WTF Happened? Where Is Andy?

0:00 Hello and welcome to real men. Feel I'm your host author. Coach and healer. Andy grant real men feel, is he had to remind men that they are human beings and they have the right, the need and the desire to express all of their emotions. I stopped doing that. I stopped expressing my emotions. I stopped doing this podcast. This is my first episode since October 20 21. I pretty much stopped doing everything last November. I didn't just drop the ball. I punctured it. I crushed it. I fucking destroyed the ball and hit it.

0:42 I didn't want it to ever be found again. Today, I'm going to attempt to share a bit about why? First off, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I let this giant gap of shows go on and on whether this is your first episode or you've been listening for years. You deserve better than me just Vanishing. I even had some guests planned to do last fall and I never did it. I've ignored lots of messages from people wanting to be guests on the show to in the past eight months. I'm going to start by reading something I wrote on Facebook last week. It was July first. My birthday that I finally opened up and Shared what are we going on?

1:32 I considered doing this as a video, but it felt like that might go even more off the rails than writing, To everyone who has reached out in recent months and been ignored. It is me, don't take it. Personally, you were correct. And wondering if something was wrong. I've been extremely withdrawn lethargic and apathetic since November. I had taken some of my deepest training yet with the modern mystery school programs that I look forward to for years and that I was so sure of until I completed them. I was stunned at my reaction. I had and still having an existential crisis, I didn't know what was real and what was I wasn't sure about anything I've thought or done riddled with such deep doubts.

2:21 Not able or perhaps willing to accept what's real. I realized I did not have the faith. The solid belief that I saw in my fellow students, it's very hard to explain, but what I did was pull back Retreat. Withdraw, stop doing anything positive. No podcasts, no men's group, no meditations, no, taking responsibility, or care of anything. I wanted to quit. I wanted to stop being me to stop being here at this time. I had some distorted plan to withdraw and force myself into a corner.

3:01 So they would have to take some action, make some decision good or bad. For eight months. I've just watched each day pass going to sleep, is my favorite part of each day and waking up is the worst I've gone from being in the best shape of my adult life to the worst, all positive daily practices abandoned I wish I could say, I sought help. I can't even say I wanted to feel better. I just want it to stop being I feel horribly ashamed that I'm again in such a dark place.

3:42 Did I choose to stay in it? I hate the worry and concern. I create for my wife and my mother. Did I make no changes? There are plenty of things going on in our world that don't seem good. And I've used them all to justify my shitty mind. Maybe finally sharing this signifies a shift. I don't mean to scare you. I don't mean to disappoint you. You can't help anyone. That doesn't want to be helped. My will to be helped is still in doubt. If I ever created or shared something that helped you awesome do. As I say, not as I do I truly hope that you all treat yourselves far better than I've been treating myself. This message is not any sort of suicide note, it is an attempted explanation and I suppose confession Love and light to you, Andy.

4:47 Hundreds of people responded to that post dozens privately, messaged me. It definitely was the bottoming out it reaching out admitting this was what I needed and this is the first time that I could say, the line, I feel horribly ashamed. Without breaking down without being overcome with emotion and that was something new that really struck me. Shame is the original sin and I'm kind of amazed. I haven't spoken about it before. Perhaps this is the first time I'm going that deep since it is at the bottom of the emotional range, emotional map, this whole experience did feel different like old issues but added a new newer level?

5:43 Your last fall when I was still doing shows and speaking to people and september/october, I could fear feel this fear Rising. Lots of shows about fear. But underneath that fear has been shamed. In fact, I want to talk about that human scale. That scale of emotions, the scale of what's it called? Is from dr. David Hawkins in his book, power versus Force came out in 1994. And he had this this map of human emotions. This this map of Consciousness and at the very peak of it is Enlightenment, he had a scaled measured a scale of zero to a thousand and seven hundred and above was enlightened, it just below Enlightenment is Joy love reason, acceptance, just below acceptances willingness and then there's neutrality kind of the midpoint.

6:37 And you know, when I've worked with people coaching, people always like if you can't accept, you know, your own Your Love, you're reaching for happiness. She of just if he can stick willingness can be the breaking point to all those higher emotions, those higher, vibrations and energies, and just below neutrality is courage. Pride anger below, anger is desire. Hello, desire is fear as I shared. I was a lot of fear going on in my life last fall. Hello, fear is grief. And then apathy. And I was really apathy and bodied, I didn't want to do a thing. I really just watch the clock day after day after day. Below.

7:28 Apathy is guilt. And I felt guilty. For being in this dark hole again and for choosing to it was so much of my choice. I didn't want to be helped, I wanted to feel as bad as I could. Okay, I I mentioned wanting to back myself into a corner to see what I would do. And Below all of those emotions. The very bottom emotion, we can feel is shame. I was ashamed. Of what I've done to myself.

8:11 I was ashamed that I ignored the people that tried to reach out to me. I don't know how many dozens and dozens of emails, phone calls texts that I've ignored of less 8 months. More recently I began responding to people fine nothing, what's up, you know, just make them go away. But Universe kept getting louder. And there were days, you know, three or four people would reach out the same day. That guy. Alright, getting these new ideas. Alright, I gotta break out of this. I've been obsessing plotting hoping wishing to be dead to not be And eventually.

8:59 I had to bottom out. I had to share. And let the plug out of the damn, I was so withdrawn, I was not emotional. I was depressed without feeling I felt like completely disconnected from my body. Last December in a good mood. I had bought tickets to see Metallica their 40th anniversary in San Francisco, but as it got closer, I was like, I do you want me to fucking go? I only went because a friend of mine had bought a ticket and he's meeting me there. But I can still remember being at that show. And thinking, if somehow I was given the chance, the chance of choosing just die right now or see the rest of the show. I thought I would choose death.

9:51 And then in January, my friend had a trip to Egypt which again a year ago from this time trip of a lifetime. So excited. Can't get here soon enough. then, as it was there, I was hoping it would be canceled. I was hoping covid-19 out. But Egypt was so new, so many amazing things, it kind of forced me to present, so I didn't have a horrible experience, but I, I knew I wasn't fully me and again, I was so disassociated from my own self. I can barely remember that trip at all. Side. Shame for all of this. And it's something I've never dug into. I've done shows talking about that. I've been sexually abused as a kid when I was 5 years old and I somehow always thought being able to say that knowing it happened was was all the healing that needed to take place but you know, shame is so embedded in sexual assault victims and I, This whole pattern, it's an old pattern but it's been in a different way.

11:08 Somehow even, even when I was feeling my most suicidal and plotting and planning, I knew I couldn't do it. You know, some people call the suicide the easy way out and it is not fucking easy. It is hard and it's hard because it's not Were Meant to do, right? Life wants us to be here. Other people want us to be here. I might withdraw was so deep and full, it was like I was trying on being dead. I wanted. To see that life went on. I wanted to see that I could be ignored and forgotten easily. And underneath all that is fucking shame. I'm ashamed.

11:53 I dropped the show. I'm ashamed of the men's groups that I was leading and I just fucking abandoned. machine that I created the wars of Credit the worst holiday season of My Life. And I don't, I don't say this for the sake of sympathy to be some kind of martyr. I want you to know that for the last eight months, I often went five days without a shower. I went weeks without leaving my house. I did not exercise meditate Journal, never got a, I was getting monthly massages and healings.

12:34 Nope, none of that shit. I didn't buy a single gift for the holidays. I shut down, as much as I possibly could. I want you to know that. In case. You are now or ever are in a similar state. You can come out of it. I am coming out of it. I have felt Joy, I have felt the love. I've let people, I'm willing to be helped, I'm willing to feel better. I couldn't say that for a long fucking time.

13:17 I'm willing to stop shaming myself for repeating. My oldest mental habits and patterns because they feel the most fucking comfortable. Depression and suicidal thinking are in a way my oldest dearest friends, but their friends that don't fucking help me. They're bad friends, I wanted to get new friends. Again, I tried to force myself into this corner. I tried to become this caged, animal thinking, that I will either jump back into life right away or end it. That was a horrible, horrible plan. I knew it was horrible.

14:05 While I was thinking it, while I was deciding to do this, I knew this was wrong. Yet I persistent Now I'm willing to get help, I am getting help, I've been reaching out and talking, I've things are in motion. I'm here, doing this. I'm going to unpack it all. Again, I don't recall speaking of or even feeling or voicing shame before in my life. So even though it seems and I judge myself that I'm covering the same ground, this is newer deeper, all the healing and growth. I've done is letting me experience and be aware of and conscious and look at and heal the shame, you know, this lowest heaviest emotion. I've stopped in the past that fear and I lived in apathy until I was willing to touch into the shame. So, keep plugging on.

15:04 In my experience suicide is not the easy way out. Life wants us here. Life wants you here. People in your life. Wants you here. Your soul wants you here. part of not part of my not leaving the house for weeks at a time, I know is so I wouldn't be able to act on some of my shittiest, plots and plans So hold my wishing praying, hoping and planning. I knew it was pointless. I know it wasn't gonna do it but that was my spiralling down. Because it sucks.

15:45 Until I wanted to be helped until I was willing to feel better, nobody could do a fucking thing. A stronger aspect of me knows. I have to stick this out. Now, sure you. I don't always like it. I sure every time I have the Dark Night of the Soul, every time I'm in this place, I really expected to be the last Maybe someday it will be. I'm not sure what's next for the show. I think I'll do some more things like this for a little while. I don't know how to want to promise anything that I That I can't be sure that I can deliver on. You know, over the last couple of years, I invested a lot of time and money into room and filled with business, coaches and podcast, coaches and production help. And I'm just back just to me.

16:48 Part of feeling like a flop and Ally part of the doubts of everything I was ever doing was this was real men. Feel, you know, I never grew a massive audience people. I've seem to assume it's much more successful and impactful than it is but you know the people that impacts I do hear from. So Fuck. Am I saying? No. I know, but even part of that, you know, they shame in that, not not being huge, Part of my doubts and existential crisis was, you know, is this helping anybody?

17:28 Am I just spreading or encouraging weakness? But one thing I know for sure, Is that being vulnerable being authentic, being open and honest being myself isn't weak. I can own the district's. This takes courage, this takes bravery for, for lack of a better term. Let's take the fucking balls. So, I'm pretty sure I will talk to you again. I don't know when I'm digging into therapy for the first time in I think 15 years.

18:09 I'm willing to heal the shame to release it so, I can rise back up and You know, I really did live at love and that joy for long periods of time more joy than ever thought was possible for me. So, I know I can get there again, and I know you can get there again or for the first time. But shutting down not feeling, not the way, not the way. Please let me know if this resonates with you at all. Leave a comment. Send me a message if you're interested in more shows like this me just going solo. Until next time, be good to yourself, please. Until next time, be good to yourself, please.