THIS WEEK
I have an entire shelf of books that focus on how a man can rebuild his life after experiencing burnout and drifting. These books explore the journey of returning to God, reconnecting with his marriage, and rediscovering himself in the second half of life. Many of them offer structured approaches, such as the seven habits, the five disciplines, or the twelve steps, to achieve a renewed spiritual life.
Some of it is good. I’ve recommended a few of those books myself.
But if I’m honest, most of those lists weren’t what helped me. They were good ideas I read and quickly forgot.
This week, I want to share what helped me rebuild. Not the polished version, but the true one.
There were three things. That’s it. No twelve-step plan. Three things that were simple enough to do, and true enough to matter.
· · ·
The first one was small, and it changed everything. I stopped performing.
For years, I presented a version of myself to others that was capable and steady—the guy who seemed to have it all together and didn’t face the same problems as others. Maintaining that image took more energy than I ever acknowledged, even to myself.
What broke it open wasn’t a retreat or a sermon. It was one conversation. I sat across from a friend I trusted, and instead of giving him the version of my life that sounded fine, I told him the actual thing. The thing I was usually embarrassed to talk about.
I remember how it felt afterward. Lighter. Not because anything was solved that day. Lighter because for the first time in years, I wasn’t carrying it by myself.
“The thing that lives only in silence has power over you. The moment you say it out loud to one other person, that power starts to break.”
That single conversation didn’t fix my life. But it was the hinge on which everything else turned.
· · ·
The second thing was finding one man who could say “me too” instead of giving advice.
I didn’t expect this when I started. The most helpful support I received wasn’t from a counselor using a specific framework—although I recognize that counseling has its value. What made the biggest difference was a man who had experienced the same things I was going through and could simply say, “Me too.”
Advice can often feel overwhelming when you’re facing something difficult. Everyone seems to have their own theories to share. But what I really needed wasn’t another theory. I wanted someone who had genuinely experienced this kind of darkness and emerged on the other side. I needed someone who could calmly assure me, without any guarantees, that there is indeed a way through to the other side.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. — Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 (NIV)
A man who falls alone stays down longer. A man with a brother nearby gets up faster — not because the brother fixes anything, but because the brother is there, in the actual moment, saying I’ve got you instead of here’s what you should do.
I didn’t go looking for a mentor. I just found one man who’d been through something like what I was going through, and I let him know me. That relationship did more for me than anything I ever read.
· · ·
The third thing is harder to explain, so let me try.
For years, I read the Bible the way a preacher reads the Bible. Every passage, some part of my brain was already asking how it would preach. Where the illustration was. What are the three points?
I had turned the Bible into material for something I delivered on Sundays.
What helped was learning to read a passage and let it speak to me. Not mine it for material. Not manage it. Just sit with it.
“The road back wasn’t more discipline. It was the strange, uncomfortable practice of needing God again, instead of just managing my relationship with him.”
I still catch myself slipping back into the old habit more than I’d like. But every time I catch it and choose differently, something in me settles that nothing else touches.
· · ·
That’s it. Three things: I stopped performing, found a friend who said “me too,” and allowed the Bible to be honest with me again, instead of just being useful.
None of it is complicated. It’s really one decision, made three different ways — stop managing your life from a distance, and actually let yourself be in it.
THE ANCHOR VERSE
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. — Galatians 6:2 (NIV)
Not carry your own burden well. Not manage it quietly so nobody has to see it. Carry each other’s.
The question for this week: Who is actually carrying anything of yours right now? And if the honest answer is nobody — what’s the smallest step you could take this week to change that?
THE REBOUND · FREE 30-MINUTE CONVERSATION
If you read this and realized you don’t have a man who can say ‘me too’ — I’d like to be that conversation, even if just for thirty minutes. No pitch. Just two men talking honestly about where you are.
— Ron