Oh, Andrew…you hit the nail on the head with this one. I was fortunate enough to finally take some time off of work last week, getting to work on the areas that filled me up, fed my creativeness, or allowed me to work with my hands and/or with people. I haven’t felt that good/rejuvenated in years…consciously taking some time to remove myself from social media, technology, and just being present with my wife and kids as much as possible. Hell, I finally cleaned out most of the garage and my workbench is DIALED IN. For those that don’t know, that was one area that just absolutely crippled me every time I saw it. But I finally got to it, removed a ton of shit, and organized. It’s not brand new, it’s not fancy. But I built it with my hands and I love it. Now, counter that to being back at work this week and just feeling like my soul is dying a little bit each day. I have great workers, a great boss, and great colleagues. I’ve had a lot worse, so relatively, everything should be great. However, my MIND is constantly on the other three things I’m working on and trying to build (business, foundation, and mens group) and my TIME is dedicated to the area puts food on the table, and allows my wife to raise our children. I know this is temporary, but my impatience takes over sometimes. I feel like I finally am ‘On-Purpose’, but I’m not to the point of sustainability just yet…but I’m grinding every day to get there.

💯- I’ve learned that it’s not about the formalities or traditional setting. Yes, that process is nice, but not as practical. There is something about the feeling you get with a smooth cut or peel. Often, I stop and look around either at my kids, my group of men and our group we’ve built, and I say, verbally out loud, “this is awesome” or “this makes me feel good”. Sometimes, it’s not verbal, and that often serves just as well or better. Another area is when I’m using my string-trimmer (weed-whacker, informally) when doing yard work. 🤌 Thanks for sharing this. The actual practice of mindfulness and presence can be different for all of us.

One of my goals this year was to start slow, but to re-start trying to learn guitar. The universe decided to test me. As I picked up my guitar, I went to look for the chord books I bought 3+ years ago. After 20 minutes of searching…they could not be found. Thus, I said it’s ok. This is the resistance…so I said I’m just going to practice a few chords for 10 minutes. Then I realized I had tune the guitar…which I started to do. Then…BAMM! My G Chord snapped as I was tightening it. It sounds funny, but honestly, I felt many things. I was instantly sad at first…then came anger. I look across the room and both of my kids were staring at me, watching to see what I’d do. My 4 y/o daughter instantly ran over, crawled on me and gave me a hug (that’s not my sons thing as he tends to absorbs others emotions…we’re still helping him learn how to navigate through that process). Through that…I went straight into my process. I closed my eyes, and focused on my breath and where I felt the anger and sadness. In my chest/throat, and in my gut, respectively. So I just…sat with it until it was gone. Took about 15 min…and I didn’t rush through it. Now I have a new goal this year…learn how to re-string a guitar 😅

@Jake Draper you are in the thick of it…but there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel…and I promise it is not a train. It’s a slow, hard, brutal process that is often anticlimactic and no “ah ha” moments…but eventually you will be healed. It will take a lot of work and dedication…but you got this brother 👊

Hey Fellas - Late to the game on the intro, but here I am. Here WE are. This one is going to be a bit long-winded, so I apologize in advance...but I hope you will give it a read. My name is Ryan Pinto, I'm 38 y/o, Husband and father of two (4 y/o girl, 7.5 y/o boy). I met Andrew back in April of 2024, after my wife had worked with Andrew's wife on a lot of her inner child trauma. I've been working in tech for the last 10 years (on the finance side), and I also founded and currently run my own local F3 region called F3 Temecula (part of the F3 Nation organization that focuses on planting, growing, and serving small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership...completely FREE). When I originally met Andrew, I was in survival mode, working in Tech (at Meta at the time), two kids under 5, my wife being diagnosed with multiple auto-immune diseases, and a shit-ton of personal issues that were being neglected. After my first two initial sessions with Andrew, I determined, at the time, that it wasn't right for me and that I wanted to pause and circle back later. Sure enough, in December of 2024, I found myself completely triggered by things my kids would do, yelling often, feeling disconnected and not being that man/husband/father that I wanted to be. I remember my first few sessions with Andrew, just feeling completely uncomfortable to convincing myself that I was "fine" and didn't really have any "trauma". Oh boy, was I wrong and Andrew helped me piece together the shit puzzle I was trying to hold together. After several months, there were points where I was expecting an "Ah ha!" moment, or some performance feedback as I did "The Work". I would often voice to Andrew that I feel like I'm not doing it right...or something. He was very patient with me throughout the process, sometimes revisiting issues that were seemingly behind me. One of my biggest issues throughout the process was trying to figure out how to just connect with my body/emotions. I never realized how deregulated I was...at times I was so deregulated that we wouldn't even attempt the breathwork, and we would just talk.

What a refreshing place to be. I struggled with “scarcity mindset” when it came to finances due to growing up poor or my parents always talking about how little money we had. I too have come to a similar place which feels nice, although I still struggle either way comparison to what others have which brings me down. Working on that and getting a little better each day. Thanks for sharing 🙏