On paper, nothing was missing.
I had the life that was supposed to make you feel okay. A good salary. A house 5 minutes from the beach. A motorbike. Holidays. A wife.
But I was 25 kilograms heavier than I am now. I had migraines, anxiety and depression. I numbed everything I could: cigarettes, weed, hours of Netflix, video games, weekends I didn't enjoy but kept showing up to.
I ate to feel something, or to feel less. I wasn't present with my family, or anyone, including myself.
I knew something was wrong. I just didn't know what to do with that knowing.
Then my marriage ended.
She left after the third time she cheated. I moved out the next day with a suitcase and slept in a single bed beside my brother in his small house. Him, his wife, his 2 kids and me.
In the first week I sat in that room, smoking and crying. The life I'd spent 10 years building was gone overnight.
I won't dress that up. It was the darkest I've ever been. I understood, for the first time, why people stop wanting to be here.
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In the days after, I tried a gratitude practice: write down 3 things, no matter how small. I couldn't think of anything meaningful, so I wrote the food in my belly, the clothes on my back, the roof over my head.
About 2 weeks in, I was in a local shop. A family in front of me came up short paying for their groceries. I paid for them. The woman started to cry.
I hadn't felt any of it when I wrote it down. Standing in that shop, I felt it for the first time.
“That was the first crack of light.”
It wasn't a transformation. It was a decision.
A quiet, exhausted choice to stop suffering, from the divorce and everything before it. The patterns in my relationships. The gap between who I was and who I kept saying I'd become, eventually.
I took complete responsibility for all of it. I stopped waiting for something outside me to fix what was inside.
I found an apartment. I started running, journalling, waking early and walking. I stopped drinking. The weight came off, slowly, then steadily. I started learning to listen to myself.
It wasn't quick or a straight line. There were still bad months. Cigarettes I couldn't quite quit. Sleep I couldn't quite fix. Old patterns showing up in new relationships.
But the direction had changed.
The same problem.
Over the years that followed, I studied nutrition, CBT and personal training. I became part-owner of a gym. I built a meal prep business and, 3 years later, closed it.
I found mentors. I did therapy. I met my partner Kate, who showed me what a healthy relationship looks like.
Through all of it, I kept running into the same problem, in myself and in the people I coached. It wasn't knowledge. Everyone had the knowledge. They'd read the books, followed the programmes, listened to the podcasts.
“People needed the right small actions, in the right order, starting where they were.”
