Belfry Wellness

Happy transplantaversary!

10 years ago today I got a second life.

I remember that day like it was yesterday.

I was supposed to see Pearl Jam that night. My 20th show. Twenty. That number meant something to me. I had the tickets. I was ready.

Instead I spent the night in a hospital bed.

And here's the thing nobody tells you about the moment before something life-changing… it's quiet. You're just lying there, in a bed alone with nothing but your thoughts. Wanting it to be different but not knowing how different everything is about to be.

My daughter's mom gave me her kidney.

Let that land.

The person who gave me my daughter... gave me more time to be her dad.

I don't have words for that. I've tried. I don't.

Going from dialysis to a new kidney isn't a procedure. It's indescribable. One day your body is just... surviving. Grinding. Doing the bare minimum to keep you here. And then something shifts and you feel what it's like to actually be alive again.

Reinvigorated. That's the only word that fits.

I missed Pearl Jam show number 20.

But I got my life back.

And I mean that in every way possible.

You want to know one of the first things I remember feeling human again?

Nachos.

Cheese. Real cheese. Something so stupid and small that most people don't think about twice.

When your kidneys are failing, your diet becomes a prison. You give up things you didn't even realize you loved until they're gone. And then one day post-transplant you're sitting there eating nachos and your eyes are watering and it's not even about the nachos.

It's about everything the nachos represent.

It's the little things we take for granted. Every single day. The things we don't even see until they're taken from us.

A decade later, I still LOVE my nachos, but I don't take cheese for granted. I know how that sounds. I don't care.

Oh! And that 20th show I missed?

Two years later. Chicago. Wrigley Field… with a bunch of highschool buddies!

I got it anyway.

And honestly? Way more epic than the original plan. Like the universe said sorry and went all out.

I'm now at 23 shows and counting.

Try to stop me.

One last thing, a friend of the donor tracked down the concert poster from that night… the show I never made it to, the night everything changed and gave it to me.

That gesture. And the many others that happened before and after our transplant. Those are the memories I hold. That's what people caring for and loving one another actually looks like. They show up in the details. ♥️

Ten years later I wake up every day knowing exactly how thin that line is. Knowing the version of me that almost didn't make it here would have something to say about every moment I waste. Every time I play small. Every time I shrink.

He'd tell me to stop waiting.

So I am.

Happy transplantaversary to me. 🖤

You try to relax but your mind won't stop running.

You push through the day then collapse at night with nothing left.

You sleep but wake up feeling like you never did.

And somewhere in the back of your head that thought creeps in...
"What is wrong with me?"

Here's what nobody's telling you.

It's not burnout. It's not stress. It's not that you need a better morning routine or another magnesium supplement.

Your body is stuck in a survival pattern it learned a long time ago.

Maybe from something you went through. Maybe from years of pushing past your limits. Maybe from stuff you've never even fully connected the dots on.

And your nervous system, the thing running every single process in your body, it's still responding like that threat is right now.

That's why relaxing feels impossible. That's why sleep doesn't fix it. That's why you can do everything "right" and still feel completely off.

This isn't a mindset problem. You can't think your way out of a body that's wired for survival.

But here's the thing.

When you actually go into the body and release what's stored there, everything shifts.

The anxiety that wouldn't turn off? Gone.
The exhaustion that sleep couldn't touch? Lifts.
The feeling of being stuck inside your own life? Starts to break.
This is the work most people never get pointed to. And it's the only thing that actually gets to the root.

I'm breaking all of this down on a free live webinar this Monday.

If you want in, DM me the word MONDAY and I'll send you the details.

What Chiropractic School Never Taught Me About Why People Stay Stuck

I spent years in training learning how the body works.

Adjustments. Biomechanics. Nervous system function. Hundreds of hours studying how to find what's wrong and fix it.

And in all of that training, nobody talked about trauma. Not really.

A passing mention here and there maybe. But nothing that prepared me for what I was actually going to see when I started working with real people.

It wasn't until I was in private practice, actually sitting with patients, actually getting to know their stories, that I started to see the thing nobody had pointed out to me.

Almost every chronic condition I was looking at had a traumatic template underneath it.

The person with the back pain that never fully resolved. The one with the headaches that kept coming back no matter what we did. The one whose body just wouldn't hold an adjustment. When I slowed down and got curious about their lives, their histories, what they'd been carrying, I started seeing the same thing over and over again.

The body was holding something that had nothing to do with their spine.

So I started working on that.

And that's when everything changed.

Not just for them physically. But emotionally. Mentally. People who had been struggling for years started to shift in ways that adjustments alone never touched. The stress they'd been carrying. The old stories running in the background. The patterns they couldn't seem to break no matter how hard they tried.

When we got to the root of it, the body finally had permission to let go.

That's what led me out of the chiropractic world and into the work I do now. Because I realized the root of most human struggle isn't structural. It isn't even nutritional. It's emotional.

It's the unresolved stress, the old wounds, the survival patterns the nervous system learned a long time ago and never got the memo that it was safe to put down.

Here's what most people don't realize.

Even if you didn't grow up in a house with obvious trauma, there were still moments where you were left alone with emotions you had no idea how to handle. Moments where your body had to adapt just to get through it. And that adaptation didn't disappear when you became an adult.

It's still running. Right now. In the background.

It's the reason you feel stressed for no reason you can name. The reason you can't fully relax even when things are fine. The reason you keep ending up in the same patterns no matter how much work you do on yourself.

This isn't a mindset problem. It's a body problem. And you can't think your way out of something that lives below the level of thought.

That's exactly what I'm breaking down on my free live training.

Rewrite Your Identity: Break the Patterns Running Your Life

Monday May 11th at 7:30pm EST

This is the root level work. Where the patterns actually live. Why they keep coming back. And what it actually takes to break them for good.

No charge. No pushes sales. Just real work from someone who's spent years in the trenches figuring out what actually moves the needle.

If you're ready to stop ending up in the same place, come join us.

Click here to grab your free spot.

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Have you ever caught yourself thinking…
or even saying out loud…

“I’m not good enough.”

Yeah… me too.

I remember the first time it really hit.
I was about 8 years old… trying out for my first travel hockey team… the Copper Cliff Redmen.
The team was basically picked… last spot came down to me and another kid…

I got cut.
I was crushed.

But here’s the part I didn’t realize at the time…
I didn’t just take it as “I didn’t make the team.”
I made it mean… there’s something wrong with me.

“I’m not good enough.”

And that didn’t stay in childhood.

That followed me into my adult life… into my work… into how I showed up with clients.

If someone would unsubscribe from my email list...
A client didn’t get better…
I didn’t look at the process… or timing… or anything else…
I made it about me.

“I’m not good enough.”

And that would send me into a spiral.

Doubt. Overthinking. Pressure.
Trying harder… forcing outcomes…

And here’s the part most people don’t talk about…
That energy? People feel it.

I’d unconsciously push clients away.

Not because I didn’t care… but because I cared from a place of needing to prove myself.

And that cycle?

It cost me.

Not just emotionally and mentally…
but financially too.
Inconsistent income.
Second guessing everything.
Holding back from fully showing up.

Overgiving, undercharging…
and never really feeling solid no matter what I achieved.

All from a belief I picked up when I was 8.
And the wild part?
It wasn’t just in my business.

These patterns don’t live in one area.

They bleed into everything.
Relationships. Money. Health. Confidence.
Because it was never about hockey…
or even my clients…

It was a pattern.
A protection mechanism.
Some part of me learned…
“If I’m not good enough, I need to prove, fix, control… so I don’t feel that again.”

It was trying to protect me…
But it was also keeping me stuck.

It wasn’t until I actually slowed down and looked at it…
instead of trying to fix it…
that I got to the root of it.

That’s where things started to shift.
Today?

I don’t need my clients’ results to validate me.
I don’t need external proof to feel enough.
I just am.
And from that place… everything changed.

If you’re reading this and something hit…
If you can see even a bit of yourself in this…

I’m opening up some free discovery calls.
No pressure.
No sales pitch.

Just a real conversation to explore what patterns might be running in the background for you…
and how they could be holding you back in ways you might not even realize yet.

If you’re ready to look at it…
Message me “CALL” and I’ll send my calendar link