Surrender

A surge of mixed feelings rushed over me as I heard the doctor say, "You have Lyme disease." It was a relief to have an answer after thirteen doctors, hundreds of tests, and years of searching. But over those years of searching, I had progressively gotten worse. I battled depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain, muscle spasms, and more.

The remarkable thing is that I managed to hide most of it from everyone around me — including my wife. No one knew how much pain I was carrying behind a fake smile. I buried it and chased relief in weightlifting, sports, and achievement. I looked like a big strong guy who had it all together. On the inside, I was dying.

I wasn't the husband or father I knew I could be. Instead of coming home excited to see my family, I retreated to my bedroom, exhausted from using all my energy to fake being okay all day. My wife and I grew apart — she slept in a separate room because of my pain and muscle spasms through the night. We were on the verge of divorce. I had lost all hope. I would often beg God to take me.

The question that changed everything

A few weeks after my diagnosis, my wife told me something our youngest daughter — four years old at the time — had said while pointing at a family picture on the wall:

"Will daddy ever be happy again?"

Hearing that broke me. Right then I knew I had to fight, and I had to become the man they deserved, no matter what. The pity party was over. I decided I wasn't just going to get better — I was going to be better than I had ever been.

My thoughts shifted from why me to I am going to beat this. I came up with a phrase: "I do not have Lyme, Lyme has me — and I will win." I disconnected from anything that wasn't serving my healing: what I listened to, what I watched, what I ate, even how often I ate. When people asked how I was doing, I stopped saying "I'm hurting." I said, "I am healing."

I built a routine and stuck to it through the days I had nothing left: intermittent fasting, cold showers, ice baths, saunas, acupuncture, IV treatments, breathwork, and a long list of supplements — all of it alongside my medical care, never instead of it. After a few weeks my health started improving. But I was still nowhere near where I wanted to be.

The glasses

A month after diagnosis, my wife and I took an anniversary trip. She handed me a gift: glasses that let me, colorblind since birth, see red and green for the first time. With tears in my eyes I looked around at a whole new world. I wore them constantly, lifting them up and down to compare the difference.

Then, after a few weeks, I noticed something: I couldn't tell the difference anymore. I had compared so often that I retrained my brain to see red and green without the glasses.

We perceive the world with our minds, not our eyes.

That realization was a massive step. If my brain could learn to see color it had never seen, what else could it learn?

October 13, 2019

One Sunday in October, I joined my wife and kids at church — and for the first time in my adult life, I raised my hand during worship instead of standing with my hands in my pockets. Afterward I went home, changed clothes, put on my headphones, and worked in the yard, asking myself the same question on a loop: there has to be more to life than fear and pain, right?

Feeling completely broken, I stopped working. In desperation I said: "God, I have had enough. I surrender everything to you. I give everything to you."

Suddenly my body felt like a charge of electricity surged through it. The pain left — physically and emotionally. All I experienced was peace and unconditional love. I ran into the house and burst through the door and told my wife, "Your prayer has been answered." She asked, "What prayer?" The one you've been praying — for me to heal.

Eight weeks after diagnosis. Four weeks after I set my intention to heal. I was a completely new version of myself — healthy, happy, and free from the weight of life.

Days later — the commission

Not long after, sitting in stillness on my couch in a quiet meditation, six words arrived — unmistakable, and not from me:

"Be free and do great things."

Not a reward for the healing. A direction for what came next. Everything this site is — the practice, the coaching, the story you're reading — is me doing what I was told.

What was revealed

I didn't fully understand it at the time, but I had also awakened spiritually. I was an average guy with no spiritual background — not a Bible scholar — and part of me kept asking how, and why me? I had surrendered before and nothing happened. What was different?

The difference was me, and finally understanding that everything in life comes down to a choice. I had made choices from fear most of my life, and that fear made me sick. I saw that I was punishing myself — not God. By holding onto grudges, anger, and old failures, by believing I wasn't good enough, I had built the beliefs that built the thoughts that built the emotions that built my reality.

When I set my intention to be healed, I had started renewing my mind without knowing it. God had already answered the prayer — I needed to do my part. I forgave everyone, including and especially myself. I let go of who I thought I was and the story I had been telling. The key to the life I desired was within me the whole time.

I am grateful for all of it, and I would not change any of it even if I could.

If you're fighting Lyme right now

I'm not going to tell you it's simple, and I'm never going to tell you to abandon your medical care — I did the treatments, the protocols, all of it, and they mattered. What I will tell you is that the inner work isn't optional. Your mind, your beliefs, your nervous system, and your spirit are in this fight with you, whether you enlist them or not.

We all have this ability. Everything you need to live the life you desire — and are worthy of having — is within you. It doesn't matter who you are, your religion, or your past. You just have to be courageous enough to go within yourself to find it.