentment built. And so, I naturally began fighting against the system, like an animal being threatened. I felt my sense of self was threatened. The most unfortunate thing is that my partner was in the crossfire, and he was the one facing the arrows I was throwing.

This is really hard to type: I have hurt so many people along the way. People I love.

…until I had the wake-up call that I need to make a change because people who I care about so deeply, primarily my partner, were experiencing a world of hurt and pain and unhappiness as a result of me. And so, I decided to adjust the structure of our relationship.

It fucking sucks that sometimes in life, we have to cause hurt in order for things to get better. As someone who literally lives to make people happy, the math of this equation doesn’t add up. But, I knew in my heart that I tried everything I could. I dug as far into myself as possible, hung on longer than my intuition was saying, all because I didn’t want to cause hurt. Instead, I just caused more hurt, and I kept us in a poisonous place.

I think this has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. At the same time, I knew that I could make my partner happier by adjusting the structure of our connection and allowing our true selves to properly exist, simultaneously removing the toxicity from our space.

We’re still in the process, and it’s one that’s going to take a long time. Healing takes time. Adjustment takes time. Transition takes time. And it’s profoundly exhausting.

If you’ve noticed, I’ve been very diligent about the language I’ve been using here. Marriage is one type of relationship structure we have (it’s the structure that our society often says is ‘ideal’ or ‘optimal’), but it’s just one option in an endless variety of options. We’ve adjusted our connection to a friendship. It’s not a break-up; it’s an adjustment, it’s a shifting of what our connection looks like and entails.

Conceptually and logistically, this adjustment looks completely different, and the details of the logistics are reserved for us, so thank you for your respect of that boundary. The concept of this adjustment is one I do want to share because this is me expressing my truth, listening to who I am and what’s important to communicate, and sharing with the intention that I’m human, you deserve to know the humanity of what I’m going through, and to provide hopefully some love, support, and role model-ness for those of you who might be experiencing something similar. This is my vulnerability, and respectfully sharing this is our pathway to deeper connection.

Wrapping up, I now shift back to the only story I can own: mine. I fell down, and this falling down has taken the course of several, several years. Right now, I’m on the ground. My knees are scraped, and they’re bleeding. I’m hurting, and I feel like I’m collecting enemies, but above all, I’m fine. I’m going to be okay. Because this is the rising strong process. We fall. We hurt. We allow ourselves to feel and experience the hurt. When it’s time, we pick ourselves back up. We dust and brush ourselves off. We learn. And we keep moving forward, knowing that if we’re brave enough for long enough, we’re going to fall down again.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for allowing me to be human.

A client recently asked me about my relationship, and I shared a bit of my experience. They followed-up: “how can you help people with their relationships when going through a failure of your own?” My response: “Every relationship is unique. My experiences help me to empathize with the struggles that people go through. I can tap into the emotions I’ve experienced to ‘go into the trenches’ with others and walk through them in support of their own challenges.”

We’re all in this together.

Thank you for listening (honestly, this feels much better to get off my chest and not have to fake a smile anymore).

I leave you with this: we’re all trying our best, doing our best with what we have, with where we’re at. We truly never know what someone is going through, so proceed with kindness and compassion.

And please listen to this song.

All my love.