Welcome!

I intend to answer the question but feel it important to share how we got to bagel in the first place. If you are dying for a straight answer, there's a TLDR at the bottom which might answer it for you but if you choose to go the long way with me here, I can only say thanks for sticking with me.

 

 

Birth to Eight - A Unique Design

Little me grew up very similar to how many poor kids did in rural Missouri in the 80's. I had the added benefit of being the first born to a 16 year old mother and 17 year old father. Though my mother did the best she could, her decision to carry me to term and give birth to me meant her life would go a certain way than had she decided differently. While I fully respect the choice each woman who has faced a similar circumstance must make, I am happy my mother chose to have me. I have very few pictures of me as a child, mostly due the transient nature of our lifestyle back then. My mother quickly had 3 more children right after me, though sadly lost one, (Cody, the twin of my brother Kyal) all before she was 21 years old.

 

I could share more of the wild details of the time between my birth and eight years old but I'll just hit the word bank:

 

Meningitis. Drugs. Violence. Rehab Centers. Couch Surfing. Government Food. Drowning. Dog Attack. Trailer Parks. Cockroaches. CPS.

 

Eight to Fourteen - Heat Until Yellow

When I was eight, my biological father had sorted himself out enough to make him want to be involved in my life. Though he'd been in prison twice since I was born, I really didn't know much about him other than he was my Dad and his Mom and Dad were really nice to me. The details of how things went down are a little fuzzy from those I talked to about it, but I believe my Mom attempted to get child support to which my Dad said "prove it". Getting my blood drawn as a kid like that for no reason was not on my favorite things to do list but my Mom said it was important to make sure that I knew who my Dad was. The big twist though was instead of paying child support, I was asked if I would just rather live with him full time. As an eight year old, this seemed like an easy decision. He had cable TV and a stable place to live. Looking back, it was an extremely tough decision that had a big impact on my childhood and the rest of my life. Not only was I leaving my Mom and siblings to move across the state to live with a man who I had gotten a few birthday cards from and met in person less than 10 times. Knowing my mom wasn't in a place to fight a custody battle while still trying to stay clean and out of rehab, she let me go in 1993.

 

Living with my father and step-mother was a dream for quite a while. I went from being a sibling of 4 (my youngest sister from my mother had been born just before I left) to an only child. Though money was extremely tight at first, it was nothing in comparison to what I had been used to so far. I got new clothes for school and a bike of my own that wasn't a cousin's first. I bounced between my Dad's during the school year and my Mom's during the summer for several years. My Dad would find he was very good at sales and made a good amount of money. I would even get a new baby sister when I was 10 years and 2 days old. By the time I was in middle school, I had finally come out of my shell. The shyness of my elementary school years melted away and I had been in the same school for several years. Something I didn't fully appreciate when I was getting moved around several times a year before living with my dad. I had a great group of friends, a couple of crushes, and my MOTG white deck was coming along nicely. When my Dad and step-mom divorced in 1997, I didn't think much of it other than, "Yeah, that happens all the time." It wasn't until my Dad began using drugs again in the wake of the separation that things really went south. Again, this is another area I could explain in great detail but I'll just say within one year, we went from a 4,000 square foot home to an 800 square foot crack house. Though I tried my best to manage what I could, getting a job as a paper boy at 13, I was only two weeks into 8th grade when I was pulled out of class by my Grandma and Grandpa (Dad's side) and told I was coming to live with them in another state.

 

Fourteen to Eighteen - Shape and Flatten

Living with my Grandparents felt almost as it had when I moved from my Mom to my Dad at first. They were both therapists, what better situation could you ask for to help the healing process of a child at that age? The stability of having their calm presence and loving energy was something I cannot express proper gratitude for. What surfaced for me however was a lack of identity. After having been now moved to my third set of guardians (not including some of the temporary assignments by aunts, uncles, grandparents on my Mom's side before I was eight) I really struggled with who I was supposed to be in this world. What did I offer? Was I going to be left again for some reason? Given the opportunity to fully bloom under the security of my grandparents, I did what any kid fearing abandonment would; be perfect and good at everything.

 

Once I was in high school, I decided that I was just going to be involved in as many things as I possibly could. Drama, Football, Basketball, Track, Soccer, Speech, Student Council. If there was something I could add to my plate, I did. I learned how to play guitar and piano and even became involved with a church of some of my friends. Though I had exposure to christianity through various evangelical churches growing up (as anyone in Missouri would) I hadn't taken it seriously. Through my desire to be perfect and my longing for stability, putting my energy into church seemed like a very logical step to take. As many people experience however, being a Christian is not for the feint of heart. It required a lot more work than I had imagined. By the time I had graduated, my young faith roots had already begun to fail and as I entered college I found a new way to be loved and never abandoned: popularity.

 

Eighteen to 25 - Heat and Cool

Even though I attended a large public university, where the freshman class was something like 6,000 people strong. I made it my mission to be the most known and liked person there. I joined the top fraternity, had spent considerable time working on my physique, and had gone from "never touched a beer" to "Frank the Tank" in a matter of six months. Not on my agenda though was knowing what the hell I wanted to be when I grew up. Six majors and five years of classes netted me exactly zero degrees. College was an absolute blur. Even though my Grandparents loved me, they trusted me to make the choices I needed to in order to make the most out of the experience. Mission accomplished there. While I would have gotten straight A's if social life was the only thing we were evaluating, my actual classwork was pretty awful. I ended up just attending the classes I was most interested in, even if I wasn't enrolled in the class. By my sophomore year I had moved on from beer to weed and other substances that were handed my way. Some of these experiences opened my mind in new and unpredictable ways. I explored everything I could including what my career options could be, multiple religions, and my sexuality. But throughout most of those years, I was grounded by my long term girlfriend and my continuing need to be loved in a way that . I won't go into that relationship other than to say I learned a lot about mental health and the value of seatbelts when your partner decides to flip the car she's driving with you in it, down a large hill.

 

After I gave up on college, I chased my girlfriend to Dallas and decided this was as good as anywhere. With no degree, I opened myself up to whatever help wanted ads I was getting at the time and one of which was in sales. At this point, I had decided I would take after my father and make sales a part of my profession. "If you know people, you don't need a degree" I was told and I felt like I knew people pretty well given my background. So, in 2007, I got my securities license and decided to be a financial advisor. If you're reading that last sentence and not chuckling, you should. Talk about getting your teeth kicked in right off the starting block. That career lasted all of 6 months before I found myself broken up with my girl friend, sleeping on a friends couch, and waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant. At the age of 24, I learned I would be a father to a boy with a girl I had been seeing at the restaurant I worked at. As mentioned before, I felt each woman has autonomy over their own body but I would support her decision either way. At 25, my son was born and my life again changed in a new way. Without much strategic thinking, I asked the girl to marry me and was thankful she said yes. It was also at this time that a former colleague from the financial firm I had been at called me up and asked me to join him at his new company and I couldn't help but say yes. It offered benefits that bartending didn't and a more reliable schedule. While I felt this was the right choice for me given the fact I had a new baby and a wife to take care of. As with all things so far in my life, the abandonment kept showing up.

 

Twenty-six to Thirty - Sand and Sharpen

This four year stretch would become one of the most difficult and truly selfish times of my life. Not one year after I had been married and living in a rental house in Dallas with my young family was I informed my bride has made a mistake and didn't actually mean to marry me. I pleaded. I begged. I went to therapy to try and help figure out what it was we needed to stay together. Nothing mattered. She had just never actually been that into me and the pressure of having the child had gotten her swept up into a relationship she hadn't intended to be in. Her inability to articulate why she was leaving me other than "it's just not a fit" threw me into a primal rage I hadn't unleashed yet in my life. I did my best to keep my head held high around her, not letting her see how damaging this was to me, but the truth of the matter was I hurt. I hurt deeply and I could not see past my own ego to understand what part I played in this happening. So, like any emotionally enraged man, I threw myself into my work. "Maybe if I make enough money, I won't be abandoned". The dating world in this situation was brutal. 27-29 years old as a single half-time Dad is not high on the list for many women to even consider. Though I had a few flings that never amounted to much of anything, I had begun to finally give up on relationships and knew I would eventually just have to settle. But I would be settling once I had made enough money to at least be valued for something tangible.

 

Thirty to Thirty-five - Creating the Hilt

It was after I had given up, life threw a cold glass of water on my face. I met my now wife through my work and even though my life circumstances were not traditionally "ideal", she had the grace and maturity of someone who could see past all that. Someone who could see the real me under it all, even if I couldn't. I jumped back into the childish wonder of young love once more and worked diligently to build a solid financial foundation for our family. Everything went into hyper speed. She loved my first born, who split time between houses, like he was her own. During our wedding, she made vows to him as well. as to me, much to the dismay of my tear ducts. One year to the day from our wedding she gave birth to a beautiful little girl and eighteen months later we held a little boy together. There we were, a young family, with a world of hope in front of us. As my family and my home became more and more real, my career became more and more lifeless and uninspiring. The ambition I once had waned as I was moved around a few times and ultimately moved somewhere that sucked the life out of me each day.

 

Thirty-five to Thirty-eight - Battle Tested

After 10 years of a corporate grind I finally decided to leave it all behind. I had struggled with burn out for a couple of years and it finally caught up to me. Given my track record and having burned no bridges upon my departure, I felt like landing a new job would be a fairly easy task. My only problem was timing, as my last we was the last week of February 2020. For many people, this marked a dramatic shift in however their lives were going before the pandemic to after the pandemic. For me it marked a dramatic shift on multiple fronts. As much of a blur as it has been for everyone over the last four years, I can say the fire my wife and I have gone through since 2020 has burned away some very deep lies we had been telling ourselves. We lived as a very compatible couple for several years and strictly on our compatibility. Real life challenges will bring even the "perfect" marriage to its knees. In 2022 my wife and I began seeing a couples therapist because I had finally reached a point where my frustration with the situation I was in began to seep out. Though I'm not an angry person, I would lash out and say hurtful things and immediately regret it. In our first session I was confronted with a question I hadn't ever given earnest consideration. The therapist asked me, "Do you love yourself?" What a weird question. Of course I love myself. I mean, I'm a pretty great person. Right? I do love myself right?

 

I left that session thinking I had answered it correctly but of course the question continued to follow me around. Like I was being stalked by some internal creep who would leave clues he had been rummaging through my things. In our next session, through an observation I had made about a Grateful Dead-ish shirt the therapist was wearing, I made the comment that what I probably needed was a psychedelic experience to lift me out of whatever fog I was under. Without making any recommendations or suggestions about doing such a thing, we ended up researching the benefits of Ayahuasca and how transformative the plant medicine had been for countless people in a similar situation as me. Was this a mid-life crisis I was having and was I being called to an experience such as this to pull me out? It was actually my wife's long held belief that Ayahuasca had been calling to her for some time that led us to figuring out how to locate a church for such a ceremony. In this endeavor she was the courageous one. Within 4 months she had gone from researching to actually sitting for her first ceremony in February of 2023. Though it was a bit of a tough experience for her, she came away with some extremely valuable truths for herself and for our life together. Through her courage I decided to make plans for my own ceremony and locked in my date just a few months away in May.

 

March 2023 to May 2023 - My Shield of Acceptance

In my experience leading up to my Ayahuasca ceremony, I fully immersed myself in aspects of spirituality I had written off in my early years. One of the most liberating moments of my life came on a random Tuesday evening sitting with my wife on the couch after we had put the kids to bed. The fear I had of ceremony and what traumas from my childhood might come up was heavy on my mind. In a loving and compassionate way, my wife asked me to lean into those fears. Why would I be afraid of reliving those traumas? So, almost through what felt like a frustrated and snarky, "oh you wanna go there? okay I'll go there!" response, I did lean into those fears. "You want to know how awful things got when I was a kid?" What followed was at least an hour of me reliving some of the horrors of my past. Crying, weeping, sobbing from a deep place in my body I didn't know existed. The anguish I had been holding onto for that little boy had come out in full force, like a tormented volcano of shame, guilt, rage, bitterness, and disgust. I woke up the next day feeling raw but free. Free like I hadn't felt ever before. Like an invisible yolk had been taken off of my body. Though I could plainly talk about my childhood (and had many times before) I had never gone back to feel what I experienced. I allowed that little boy to finally be felt and heard and held. In doing so, I could accept the present moment in a new way. How did I get to my age, having gone through therapy (even living with two therapists for four years!) and not know this was something I needed to do? As my wife so lovingly said to me, "Your mind protected you. It kept you safe so you could get to this point where you're now strong enough to handle it." Wow. What a mind blowing revelation. I could appreciate the parts of me, negative as they might have seemed, as my ego doing its job and helping me forge a path in this world until I was capable of handling the emotional trauma I had experienced and free myself.

 

Ceremony - My Sword of Gratitude

I went into my ceremony weekend with an open mind. I was there to fix my brain and with my intention of "show me what I need to see" I felt like I was ready for whatever experience the medicine would provide me. The first night of ceremony was tough. My body was extremely uncomfortable and I battled nausea, aches, and fatigue almost the entire time. I had taken the diet very seriously and didn't plan very well for the first day. Having eaten nothing more than lentils and beans for a few days, I went into the first night very hungry which I believe had a negative effect on my overall experience. While I was fighting the discomfort however, I did see something I thought was rather unusual. This is where I answer the question to the whole post. 😆 It was a bagel. At least that's how I would describe it to people later on. It was semi transparent and had a spiraling effect I couldn't put words to. It flowed like spun cotton candy in through itself and outward around itself. I found it beautiful but I couldn't interpret any meaning at the time. (I would later come to know this as a Torus, one of the sacred geometries and it has remained with me, often something I see or visualize during my meditations even to this day.) Given my state of exhaustion and how much work it was fighting my bodily discomfort, I succumbed to my body's need for sleep. The next day I woke up and was rather frustrated. I had fallen asleep through what was supposed to be a transformative experience and all I saw was a bagel. Thanks Aya!

 

As my ceremony group gathered together the following day to share our experience, I expressed my frustration with having fallen asleep and not having gotten anything out of it. My shaman of course called me right out, "You could have stayed awake. You could have sat up instead of staying flat." It hurt to hear but he was right. I have more control than I was allowing myself to believe I had. I didn't need to play victim and for the ceremony night to come, I would take that to heart. After filling up on food (even though I knew I would likely be purging most of it that evening) I entered the second night feeling much stronger. I reclaimed my intention to see what I needed to see, and armed myself with the two thing I knew would give me a fighting chance against whatever demons I could face. My Shield of Acceptance and my Sword of Gratitude. I would accept whatever my inner self wanted me to see and I would attack it with gratitude. After my second cup and subsequent purge, I was laying on my mat and feeling mostly okay, not great, not bad. Then I began feeling a bit nervous for some reason, so I sat up and began repeating, "I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful." Over and over I repeated this until suddenly in this very dark room I was in, a light switched on inside my body. The following is how I described the experience in my journal a couple of days after this experience:

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I became totally aware of who I am. There was no hallucination or visual experience. Just a deep emotional awakening. Deeper than anything I've ever experienced. My consciousness became fully centered in my heart. My mind was quieted and moved fully out of the way. My heart consciousness was put on a loud speaker and I felt completely encompassed by eternal love. A love that gushed from within me like a powerful fountain of gratitude and wisdom. I cried tears of pure joy for a good while. On repeat were things like:

I am so grateful! - I am Love! - It's me! It always has been! - I remember! - Wow!

 

I have no concept of time, but I know my entire experience only lasted 4 hours. In this "ceremony time" I feel like once I was emotionally awakened, I was there for many more hours than actually passed. So much so, that eventually my mind attempted to rejoin the conversation. This part felt very unique in that there was what almost felt like dialogue between my mind and my heart. Fascinatingly my heart spoke only wisdom. It did not rebuke or judge. My heart only seemed set on allowing me the opportunity to remain on my mat. My brain wanted to leave and do some sort of analytical autopsy on the experience. To dissect it and journal everything. My heart would say, "No. I am here, now." My brain would then protest, "But I might forget some of this and that's not good! Don't you want me to remember this?!" To which my calm heart said, "When the words are needed, you will have them." This seemed to shut my brain up for a while and allowed me to really sink in to the energy I was floating in. At this point, my Shaman must have felt it too because I opened my eyes and he was kneeling over me, fanning me. In this moment I felt a deep spiritual connection with him, like he knew where I was, and could see me, the real me. I don't know if his fanning was meant to blow away some of the excess energy or not, but it felt like I was going to shoot lightening from my fingertips or something similar. I told him, "It's too much!" because it literally felt like my heart was going to explode from love. This wonderful exchange of me lying on my mat, feeling like I was floating, and my Shaman fanning me went on for a while until he was finished and he simply said "I love you." As my wife has said many times to me since her ceremony, "I wish there was a better way to express the feeling over, 'I love you'". I now fully understand what she meant and means. I told him I loved him back, but from a place inside me I just didn't fully understand before. There is just no possible way to describe it. I basked under this ocean of love for a long time. Sending it in every direction I could. Sending it to every person I could think of. That thinking invited my mind back into the space and it questioned my spirit. "How will I remember you? This feeling?" to which my spirit simply said, "Gratitude". Again, my mind had nothing else to contribute so it left.

 

Slowly over the course of the next few hours, I drifted in and out of my rediscovered emotional center. Several times, spontaneous laughter would occur between me and others in the room. One particularly memorable event was when I got uncomfortable in my stomach, so I put my legs up on the wall next to me and it helped. Then it felt as if I was sitting on a new ground (the wall) and I thought, "See, all I needed was a change in perspective."

Eventually, the ceremony began to wind down. I was singing along to the songs and enjoying the smells and feeling just in the moment. In the moment. In the moment was a theme for me throughout the evening. Prior to my emotional awakening, any feelings of negativity I was experiencing (guilt, shame, regret) I would accept and extend gratitude toward... and remind myself I was here, now, in the moment. I don't think I can attributed my lack of dark experience to anything other than preparation, mostly thanks to my wife and the support she gave me, in the 6 months before my ceremony. My shaman invited me out of the ceremony room at the end and I was comforted with soup. I eventually got to my bed and was able to text my wife I love her and got a few hours of sleep.

I know integration work is going to be extremely important from here on and I'm excited by the opportunity. Shedding my old patterns has been relatively easy but I know there is still a fair amount of work ahead. Daily affirmations, meditation, a cleaner diet and exercise, will be crucial. I intend to maintain the new and more natural hierarchy between my spirit, body, and mind. Doing so requires discipline and a commitment to myself and to my family I didn't have before. But for the first time in a long time, I am excited to be doing it. Doing all of this. Doing life. I had lost my sense of purpose and my direction. I went in wanting to fix my mind but what I really needed was to fix my heart. "The longest journey is from the head to the heart." as my Grandma said to me today. I am grateful to make that trip again and again."

​

I went back to my therapist a couple of months after this and cried my tears of gratitude toward him. I now know how to answer the question, "Do I love myself". The answer is undoubtedly yes. In the months following my ceremony I have further explored my spirituality and consumed a great number of books and systems; The Power of Now, A Course in Miracles, The Law of One, The Gene Keys (and Human Design), Becoming Supernatural, The Celestine Prophecy, and several others. I have had the great fortune to have a weekly visit with an integration coach who has helped me take my lessons and incorporate them into a daily practice of meditation, self-affirmation, and various heart opening exercises. Exploring all of this for myself has led me in the direction I am now, writing this blog for others to see. There is no measure of success in this and that is perfect for me. This is simply my way of exploring this new version of me who is willing to be vulnerable and willing to encourage others (especially men) to live a more open-hearted life. To continue. to shed some of the false ideas about masculinity I have all been conditioned with and help others who are willing to do the same.

 

Today - Marching Onward

If you have read this far and are still engaged, I applaud you. Taking the time to read a long form story of someone's life speaks to not only your attention span but an empathetic quality you carry. I hope you have found even one aspect of my journey useful in your own self reflection in how you love yourself and how important the inner work we take on truly is for our collective experience. Each day you dive deeper into the healing spiritual journey for yourself is a day you are helping the collective heal as well. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking care of you. You are doing everyone else such a service and if my journal here aids you in that process then I am profoundly honored. From a place of eternal love, thank you.

 

TLDR:

Life was hard then it got easier and then hard again. Did an Ayahuasca ceremony to figure out who I am. Had a vision of a bagel. Sharing my spiritual journey is now a part of my life and I'm doing that here for now. Thanks for stopping by. I love you.