I thought I was overtrained.
Five days CrossFit, four days padel, run club, boxing. Body tired. Shoulders heavy. I told myself it was the volume.
It wasn’t the volume.
A friend I had been seeing disappeared without a word. No explanation. Just gone. I felt the disappointment — and then I did what I always do when something hurts.
I closed.
I became avoidant. Not just with her. With potential clients I had been meaning to reach out to. With a friend I suspected had more feelings for me than she knows herself. I kept distance.
My coach Karen helped me see it clearly. The tiredness wasn’t physical. It was the cost of not forgiving myself — for the disappointment, for keeping my distance, for protecting myself instead of showing up.
The moment I forgave myself — and I mean the actual moment — my energy returned. Instantly. I felt open again. Ready to talk to people. Ready to be in the room.
Eight months sober. What that gives you is clarity. Every feeling arrives as it is. You cannot blur it, delay it, or outrun it.
And that is the gift.
Because I can now say to a pattern that no longer serves me: thank you. You protected me when I needed it. But I don’t need you anymore. I forgive myself for running it. And I let it go.
This is Psychological Sovereignty in practice. Not a concept. A lived moment in a week in Canggu.
Life gives me exactly what I teach. Every time.
I am telling this story to the men arriving at my retreat on Monday. The pattern I described is running most high-achieving men I know — who are anxious or avoidant.
