If you haven’t done the Unwanted Journey Intensive NOW is the time! New groups starting in September! Don’t miss your opportunity to walk in freedom.

Freedom Journey will be here to help support your journey. But if you are struggling to get started. To understand how to take steps to walk in freedom. Then the Unwanted Journey Group Intensive is for you.

Find Out More

To schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation with Brad to see if this group is right for you, reach out today! (Coaching@AldrichMinistries.com)

Space is LIMITED! so don’t delay!

Subscribe now

For the past few weeks, I’ve been asking you to try something that might feel surprisingly unfamiliar. Pay attention to your body.

We started with the idea that your body has a story to tell. Then we practiced some exercises to help us pay attention and listen to the sensations through which your body speaks to you. Last week, we went back to our stories and looked for the ways and the times when we were taught to disregard our body, or even hold contempt for the messages it was sending.

Now we come to the final question: What do I do with what my body is telling me?

Awareness is PART of an answer.

Learning to be aware that your body is speaking (somatic awareness) is the first step in learning to pay attention to your own needs and take better care of yourself.

When you recognize your body says “I’m exausted” you then have a choice. Your story might say - KEEP GOING - men aren’t lazy.

Now what… Your awareness is forcing you to bump directly into your story scripts of contempt and shame.

Because you are noticing what your body is saying doesn’t automatically mean you know how to respond, or even that you can respond differently in the moment.

Learning A New Way

The third column isn’t the “right answer” it is a different way of holding what your body and your story is telling you and trying to find a right way to move foward leaving shame and contempt behind.

Freedom Journey Members & Subscribers: jump down to the bottom to get the link for tonight’s members-only Zoom group at 8 pm.

For the REST of you! I am so glad that so many of you have joined the Freedom Journey! I am thrilled to have you. I want to extend the opportunity to join the Unwanted Journey Group Intensive this fall!

The Unwanted Journey Men’s Intensive Group is an ONLINE group experience to help you to fully understand and change your connection to unwanted sexual behaviors. It is NOT a normal support group! This is an 18-week intensive experience to dive deep into your story and past to understand the why behind your repeated attempts to leave these behaviors in the past.

Take a risk and find out more!

Read more

If you tried it over the past few weeks, I’m going ot guess that you recognized that listening to your body is harder than it sounds. A lot of the time, even when we tune in, the answer we get is “I don’t know what it is saying”. Blank. Nothing. Or maybe it is saying “you're tired”, or “you’re fine” these basic messages we’ve been sorta ignoring for years.

I want you to get curious about how you can keep listening and where that disconnection came from. You were not born disconnected. In fact, you were born very connected to your body’s needs and demands.

Why did you stop listening in the first place?

I had a chance to spend some time with my 18-month-old (adorable) cousin recently. You know what I saw? When she was tired, we knew it. When she was hungry, we knew it. When she bumped something and it hurt, we knew it.

Children inhabit their bodies remarkably well. Then somewhere along the way life starts teaching us different lessons.

Do you remember being taught:
“Stop crying.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“You’re fine.”

“Shake it off.”

“Don’t be so sensitive.”

Our parents, of course, weren't trying to harm us with these admonishments, but a lack of attunement can quickly drift into self-contempt. Take some time to reflect on these story prompts and see if you can find places in your story where you learn to disconnect from what your body has been trying to say.

Story Prompts

• Tell the story of a time you were hurt and were expected to keep going. Maybe it was sports, school, or something at home. What was your body saying? What did the people around you communicate about that pain?

• Remember a time when you were afraid but couldn’t show it. Where were you? Who was there? What did fear feel like in your body? What did you do with it?

• Remember a moment when your body told you that you were uncomfortable around someone. Maybe you wanted to leave, pull away, become quiet, or create distance. Were you able to trust that feeling? What happened next?

• Tell the story of a time you cried—or wanted to cry—and learned that tears weren’t welcome. Who was present? What response did you receive? What did you decide about showing emotion after that?

• Think about a time when you needed comfort but didn’t receive it. What did you need someone to notice? What did you learn to do with that need instead?

• Tell a story from adolescence when your changing or sexual body became a source of embarrassment, shame, fear, or confusion. What did you learn about whether your body and its desires could be trusted?

• Think of a church experience that taught you something about your body. What did you hear about desire, pleasure, rest, sexuality, self-denial, or “the flesh”? How did those messages shape your relationship with your body?

• Tell the story of a time ignoring your body actually helped you. Maybe disconnecting, numbing, pushing through, or shutting down allowed you to survive something difficult. What did that strategy do for you then?

“How do I know what my body is trying to tell me?”

It’s a good question. Because most of us weren’t taught how to listen. We were taught how to override it, to ignore our hunger, to push through exhaustion.

To work harder and just keep moving. In time, we stopped listening to the story that our bodies are trying to tell us. Maybe only pausing when something really hurt.

The truth is your body is talking to you all the time. Your heart rate changes when you enter into a harder conversation. Your shoulders relax when you get to take a short break. Your breathing moves higher in your chest when you need to make a decision.

Your body is talking. You just need to learn how to listen!

Reflection Questions

• What physical sensations do you notice most often throughout the day?

• Which sensations do you tend to ignore or push through?

• When you feel stressed, where does your body notice it first?

• Which part of your body seems to carry the most tension?

• How do you normally respond when your body says, “Slow down”?

• Do you tend to become frustrated with your body or curious about it?

• When was the last time you paused simply to notice what was happening inside you?

• What might your body have been trying to tell you this week?

TL;DR

Your body has been communicating with you all along through sensations, tension, and movement. This week, replace judgment with curiosity and begin asking, “What might my body be trying to tell me?” because healing often begins the moment we stop ignoring the messages we’ve been carrying for years.

Your body. We all have one… do you know much about your own?

For many years, I thought healing happened almost entirely in the mind.

If I could just understand my story...
If I could think differently...
If I could make better choices...Then everything else would fall into place.

While those things certainly matter, I’ve come to realize something important:

Have you ever noticed your shoulders tightening before a difficult conversation? Or your stomach sinking after receiving unexpected news? Maybe your jaw clenches when conflict arises. Maybe your heart races when someone raises their voice. Maybe exhaustion settles over you after spending time with certain people.

These aren’t random physical reactions.

They are part of your story playing out IN your body.

Your body has been paying attention long before your mind caught up.

The word somatic simply means “related to the body.” When I talk about the somatic world, I’m referring to the reality that our bodies are constantly communicating with us.

• Through sensations

• Through tension

• Through restlessness

• Through fatigue

• Through our bodies’ natural responses.

Our bodies often notice what our minds haven’t yet put into words.

"What are you noticing in your body right now?” - It sounds like a very pop psychology, TV therapist question, but it really is getting at this idea that your body does keep the score.

Take a look at these Reflection Questions as you dive into a month of learning how to pay attention to your body and understanding why you forgot this natural part of you in the first place.

Read more

If you’ve followed along this month, you may have noticed something surprising. Loneliness isn’t just about being alone.

It’s about feeling the need to hide who we are, about not feeling able to take the risk of vulnerability.

What would it look like to let yourself be known?

Not by everyone. Not by social media. Not by strangers. By a few trustworthy people. Because healing rarely happens in secret.

FREEDOM JOURNEY MEMBERS:

Join us for a connected discussion on zoom tonight

8pm eastern!

Zoom!

Reflection Questions

I would make these a little more hopeful than previous weeks.

• Who has earned the right to hear more of your story?

• What part of yourself do you work hardest to keep hidden?

• When you imagine someone fully knowing you, what thoughts immediately surface?

• Where have you experienced someone responding to your story with grace instead of judgment?

• What would it look like to move one relationship from casual conversation to genuine connection?

• Is there someone who has been inviting you into deeper friendship that you’ve kept at a distance?

• What is one honest sentence you could say this week that would help someone know the real you?

• What keeps you from believing that you can be fully known and still deeply loved?

TL;DR

Freedom isn't found in pretending you have it all together. It grows as shame loses its power through honest, grace-filled relationships. You weren't created to carry your story alone—and healing often begins with the courage to let one trusted person truly know you.

“I don’t want to burden anyone.”

At first, it sounds humble. Responsible. “Manly”. But if we stay curious for a moment, another question begins to emerge:

Where did you learn that your needs were a burden?

None of us are born believing that. Children naturally reach for connection. They cry when they’re afraid. They run to someone they trust when they get hurt.

They want to be comforted, soothed, and taken care of. They want someone to celebrate with them. They instinctively know they weren’t meant to do life alone.

So what happened? Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that needing people wasn’t safe. Or at least ASKING for our needs to be met wasn’t safe.

Maybe our parents loved us deeply, but they were overwhelmed by their own lives. Often emotions weren’t talked about in our home. We were praised for being “easy,” “independent,” or “low maintenance.”

Maybe every time you expressed hurt, fear, or disappointment, you were told to “toughen up.” Or maybe no one said those words at all; they simply modeled it.

Dad never talked about his struggles. Mom carried everyone else’s burdens but never admitted she had her own. The message was never spoken; it was just lived.

Then culture reinforced the lesson.

• “Man up.”

• “Don’t be soft.”

• “Real men don’t cry.”

• “Handle your business.”

• “Don’t let anyone see you weak.”

Some of us even heard these ideas in church. Serving others became confused with never having needs ourselves. Self-sacrifice became self-erasure.

The problem is that the strategies that helped us survive childhood often become barriers to intimacy in adulthood.

Think about this…

Do you believe that? Have you tried to live that?

Reflection Questions

Read more

If you ask those same men who they would call at two in the morning after their marriage fell apart, after they relapsed, after they lost their job, after they received devastating news from the doctor...

The list becomes much shorter.

Many men couldn’t think of anyone. That’s because many men have acquaintances. Far fewer have friendships.

We spend time together. We watch games together. We work together. We serve together. We joke with each other. But we rarely know one another.

And somewhere along the way we’ve confused activity with friendship. Yet we still feel alone because we don’t have anyone we can turn to in order to share our burden.

In fact, most men have learned to carry others’ burdens but would never think of sharing their own with others.

There is growing evidence that men are becoming increasingly lonely. Not because they don’t want connection, but because they often don’t know how to build it.

We were never taught how to move beyond talking about what we do to sharing who we are.

Think about the last time you met a guy for the first time. How quickly did you get to the question, “What do you do?” Was it the first question, or maybe the 3rd?

Not emotions.

Relationships.

Challenges.

Not heartache.

We can spend years around other men without ever feeling deeply known.

The irony is that most men want exactly what they’re afraid to pursue. Someone who knows them. Someone who will tell them the truth. Someone who will sit with them and just be present.

That kind of friendship requires something many of us were taught to avoid:

Vulnerability.

The result?

A generation of men who are surrounded by people and quietly starving for friendship. There is an epidemic of male loneliness.

The opposite of loneliness isn’t simply more people. It’s deeper people. People who know your story. People who can tell when you’re hiding. People who will ask the second question after you’ve answered, “I’m fine.” Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation.

Reflection Questions

Read more

This month, I want to focus on one emotion that often sits quietly beneath many of the struggles men face:

Loneliness.

The reason I say “quietly” is because men don’t walk around saying, “I’m lonely.”

Instead they say:

• I’m stressed.

• I’m exhausted.

• I’m bored.

• I don’t have any friends

• I’m frustrated.

• I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Most men are lonely without realizing it.

You can be married and lonely.

You can be surrounded by acquaintances and lonely.

You can attend church every week and still feel lonely.

Let that sink in for a minute. You aren’t lonely because you lack people, but because those people don’t really get to see you.

Loneliness is the feeling that no one really knows what’s happening inside of you. It’s carrying struggles alone, unseen, unheard, unknown.

And if we’re honest, many of us have become very good at hiding there.

Does anyone really know me?

Is the question at the heart of loneliness, and it’s the question we’ll spend this month exploring together. Because unwanted behaviors are not simply attempts to find pleasure. They’re attempts to soothe isolation, to feel seen (even if it is fake and only for a moment!)

This month, we’re going to get curious. Not just about loneliness itself. But about the stories, fears, and longings that often surround it.

Because loneliness may not be the enemy. It may be an invitation. An invitation toward the connection you were created for.

Read more

If you’re new here, welcome. If you’ve been here for a while, welcome back.

Since today is a 5th Monday, I thought I would take this opportunity to reintroduce myself and this Freedom Journey substack!

Freedom Journey was born out of a simple conviction: Most lasting change doesn’t happen because we try harder. It happens when we have addressed the roots of our challenges, and then are tending the “garden” of our lives to make the daily choices and changes that lead to lasting freedom.

For many years, I worked with men who were struggling with unwanted sexual behaviors, shame, isolation, broken relationships, and a deep sense that something in their lives wasn’t working. What I discovered was that we were not simply battling bad habits. They were carrying stories. Stories of harm that we had ignored for years. Stories of wounds they had never learned how to talk about. Stories of longing, disappointment, fear, and loss.

We spent years trying to manage symptoms while never exploring what was happening beneath them. Freedom Journey exists because I believe healing requires more than behavior management.

It requires ongoing curiosity. It requires us to learn to stay present with our emotions rather than run from them. It requires understanding the ways our past continues to influence our present. And it requires the courage to let other people know us.

Each month in this space, we explore a different topic related to emotional health, story work, recovery, relationships, and personal growth. Often, these topics are connected to Jay Stringer’s Unwanted and The Journey intensive.

Freedom Journey gives an opportunity for people who’ve done that hard, intensive work a place to continue to reflect and grow!

Each month, we have 4 weeks of challenges:

Also, during week four, paid Freedom Journey members are invited to join a Zoom discussion night where we talk about the topic and discuss how we all can keep growing on our freedom journey!

I’m glad you’re here. I hope that you’ll join us as a paid member to have full access to the discussion questions & monthly Zoom!~

I’ll tell you a secret. Freedom Journey isn’t a money maker for me, it is a way for me to give back to the community of men who have worked really hard to go through the intensive process and want to continue to grow. I hope that you will consider joining us to continue your freedom journey!

A Little About Me

I started Freedom Journey with men who went through the Jay Stringer, Unwanted Journey Intensive with me. Since that time it has expanded to others who might not know my story.

My name is Brad Aldrich.

For more than twenty-five years, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside individuals, couples, and groups as they navigate some of life’s most difficult and meaningful stories.

I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, speaker, and group leader. My work has been shaped by Narrative and Contextual Family Therapy, training through The Allender Center, and years spent helping people make sense of the stories beneath their struggles.

Along the way I’ve learned something important:

Most of us spend a lot of time trying to fix what we don’t understand. We work harder. We make new commitments. We promise ourselves we’ll do better next time. And sometimes those things help. But often the question we are asking shouldn’t be, What’s wrong with me?” Instead, we need to learn to ask, How did I learn to survive this way?

That question changed my own life.

Like many people, my story includes seasons of pain, disappointment, confusion, failure, and healing. Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned came not through success but through discovering how God was meeting me in places I would rather have avoided.

Today, much of my work at Aldrich Coaching and Counseling Network focuses on helping people explore their stories with honesty and compassion. I have a particular passion for helping men understand the deeper roots of shame, loneliness, unwanted sexual behaviors, and relational disconnection.

I’m grateful you’ve chosen to join me for part of the journey.

For many people, there are only two options when emotions show up:

• Ignore them.

• Or get consumed by them.

So when sadness appears, they push it away. When fear appears, they distract themselves. When shame appears, they numb out. When loneliness appears, they look for something—anything—that will help them not feel it.

The assumption is often:

If I allow myself to feel this, it will overwhelm me.

This isn’t necessarily conscious, but it is a very quick internal process of running away from that uncomfortable reality of feeling ANY feeling.

But what if there is another option? What if you could acknowledge an emotion without becoming controlled by it?

One of the most important discoveries in emotional healing is this:

Feelings are temporary.

Most of us act as if emotions are permanent states. But emotions are more like waves. They rise. They crest. They fall.

If we never discover that emotions will wash over us, that we are actually capable of surviving it, then the only option seems to be to run.

Here is another important lesson about our feelings.

When a feeling hits, we need to become curious. We need to listen to see what it is trying to say. The emotions are real, they are often pointing toward something .

a threat.

a loss.

a fear.

a longing.

But while it is real, they are there, they might not be based in the truth. The thing we precieve as a threat might not really be intenede as one. The thing we fear might be an opportunity for something new.

The goal is not to eliminate emotions. The goal is to learn how to stay present long enough to understand them.

A Simple Practice

The next time you notice a difficult emotion: Pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself:

What am I feeling?

Name it.

Where do I feel it?

In your chest?

Your stomach?

Your shoulders?

Your throat?

What might this feeling be trying to tell me?

Not fix.

Not judge.

Just listen.

Is what the feeling telling me true?

Are there parts of my reaction that are coming from my story rather than this situation?

How has my story shaped how I react to this feeling?

Over time, something remarkable happens. The emotions that once drove you toward escape become invitations toward awareness. And the feelings that once felt dangerous become part of your story rather than something you have to run from.

Reflection Questions

When difficult emotions show up, do you tend to fight them, flee from them, freeze, or become overwhelmed by them?

What emotions are hardest for you to stay present with?

Think about a recent difficult emotion. What did you do with it? Did you avoid it, numb it, express it, or listen to it?

What emotion are you most likely to escape through unwanted sexual behavior, distraction, or dissociation?

What physical sensations do you notice when strong emotions arise?

What feeling have you become more aware of during this month’s journey?

What would it look like to stay present with that emotion the next time it appears?

TL;DR

Emotions are not problems to solve or enemies to defeat. This week, practice staying present long enough to listen to what your feelings may be trying to tell you, trusting that you are capable of experiencing them without being controlled by them.

Zoom Group

Why? Because for many of us, emotions were never simply emotions. They became associated with danger. Or at least with being in trouble.

As children, we are constantly learning lessons about emotions. Through our experiences. Emotions are biological responses to events. But many of us learned how to manage or hide our emotions because they weren’t accepted.

We learn by watching how the people around us respond.

• What happens when I am angry?

• What happens when I cry?

• What happens when I am afraid?

• What happens when I need comfort?

Those experiences begin teaching us what is safe and what is not.

Maybe in your family anger exploded.

Maybe sadness was ignored.

Maybe vulnerability was mocked.

Maybe your emotions were treated as inconvenient.

Maybe the people around you were overwhelmed by their own emotions. So you learned not to add yours to the pile.

This is especially true for many men. We often receive messages like:

• Be strong.

• Don’t cry.

• Get over it.

• Toughen up.

• Stop being so sensitive.

• Handle it yourself.

The lesson becomes clear, don’t show your emotions. But emotions don’t disappear because we aren’t allowed to show them.

As children, we are remarkably adaptive. If expressing sadness creates rejection, we learn not to show that we are sad. If fear creates shame, we learn not show that we are afraid. If loneliness is dismissed, we will learn not to need anyone, at least on the surface.

Feelings don’t actually disappear. They simply go underground and than leak out in other ways.

The goal is not simply learning how to feel. It’s learning that feelings are no longer dangerous. That sadness won’t destroy you. That fear won’t consume you. That loneliness won’t kill you.

Emotions are not enemies to defeat, they are messengers trying to tell us something important.

Reflection Questions

• Growing up, which emotions felt safe to express in your family?

• Which emotions felt unsafe?

• When you were upset as a child, how did the adults around you typically respond?

• Were there emotions that consistently got you into trouble?

• What did you learn from those experiences?

Vocab Of Emotions

• Looking at the Emotion Vocabulary Chart, which categories feel most uncomfortable for you today?

• What emotion do you most quickly distract yourself from when they appear?

• What feelings feel dangerous, embarrassing, weak, or unacceptable to you?

• Where do you think you learned that?

• When you experience a difficult emotion today, do you respond as the adult you are now—or as the child who first learned how to survive it?

Weekly Practice

This week, instead of asking:

“How do I get rid of this feeling?”

Try asking:

“When did I first learn this feeling wasn’t safe?”

You may discover that your emotional reactions make far more sense than you realized.

TL;DR

Many of us don’t avoid emotions because they’re painful—we avoid them because somewhere in our story we learned they were unsafe. This week, get curious about where those lessons came from and how they may still be shaping your life today.

What are you trying not to feel?

For some of you, that question may have immediately brought something to mind.

• Loneliness.

• Fear.

• Shame.

• Disappointment.

For others, the answer may have felt much less clear.

And that’s often because we’ve become incredibly skilled at staying distracted- or even dissociated.

The truth is that most people don’t consciously decide to avoid their emotions.

Instead, they fill their lives with enough activity that they never have to sit still long enough to notice them. We looked at dissociation a few months ago. This avoidance of emotion is a primary cause of emotions.

When was the last time you sat in silence? No music, no TV, no podcast, and no work that you were doing. Just silence?

We have a hundred different ways to leave ourselves without ever leaving the room. And because these distractions often look productive or harmless, we rarely question them.

The challenge isn’t that busyness is bad. The challenge is that busyness can become a hiding place. A place where difficult emotions never get a chance to surface.

Because emotions that aren’t felt don’t disappear. They simply wait and leak out in other ways.

Often through anxiety.

Sometimes through anger.

Sometimes through exhaustion.

Sometimes through a sense of disconnection that we can’t quite explain.

AND

Sometimes through unwanted sexual behaviors.

Reflection Questions

• What are your most common distractions when you feel stressed, lonely, overwhelmed, or uncomfortable?

• Do the distractions you choose change based on the mood you are feeling?

• When was the last time you sat quietly with no distractions for more than fifteen minutes?

• What feelings tend to surface when life becomes quiet?

• What emotions do you suspect might be hiding underneath your busyness?

• What kinds of distractions feel healthy and restorative, and which ones feel more like escape?

• If all your usual distractions disappeared for twenty-four hours, what feelings do you think would demand your attention?

  ---

Emotional Identification

One of the challenges with emotional avoidance is that after years of staying busy, distracted, and disconnected, many people lose touch with their emotional vocabulary. Using a tool like this can help!

Vocab Of Emotions

TL;DR

Distraction isn’t always the problem—but it can become the place where emotions disappear. This week, pay attention to your busyness, your screens, and your escapes; they may reveal the very feelings you’ve been trying not to feel.

We explored how easy it is to disconnect from ourselves when life becomes overwhelming. We talked about learning to pay attention to our bodies, our emotions, and our needs. We challenged the lie that self-care is selfish and began building rhythms that help us stay present instead of waiting until we’re in crisis.

But all of that raises an important question: If paying attention to ourselves is so important, why do we work so hard to avoid it?

Because if we’re honest, most of us don’t naturally move toward difficult emotions. We move away from them.

We stay busy. We distract ourselves. We throw ourselves into work.

We scroll. We binge-watch. We obsess. We fantasize.

We eat. We drink. We isolate.

We look for almost anything that will help us not feel what we’re feeling.

Not because we’re bad.

Not because we’re weak.

Because we’re human. Pain hurts. Disappointment hurts.

Loneliness hurts. Shame hurts. Fear hurts.

The problem is that what begins as protection often becomes a prison.

The emotions we refuse to feel don’t disappear. They simply go underground.

They show up later as anxiety. Anger. Numbness. Depression. Relationship conflict. Dissociation. And often, unwanted sexual behaviors.

Many people spend years trying to change behaviors without ever asking a deeper question:

What am I trying not to feel?

That question sits at the heart of this month’s freedom journey. Because unwanted behaviors are often less about pleasure than they are about relief.

Less about desire than escape. Less about what you’re moving toward than what you’re trying to get away from.

This month we’re going to slow down and get curious. Not just about what you do. But about what you feel. And perhaps even more importantly:

What feelings you’ve spent years trying not to feel.

Members Don’t Forget- Tonight is May’s

Zoom Meeting

8pm eastern

Reflection Questions

• When you are stressed, overwhelmed, or emotionally uncomfortable, what do you most naturally turn to for relief?

• Think about the last time you found yourself wanting to escape through an unwanted behavior, excessive distraction, or dissociation. What was happening in your life in the hours or days leading up to it?

• Which emotions are easiest for you to experience?

• Which emotions are hardest for you to experience?

• Growing up, what emotions were welcomed in your family?

• What emotions were discouraged, punished, or ignored?

• When was the last time you felt:

  • Lonely?

  • Ashamed?

  • Afraid?

  • Rejected?

  • Powerless?

• What did you typically do when those emotions surfaced?

• Do you talk about them, distract yourself, stay busy, withdraw, fantasize, work harder, or something else?

• As you begin this month’s journey, what feeling are you most afraid to face?

• And what might become possible if you no longer had to run from it?

TL;DR

Most unwanted behaviors aren’t simply about what you’re doing—they’re often about what you’re trying not to feel. This week, instead of focusing on changing your behaviors, get curious about the emotions underneath them and begin asking yourself: “What am I trying not to feel right now?”

Subscribe now

A lot of times we don’t think about self-care until something is already going wrong.

Until:

• The stress is overwhelming

• The marriage feels disconnected

• The anger starts leaking out

• The exhaustion becomes impossible to ignore

• The dissociation takes over

• The unwanted behaviors slide back into our lives

Then suddenly, self-care feels urgent. But healthy self-care is NOT just an emergency rescue plan. It’s supposed to function more like preventive maintenance. You don’t wait for your car engine to explode before changing the oil. You don’t wait until the roof collapses before paying attention to the leak.

And yet so many people treat their body, emotions, and soul that way. Ignoring the warning signs. Pushing through exhaustion. Waiting until things fall apart before responding.

Reflection Questions

Awareness

• Do you tend to practice self-care consistently, or only when things are already falling apart?

• What warning signs do you usually ignore until they become impossible to avoid?

Patterns

• In what areas of life are you good at preventive maintenance?
  (work, finances, home, car, yard)

• Why do you think it’s harder to apply that same mindset to yourself?

Rhythms

• What small rhythms help you stay grounded and connected?

• Which rhythms tend to disappear first when life gets stressful?

• What usually pulls you away from caring for yourself consistently?

Reframing

• What would change if self-care became part of your normal rhythm instead of an emergency response?

• What is one small act of preventive self-care you could build into your weekly routine?

Freedom is not sustained by occasional rescue.

It’s sustained by consistent care.

Caring for yourself is selfish.

Most of us didn’t learn that directly. No one sat us down and said:

• “Ignore your needs.”

• “Disconnect from your body.”

• “Push yourself until you collapse.”

But we learned those lessons anyway.

Sometimes from our parents.

Sometimes from the church, or our youth pastor.

Sometimes simply from watching the adults around us abandon themselves over and over again.

Verses about sacrifice and serving others were interpreted through the lens of self-neglect. “Deny yourself” became:

• Ignore your exhaustion

• never say no

• never slow down

• Never prioritize your own care

• burnout equals faithfulness

And for many men, especially, strength became confused with emotional suppression. There’s a difference between sacrifice and service, and self-abandonment. There’s a difference between do for others while still remembering the end of that verse, as you would have them do unto you.

Story Prompts

Family Story

• What messages about rest, emotion, or self-care did you see growing up?

• How did your parents respond when they were overwhelmed or exhausted?

• What did you learn about having needs?

• What did you learn happened when you rested?

• How was the word “lazy” used growing up?

Church & Faith

• Were there spiritual messages that made self-care feel selfish?

• Did the adults around you demonstrate healthy limits and rest… or constant exhaustion?

• Service to others is important, but how was guilt and shame used to push that value?

Identity & Shame

• When you care for yourself, what guilt or shame shows up?

• Do you feel more valuable when you are productive than when you are present?

• What part of you still believes your needs are a problem?

You struggle with it because you don’t listen to yourself.

Your body tells you you’re tired.
Your mind tells you you’re overloaded.
Your emotions start to leak out sideways.

And instead of listening to the warning signs

You override it.

Again.
And again.
And again.

Until the only thing left that gets your attention
is when you escape into dissociation.

Not because you want to leave your life.
Because you never learned how to stay in it.

Reflection Questions — Why Self-Care Is Hard

Not Listening to Yourself

• When your body tells you you’re tired, how do you usually respond?

• What do you say to yourself in those moments? (“I need to push through…”, “I don’t have time…”, “I don’t deserve rest”…)

• How often do you override what you’re feeling instead of responding to it?

Recognizing the Warning Signs

• What are your most common early warning signs of being overloaded? (The “low tire pressure light rather than the check engine light.”

  • Physical (tension, fatigue, headaches)

  • Emotional (irritability, numbness, anxiety)

  • Mental (fog, distraction, overwhelm)

• At what point do you usually notice them—early, or only when it’s intense?

• What would it look like to respond earlier?

Why You Override Yourself

• What feels more uncomfortable: slowing down or pushing through?

• What do you fear might happen if you actually listened to your needs?

• Who would be most upset if you listened to your needs? You, others?

Beliefs That Get in the Way

• What messages have shaped how you think about rest and self-care?

  • “Rest is lazy,”

  • “I should be able to handle this,”

  • “Other people matter more.”

• Which of those still feel true for you?

• Which of those might need to be challenged?

Remember the Self-Care Exercise in the Unwanted Journey Group?

We forced you to take time and money to give self-care a try. The goal wasn’t to perfect your self-care routine, but to understand your own resistance to it.

Part of the goal was to help you develop plans to incorporate self-care into your daily life.

The self-care “grid” was a tool to help you get ideas for types of self-care you could build into your regular day.

Download the Self-Care Grid

The Self-Care Grid

Looking Back — Your Experience

• When you did the self-care exercise, what did you actually choose to do?

• What part of that experience felt good or life-giving?

• What part of it felt uncomfortable, awkward, or unnecessary?

Awareness in the Moment

• Right now, how would you describe your energy level?

  • High (restless, anxious, keyed up)

  • Low (tired, drained, flat)

• How much time do you realistically have today for yourself?

Matching Your Needs

• Based on that, which part of the grid are you in right now?

• What is one form of self-care that would actually match that space—not ideal, but realistic?

Practicing Alignment

• What would it look like to respond differently this time?

• What is one small, specific action you can take today that fits your time and energy?

What would change if you started choosing self-care that actually fits your life… instead of waiting for the perfect moment?

Men who are walking in freedom and then find themselves back drinking from the same poison.

Here is the reality:

Most men don’t fall back into unwanted sexual patterns because they lack discipline.

They fall back because they’re exhausted.

Because they’ve been running on empty for too long…
ignoring their body, pushing through stress, telling themselves they’re “fine”. until they’re not.

When that moment hits, they don’t choose freedom.
They choose relief. Escape. Dissociation.

That’s where old patterns come back.

Not because you’re weak. Not because you lack willpower.
Because you’re depleted.

This month, we’re going to challenge something most of you have believed for a long time:

Self-care is not a luxury.
It’s how you stay free.

If you don’t learn how to care for yourself, you will eventually look for a way to escape yourself.

Calendar update: This month’s members-only Zoom meet-up will take place one week later, on June 1st (due to Memorial Day), at 8:00 pm Eastern time!

Reflection Questions — Week 1

Awareness: Where Are You Running on Empty?

• Where in your life right now do you feel most depleted?

• What are the early signs your body gives you when you’re getting worn down?

• How long do you usually ignore those signals before doing something about them?

• What would it look like to treat your exhaustion as a warning… instead of something to push through?

Pattern Recognition: What Happens When You Don’t Care for Yourself?

• Think about the last time you fell back into an old pattern—what was going on in your body and life leading up to it?

• Were you tired, stressed, overwhelmed, disconnected… or all of the above?

• What did you actually need in that moment that you didn’t give yourself?

Dissociation vs. Care

• Last month, we talked about our normal ways of dissociation. Can you tell the difference between needed rest and avoidance?

• What would it look like to respond to that same moment with care instead of escape?

Beliefs About Self-Care

• When you hear the phrase “self-care,” what is your immediate reaction?

• Do you see it as necessary, optional, selfish, or something else?

Moving Toward Change

• If it were true that self-care is really how you stay free, what would need to change in your life?

• What is one small way you could care for yourself this week that you would normally ignore?

Knowing when to stay engaged… and when it’s actually wise to st…

Read more

Long before it became a pattern you’re trying to change, it was a skill you learned. A way of coping. A way of staying okay when something in your world didn’t feel safe, seen, or manageable. You didn’t randomly become someone who disconnects, you learned how to leave because, it worked. It helped.

For many of us, dissociation developed in environments where we couldn’t change what was happening around us.

• Homes that felt chaotic or unpredictable

• Parents who were rigid and didn’t see what was going on in our lives

• Relationships where emotions weren’t acknowledged or welcomed

• Moments of fear, shame, or overwhelm that were too much to process

As a kid, you didn’t have the power to change your environment.
So instead, you learned to change your experience of it.

You learned how to:

• go quiet internally

• numb out what you were feeling

• disappear into your thoughts

• distract yourself just enough to get through

And here’s what matters:
That wasn’t a weakness. This is a protective mechanism. This was a God given ability to protect you.

Your mind and body found a way to protect you when you didn’t have better options.

But what helped you survive then can quietly become the way you relate to your life now. The same instinct to leave when things feel overwhelming… still shows up in stress, conflict, boredom, and desire.

This week isn’t about judging that pattern. It’s about understanding it.

Story Prompts

Think about these questions and find a few that seem to bring you closer to your childhood self.

• When do you remember “checking out” as a kid?

• What was happening around you when that became necessary?

• What emotions felt unsafe or overwhelming in your home?

• Who noticed (or didn’t notice) your emotional world growing up?

• When you were overwhelmed, what did you do to cope? Even before USB entered your life.

• Were there places you went mentally to escape? Were there activities that you did? (music, video games, reading, drawing)

• What did it protect you from feeling?

What protected you then may now be limiting you, but it still deserves respect. You’re not trying to eliminate a part of you. You’re learning to understand it, honor what it did for you, and begin to choose something different when you no longer need it in the same way.

TLDR

• Dissociation didn’t start now—it started somewhere in your story

• You learned to disconnect because it helped you cope

• As a kid, you couldn’t change your environment—so you changed your experience

• What once protected you may now be limiting you

• This week is about understanding, not judging

• Awareness of your story creates the possibility for new choices