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Mike Kitko

Unlock your true potential

The Human Experience

When I was lost in the world, I identified with the thing that others would perceive as strength and courage.

I led with my identification as a United States Marine, even 20 years after, because that was all I had.

I was lost inside, so I led with what would impress.

The Marine Corps was simply an experience…

Part of my story…

A line on my resume…

Not my identity.

I am a divine soul experiencing humanity.

I am experiencing an amazing marriage, wonderful children, a prosperous business, and being deeply connected to my spiritual roots as a teacher and mentor.

But I am none of that.

They are simply experiences.

I am a divine soul living a human experience.

I don’t have a life, I AM life.

I AM an infinite, eternal, powerful, and abundant soul…

Experiencing this physical world temporarily.

You can experience experiences…

Or remain in them as your identity.

The difference between who you think you are…

And who you really are…

Matters.

Let Them Evolve

Let’s talk about preference versus judgment.

Imagine I have a glass of water sitting here in front of me and I say, “I like my water cold with lots of ice.” And somebody else may say, “That’s stupid. You like ice in your water? You’re frickin stupid.” Why is that stupid?

We judge all the time based on our preferences. Sure, we prefer certain things, but then we project those preferences onto everyone else.

We feel the need to control our environment. It’s purely instinctual. But if we use guilt and shame to impact our environment in ways that we feel will serve us – and hurt others in the process – that’s abusive. If we use coercion and try to trick people into getting them to do what we want them to do, that’s manipulation. 

There are 7.7 billion unique individuals on this planet with us. As soon as we can get all of them to be exactly who we are, and see things exactly the way we see them and make them feel the way we want them to feel, we will have all of this figured out.

Right?

Life gets better when we let others voluntarily evolve – when we allow people to have their own lives. It doesn’t mean we need to be with them or in the same room or share space with them. They need to be able to be themselves and live the life of their dreams while we’re living ours.

Sure, this takes a lot of work. But, aren’t we all worth it?

For me, I was willing to do the inner work. I was willing to develop new habits  – wake up early, meditate, physically move, and sweat. Start a brand new routine that you can practice every single day. I started mine four years ago, and I still practice it daily.

Four years ago, I was a 300-pound suicidal alcoholic and I thought I had it all figured out. That was before my life completely collapsed. There was a narcissistic angry guy inside of me trying to convince everybody else that I had it figured out when my whole life was crumbling. From the experience in my own life, I have realized that the worse off we are, the more judgmental we are. When we release that judgment, life gets better. Life gets easier.

Life got easier for me.

Today, I am leading myself powerfully, and I have found success and happiness.

Let go of expectations and judgments. Let go of how you see others in the role that you think they are supposed to play in your life.

And just let them voluntarily evolve.

Life will be so much easier. I promise you.

My Rebirth

I’m a Marine Veteran and a former Fortune 500 executive leader. I achieved massive success through sheer force, overworking, and sacrificing everything else in my life for professional success.

In the process I deteriorated from Marine Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) who was rated the number one NCO in my functional division, to a 300-pound suicidal alcoholic with a dysfunctional family fueled by abuse, neglect, and chemical dependency. My wife Angie was embroiled in a 25-year chemical addiction while I struggled in every way, and my two little girls, Katie and Meagan, witnessed the ravages of two parents who thought money, materials, titles, power, and professional success was all there was to life.

After decades of success in the corporate world, I was fired from a powerful executive position. My wife and I drank and partied away our 5-month severance, and I landed another opportunity to lead a business. Nothing had changed in my personal or family’s health, so 15 months later in March of 2016, I was terminated from what would become my last time working for another business.

The Decision That Sparked It All

I had a choice to make: either pull the trigger and end my life or wipe the slate clean and start all over.

Everything changed with that one decision.

On April 1, 2016, I decided to go all-in and reinvent myself. I exercised for the first time in years and began eliminating toxicity from my life. I learned that there are five basics needs of the human body — oxygen, water, nutrition, exercise, and rest (OWNER), and I began to eliminate all things from my life that didn’t create life. I began exercising daily and would string together over 500 days in a row of exercise. On April 7, 2016, I took my last drink of alcohol, and this caused major conflict in my marriage.

A New Life

My new routines and habits sparked attacks in my marriage and I learned to allow my wife to be angry and attack without needing to defend my choices or decisions. I decided I could live life on my own terms, and that I would no longer participate in a marriage that depended on killing myself. In June of 2016 with attacks increasing, I filed for divorce. The very next day the attacks stopped as my wife decided that our marriage was more important than the addicted and painful lifestyle we lived. We went to our first 12-step meeting together. We would complete 90 meetings in 90 days, and while there were stumbles along the way, we never looked back to our old lifestyle.

I went on to lose almost 100 pounds in a year, never returned to the bottle, have assumed complete control and authority of my personal health above all else, and that has opened the door for a new life. From physical health, I am able to heal the childhood neglect, abandonment, molestation, and abuse that I endured, and have used those experiences as a source of purpose and motivation to help others heal their lives.

A New Purpose

I wake up every day on fire to serve and support others with my newfound purpose and power.

In 2017, I launched an executive coaching business and began to work with executives and professionals from all over to feel as powerful inside as they appear on the outside. In my first year in business, I fully replaced any executive salary I had ever earned. That coaching business has evolved into a professional development business with a focus on the personal development of the leader. As the leader gets better, everyone gets better.

The Benefits of One Decision

My wife is also now clean and sober, has earned three coaching certifications, and uses her story to help others move from pain to purpose as well. My two girls are thriving. My older daughter is about to move away to college and my younger one is set to start driving. After what they witnessed and endured, both are better physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually than anyone could have imagined or predicted.

I made one single decision to heal my own life. From that single decision, hundreds and thousands have benefited. All it takes is one decision.

When the leader gets better, everyone gets better.

YOU: Your Most Important Relationship

If there’s one thing I can say for certain in my life, it’s that what I learned about relationships from the day I was born was 100% wrong.

Nope, I’m not exaggerating. I was taught that the entire purpose of life was self-sacrifice and to serve others from that state. I was taught that everyone else comes first — always. That single belief, passed on for many generations, created so much pain in my life that I almost committed suicide. Again, I am not exaggerating.

I spent so much time, energy, and effort serving others and doing what benefitted others — at my own expense — that I completely lost myself. When it came to a choice between what I wanted and what someone else wanted, I gave in. When it came down to taking care of myself or another person, I always chose the other person.

I was 300 pounds of physical, mental, and emotional chaos in human form. I just wanted it all to end. So it all collapsed. And, thank God it all collapsed. That allowed me to finally see that I didn’t have it all figured out, and I was forced to rethink everything.

 

Love Yourself

The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Read that again.

If you feel resistance with that statement, that is the reason for any struggle and suffering you have experienced in your life. There are no exceptions to this rule.

When we do not have a relationship with ourselves, we will experience struggles with our identity, health, wealth, and the amount of love we give and receive. Everything we create in our lives can be traced back to how we perceive ourselves in relation to everything else.

I’ll offer you my truth, and one that has served me and many others powerfully: you are the most important person on the entire planet. You are just as important as everyone else, and no more important than anyone else.

When you fully grasp and embrace this, you put yourself second to no one, you allow no one to challenge your worth and value. You also recognize that your body, mind, and emotions are worthy of self-care and health. You open yourself to recognize and embrace your natural innate talents and gifts, and when you give those talents to others, you open yourself to receive the prosperity you deserve. Finally, you open yourself to receiving unconditional love.

Put Yourself First

Personal power is the presence of clarity, confidence, and courage, which creates powerful identity, health, wealth, and love. Personal power starts and ends with the amount of time you spend building a solid relationship with yourself.

When you put yourself second, it typically revolves around the fact that you feel inferior in some way from emotional trauma or experiences. This trauma creates a sense of obligatory self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. Of course, there are temporary periods of parenting and serving others, but feelings of self-worth and self-esteem will empower you to regain your balance and resume the process of self-care and relationship building with yourself. Self-sacrifice is never the answer.

There’s a popular metaphor that says your ability to show up for others is like the guidance that is given on an airplane before take-off: put your mask on first. This comparison might be cliche and worn out, but it is applicable nonetheless.

You might be able to contribute unequal time or effort to others over a short period of time, but over a long period of time, depletion will occur, and your ability to give will diminish. Putting your own mask on first, taking care of your own well-being, enables and empowers you to make a consistent contribution, and serve your family, tribe, and society from a position of power, not depletion.

Are You Showing Up For Yourself?

Do you set aside time for yourself each day? How many hours per week do you pour into healing and relating to yourself? I encourage you to consider trying something new. For one week, find an additional 30 minutes for yourself each day to grow and heal. Read, meditate, get a massage, exercise, etc. To find the time, replace unproductive habits with those that serve. Over time, increase this amount until you are serving yourself more than you are serving others. Be creative. Rebalancing your life will increase the quality of your life.

Be A Master of Your Life

If you are interested in going further into your life-mastery journey, I have created an in-depth course for you. This will guide you to gain a greater sense of aliveness, connection, and purpose in the world. You’ll receive clarity in what you want and who you want to be. You’ll be a better master of your physical, mental, and emotional states. You will be more capable of creating prosperity without guilt and shame. You will have more confidence to use your talents and gifts to serve others powerfully to create value in their lives.

If you are interested in finding out what coaching with me looks like, schedule some time for us to connect here.

It’s OK to Be Scared

It’s okay to be scared.

It’s okay to fear uncertainty.

It’s okay to doubt past choices or current choices, or what the future holds.

It’s OK to Not Know

It’s okay to be living in fear of what the future holds right now. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be anxious. It’s okay to dread the uncertainty that the future is bringing us. These are typical human emotions. When I didn’t have a healthy relationship with fear and uncertainty, I became paralyzed and was brought to my knees.

When I didn’t understand the internal workings of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, then I didn’t understand fully how to move forward and embrace the fears. They paralyzed me, and they basically enabled me – or forced me, in some cases – to hold up a bigger mirror than I ever thought I needed to hold up to myself to figure out who I really was, and what the hell was going on with my life.

Emotions are Mirrors. Do Not Look Away.

When you start to experience fear, doubt, and uncertainty inside of you, those emotions are basically showing you who you are at the core. Do not look away. Your emotions are showing you the beliefs you’re holding. Your core money fear is showing you deep-rooted money trauma. Fear of losing your job is showing you that you’re not confident in your abilities to create opportunities out of a challenge.

The fear, uncertainty, and doubt that you possess inside are showing you opportunities to grow as a human being. You don’t have to live in those states. Yes, they are typical human responses and they are completely normal.

But you can use them to grow instead of letting them paralyze you.

Lead Yourself Powerfully

I am always looking to expand my business, reach more people, and create more impact in the world.

Today, I’m offering my free 10-day Awakened Leadership course for free. This course has three outcomes:

  • Understand the non-negotiable leadership orientations and qualities that drive exceptional personal and financial results.
  • Develop a powerful mindset to embrace that results are your duty and obligation to yourself, your society, and your family.
  • Gain the focus and capacity to not lose yourself and your family in the process of achieving these personal and financial results.

The course is packed with videos, workbooks, assessments, and action plans to help you become a better leader and to move the needle on your life circumstances. Here’s a chance to create more for yourself and everyone you meet!

Register for my free Awakened Leadership course here!

 

Show Up For Yourself

Want to experience more?

See how everyone else is doing things and then do the opposite.

When you begin to truly live aligned with your inner compass – your inner guidance – it will create resistance in society.

When you experience judgment, criticism, and resistance with how you are showing up and who you are, it means you’re heading in the right direction.

If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.

Want to experience what those who have it all have?

You’ve got to do what most won’t.

Stand up, show up, and live soul-out.

Criticism and judgment means you’re on the right path.

If you can’t lead yourself, you can’t lead anything or anyone.

If your wife attacks you, it’s because she doesn’t trust you, and you are not bringing safety, security, and love to your relationship.

She doesn’t trust you because you don’t know who you are.

She wants you to stand for something, and show up for something greater than yourself and your family.

If you don’t know who you are and your greater purpose, how can you possibly lead your family?

Be purposeful and powerful.

Demonstrate potential, not apathy.

Define your purpose.

Identify your values.

Create your vision.

Above all, know thyself and stand for something.

Decide who to be and go be it. Show up and lead.

Then you’ll find the peace, happiness, and love you desire most.

Lead yourself, lead society, lead your family.

It’s why you’re here.

Put Your Family Last

One time when I wrote a Facebook post about how I had gotten it all wrong by putting my family first, one guy interacted with the post only by putting one of those little angry-faced emoticons. I guess I’m in the business of making new friends. I stand by my position. I put my family first for many years. Now I don’t. They know that, too.

It might sound awful to say put your family last, but I’d rather live this way and have them prosper than to follow the norms of society and have them still experience the chaos they once witnessed. Let me explain.

We Were Set For Life

When my wife, Angie, and I began dating in 1999, she asked me about my job and education. When I told her I had a Bachelor’s degree in Management, she said, “you’ll never be without a job. You’ll always be set.” I still remember her response, and those words anchored into my mind for the next 17 years. In some ways, remembering her response caused me to make some pretty poor decisions. It’s not her fault at all. When I made career decisions from that point forward, I put her needs first. Being “set for life” was what made me valuable as a man, boyfriend, husband, and eventually a father. She had no idea how powerfully her words had affected me.

From 1999 until 2012, things came really easily for me in my career and in our ability to create income and accumulate wealth. In 2002, our family was relocated for a corporate role from Baltimore, Maryland, to Portland, Oregon. I was promoted a few times and changed employers over 10 years and ascended to executive leadership. In 2012 Angie told me that she wanted to move from our home in Oregon before our girls entered middle school. She wanted a climate with 4 seasons, and Portland, although beautiful, had only two: rainy and 55 for 8 months, and sunny and 80 for 4.

We Embarked On A Job Search

We were officially on the market and available for hire. I was connected with a lot of executive recruiters and I was being called and presented opportunities around the country. When we decided to move, it didn’t take long before opportunities found us. I had already interviewed in New Hampshire, Chicago, and California when a recruiter called and asked me if I’d consider moving to St. Louis. He said that he was looking to fill an operations leadership position in a $350 million energy company, with the promise of advancement in two or three years.

A Lucrative Opportunity, A Change In Scenery

I flew to Chicago, and then to St. Louis for interviews. When they showed me the compensation and benefits package, my jaw almost hit the floor. I toured the site, and absolutely hated it. It was an energy company, very industrial in nature. The environment was unfamiliar and uninteresting to me. But that compensation package would open up doors for my family.

A few weeks later, the company flew all four of us to St. Louis for four days and no obligation, put us in the President’s suite in the Grand Renaissance downtown, gave us no spending budget, and invited us to tour the city and area to see if the family would be open to relocate. They wanted me badly, and now it was up to us. The entire time Angie knew that the position wasn’t a fit, but we decided that it would be best for the family. We’d make it work because the price tag was more than right. I accepted the position. I wasn’t as thrilled, but my family would benefit from a change in scenery and from the income and benefits. I’d figure it all out after the move.

My Family Was in Chaos

I lasted 20 months in that role. In no way, shape, or form was I a good fit for that position. Meanwhile, Angie wanted to move to start over, but her health, our relationship, and the happiness of our family had deteriorated to a breaking point. I put my family first, and I almost lost it all in 20 months. While I was hunting for a new job, Angie and I partied it up, using the safety net of my five-month severance. We hit happy hours every day and often picked our kids up from the bus stop intoxicated. I continued to neglect myself in every way possible.

Money Was All That Mattered

Right before my severance ran out, I was offered another executive position. This one was for a general manager of a $6 million manufacturing business. This time, the compensation was not as lucrative, but it would preserve my family’s way of life. Everything worked out to keep the money flowing, but over the next 15 months, my family continued to spiral.

Angie and I were both upside down in chemical addictions, and my kids were witnessing chaos on a daily basis. But, hey, at least the money was still flowing! I was a 300-pound suicidal alcoholic, but money was all that mattered at the time. Then I was fired from that position in March of 2016.

Lessons Learned

I had gone from a substantial income, in a position I loved and was equipped for in Portland, Oregon, to fired twice in just a few years. I had put what I thought were my family’s needs first, and we ended up needing to rebuild everything from the ashes.

I learned valuable lessons from the decisions we made and the cycles and patterns we endured. First and foremost, I never prioritized myself. I neglected my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, and when considering important choices, I never considered what I wanted or what would benefit me. I only considered the impact of those decisions on my family and their well-being.

A Better Way to Benefit My Family

When determining how to create income, I never considered what was aligned for me. I put my own desires, skills, and talents behind the needs and desires of my family. Most importantly, I said yes to jobs strictly for the compensation, benefits, and future opportunities, not because of the content of the work and position or how I would impact society. I was feeding an insatiable appetite for money, wealth, and materials at the expense of purpose, happiness, and job fulfillment.

Finally, I learned that in order to give my family what they really desired, I needed to show up powerfully for myself, serve and create impact in a way that brought satisfaction and joy to my life. It was only then that could I show up and lead my family. I learned that if I was personally depleted in my health and how I showed up, and if I had just a transactional relationship within my career choices, saying yes just because of compensation and benefits, then my family would get much less of me than they deserved. If I didn’t show up for myself and my society and career, then it was impossible to fully show up for my family. By putting myself first, I got better, Angie got better, and in the process, we provided an example – as leaders – for our family to do the same. We taught them to lead, not just to survive.

I Give Them The Best of Me

These days, I wake up early and take care of my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual states. I’ve built an executive coaching business that doesn’t offer them the supposed security and consistency that a corporate job offers, but fits perfectly with my desires, purpose, values, and vision. My family sees that creating income does not require sacrifice or doing what you don’t want to do. Most importantly, by putting myself first, I show up fully present, powerful, purposeful, and in a position to be the husband, father, and leader they deserve – never depleted, and never less than I desire to be in the world. When I put them first, they got a shrunken version of me. By putting myself first, they get the very best of me.

Shift Into Real Leadership

It’s time to lead. It’s time to show up first for ourselves, for our society, and then our family will be rewarded with our power, purpose, potential, and real prosperity. It’s time to shift into real leadership.

Join our community of leaders who are gathered to learn and embrace this new approach, and who are committed to supporting each other and holding each other accountable for leadership. Join now. I commit to you that it will be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Do You ‘Have To’ Or Do You ‘Get To’?

I was once Plant Manager for a $65 million manufacturing plant. Authority, autonomy, and accountability for results were all I ever wanted. When I aspired to this role, I had it all in my lap despite hating several aspects. I figured that in a higher position I’d be able to delegate the annoying tasks, but the budgets didn’t allow for that. So, there were parts of the job that I “had to” do in order to be able to “get to” do parts that I loved. Eventually, I loved fewer and fewer aspects. I felt stuck. After a few years, I moved on to another position that I thought would be a better fit. It wasn’t, and I found myself fired within 2 years.

Find Your Excellence

I saw a speaker once who talked about his own life and videography business. In his business, he would say yes to any request that involved a video camera. Clients knew there would be long production times, and that they would receive content months after the shoot. The videographer hated the long production process and not seeing the client’s reactions to the results. He found that there was only one thing that he loved about videography: same-day footage. Seeing the audience’s reaction after he shot video of a wedding, edited it within hours, and delivered the finished product at the reception lit him up. As he chose to do this more and more, sometimes for free, people at weddings saw his passion and love in the videos. He started booking more “same-day edit” events. As his bookings increased, he stopped saying yes to anything else, tripled his price for the fast-turnaround footage, and his business took off. He loved the same-day edits so much that people loved them too, and they compensated him for his passion. Passion creates and enables excellence, and people will pay handsomely for it.

Rise Above the Struggle

I often write, speak, and teach about leadership, and from my perspective, the opposite of leadership is survivorship. The first time I discovered this, I was trying to make sense of why some people sacrificed themselves to live, while others rose above the chaos and daily struggle, and seemed to live life on their own terms. From my vantage point, when I was in corporate I was in a leadership position but I was never a leader. A leader is someone who rises above the fray, lives authentically and aligned with their own values, desires, and talents. A survivor shrinks and sacrifices himself out of fear or obligation. A leader demonstrates how to live “soul-out” by saying yes to what he loves and no to what he doesn’t love. Life is not about going someplace you don’t want to go, doing something you don’t want to do, or serving someone you don’t want to serve. Life is not about struggle but learning how to rise above struggle. Survivors remain in the struggle because they are too scared, or they feel obligated to stay small.

No One Can Save You From You

Sometimes it takes being in paralyzed survivorship for so long to decide that playing small is not the way to live the life that you deserve. Yesterday I was talking to a friend who continues to look for ways and justify playing small and remaining stuck. He is frustrated that no one is there to help him when he hits tough times. I helped him see that he keeps causing his own pain through his choices. No one can save him from himself. He is his own worst enemy. He keeps choosing to do the same things over and over and expecting different results. When he continues to struggle, he blames it on the lack of support in his life, as if others are responsible for his pain, and suffering. He’s not maintaining friends, he’s maintaining dependent relationships. I lovingly and sharply told him that he’s not getting out of his own way, and I mentioned three ways that he’s causing his struggle. He first defended himself, but I asked him if he knew anyone who rose above struggle. “Yes,” he said, and I asked him what caused them to rise above. He said they began leading instead of surviving. I asked him what that made him. He acknowledged that he’s stuck in survivorship. Meanwhile, he’s convinced himself that he’s a leader. He’s causing his own pain, and creating struggle, not solving or growing beyond it. That makes him a survivor.

Leadership Vs. Survivorship

Survivors live a life of victimhood and “have to.” They have to do things and keep themselves in a shrunken state. Their lives are about sacrifice and pain. They essentially keep themselves stuck by making sure everything is as hard as it can be. Their lives are like a hamster wheel – they wonder why they are stuck, contemplate escape, but then happily continue to run. Leaders live a life of ownership and “get to.” They get to do things and expand themselves daily either by doing the tough stuff or eliminating the need to do the tough stuff while doing what they love. Either way, they are never victims. They shift either their mindset or circumstances, but they own both. By choosing what they “get to” do, they are leading themselves. Leading yourself powerfully is the first principle of powerful leadership. You can’t possibly lead others if you’re not leading yourself.

The Time To Align Is Now

After I was fired from my second executive position in 20 months because of my survivorship, I knew I needed to make a big shift in my life. I knew I needed to start my own business if I wanted to continue to maintain my current lifestyle for my family and myself. Corporate America would no longer have me. This time I vowed that I’d never do anything I hated. If there was something I didn’t love, I’d figure out a way to shift from “I have to” to “I get to.” I began building a coaching business. Coaching people and teams in corporate roles are the only things I ever truly loved in my corporate roles. I was determined that I’d get in my zone of genius and passion and stay there. In my first full year, I exceeded any annual corporate income I’d ever received! I didn’t sacrifice. I chose things that I loved and wanted to do. I chose alignment.

The story of my life has been one of accumulating lots of struggle and pain by living the way I was taught to live – in sacrifice. Fortunately for me, I lived in survivorship for so long that my life crumbled and there was no other choice but to rebuild. Then I chose to lead. Now my family gets to experience what true leadership and living a life that I “get to” live looks like. Hopefully, they choose that for themselves, too. Leadership is always more fun than survivorship. Scraping by is optional and a choice. The sooner you recognize that the sooner you’ll make the shift. I hope you do. It sure is more fun on this side of the tracks.

Join Us On This Side of the Tracks

Are you choosing leadership and a life that you “get to” live? Or are you choosing survivorship and a life that you “have to” live? It’s time to step into real leadership. Join our community of men who are gathered to learn together, and committed to supporting each other and holding each other accountable for leading themselves, their society, and their families more powerfully. Join now. I commit to you that it will be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Men Can Be Codependent, Too

When my girls were toddlers, they would come into my bedroom in the morning to wake me up. My day began with a kiss on the cheek from either Katie or Meagan. They would wait for me to wake up. Sometimes it took them a few kisses. I would pretend to be asleep to get another kiss or two. When I did finally wake up I would whisper, “go ahead downstairs and I’ll be down.” This happened for the first 8-9 years of their lives until their “independence” kicked in. I was sad when the morning kisses stopped.

I called both of my girls “butt,” because they might as well have been attached to me. They would sit as close to me as they could get – one on my right side and one on my left. We would spend all day together whenever possible, playing games, singing, dancing, and watching their favorite television shows. When I fixed their meals, they helped in the kitchen as my taste-testers. They loved it when I cooked, and they always told me how amazing it was – even when I screwed up in some way. I couldn’t do anything wrong in their eyes, and they celebrated me all the time. My little girls loved me, and for the first time in my life, I felt unconditionally loved. They were my everything.

A Broken Unit

My wife Angie and I struggled a lot in our marriage, our separate trauma and addiction issues causing us to grow further and further apart. As the void between Angie and me became bigger, my girls and I grew closer. There were times when it was just my girls and me. Angie was distant or absent, even when she was in the house. It seemed like I raised my girls by myself, and honestly, I desired that because I selfishly wanted to be their hero and their primary support mechanism. Moreover, I loved the infinite and unconditional love that they offered to me and extended daily, and, sometimes, I just felt that Angie disrupted that. She didn’t love me and accept me nearly as much as my girls did.

My relationship with Angie was strained from the very beginning. To say that we entered a relationship quickly is an understatement. Once things got moving, they accelerated faster than the speed of light. We met in an abnormal psychology class at Montgomery College in Maryland. After the class had ended, she invited me out for drinks with a group of her friends, one of which was her fiancé. Angie was arguing with him by the end of the evening. She left him, got in my car, came home with me and never left. Within a year, we owned a home and a car together. Within two years, we were married with a child and moved across the country to start a new life. How’s that for fast?

My Futile Efforts to Clean Up Toxicity

Heavy medication ruled Angie, who had symptoms of mania and depression. Before I had my children by my side, when she would become angry or depressed, I would try to do anything to make her feel better. I would buy her things, change my behavior, change plans, call out of work, or do anything she asked. I felt that there was something I could do to make it all better, and as soon as I figured that out, she’d be better. From 1999 to 2016, “better” happened every once in a while, but anger and depression were more prominent. The cocktail of medications she was taking didn’t help, but that’s another story for another time.

One Mother’s Day the girls and I planned to take Angie out to dinner. She woke up angry and said she didn’t want to celebrate the day. She started arguments all day long and our family was again in chaos. I tried to talk her through it and failed miserably. There’s no way to talk someone out of being angry who wants to remain angry.

I tried for hours to convince her that everything was ok and that we were going to have a nice dinner out like always. Hours into our anger-fueled discussions, I agreed and yelled that it was probably better that we stay home anyway. Angie blew up. This time, she was super angry that we were going to stay in. When she blew up, so did I, and after more hours of fighting I grabbed her and screamed, “why are you angry?” She cried and said, “I don’t know.” She then melted into my arms. I had been trying to “fix” her to make her happy, and there was no foreseeable way to do so. Her emotions had taken over until she collapsed. We went out to eat, but there was no energy left in any of us to celebrate.

Codependency Got Us Nowhere

Our volatile relationship went on and on until we eventually learned the cause of all of this – codependency. Angie expected me to be able to make her feel better, and I expected that there was something I could do. We blamed each other for our misery, and we expected the other person to do something to make it feel better. We placed the responsibility for our happiness on each other and thought the relationship was about getting the other person to solve all of our emotional issues.

In my opinion, the worst part about our codependency was needing the other to be someone different than they are – manipulating or controlling them to get what we want from them. Guilt, shame, blame, and threats are the weapons of a codependent, and these are the weapons of the weak, not the strong. I used them plenty in my relationship with Angie, and eventually with my girls.

Angie and I hit a critical point in our relationship in June of 2016 when I had had enough. I had started a winning battle with alcoholism in April and began to take better care of myself. Angie was doing nothing different, and our marriage began to further deteriorate. This time she was battling one way because I wouldn’t fight back. I’d just walk away. I had begun to realize the chaos that we were all involved in, and I stepped out of the fray. When Angie continued to attack, I filed for divorce. This broke the cycle, and Angie decided to break her addiction. I also set healthy boundaries that I was not fighting her emotions for her anymore, and I made sure I no longer asked her to fight mine. We reconciled our differences and have grown from there.

I Was The Hero, Until…

Even though I had healed and resolved my codependent tendencies with Angie, the tendencies with my children remained. As Angie and I healed the chaos in our marriage and our addictions, Angie’s relationship with the girls improved. Over time, they grew closer, and my little girls needed me less and less. More and more, I saw them shift most of their time, attention, focus, requests, and communication from me to Angie, and it hurt. It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.

At one point, I was the center of my little girls’ universe. Now that they are teenagers, I’m a small part of their life. Of course, I knew they’d grow up. The combination of them growing up and their radical shift from relying solely on me to relying on Angie stung twice as much. She has moved to be their primary caregiver, at a time when they need their mom the most – their teenage years. But even though it is natural and makes sense and is part of nature, it hurts a lot.

The beautiful part of our story is that our addictions have healed, we no longer expect the other to fix us or our emotions, and our marriage is better than I could have ever expected. Angie’s relationship with our girls is powerful and getting stronger, and my relationship with Katie and Meagan is exactly where a relationship between a dad and his teenage daughters falls naturally. It’s hard to feel less wanted, but it’s also beautiful to see them blossoming into strong independent women. They’ve healed a lot of the pain that our family chaos caused.

Only The Pain You Feel Can Heal

Healing codependency requires a lot of personal awareness, ownership, and the willingness to feel pain. Only the pain you feel can heal. If you ignore the pain, pretend it doesn’t exist, try to suppress it, or try to escape it with alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, work, and on and on, you’re just delaying the inevitable. The pain will remain.

When we are in a codependent state, we will often try to control or manipulate others to make ourselves feel better. We’ll try to fix them instead of allowing them space to heal, or we will use guilt, shame, blame, and threats to get them to do what we want them to do. Again, these are weapons of the weak, not the strong. A strong leader feels the pain and heals himself and allows others to grow without manipulation, coercion or control.

Even though I am a 47-year-old Marine Veteran, who has healed himself, his alcoholism, health, and marriage, built a powerful coaching business and inspires people all over the world, my little girls continue to help me reveal my codependent tendencies. When I feel unwanted or unloved, that’s a signal that it’s time for me to want and love myself. Because my feelings and emotions are mine, just like yours are yours. Show up for yourself, and L.O.V.E. others by letting others voluntarily evolve. They owe you nothing, and you owe yourself everything. Even the roughest, toughest father can be brought down by his little girls (the most powerful force on earth). They might not want or need me right now, but I’ll be right here waiting for them when they want or need me again. And “again” can’t come soon enough.

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