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I lost my first marriage, my military career, my grandfather, and a friend, all in a short stretch of years. I was still in my twenties. And I had no idea how to face any of it.
This is the last video in the Foundation Stones series, and it’s where I tell you what all seven of them were actually for. Not the point. The preparation. Every man is going to face storms, loss, change, things falling apart, and some things that work out but still shake everything up.
I lived through a mountain of storms and got almost nothing out of them for years. I ran instead. Screens, distractions, spirituality used as a way to skip grief instead of feel it. I played the victim with my divorce and with losing my military career, and I stayed stuck because I was too busy being the victim to ask the one question that mattered: what was my role in this?
What actually got me unstuck wasn’t someone protecting me from that question. It was finally facing it. And what helped after that was grief, not resentment. Some losses really are someone else’s fault. Real abuse is not on you. But the losses that were mine to own, I had to grieve them before I could let them go.
Being storm ready doesn’t mean it won’t hurt. It means you have a rhythm, a circle, a way to stay present instead of running.
Next time: we start naming the specific storms one by one, beginning with loneliness.
Take the assessment at StormReadyMen.com. If you’re married, send your wife to TheCoupleCure.com.
Timestamps
0:00 The point was never the stones
0:17 Lost everything in a short stretch
0:29 What the seven stones were for
0:47 Storms are not the enemy
1:07 The loss run: 1992 to 1995
1:31 A friend I met at 12
2:29 Using faith to skip the pain
3:50 They stack on top of one another
4:20 I ran to every distraction
4:37 It’s still waiting for you
5:29 The story I told about who was at fault
6:00 Playing the victim with the military
7:36 The one question nobody asked
8:08 Some losses are someone else’s fault
8:32 The antidote is grief
9:03 Not every storm is a disaster
9:47 Resilience: transformed by the inevitable
11:12 30 years later
11:24 Name one loss this week
11:47 Next: the storm of loneliness
Hashtags
#stormreadymen #mensmentalhealth #addictionrecovery #grief #resilience
“Thief in the Night” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
ISRC: USUAN1600019
