Job almost complete. I’ve got this bunk bed half-deconstructed. Baby is sleeping while the twins are badgering me with endless demands, mostly asking for the millionth time, “when will Mama be home?” A pickup crew is scheduled to arrive in less than an hour. This bed had taken an entire evening to assemble, a detail worthy of sharing in service of my ego. Now, here I am a week later, trying to undo it.
I was cruising along, only a few screws left. Then, as I loosed one side, the entire other side collapsed under its own weight. Ripped all the threads out, wood splintered. It broke, it fucking broke. My mind instantly goes to, “Return compromised. You fucked it up.” I stood there, screw in hand, and felt that old heat rising accompanied by a very mad part of me with a lot to say.
It was that fuck-this energy. Like, are you kidding me? That part of me who wants to rage, to destroy, to swear and complain and blow it all out of proportion. It came on sharp and fast. The same part that has turned molehills into warzones all my life. The same part that would’ve torched the entire day and let my kids and wife feel it every step of the way.
Then something subtle but enormous happened.
I just saw it, like I was sitting on the ceiling observing myself in the room. I felt that part, and instead of letting it run the show, I gave it space and as I did that I really just got it. So I just turned toward it and was like, ‘Yeah man, I get it. You really wanted this to go smoothly. You wanted to be done and for it to be done with no issues. This sucks’. That was it. Just a breath of acknowledgment, just enough compassion to loosen the grip.
This definitely didn’t need to hijack my whole day. That part of me still texted my wife, seeking validation for the outrage. I sent her the picture hoping it would feed the annoyance, but I chuckled at her response: “Whatever, it doesn’t matter.” It was like a balloon deflating and that really helped with the shock effect of what I was noticing internally.
We carried out the plan of the day. Costco delivery. Twins mad about what was being served for lunch and still asking every 5 minutes “When is Mama going to be home?” The baby is up from her nap, a relentless little vacuum, crawling all over the house in search of anything she can put in her mouth while I scramble to intercept the attempts. A few games of hide & seek were had, a few more twin meltdowns, some trampoline bouncing. By the time my wife got home, I was just straight up tired. In the past, this would’ve been my cue to unload.
You have no idea, disaster, non-stop this and that, blah blah blah.
I NEED a break.
This was wild, kids are wild, just chaos, non stop.
But this time… I just welcomed her home.
I was connected to my breath, slow and gentle, barely taking in air to let my system know we were safe and everything was fine, softening my belly as an anchor to bring myself into my body. I was safe. And, I was tired, but not exasperated. And probably because I wasn’t demanding relief, she offered it freely:
“Why don’t you get out for a bit? Go to the beach or something.”
I lit up like a kid. A breather. Cold ocean in March, sunny day, beach solo? LFG. I was all over it.
I jumped in the minivan and drove to the beach, parked, opened the parking app, logged my spot. I walked across the street, shirt off, sun beaming and just soaking that up until I felt warm inside and then dove into the choppy waves. Cold AF. I could taste the salt on my lips and feel the burn on my skin. But then a nice stillness came over me as I was the only one in the water, the entire ocean to myself. I sat in the sun after, warm and grateful.
I made my way back to the car, as I approached I saw a lady pulling out with a yellow slip on her windshield and it sparked my spidey senses.
I saw my van with a yellow slip on the windshield. No way. I could hear the spin of the story before it even had a chance to speak.
This town is a joke.
I paid.
These parking people are a joke.
Curious what the hell happened, I checked my phone. Turns out I never hit “confirm.” No payment went through. The ticket was legit - $50.
The old voice started up again: ‘You idiot. Can’t figure it out. Complete waste of money.’ But I just noticed it… very nonchalant about it.
I said, ‘Yeah, that sucks. Honest mistake. I know you didn’t mean to. You were just trying to enjoy the beach. It’s okay.’ And somehow... it was okay.
No drama. No spiral. Just reality: I didn’t pay. The ticket makes sense. And $50 isn’t a catastrophe. It’s actually $50. And nothing else happened, there was no shoe that dropped. No invisible enemy in the sky punishing me for joy. Just the happenings of a day in life.
Later that night, sitting with it all, I realized something.
These moments, the broken beds, the parking tickets, the kids just being kids are the clearest reflections of the work I’ve been doing for years. They’re small, maybe even boring to someone else. But for me, they’re proof. Proof that I’ve changed. These are the gains.
Not the kind of change that makes for Instagram reels or a powerful bio. I mean the gritty, boring, internal kind of change. The kind that shows up when no one’s watching.
This is the heart of my commitment: to cultivate awareness, and to align myself with the kind of integrity that supports the man I am becoming.A gentle reminder in the discipline of practice, that I will receive what I put into that practice.
The thousands of moments I’ve reacted from a hurt or protective part, those have been the very catalysts that keep reactivating this commitment.
Prentis Hemphill, in What It Takes to Heal, writes:
“Commitment expects our despair but doesn’t waver. It comes from inside us, keeping us steady when we lose hope, or give up, or decide to step away.”
I love the essence of what she captures here… it reminds me of all the times I’ve lost it, wanted to quit, doubted this path but the commitment holds me. My vision carries me.
That vision is pretty simple. To be free. To be loving. To be deeply grounded in my body. To respond to whatever arises with the appropriate quality of presence. To be that Presence.
Hemphill also writes,
“Freedom lives in the gaps, in the nascent and emergent, in the unexamined space between things—but it is there.”
For all the times it’s felt hopeless, every glimpse of that freedom reminds me of the strength inside of me, and the power of staying true to what I’ve committed to.
What I’m doing, what I’m teaching, what I’m practicing, what I’m living, isn’t about becoming “better.” It’s about reinventing my relationship to reality, and to my own humanity.
This work and way of living, the unfolding, the slowing down, the noticing, the loving, is not about rising above my reactions. It’s about learning to be with them. Fully. Tenderly. Without shame.
When I was younger, my responses to reality were always outsized. A mistake meant I was a failure. A mess-up meant I deserved punishment. Anger would spiral into days of disconnection and shame into weeks of self-loathing.
Slowly, very slowly … I’m learning: sometimes the appropriate response to life is just 90 seconds of pure anger felt in my body or a soft aw man, that sucks. And then… release. Presence. Moving on. That’s what I’m practicing, every single day, the best I can.
It’s also what I’m offering to the humans I get to partner with. Not self-improvement in the traditional sense. Not “be better” but be more loving, more real, more you. Not better, just... truer.
Because when I stop trying to outrun my own humanity, when I meet it, welcome it, and hold it… something beautiful happens - I don’t lose power. I gain it. Quietly and steadily.
This is the commitment I’m living into. A stand, not to become better, but to become more loving. To hold space for what arises and to honor the emotional truth of every part, and to walk through this life, chaos and all, with just a little more grace.
Share this post