The Reclaimed Man

Life can be hard. I get it. Work that matters. People who depend on you. A family you love. It's a lot to carry — and most days you carry it well.

So most evenings — almost before you've decided to — you reach for a beer. Turn on the sport. Pick up your phone. You've earned it. There's nothing wrong with switching off.

And there isn't. That's the thing.

But somewhere underneath that reasonable voice is something the beer is quietly taking care of. For years I called mine “decompressing.” It took the hardest inner work of my life to finally see what was actually happening in those evenings — and that I wasn't decompressing. I was disappearing.

In this episode I'll tell you what I couldn't see while I was inside it: why most men live on just four feelings — happy, sad, hungry, horny — and where everything else goes. The beach ball you've been holding underwater. And a simple three-step practice you can try tonight, the next time you notice yourself reaching.

This isn't about giving up the beer. It's about knowing what it's really for.

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Dublin Airport. August 2022. One of the proudest moments of my life — watching my son play at the World Championships — and my first panic attack hits out of nowhere.

That was the beginning of two years I didn't see coming. Debilitating anxiety. Intrusive thoughts. A stage four prostate cancer diagnosis with metastases in my pelvis.

And one idea that held me together through all of it:

This is not happening to me. It is happening for me.

This is the episode where The Reclaimed Man begins. Why this show exists, who it's for, and what I've learned from walking through the kind of darkness most men carry alone.

I'm not telling this story from the other side. I'm still in it. But I know the path leads somewhere worth going.

Come with me.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.