Eventually, what I refused to face on the inside became something I was taking out on everyone around me.

Before I ever found The Work, I spent years trying to hold myself together with whatever was handed to me. Medications started in 2011 after a breakup that knocked the wind out of me and landed me in a psychiatric hospital. From there it was a long cycle of different prescriptions, different doses, and then trying to quit everything cold turkey, which just made me drink even more. I kept telling myself I was fine. But inside, things were falling apart.

Eventually, what I refused to face on the inside became something I was taking out on everyone around me. The people I loved most were getting hit by the emotional stuff I didn’t understand or know how to stop. I tried therapists. I tried group therapy. Nothing clicked. I always left feeling like I was stuck in the same loop, talking about the same problems without ever actually changing.

The real shift didn’t show up as some big dramatic moment. It came in quietly, like a slow reset happening underneath everything. I started feeling like myself again, or maybe for the first time. I realized how much of my life I had spent trying to be who I thought other people wanted me to be. I acted like a character because I thought that was the only way to feel accepted. I ignored my own instincts for years.

About halfway through The Work, something inside me woke up. It hit me all at once, like snapping out of a long dream I didn’t even know I was in. The only way I can describe it is like the red pill moment in The Matrix. Suddenly I could see all the ways I had been living on autopilot for nearly thirty years. And right then, I knew I didn’t want to go back.

Now I feel grateful every single day. I feel calm. I feel present. My life isn’t perfect, and I still have tough moments, but I actually know how to handle them now instead of getting swallowed by them. I think of it like a muscle I’ve built. I can stay aware of what I’m feeling, instead of letting it take me over. And my family feels the difference. With a toddler running around and my wife pregnant, there are plenty of stressful moments. But now I can be the steady one. I can be the calm, comforting presence they need. That alone makes every bit of this worth it. More than anything, I finally feel like myself. And I actually like the man I’m becoming.

Nick - USA