It wasn’t that my life wasn’t enjoyable—I had lots of friends around, I traveled, I cooked, and I had beauty in my life. It was just that when tough or sad feelings came my way, I didn’t think I was supposed to feel any sort of dissatisfaction. So, I ran from my feelings or drowned them sometimes, and now, I consider myself fortunate that the universe sent panic attacks my way and finally woke me up to the reality of what my life had become.
The wake-up call is the turning point; it’s where we hit a fork in the road and decide, consciously or subconsciously, how we’re going to proceed. Much more frequently than not, we continue the running and the numbing, which is just how life goes—we humans don’t often make the perfect decision at the perfect time, and our lives will continue sending us wake-up calls until something changes, one way or the other.
I see this realization as a profound marker of how much I’ve grown and healed—it was like I knew no one was perfect, but at the same time, I didn’t understand how to have grace for myself for being imperfect. I’ve learned we’re all making the best decisions we can with what we know and within the limits of our current capacity. It’s the acceptance of being imperfect and having the bravery to continue trying (while knowing we’re imperfect) that unlocks the potential for extreme growth.
When I was at the fork (I think we’re always at some sort of fork), I realized I was a walking ball of shame. Being a man, I was raised with minimal sympathy and to take responsibility for the state my life was in, and I believed I’d done many things wrong to get myself into such a pickle. I was afraid that if people found out how flawed I was, I’d lose everything.
By now, you might know one of my favorite authors is Glennon Doyle. She came along when I was at the fork and said to me (by way of book):
Hi Matt, I know how to do this. You need to be really honest with yourself and, as much as you can, vulnerable with others who you trust. You must talk about your stupid decisions and share what you’ve done wrong with people who can hold space for you, and by doing so, you’ll learn to love yourself. We’re all messy because life is messy, and by sharing your messy life, as I am doing, you will help others learn to share theirs, and together, we will help each other release the debilitating shame we’re privately holding so tight to.
This is what I heard; not exactly what she said, but it made sense and showed me which path to take. I had been hiding my emotions from everyone (most notably myself), and it quite literally felt like I was about to explode.
Vulnerability starts with admitting we’re not okay and that we need help. So many of us are raised to believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness, especially men because admitting we need help is admitting we have faults.
As I started opening up to my doctors and therapists about my feelings, I saw that, to my surprise, they weren’t judging me and that, actually, their only objective was to help me feel better. I saw how safe I felt and continued sharing sad and scary feelings with my yoga teacher training crew and eventually with friends.
Vulnerability wasn’t easy at first, but at the same time, honestly, it wasn’t that hard. There’s a massive and almost immediate payoff when we’re honest about how we feel because when we know how we feel, we’re able to make changes that make us feel better.
I started making changes to support how I wanted to feel and said goodbye to a couple of really, really important relationships that weren’t serving me anymore. It was fear-inducing, and people questioned me, but I stood by my decisions because they felt right, and years later, honestly, I feel no regret because the changes were what I needed.
While being interviewed on the podcasts, I’m constantly being called brave because I did “the work,” and while I’m not diminishing the bravery it takes to be honest with ourselves, at the same time, once we start seeing the payoffs (and the payoff is almost immediate when we align our lives with our needs), it becomes much more terrifying to remain in situations that need to be changed than it does to make the changes.
