Please Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself
What makes up my contented clarity?
I want to start by quickly apologizing for last week’s post (yeah, I’m not even going to link to it).
Maybe it was a result of watching my dad decay as the weekend went on. Perhaps it’s because I’d already officiated two funerals (my side gig) that week. Then again maybe I lacked clarity of thought heading into it. Or, even more likely, ignored the clarity I once had. Whatever the case, in the end, I’m not satisfied with it and it’s been bugging me ever since I hit publish on Tuesday night.
Why does it bug me, well, I already added a post-publication note highlighting that, just because life set me up to be a train wreck, it doesn’t excuse anything I did while being said train wreck. I never want to give the impression that there’s an excuse to do harm.
But beyond that, it didn’t really go anywhere. I mean, if that is me putting body, heart, and soul together, and all I’ve got is a couple ideas on where to get started, then I didn’t give you the post I promised at the start.
So please be so kind as to grant me a redo, which is also an opportunity for me to reintroduce myself (and hope you won’t hear me singing “Sympathy for the Devil”).
The Road To Me
When I dove into body, heart, and soul, what did I find? In a word, me.
Under all the layers of hurt and anger, behind all of the public facade and secretive behavior that was a desperate attempt to gain approval somewhere, was me. And it’s not like there was nothing authentic about my life before. Elements of me were always shining through, but they were tainted by everything that I carried with me.
Now when I say I dove into body, heart, and soul, it started with a luxury car worth of counseling (so I’m hopeful that makes me a luxury human being). While that had started before time with my Yoda, it was a rather pointless exercise where I would talk circles around what was going on and say just about anything to justify my experience. And let’s face it, if paralyzing shame prevents you from saying, “I fucked up and need some help.” you might as well save yourself an hour each week.
And that might be the real gift of my Yoda unpacking how life, from the start, set me up. It eased the shame enough that I could begin to say, “Yeah, I fucked up and need some help.”
Note: As I look back today, I had an abundance of opportunities for that shame to dissipate, but for whatever reason, that one stuck in a way the others didn’t. So to all those who offered me that grace, thank you … even if I didn’t fully absorb it then.
Embracing that I needed help, I spent a week at Survivor Camp and weekly EMDR sessions to reprocess past experiences. I read books and dove into resources like the Enneagram. I listened to podcasts and joined a men’s group. When I decided I wanted something that started from the inside and lived out from there, I dropped that men’s group and sought out another. This is how I met Dan who introduced me to Bill Plotkin’s, Soulcraft.
While everything I’d done up to that point helped, it was through the counsels, wilderness wanderings, and ceremonies inspired by Soulcraft that I really found myself.
So Who Am I?
If you visit my social media, my “about me” reads: gritty mystic, spiritual misfit, abundance cultivator, cage rattler and key dropper.
But what does all that mean? It’s my playful and personally profound way of saying that everything I do is rooted in a deep spirituality that thrusts me into the messiness of everyday life, where I question what I perceive to be broken and push for new ways of doing things that promote human thriving.
So when I talk about living from the inside out, that is the inside I live from and it shapes everything else that I do, including my closest connections and my engagement with the broader world.
But what does that tangibly mean?
How Do I Embody Me?
Let me offer a few examples, starting in areas where I have the most agency (myself), and then to areas of greater agency (partner, family, friends), and finally moving to where I have the least agency (work, citizenship, ecosystem):
Manhood Reimagined
Let me invite you in on a little secret: While I share this writing with the world, I really do it for me.
These posts are me wrestling with what it means to be a man in 2025 America. What do I think about all the talk of toxic masculinity, gender roles, and gender ideology? How do I respond to our brologarchs and is the real problem that they’re bros or that we have oligarchs of any kind? In the midst of all this, I’m seeking to discern how I can live in a way that both honors my biology and promotes broader human thriving.
I put it out not only to rattle cages because I tend to see the world in unconventional ways but also as a way to drop some keys that might help you unlock a perspective that proves beneficial to you on your journey.
So there’s a focus where I have the most agency (myself), with the possibility of benefit where I have less (my friends and fellow citizens).
Fathering My Father
In November of 2023, my dad called to let me know he had cancer. That same hour, my kid’s mom emailed declaring that she and the kid needed to start going to family therapy. Note, she didn’t say she wanted to work on reconciling their relationship after six months of kid-initiated no contact, she told me it needed to happen and that she had picked a therapist that she felt comfortable with. She did offer me appointment options of 6:30 or 7:00p on Thursday evening, whichever was more convenient for me.
That Sunday I went to a breathwork event called Scream Church in hopes of processing some of the emotions I was carrying … sadness, grief, fear, anger, bitterness, and even some rage.
As my breath took me on what can only be described as a psychedelic journey, I not only found the intensity of the emotion tempered, but a deep need to transmute and do good with it. As I returned to the moment, I found myself compelled to father both my child and father through the journeys before them.
I’m still trying to sort out the best way to father a now 18-year-old who’s always been independent and spent years hating me, partly because I struggled to be present while lost in my inner chaos and partly because that’s what mom wanted. We recently landed on the reality that fathering is not trusted, so we will explore what I can do to re-establish trust when embodying that role.
However, I have spent the past 15 months being present for my dad in a way that he was never present for me. I provided transportation to and from appointments, helped make sense of what the doctors were saying, did my best to help him process his emotions, and honored the courage he showed as his mind and body decayed before our eyes. In other words, I believe that I have fathered my father well.
So how does this tie into what is most true about me? I brought my belief that everyone is beloved and worthy of dignity into a sphere where I can actually embody it … moving it from platitude to practice, and I specifically did it with someone I’ve had a challenging relationship with over the years.
As a side benefit, fathering him the way I longed to be fathered has been healing for me, and an opportunity to release bitterness from years past that doesn’t do anyone any good.
Moving This Summer
This summer I’m moving into my parents’ old house. It keeps me in the Denver area, so it’s not like a massive life shakeup or anything, but there are several reasons behind it for each realm of impact.
Self
Moving back into the home I first moved into on the last day of 7th grade is sure to stir up some memories that will rattle my own cage and create opportunities to step into my own growth.
It’s also going to be an opportunity to save some money and pay off some debt, and like it or not, debt in this world can limit your ability to do good. As I do this, it also creates flexibility for myself moving forward as I won’t be bound by a lease.
Finally, my parents’ home sits on an acre of land, which creates an abundant amount of space to grow a garden. It’s always good for the self to reconnect with the earth, enable something to grow, and nourish your body with the fruit of your labor.
Connections
But it’s not just about me. By moving into the house I will be saving my mom money as I take over not only the maintenance costs, but the utilities, and property taxes. And since I will live in the home rent-free, it feels like an early inheritance which I will share with my brother and his family by sending them some of what I’m saving. In this way, the move helps all of us thrive.
World
But it goes beyond that. A few weeks ago I ran across a quote that’s been resonating with me:
But the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens… Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.
- Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture
As a citizen, I both abhor and depend on the form of capitalism we have created in the United States (although I’m not sure we can call it that given that it looks nothing like what Adam Smith lays out in, The Wealth of Nations). We now live in a society where those with resources extract from the masses and offer them a pittance for their labor, all the while claiming they’ve earned everything they have.
So how can I, as a citizen, do my part to undermine a brazenly corrupt system? I can produce and find ways to share the fruit with others.
To take things a step further, I’m digging into permaculture practices, learning from others what works well in this climate. So I will do everything I can to partner with that acre and the precipitation that falls on it to make at least that part of the earth an honored place.
My Work at Xero Shoes
Speaking of capitalism, I still need to make money. Thankfully I have a role where I get to do good in a company whose mission I believe in.
Our Co-Founder Lena Phoenix says:
There’s no reason to start another shoe company unless you’re going to change people’s lives.
I celebrate that our shoes change lives every day by helping people develop intrinsic foot strength (the number one indicator of foot health), improve their balance, enhance their proprioception, and put their bodies in natural alignment, taking pressure off the ankles, knees, hips, and lower back.
And just in case you’re wondering, most shoes make feet weaker, promote imbalance, decrease the brain’s understanding of where the body is in time and space, and put the body out of alignment.
Moreover, my role increasingly involves working with partners in the health and fitness industries, enabling them to do things like integrate our footwear into physical therapy protocols.
The Justice For All Party
As one final example, as a citizen of the United States, I see the real division in our country not as right vs. left but as top vs. bottom.
While corporate power has always owned the Republicans, when Jimmy Carter pursued a path of deregulation and Bill Clinton decided to abandon the working class in exchange for corporate donations, the vast majority of Americans lost what voice they had in our political process. Research now demonstrates that how the American people feel about any given policy has no impact on whether or not that policy will pass through Congress. What does make a difference is what the wealthy and corporations want passed (if you want more on how this happened, check out the podcast, MasterPlan).
Given that Trump sold US policy to Elon Musk for a quarter billion and Israel-related foreign policy to Miriam Adelson for $100 million, and given that the new DNC Chair still believes that there are good billionaires, I don’t see change coming from within the establishment.
I feel like the only option left is to form a third major party that is free of corporate influence. Since the Greens can’t seem to get their shit together (although Butch Ware might change that), I am volunteering with the Justice For All effort at both a state and national level.
Where It All Starts
I could go on, but at this point, you should get the idea.
By doing that body, heart, and soul work, I gained clarity on who I am and what I value. Now I bring those values to bear in how I approach all aspects of my life, starting with the areas where I have the most agency and trying to do my part in the spaces where I have less.
I’d love to have you introduce yourself in the comments.