First, I want to thank all you paid subscribers for your endorsements of my work. I realize people don’t pay for more content, they pay because they support who I am, what I stand for, and believe in, so thank you for supporting me!

The title is a bit of a spoiler but, yes, I’m taking a break from writing for a little while so I can renew and reset. During that time I won’t be accepting new or ongoing payments because, well, that just wouldn’t be cool.

So, what’s next on the writing front?

I’m not sure, but as I start a new career as a pre-licensed therapist, one thing that interests me is reversing the social stigmas that plague men and keep them down. I’ve seen too many guys struggle simply because they feared going against the grain of what society and their upbringing consider to be “manly.”

What I often see are men of masks. These are men who hide behind a mask of physical prowess, or financial wealth, or knowledge (know it alls), or wannabee alpha-males, or self-proclaimed “sexual tyrannosauruses” like this guy (and if you haven’t seen Predator, I recommend starting there):

Anyway, the topic of men’s work is about confronting the BS social stigmas that bog men down and keep them lonely, depressed, or feeling inferior, while exploring healthy masculinity as it pertains to work, life, and family.

I’d be curious to hear if this topic interests you or not—honest answers only!

Thanks again for your support and, as a wise man once said:

So, I listened.

Instead of a long-form article, I’m sharing content you guys clearly want: succinct, engaging, and practical (I’ll still write long-form articles, for the record).

I mentioned in another article how I save ideas for future essays in my phone’s notes app. Well, I also save lessons that I want to share with my kids someday. There are 276 of them right now. And these lessons go beyond the hackneyed preachings of, “your word is your bond,” “always do the right thing,” and “no you can’t have ice cream, it’s 9am!” No, those lessons are the buy-in—expectations, not exceptions. If they need a reminder of those things then I have clearly failed as a parent.

Anyway, here is a short list of the MANY lessons I’ve accumulated over the years. Feel free to share your own.

Lesson 1

“Guilt comes from expecting your past self to have known what your present self does. Forgiveness is to see the absurdity of that expectation.” – Findingawareness, IG

• It took me a long time to experience guilt as just a manifestation of the mind. It’s not real and it never was. No more guilt.

Lesson 2

You don't need more information to become more intelligent. You need a quieter mind. The quieter the mind, the more precise the thinking and the wiser you become.

• Enough said.

Lesson 3

Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is powerful but real power comes from sharing that knowledge.

• When you do this, you enable agency in others. You give them the option to act. You promote freedom.

Lesson 4

You can’t cope with something you don’t acknowledge. So, accept pain—physical, mental, emotional. To deny your pain, be it grief, worry, depression, is to deny its healing.

• Think of it this way. When you were in middle school and the teacher left the classroom, what happened? The class turned to chaos, right? And when the teacher returned all the students became little angels. The same is true with pain (and I’m more specifically talking about emotions here). Using the classroom as a metaphor, the students represent your emotions and the teacher represents the noticing self (the part of you that notices emotions, thoughts, pain, etc…). If your noticing self wanders away and doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on in the classroom (i.e., the body), it’ll run amuck. You tame the chaos by getting closer to it, not running from it. A similar metaphor is the buffalo in the storm.

Lesson 5

Rejection is just a redirect toward what’s right.

• Be thankful for rejection. The universe is basically taking over for something you couldn’t see on your own.

Lesson 6

Change doesn’t happen in the mind; it happens in the heart.

• This is why change is so hard for so many people. They know, intellectually, that eating ice cream is bad for them, they know that more activity is good for them, but they don’t change. It’s because their desire to change is only in their heads, not their hearts. To want to change you must feel the fire the change. When you feel it, you can feed it.

Lesson 7

Your new self will cost your old self.

• To become a better, different, or more evolved version of yourself, you must be willing to let go of certain aspects of who you currently are, which requires trust in the unknown.

Lesson 8

“Trust the unknown. The known is the prison of the past.” - Unknown

• I find it ironic and quite funny that it is unknown who said this quote. Along similar lines as the previous lesson, clinging is the root of suffering. Shed the old, embrace the new.

Lesson 9

You don’t grow from what you know.

• Reframe uncertainty as opportunity. Leland Val Van de Wall once said, “the degree to which a person grows is directly proportional to the amount of truth they’re willing to accept about themselves without running away.”

Lesson 10

You don’t suffer because of the thing. You suffer because of the way you see the thing. The truth is only what you make it to be. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

• Mindset is “most.” It’s not “everything” because we are not our minds and I would argue the heart is stronger than the mind, but the mind is a heavy influence. If you don’t like how someone or something makes you feel, change your perspective. Try gratitude. Try compassion. There’s always something to be learned. Always.

Lesson 11

Be the person you needed when you were younger.

• Everyone has unmet needs growing up. No parent can tend to all their child’s needs because nobody’s perfect, which is why everyone has some degree of trauma. However, missing out on xyz while growing up doesn’t make you a victim, it makes you aware of how you can heal yourself and others.

Lesson 12

A great Buddhist teacher once said, “Spirituality is never about getting anything. It’s always about losing everything.” The path is about letting go, not adding on.

• The core lesson here is that liberation or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it isn't something you gain or earn. It's the natural state that reveals itself when you’ve stripped away everything that obscures it. The spiritual journey, therefore, isn’t a journey of acquisition, but a journey of un-becoming

Lesson 13

A strong determination not to suck will take you far in life.

• True story.

Have a lesson to share? Write it in the comments below.

This isn’t a complete list but it contains several quotes that have inspired me. Hopefully they’ll inspire you too.

PARENTING

Takeaway: Fix your shit. Trauma can be passed down up to seven generations, which means you may be carrying guilt or shame that doesn’t even belong to you. If we don’t deal with it, not to mention your own “stuff” acquired from childhood and life in general, you will pass that on to your kids.

ON BEING

Takeaway: There’s you, and then there’s the You that notices that other you. The former isn’t “you,” rather it’s the aggregate of the thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, and senses acquired throughout life. Step outside yourself into the You that notices, just like standing on the side of a busy highway watching cars pass by, where the cars represent thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.., and you realize that who you thought you were isn’t at all who you are.

LIFE STRUGGLES

Takeaway: The comfort you seek is on the other side of the discomfort in front of you. It reminds me of the buffalo and the storm. When cows sense a storm approaching, they run away from it, whereas buffalos run right into it. By running into the storm, the buffalo reduces the amount of time they spend in it, as well as the suffering that comes with it.

PERSONAL AGENCY

This is perhaps my favorite quote. I’m not sure if it’s attributed to a single person or just a cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy but it really resonates with me. In fact, the first time I heard it, I experienced a tremendous emotional relief because there is so much personal agency implied in it. It’s very similar this quote from Heraclitus:

Takeaway: The moment is all there is. There is no future, there is no past, there is only RIGHT NOW. Nothing is permanent and there is no independence, only interdependence. You create yourself moment by moment, which means you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions, you are not your perceptions, you aren’t even your body. What you are, is free.

Most people spend a majority of their waking hours—sometimes years!—trying to be understood by people who 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀.

They seek validation, praise, or any number of acknowledgements from people who don’t dedicate the time, effort, or emotional investment in something as important as themselves, and yet here they are seeking their acceptance.

Does this make sense to you?

All that time you spend:

❌ over-explaining yourself

❌ trying to articulate how you feel

❌ justifying your decisions

❌ rationalizing your boundaries

...in hopes that the other person “sees” you—a person who can’t even name their own feelings, let alone validate yours—is zapping your energy. 

It's a cycle that 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 and 𝗱𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵.

But what if we shifted our focus? What if, instead of desperately seeking external validation, we turned inward and became our own ardent supporters? Imagine the freedom that comes from understanding and accepting yourself, regardless of what others “get.”

✅  Stop giving other people your power.

✅  Stop waiting for others to define your worth.

𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺, 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵.

The truest understanding and deepest acceptance you'll ever find is in yourself.

Here are 3 action steps to reclaim your power:

1. 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗦𝗟𝗟𝗦: In the SEAL Teams, the first thing you do after being dropped off by a helo in the middle of nowhere is stop - look - listen - smell (side note: EVERYTHING smelled like a mix of feces and burnt rubber). Doing this allowed us to attune to the environment, gain situational awareness, and get a lay of the land that we couldn’t get from imagery. What this means for you is to dedicate 10-15 minutes daily to truly listen to yourself. Journal about your feelings without judgment, identify your core values, pinpoint what truly brings you joy and what drains you, and then use those values as a guiding framework to tackle your most important objectives. Ask yourself: "What do I really want and need in this moment?" This isn't about analyzing others, but deeply listening to and understanding your own internal environment.

2. 𝗘𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗕𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀: Identify one area where you frequently over-explain or justify yourself to others (e.g., your time, your decisions, your emotional capacity). Then, consciously set a firm boundary in that area, communicating it clearly and concisely without explanation or apology. Practice saying "no" when it aligns with your needs, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

3. 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀: Intentionally praise and acknowledge yourself for small and large accomplishments, wise decisions, or even just showing up for yourself. This could be a daily affirmation, a mental pat on the back, or a physical act of self-care. The goal is to build an internal system of appreciation and approval that becomes less reliant on external sources.

Stop outsourcing your self-worth.

Flags wave, fireworks light up the sky, bottle rockets blast off right before the police come.

We also commemorate the courage of those who declared freedom from colonial rule. I was watching a documentary on war last week and it reminded me of the powerful, unifying narrative the 4th of July represents. It’s the story of people asserting their autonomy, charting their own course. Free agents.

While people chase self-reliance and sovereignty, there’s a quiet paradox below the surface here:

Does true, absolute independence truly exist? Or, is it a myth we tell ourselves so we continue striving, while in the meantime all of our doings are subtly woven into an interconnected web of (inter)dependence?

My contention is that there is no such thing as absolute independence. From the moment we’re born to the most complex global interactions (e.g.,, war), we are inextricably linked, always relying on something or someone else.

Independence, in its purest, most isolated form, is an illusion. Rather, it is in the nuanced dance between self-determination and mutual reliance that we find our true strength and define our place in the world.

This is why this quote is so true:

Because unburdened by the need for consensus, compromise, or coordination, one individual can certainly make quick sprints in the short term. But he or she lacks the long game of togetherness. True strength, resilience, and lasting impact are almost always a product of togetherness. In the face of adversity, mutual reliance offers support and resilience, preventing burnout and fostering a sense of shared purpose. Here’s an example…

The Individual: A Web of Unseen Support

Let's start with the individual. The rugged individualist, the self-made man (or woman), the one who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps—these are all cherished archetypes in many cultures. Heroes to look up to and role model. We admire resilience, self-sufficiency, and the ability to stand alone. But look closer. Can you really claim you got to wherever you are alone?

Consider the act of being born. We enter the world utterly dependent, relying on caregivers for every breath, every meal, every moment of comfort and safety. As we grow, this dependence shifts, but it never vanishes. Our education, from learning to speak to mastering a trade, relies on teachers, institutions, and the accumulated knowledge of generations. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the roof over our heads—these aren’t conjured from thin air by our individual will. They are the products of vast, interconnected systems: farmers, manufacturers, transporters, retailers, and the complex economic frameworks that enable their operations.

Even our thoughts don’t entirely belong to us. Our language, our cultural norms, our understanding of the world are shaped by the societies we inhabit, the conversations we have, the books we read, and the media we consume. Our very identity is often forged in relation to others—as a child, a parent, a friend, a colleague, a citizen. We define what is by what it isn’t.

To be truly independent would mean to exist in a vacuum, devoid of history, culture, and human interaction. Such an existence isn’t life; it’s isolation, and ultimately, it’s impossible. Our personal journeys aren’t solo expeditions; they’re collaborative ventures, built on the foundations laid by countless others.

Nations and the Global Fabric: Beyond the 4th of July

The concept of national independence offers perhaps the clearest example of this paradox. When the United States declared its independence in 1776, it was a monumental assertion of sovereignty, a rejection of external control. Yet, even then, this nascent nation was dependent. It relied on alliances (France, in particular), trade routes for essential goods, and the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment that fueled its revolutionary ideals.

Fast forward to today, and the intricate web of global interdependence is undeniable. While the U.S. remains a sovereign nation, its so-called "independence" is deeply intertwined with its relationships with other countries:

• Economic dependence

• Trade and resources

• Alliances and security

• Global networks

• Environmental interdependence

This level of interdependence even goes beyond the nation level to permeate the systems we encounter daily:

• Technological Ecosystems: The smartphone in your hand is a marvel of engineering, but it's also a testament to global dependence. Its components come from dozens of countries, its software relies on open-source contributions from thousands of developers worldwide, and its functionality is predicated on a vast network of cellular towers, satellites, and data centers. No single entity "independently" created or sustains this device; it is a product of a collaborative, distributed network.

• Ecological Systems: Nature itself provides the ultimate masterclass in interdependence. Ecosystems are intricate food webs where every species, from the smallest microbe to the largest predator, plays a role and depends on others for survival. The collapse of one species can have cascading effects throughout an entire ecosystem, demonstrating the delicate balance of mutual reliance.

• Knowledge and Innovation: Human progress, from scientific breakthroughs to artistic movements, is fundamentally cumulative. Isaac Newton famously said:

Every new discovery, every innovative solution, every piece of art builds upon the knowledge, theories, and creative expressions of those who came before. We are dependent on the intellectual inheritance of humanity.

Thus the irony about celebrating independence on July 4th as an assertion of self-governance simultaneously highlights the ongoing, evolving nature of global interdependence. It's not about being free from others, but about being free to engage with others on one's own terms while also relying on them the whole time. It’s not the space of either/or that defines us, but the shared space of both/and.

The Shadow Side of 'Independence': When It Becomes Avoidance

While the pursuit of independence can be a noble aspiration for self-reliance and autonomy, it sometimes masks a deeper, less acknowledged motive: personal avoidance. For some, the desire for "independence" isn't about genuine self-sufficiency, but rather a strategic retreat from the complexities, vulnerabilities, and demands that come with true connection and engagement.

I see this all the time in the therapy room. Clients fiercely claiming their independence yet showing up feeling sad, depressed, and alone and they can’t figure out why. Emotional avoidance is the #1 cause for therapy (at least in the cases I’ve seen). People want to be independent of any uncomfortable thoughts or feelings but forget they depend on the comfortable ones that motivate them or make them feel happy. They forget that the yin can’t exist without the yang.

See how this fight for independence (from such thoughts, emotions) only incites a larger emotional fire? You were never “independent” to begin with and you never will be.

Consider how this plays out:

• Avoidance of Other People: The idea of being "independent" can become a shield against the messiness of human relationships. Fear of judgment, conflict, rejection, or the inherent vulnerability required for intimacy can drive individuals to minimize their social ties, preferring solitude under the guise of self-reliance. This isn't true independence, which allows for chosen connection; it's a form of self-imposed isolation, a way to avoid the emotional labor and potential pain of interdependence. It’s living in fear.

• Avoidance of Emotions: True independence doesn't mean being free from emotions, especially difficult ones. Yet, many aspire to an emotional stoicism, believing that to be "independent" means to be unaffected by sadness, anger, fear, or grief. This often leads to emotional suppression, a detachment from one's own inner world and the experiences that shape it. Authentic independence involves acknowledging and processing emotions, not avoiding them by creating an emotional wall.

• Avoidance of Places and Responsibilities: Sometimes, the urge to be "independent" manifests as a desire to escape challenging circumstances, commitments, or places. This could be seen in someone who constantly changes jobs or locations to avoid long-term responsibilities, or who refuses to commit to a community. While genuine freedom of movement and choice are important, when this pattern is driven by a fear of being tied down, of facing difficult realities, or of contributing to something larger than oneself, it leans more towards avoidance than true liberation.

In these instances, the aspiration for "independence" becomes a misdirection, a comfortable narrative to justify a withdrawal from the very experiences that foster growth, connection, and deeper understanding.

Genuine strength doesn't come from avoiding the world, people, or challenges. Strength comes from facing and engaging with them, navigating the inherent dependencies, and finding resilience within.

The Power in Acknowledged Dependence

If absolute independence is a myth, then what does that mean for our aspirations and our future? It means that true strength lies not in denying our dependencies, but in acknowledging and strategically navigating them. Here’s how:

• Collaboration. Recognizing shared challenges and mutual reliance encourages cooperation over isolation.

• Empathy and Understanding: When we understand that our well-being is tied to the well-being of others, it cultivates empathy and a broader perspective. It helps us see beyond narrow self-interest to the collective good.

• Resilience: The longest study on happiness (85 years) conducted by Harvard found social fitness (i.e., connection) to be the number one determinant of a happy life, not money, fame, job, or social club status.

The pursuit of "independence" often inspires us to strive for self-improvement, to overcome obstacles, and to assert our unique identity. However, the ultimate realization is that such a journey unfolds within a vast, interconnected universe. We aren’t solitary islands, but integral parts of a grand, evolving ecosystem–social, economic, political, and environmental. This is even more pronounced today as it was back in 1776.

So, as we celebrate the spirit of independence, let us also celebrate the fact that independence doesn’t exist without dependence, which really begs the question, “does independence exist at all?”

This Fourth of July, Let’s celebrate the spirit of strength, resiliency, and self-determination that independence represents while also acknowledging the belongingness, mutual reliance, and interconnection that we all depend on.

We talked about the difference between grit and resilience, which I shared through a BUD/S story, burnout and overwhelm, fear and anxiety—and how participants, including myself and Andrew, deal with them—and grief. I’ll expand on each of these in future articles.

One big lesson that presented itself and is worthy of repeating is that mental health isn’t relegated to “just” the mind. Before I give a speech, for example, I always, always, work out. Always. Of course, I always work out anyway, even if I’m not going to give a speech, but it’s even more important to do so while on the road for two reasons:

1. Maintaining consistency (because consistency is key)

2. Managing stress

How do you do it consistently? By tying it to your values. It may be a value of fun, health, longevity, agency, creativity, etc… I don’t think enough people know how to tie their actions to their values because they’re not crystal clear on what their values are.

The most beneficial aspect of knowing your values is recognizing the ones that are not.

Why? Because it makes decision-making soooo much easier. I spoke about this a bit in my book when I talked about Southwest Airlines and how knowing company values enabled decision-making at all levels in the company.

Anyway, the problem with traveling is that hotel gyms generally suck. I need more than an elliptical and a bosu ball to challenge me, so I typically bring resistance bands and TRX with me wherever I go. I have also been known to travel with a 70 lb kettlebell, until one TSA agent told me I couldn’t carry it onboard because it was CAST IRON.

Anyway, it was SUCH a breath of fresh air to stay at a hotel with a gym that was probably one of the best gyms I’ve ever seen—not just for a hotel, but anywhere.

Why am I highlighting this? Because comfort comes from more than just cozy rooms and decent service, as mental health is more than just “mental.” Mental health is a byproduct of the balance between mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual domains. For example, when we try to avoid uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, we might do so by distracting ourselves with harder work, longer hours, or more tasks. We essentially deplete the emotional domain and maximize the physical domain. This works short-term, but in the long term, it leads to burnout.

And speaking of burnout…

Burnout isn’t always the result of doing too much, as we discussed in this panel. Burnout can stem from doing too much of what burns you down, yes, but it can also come from not doing enough of what lights you up.

It’s easy to attribute burnout to “having too many things to do,” but the real culprit may be a lack of fulfillment in the emotional domain.

Burnout isn't just about exhaustion — it's about disconnection. Disconnection from purpose, from joy, and often from oneself.

Your workplace well-being isn’t a luxury — it’s a foundation.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading.

Reviews

• “Emotions are weak.”

• “Vulnerability = weakness.”

• “I am strong and independent and can handle things on my own.”

• “I don’t need help, I can figure it out.”

I did this because I got sick of the hypocrisy. If John Doe wants to avoid vulnerability for fear of what others might think, for example, then he’s personifying the very fear he’s trying to avoid. John is actually fueling that fear with his avoidant behaviors because that’s how fear works. If we look at fear through the lens of anxiety, for instance, because anxiety is a derivative of fear, we start with the anxiety trigger (see picture below), which, in this case, might be a fear of social judgment.

“If I show any vulnerability, then people will think I’m weak,” he says.

So, to avoid that unwanted feeling of weakness, John Doe chooses to not be vulnerable; to put his guard up and act like everything’s okay. By doing that, he experiences short-term relief, but the real problem is that he just validated his fear. He’s basically telling his anxiety, “Yup, you’re right! I shouldn’t be vulnerable.” He gives it more power. He’s effectively working away from the person he wants to be and is capable of being, which is someone who can live with their fears/anxiety. The more John does this, the more that anxiety gets reinforced and the more he believes his anxiety to be “right,” rather than just a voice in his head passing through. More on this in another article.

What Now?

So now a natural question after reading Warrior vs. Warfighter: The Battle Within or the subsequent article Words Evolve—and So Does the Meaning of “Warrior”, and perhaps self-identifying with some of the warfighter concepts, may be, “This is great, but how do I become a Warrior?”

When I approach a problem, I tend to work backwards, starting with what the current situation is and examining the contributing factors that led there. I also want to consider the risks, available resources, potential outcomes of various inputs, and other milieus but that’s another story. Some may call this root cause analysis, I call it practical. This is what mission planning looked like in the SEALs, and it’s a viable option for life. After all, isn’t life the ultimate mission?

Anyway, one way to understand how one might become a Warrior is by looking at the Warfighter’s behaviors and doing the opposite. However, before we get there, it also might be helpful to understand why those behaviors took root in the first place. Otherwise, we’re just putting on a behavioral band-aid that doesn’t address the source of the problem and therefore doesn’t teach us how to avoid re-creating Warfighter tendencies in the future.

Several root causes appear when we consider a Warfighter’s behaviors. But before we dive into them, I thought it would be helpful to clarify exactly what those behaviors entail–for both Warriors and Warfighters– so we know what we’re working with.

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Warfighter Root Causes

Again, this is not an all-inclusive list but rather general patterns that contribute to Warfighting behavior:

Male Socialization: From a young age, boys are often taught to suppress their emotions and refrain from showing vulnerability. This emotional repression becomes a barrier to recognizing and addressing psychological pain. Boys are taught not to cry, “be tough” (whatever that means), figure things out for themselves/be independent, which only leads to isolation later. I equate this advice to what the SEAL instructors told us while going through BUD/S (SEAL training), which was, “suffer in silence.” This advice made great SEALs, but terrible civilians.

Overt vs. Covert Depression: Overt depression is the acknowledgment of sadness, withdrawal, and hopelessness, and is more commonly associated with women. Men, however, frequently associate with covert depression, which is where the symptoms of depression are masked by socially accepted or aggressive behaviors, such as anger, irritability, self-sabotage, booze/drugs/sex/gambling, or other behaviors that mask the underlying depression. The crux here is that they stay in covert depression because there’s shame associated with acknowledging they’re depressed. So now they not only feel like shit but also pile shame on top of it.

The Father-Son Dynamic: Contrary to common thinking, boys who don’t have a father to model masculinity are not impaired. Does having a strong father figure help? Yes, absolutely. But not having one isn’t an impairment. Those boys who do have fathers are happiest and most well adjusted with warm, loving fathers, which is precisely the “feminine” qualities many men were raised to avoid. The key ingredient to a healthy relationship between father and son is the father’s affection, not his toughness or masculinity. It’s the boys with abusive or neglectful fathers who fare poorly down the road psychologically. The sad fact here is that many men become not-so-good fathers because they’re trying to live up to societal notions about what makes a good one. But they’re working with the wrong data, and their sons are paying the price. To sum it up, childhood injury in boys creates both the wounds and the defenses against those wounds, which are the foundation for adult depression.

This Warrior vs. Warfighter concept is exactly what drew me into becoming a therapist. The general sense of fear that many men feel towards vulnerability, their emotions, or asking for help, for example, is exactly what holds them back from becoming optimal versions of themselves, and society suffers as a result.

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I completely disagree.

Yes, “warrior” historically referred to those who fought and died in combat. But language isn’t static. Words evolve. Metaphor is one of the most powerful tools of human expression. To suggest that only one definition can be “correct” is to deny the fluidity of language and the richness of symbolic thought.

When people call a single parent a “warrior,” for example, they aren’t stealing valor—they’re acknowledging courage under fire of a different kind. What they’re saying is, “this person endures, sacrifices, protects, and persists against overwhelming odds, and continues to fight daily.” That’s exactly what warriors do, irrespective of your role in society. The metaphor isn’t meant to equate the battlefield with parenting or teaching, it’s meant to honor resilience in the face of existential pressure.

If we only allow “warrior” to mean a person in combat, we ignore how cultures throughout history have used the concept symbolically. The samurai, for example, were deeply philosophical about what it meant to walk the warrior path—discipline, moral code, loyalty. Bushidō wasn’t just about dying in battle but about how to live.

Metaphor Expands Honor, Not Diminish It

To insist that “warrior” only applies to soldiers in combat is to gatekeep honor. It tells cancer survivors, abuse victims, and single moms struggling to make a living that unless their pain involved bullets, their battles aren’t worthy of the same reverence.

The power of metaphor is that it connects human experiences across vastly different terrains. War is one of the oldest human struggles but struggle itself is universal. Metaphor allows us to bridge those realities.

The Risk Of Dehumanizing

Ironically, reserving the purity of “warrior” for servicemembers in combat dehumanizes the servicemembers themselves because it frames them only in terms of war and death and not in terms of growth, character, or healing. It places them on a pedestal of suffering instead of recognizing that their warriorhood might continue through fatherhood, leadership, or service after the battlefield.

What about the soldier who comes home and fights through PTSD? Or the vet who mentors youth to keep them out of gangs? Isn’t that also walking a warrior’s path? I think most people would think so.

Letting the Word Breathe Gives It More Power, Not Less

To say “teacher = warrior” is not to say “teaching = war.” It’s to say: this teacher is courageous, disciplined, and unwavering. And in a culture that often devalues such roles, elevating them with strong metaphor matters. It inspires. It motivates. It gives people a language of dignity when society offers them little else.

So instead of clutching to semantic purity, maybe we honor warriors past and present by expanding the values they embody: courage, sacrifice, service, resilience—and recognizing those values wherever they appear.

If someone prefers the narrow definition of “warrior,” that’s their choice. But trying to ban its metaphorical use isn’t about respect—it’s about control. And real warriors, of all people, know that honor isn’t threatened by metaphor. It’s threatened by forgetting what the fight was for in the first place.

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Earlier this year, the Secretary of Defense vowed to return the military to a “warrior ethos.” And in a speech delivered at the Army War college he used the term “warfighter” six times.

While I do believe in a warrior ethos and without wading into the politics, I believe there’s a difference between being a warrior and being a warfighter.

I say this as someone who has learned this lesson the hard way. I served 13 years in the Navy as a SEAL, with most of my time at the pinnacle of that community. I did eight combat deployments and loved every minute of it. From the age of 17, I knew I wanted to be on the battlefield—carrying a gun and getting into gunfights just seemed fun to me (and it was).

But I quickly realized that doing the job wasn’t just about me or what I wanted. It was about the guys next to me and the purpose we served collectively. And truth be told, my identity became what I did, not who I was—a very slippery slope, I would later learn.

When I left service, like many veterans, I lost both my purpose and myself. I continued to cling to the identity of a warfighter, even as that identity stopped serving me. My transition to civilian life was far tougher than I admitted—especially to myself.

It took a panic attack in my tiny DC apartment one night to finally break through the denial. I had been numbing my pain with booze, “frog hogs” (men and women who just want to associate themselves with a SEAL to make themselves feel better), and half-hearted job leads that went nowhere. Without a fight to train for I didn’t know who I was, so I did the next best thing and created one. I brought the fight to my internal battlefield. Unfortunately, the enemy of that fight was me.

That panic attack was a blessing in disguise because it marked the beginning of a new kind of battle. For years I had fought an external enemy—a far easier cry than facing the one inside, I would learn.

The enemy “out there” is much easier to fight than the one “in here.” The same problem solving strategies simply do not work, which I highlighted in the article entitled Control Isn’t The Solution. It’s The Very Essence Of The Problem.

It’s a battle that warfighters are not trained to fight, and I didn’t have the tools to navigate it. So, I had to do something that felt completely foreign, something so uncomfortable and completely antithesis to everything I was ever taught—and not just by the military but as a child growing up: I sought therapy. I talked about my emotions. My defenses. The behaviors I learned as a kid that kept me safe but no longer serve me as an adult. I faced a lot of demons that I didn’t even know were there. And I learned how to let go of the pain that initially led me to become a war fighter in one of the most elite warfighting teams in the world. And in doing so, I discovered what it truly meant to be a warrior.

Warfighters focus on the external enemy. Warriors take on the internal one.

Fighting our own demons—the voices of fear, shame, ego, grief—is the hardest fight of all. It’s one we’re all trained—conditioned—to avoid, because it requires a much greater strength than the one we reserve for external threats. It requires us to summon herculean strength and swim against the strongest current that any of us ever face: our own ego.

Too often, the energy needed to heal gets redirected. We fight our colleagues, our partners, our political opponents, even other nations, as a proxy for the internal battles unlived; the battles we haven’t faced. We numb ourselves with social media, alcohol, work, and other addictions that allow temporary relief from the pain we are too afraid to face head on. But real transformation—real courage—and ultimately real healing comes from turning inward. This is what warriors do, because warfighters are incapable. Warfighters personify the very fear they seek to avoid. More on this in upcoming articles.

At 48, I finally understand that the most important battles in my life weren’t in a war zone. They were—and are—with myself. Therapy is the tool I use to fight and I’m still in it.

Today, I’m proud to be training as a therapist for those who run toward danger and service—who, like me, are learning that the bravest thing they can do is look inward. By looking inward, the outward becomes clear.

That’s what it means to be a warrior.

Next week I’ll talk more about the differences, and in upcoming articles I’ll share how to take the first steps to becoming a warrior.

The dirty little secret in certain first responder communities is the me, me, me mentality.

There’s no trust and no shared purpose, there’s only my purpose and what can you do for me?

There’s no trust when you know some officers park their car behind a building for eight hours hoping to avoid responding to any calls.

And there’s no trust when you do exactly what your supervisor asked of you, only to be thrown under the bus when he asks, “Why did you do that?”

The amount of loneliness in policing, for example, is more than people can fathom, and Hallie was about to experience it firsthand.

She came to our office because she was stuck. In fact, she was so stuck that all seemed hopeless. She didn’t want to do anything to get herself out of it, didn’t want to try anything new because to her, what was the point? If these feelings of hopelessness and despair always come back, then why try?

And this was exactly Hallie’s problem: she was fighting her anxiety and depression rather than embracing them (see my previous article on why control isn’t the solution to understand more).

Hallie’s problem ran deeper than her anxiety about work. She was so caught up in her mind that her mind was on worry-autopilot and her nervous system was in freeze mode, as shown below:

Without getting into the nitty gritty of polyvagal theory (at least, not yet), basically how it works is this. Your autonomic nervous system responds to the challenges of the day with messaging that tells you how you are, not what or who you are. It helps you manage risk and create connection by adapting its physiological state to a place of safety and security. Sometimes this connection is healthy, sometimes it isn’t. For Hallie to stay connected (to safety and security), her mind decided the best course of action was to ruminate on the events because doing so felt like it gave her more control over the outcome. This, in turn, also helped her feel like she was mitigating future risk because, after all, more rumination = more control, right?

HELL no.

More rumination = more rumination. That’s when you get stuck. That’s when your nervous system enters freeze mode and you’re driven by fear. The filter through which you view the world is tainted (yup, I said it) with fear and avoidance rather than love and acceptance.

And when I say acceptance, I’m not saying you need to accept the conditions of what happened or the forces that caused it. Acceptance, in this case, means acknowledgement. Making room for those uncomfortable feelings of hopelessness and despair and working alongside them, not against them. Because as I’ve said before: what we resist, persists.

Getting Unstuck

We know the same thinking that created this anxiety cannot be the same thinking that gets her out. So, here’s the trick…

When your mind shuts down, use your body to wake it up.

You can use rational thought to change how you think about xyz, but if that doesn’t work, then you must change your behavior. Here’s a quick video that explains why:

But Does It Work?

After four months of feeling stuck, Hallie can now “move.” She’s back to exercising, doing family activities, and enjoying life because she realized she can’t (i.e. doesn’t want to) feel this way forever. She’s accepted things are not ideal and decided to move on with them instead of fighting against them. If Hallie can do it, so can you. Here are some strategies to consider:

Habit stacking. If starting a brand-new habit feels intimidating, the good news is you don’t have to. Habit stacking is when you build new habits on top of old ones, so there’s less start-up energy required. For example, if you drink coffee in the morning, you might do 10 bodyweight squats while it brews. You’ve just stacked a new habit (squats) on top of your old one (making coffee). Or, while you wait for the water to heat up in the shower, you might drop down and do pushups or hold a plank for 30 seconds. Again, stacking a new habit on top of an old one.

Move, Move, Move. One study found that just 2.5 hours of walking per week was associated with an 18% lower risk of depression. Moreover, the big heads in this study estimated that if people adhered to the minimum 150 minutes of moderate activity per week as recommended, then roughly 12% of all cases of depression would go away. As I said in my book, it doesn’t matter what direction you move in when you’re taking enemy fire. Just move.

Connect. Physical movement is important because it helps you (re)connect with yourself. The same can be said for your relationships, too. Just doing things together—anything—is another type of movement that breeds greater connection, and when you’re feeling stuck, hopeless, or anxious, the last thing you need is more alone time. However, I’m not advocating activity as a distraction strategy here. You still must get to the root cause of those unwanted feelings (which is one reason why people may oppose the behaviorist approach I’m advocating for her), but you can do so from a stronger position; a place of greater willingness than a place of stuckness.

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The need for control is a symptom of a more significant problem.

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But we can’t just push away anxiety or depression or sadness or guilt or shame.

Remember in the old days how a bad guy in the movies would chase a good guy, and they’d both somehow run into quicksand? They’d submerge right up to their chins gasping for air and reluctant to move until the bad guy (typically) panics and begins moving around frantically trying to pull himself out of the sinking mess, only to be sucked back down into it, leaving nothing but his hat on the surface…and bubbles.

Meanwhile, the good guy takes a slower, more methodical approach. Instead of swimming aggressively to try to escape the quicksand, he acknowledges the predicament he’s in and moves ever…so…slowly…and eventually pulls himself out.

The thing is, both characters recognized they were stuck, except one resisted his stuckness and the other acknowledged it—and the acknowledgment paid off.

In quicksand, immediately struggling to escape is a natural, knee-jerk reaction, but it’s also the worst thing one can do (at least in the movies). Every instinct tells you to fight your way out—fast!—because if you don’t you’ll drown. But what happens is the bad guys don’t drown from the quicksand, they drown from their struggle.

The Mind As A Problem-Solving Machine

The mind, as you well know, is a problem-solving machine. We (humans) have this uncanny ability to anticipate and solve problems. Got icy steps and worry about falling? Salt will take care of that. Dog barking incessantly? Put him outside (or hold him upside down if he’s small enough, that’s a pro tip for ya). Raining like crazy out? Get an umbrella, wait until it clears, or find some shelter.

This approach works well in the external world but applying this problem-solving approach to one’s internal world isn’t so easy. The abstract world of thoughts, feelings, urges, and memories makes problem-solving in this manner impossible, because when we try to avoid or ignore unwanted internal suffering, we only create more suffering, and we sink deeper into our own quicksand. What we resist, will persist.

Take addiction, for instance. Addiction serves as an escape from the moment, from whatever uncomfortable thoughts or feelings come up like boredom, isolation, or depression. But that addiction—whether it be drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, or rumination—becomes the go-to tactic to get rid of those unwanted [thoughts/feelings…]—because it does work. That drink does offer a means of control—in the short term. But the more energy spent on trying to avoid that suffering, the more suffering ensues in the long term.

Anxiety is another example. I can’t think of one client I’ve had who didn’t suffer from anxiety. Not one. Everybody’s trying to get away from it without stopping to think why anxiety is there in the first place. Anxiety keeps us safe if we’re taking too long to cross the street. It helps us perform under pressure to a certain extent (known as the Yerkes-Dodson law). It wakes us up in the middle of the night if we hear a noise. Anxiety is normal—in healthy doses. Copious amounts of anxiety, however, are not helpful. Take general anxiety disorder (GAD), for example. At the epicenter of GAD is the quicksand effect: a fixation on striving to get out of it. The more one fixates on avoiding their anxiety, the more anxiety develops about the anxiety.

So, what do you do? If control is a “thing” for you and giving it up feels scary (or if your initial response to reading that was “Oh, I’m not doing that”), then my next article for paid subscribers will share a few strategies on how to climb out of this self-imposed quicksand.

If you’d like to stay up to date with new article releases, please consider subscribing.

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Whenever a new client comes into therapy I do an intake form, which is basically an opportunity to collect historical and personal information for future contact or in the case of emergency. More importantly, it’s an opportunity to 1) build rapport and 2) establish (for me) a baseline of body language. It’s not likely someone will lie about their name, address, email, phone number, number of kids, etc…, so it gives me a good opportunity to view their body language while they tell what I believe to be their truth. It’s when there’s discontinuity in their non-verbals that I begin to raise the red flag.

There are three things—three Cs—to look for when it comes to assessing one’s body language:

Context. Does their behavior match the environment? For example, just because somebody is sitting or standing with crossed arms doesn’t mean they’re angry or defensive, they may just be cold. That’s context.

Clusters. A single gesture isn’t enough, we’re looking for three or more. Settling for just one reminds me of that scene from Super Troopers:

Here’s the fully monty in case you have no idea what I’m talking about:

Congruence. Do the non-verbals align with each other? For instance, incongruent body language would be somebody who says they’re interested while leaning back in their chair, feet crossed and retracted backward, hands sandwiched between thighs, and sunken shoulders/low hanging neck, while telling me, “I’m SOOO excited to be here!”

Back to Dale…

With every personal question I asked him, Dale answered without hesitation while maintaining consistent eye contact and leaning forward in his chair, his arms crossed over his lap—a non-verbal show of defense which is typical for clients who are uncomfortable being there. It was when I asked him about his alcohol use that his eyes dropped to the floor, sat back, closed his eyes, rubbed the back of his neck, pursed his lips, and looked off center. Let’s break this down to see why this was a lie:

Eyes dropped to the floor. This was inconsistent (i.e. incongruent) with his baseline behavior leading up to this question, and when I revisited the topic later, I got the same avoidance of the eyes.

He sat back. Sitting back in a chair after leaning forward can suggest a couple things. It may mean disinterest, disagreement, or an unconscious attempt to flee a problem. Here, the problem for Dale was the question—it made him uncomfortable—so in an attempt to find any security he could, he sat back, away from the problem.

Closed his eyes. As children we learn to see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil, and anything that conflicts with those three manifests as covering our eyes, ears, or mouth, respectively to help ourselves feel better about the problem. This was Dale’s attempt to see no evil, which was the lie he was telling.

Rubbed the back of his neck. The chakra system is a cluster of nerve centers that run (roughly) vertical up and down the midline of the body front and back, starting with the crown at the top of the head and running downward toward the perineum (which is a $50 word for taint). Each chakra has its own responsibilities for governing bodily functioning (where bodily encompasses emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects too—not just physical). Here’s a diagram and a brief rundown of each:

1. Root. The right to be here and to have, which is connected to sexuality.

2. Sacral. The right to feel and to want. This is your life force energy.

3. Solar Plexus. The right to act in the world, to be free, this is your power. Holding on, letting go.

4. Heart. The right to love and be loved unconditionally. Connected to love. Reaching out, taking in.

5. Throat. The right to be seen and heard. Connected to expression and creativity.

6. Third eye. Basic right to see. Connected to meditation.

7. Crown. Bliss. Right to know. More of a complete surrender than a certain quality.

The chakra system is an incredible framework to follow and is eerily accurate, but that’s the topic for another article.

Anyway, when Dale rubbed the back of his neck he was responding directly to the nerve centers that activated through the throat chakra, as the throat chakra was saying, “Hey! That’s a lie and it directly conflicts with how I want to be seen, heard, and express myself!”

Pursed his lips. Say no evil—another sign that fits the cluster set from above. This was also the first time he did so (incongruent).

Looked off center. See no evil, again.

There you have it. A brief rundown of the 3Cs of non-verbal communication. Finally, I want to highlight that just because somebody looks away when talking to you (as Dale did) doesn’t mean they’re lying. You always want to consider the 3Cs of context, clusters, and congruence because otherwise you may be jumping the gun.

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She was a top shot in her class and remains a high performer in everything she does.

Dana loves the hunt—the dopamine release when she’s finally caught her prey. She marks her accomplishment as another tick mark and begins another hunt.

Unfortunately, Dana’s tired. She’s tired of chasing and tired of the feelings of inadequacy that feed her pursuit. She just wants to be “normal” without imposter syndrome. Sorry Dana, there is no such thing as “normal”.

“But I like chasing because I want to be better, I want to be a high performer, I want to be better. I need more skills.”

“Of course you do, because there’s a payoff when you do. You feel better about yourself, right up until there’s nothing left to chase. Then your mind starts telling you the I’m-not good-enough story and begins looking for something else to achieve. And the cycle continues.”

High performers like Dana think their fear is what motivates them. No, your fear is what beats you down. That’s why you’re in therapy.

Imagine this…

You’re running a dog sled race, and you whip the dogs to run faster. You win the race, but the dogs are too beat down, tired, and sore to race again.

Alternatively, you hang a piece of meat in front of their faces (be creative) that they chase after and get to eat when they win.

Who’s in a stronger position to race again?

The issue for Dana isn’t that she lacks the skills to improve, it’s that she doesn’t know how to use her skills to improve her feelings of lack.

Dana’s challenge isn’t that she feels inadequate, it’s that she’s inadequate at feeling.

She’s always chasing. Always pursuing. Always focused on what’s next, not on what’s here. Always looking where she wants to go while ignoring where she already is. She thinks she’s chasing the next big achievement, but she’s really running from herself.

Emotional avoidance is probably the number one reason people come into therapy. They want to stop feeling depressed. Be happier. Feel more connected with their spouse (and therefore stop feeling alone). The thing is, not one of these feelings can exist on their own; they must co-exist with their opposite. You can’t have love without fear, sadness without joy, depression without elation. Emotions don’t exist in a vacuum. Sure, sometimes unwanted emotions are more pronounced but trying to get rid of them will never happen. The next article for paid subscribers will look more closely at emotional avoidance and what Dana can do.

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I know what you’re thinking, and it probably rhymes with “WTF.”

Focusing your efforts on self-acceptance only perpetuates the construct of a divided self. It’s like a dog chasing its tail. By trying to accept some disavowed part of the Self, you only perpetuate the very division you’re trying to make whole. In other words, you’re pretending that somehow the self that needs to be accepted isn’t the self that is doing the accepting.

If you’re familiar with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, then parts work isn’t what I’m talking about. What I’m referring to is the part of us that notices our own thinking, feelings, intentions, body, and interactions.

The truth is, there is no separate self to accept because doing so would suggest a final version of self to accept, which will never occur. Just as moments are strung together like an array of dominoes, the self is constantly evolving with no end in sight. And because moments are constantly changing, that means the self is constantly changing too, which also suggests that so, too, must our acceptance.

But here’s the main point I want to share: if you struggle with self-acceptance, change your relationship with it. In other words, stop trying to accept yourself and instead become an accepting self—a constantly evolving center of awareness that restarts with each moment and, therefore, never strives to know the “right” self but rather always accepts oneself as right.

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Inspired by Bruce Tift’s book Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation

As I mentioned in the article All The Training In The World Can’t Prepare You For This, grief assumes its own “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy: it doesn’t ask for permission to enter your life, and it never tells you before it does.

When someone is experiencing grief, the natural inclination is to want to help them, which we assume is accomplished by removing the grief—or at least lessening the effect of it. How we do this is through unhelpful platitudes of encouragement with their typical responses, such as:

“Well, they’re in a better place now.”

Response: Oh really? Have YOU been there? How the hell would you know?

“He/she is always with you.”

Response: Really, where? Do you see him? I don’t see him. If he’s here then why hasn’t he said hello? And if you can see and talk to him, then why don’t you ask him where Jimmy Hoffa is because THAT’S a puzzle I want to solve.

“I know how you feel.”

Response: Oh, do you? When did you learn to read hearts and minds? You can’t possibly know how I feel. You weren’t close to her, you barely knew her and you don’t know our connection. But since you think you know, why don’t you tell me how I feel so I can make sense of it. Enlighten me.

“It could always be worse.”

Response: Thanks, asshole.

“They wouldn’t want you to be [upset/angry/sad…].”

Response: How do YOU know what they want? So, let me get this straight. So-and-so doesn’t want anyone to miss them and instead, they just want to be dead and for us to go about our normal day? Does that even make sense to you?

Nobody wants to be told any of these things. They’re not helpful, they’re not encouraging, and they generally make the other person feel worse because now they feel disconnected from you, too.

Try This Instead

Recently I had a client who experienced significant loss within a short time period. She works long days as a police officer and when she comes home, she doesn’t want to cry because she wants to remain “strong” for her children.

“What makes you think holding back tears is ‘strong’?” I asked. She was taken aback. Up until this moment, she had always associated crying with weakness.

Do you want your kids to harbor their feelings and never tell you anything?

Would you tell your children to suppress their emotion or “deal with it later?”

Do you want to teach your children how to label like this?

These were all questions I asked, to which she responded with an emphatic no. She saw crying as weak, and by holding back her tears she thought she was being strong. But the truth is, she was behaving contrary to the strength she was capable of. She was demonstrating exactly what I talked about in the article The Warrior and the Warfighter: Metaphors For What It Means To Be A Man (yes, it applies to women, too). When I told her it’s not only natural to cry but healthy and therapeutic, her eyes opened up and her shoulders slouched as if I had just removed a 40lb pack off her shoulders. She wiped away tears. At the end of the session, she thanked me for learning that it was okay to cry, and all I did was validate how she felt with what she’s been wanting to do this whole time.

Validation is the single most important gift you can give anyone.

What is validation? To validate somebody is to acknowledge the other person’s feelings without judgment or criticism. It is accepting that how they feel, is how they feel. It’s not right, it’s not wrong. It just is. Invalidating someone’s feelings is to deny, ignore, or reject how they feel. Where this shows up most often is in parenting, and I shared how invalidating a child’s emotions creates insecure attachment in this article. Similarly, invalidating a partner’s feelings only creates disconnection in relationships.

When you invalidate, you disconnect and disengage from the relationship.

And yes, it’s easy to overcomplicate things when trying to decide what to say to people experiencing grief, anxiety, depression, sadness, or any other uncomfortable feeling. Oftentimes we want to solve other people’s problems, thinking that offering positivity will displace the negativity they’re experiencing. Don’t do that. Instead, just shut up. Stop thinking about what to say next and just listen. Then, validate them with something like:

✔️ “This must be such a hard time for you having to balance work and the grief of your friend/family member.”

✔️ “You must feel so alone with your best friend gone who you enjoyed so many good times with.”

✔️ “You miss them so much.”

That’s it. That’s all you have to do. If intuiting emotion is too difficult for you because you’re a dude and emotions are scary, keep it simple with, “This must be such a difficult time.” Then stop talking, and repeat. AND, if you’re a dude and emotions ARE scary for you, then ask yourself what it means to be a man, because if it means protecting others and doing hard things, then all the more reason to run toward your own fear.

I’ve always believed a police officer’s job, for example, to be way harder than anything I ever did as a SEAL because, after all, we had top tier training, resources, selection processes, and a culture with a common purpose that left zero room for BS. Not so with police.

Police lack funding. They lack resources. They lack a suitable selection process that weeds out, well, weeds. Don’t get me wrong, there are cracks in every system—even ours—but some cracks really disrupt the entire foundation. Their training is limited and when they do have the opportunity to train, it’s the last thing they want to do after a 12 or 16-hour day. Unfortunately, police are expected to perform any range of tasks with this lack of training, such as rescuing a cat out of a tree on one call to confronting a barricaded shooter on the next. Don’t even get me started about family—that’s a whole other post.

Now, many situations can be trained for. Even killing can be trained for. In David Grossman’s book On Killing, he shared a study conducted by S.L.A. Marshall, who found a low ratio of rounds fired vs. hits for soldiers in WWII. He attributed this to the soldiers’ humanity and growing up in an equitable society. Now, while such a benevolent disposition may make for a great civilian, it makes for a terrible soldier. So, new training was instituted to improve soldiers’ hit rates, such as switching from bull’s eye targets to silhouettes to mirror the human form that the soldier would see on the battlefield. Distances changed, too, from 300 yds down to 20 yds.

However, these weren’t the only factors that led to an increased hit rate. Camaraderie was important. Support from leaders and peers for soldiers’ actions was important. Justification for why soldiers pulled the trigger was important. Unfortunately, many of these are missing in police culture.

But there was one thing the soldiers couldn’t train for—one thing that still, to this day, contributes to the psychological weight a soldier or police officer carries around with them. This one thing invades, akin to the silent warrior I talked about in the article the silent warrior is killing one’s mental health.

This one thing shows up unannounced. Unwanted. Unasked. It’s shameless and it doesn’t care if you’re sitting with your friends, giving a speech in front of an audience, or driving in your car. This subtle invader shows up whenever the hell it wants for as long as it wants, or until it’s finally acknowledged. Like an annoying little brother who just won’t stop tugging on your shirt tail, this little invading bastard just wants to be part of your life, and the more you push it away the stronger it shows up. Just like that annoying little brother, it persists because you resist.

What is this thing, you ask? Grief.

I’ve had several clients come into therapy to talk about grief. In two cases, the clients experienced death of more than one family member within a week. These are police officers, and in the areas they serve they see death weekly, sometimes daily. But when it comes to losing someone close to you, there’s just no training for that. No protocol for how to deal with loss because, here’s the thing: it’s not just the person you lost, it’s the future you had with them. The shared joy. The good times. The memories to be made. The hope of a future together. And now that hope is gone, abandoned by the memories of the past which, by definition, are “gone” too. That’s what makes loss so difficult. It’s just an empty void that continues to be empty.

In both client cases, neither officer afforded themselves time to grieve. They just packed the grief away somewhere deep down in their soul and carried on with the job—until they couldn’t any longer. Hence the reason why they’re in therapy.

I have, unfortunately, experienced a lot of grief in my life. I have 57 pictures of friends I’ve lost that are stored on my phone—including one of my best friends—and that’s not all of them. That’s why I always say that the 13 years I spent as a SEAL were what prepared me to become a therapist. Anyway, I share this because there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to grief, such as:

• What it is and isn’t

• Why it’s easier for some people to grieve and harder for others

• What works and what doesn’t

• Whether it’s an emotion or state of being

• Myths about grief

In my next article, I’ll share the most important takeaway a recent client of mine had pertaining to grief. It’s so simple, so profound, and can be applied toward any uncomfortable emotion, not just grief.

Thanks for reading!

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