For most of my adult life, I had a very narrow band of emotions. Calm, grounded, always fine. Except I wasn't.

It took an eight year infertility journey, and finding out the fertility problem was actually mine, to finally see it. My wife had told me for years I lived in my head. I thought that was a strength. In this episode I share the moment that broke that pattern open: standing in some woods trying to vent my anger on a branch, and realizing my heart wasn't even in it. I'd been avoiding my own feelings for so long I didn't know how to have them.

I talk about the silent retreat that followed, the first time in my life I chose stillness over striving, and what I learned there about not being afraid of grief, shame, or sadness. I share two quotes that changed how I relate to my own experience, and why the moment I stopped pretending I was okay was the moment I found a deeper okayness that didn't depend on how I felt at all.

If you've spent years keeping a lid on how you really feel, this episode is an invitation to finally take it off.