What a decade, y’all!

Ten years ago, I was deeply depressed in a failing marriage.

I write this with a profound sense of tenderness towards the woman I was in this experience with, lest she read this and attribute the failure to herself, but it was truly a disaster. Objectively speaking.

Two years into a marriage and 9 years into a relationship, we had not figured out how to have penetrative sex.

My mind logically deduced the exit route for myself while I was frozen in a deep depression. The exit route had to be constructed in my mind per the perceived constraints of the principles of the culture that I was subjugated by.

Logic to the rescue.

The truth was that I had moved in a manner that was not aligned with my desire. I had gotten into a relationship from a lack of self worth instead of truly choosing someone from a place of internal worth and an awareness of the abundance of options. But acknowledging such a cutting truth was far too challenging while I was trapped within a complex situation, engulfed by the forces of Shame. It has taken me well over a decade to verbalize this truth so plainly.

So the exit route had to be constructed from within the constraints of the situation I was in. I think that’s always the case with exit routes, and why helping others who seem stuck can be so challenging as the exit routes that come to mind are from within my own present frame.

What a journey it has been since then!

My American Spiritual journey.

The journey of an entangled man towards full individuation.

Individuation of the American isolationist flavor.

I came to America to find my self, and now that I have found my self, I often feel isolated.

Now, I am ready to have fun with others.

Ready to sit on a porch sipping chai and not wonder where all the humans are. When I do actually see another human they are not trying to “mind their own business”. To be able to walk in the space between houses without having a “neighbor”, who I have never met, ask me—”How can I help you?” (American for “Why are you on my property?”).

Ready to be back in a culture that knows how to share. Sour grapes because my Green Card got cancelled? May be a little bit? Feels more like letting go of all these micro-adjustments I was silently turning my head away from to try to fit in.

I began this lifetime in an entangled, sharing culture, journeyed through an isolated, individuated culture, and now find myself sitting with the question—can we share without getting entangled?

A decade ago or so, I wrote an essay. One of my earliest pieces that spoke about self-improvement and how one should frame it across the three buckets: Health, Wealth, and Spirituality.

I proposed that a good goal would be to be at the 90^th %ile in each bucket.

The key insight that I presented was that there is relationality in the progress across the buckets. Gains in one support gains in another.

I am satisfied with my progress in each of these buckets.

Health

In 2016, I was overweight, very immobile, regularly consuming weed, binge eating frequently, and quite hooked onto porn. I had never had sex. To be specific, penetrative sex, where I was doing the penetration.

In 2026, I am decently fit with better posture and gait than I’ve ever had in my life. I have more ease and breath in my body. I can lift, dance, and make love with strength and stamina.

Wealth

In 2016, I had <redacted> net monetary worth with very little sense of where I spent money. I was caught up in a clicky-go-happy American consumerist lifestyle with Amazon boxes dropping on my doorstep every week making weak attempts at filling the insatiable void in my soul. I was caught up in corporate career-climbing wage labor where I was offering valuable time away to support my addictive consumerism.

In 2026, I have <redacted> net monetary worth, up from <redacted> two years ago when I quit my last job to experience living entirely off my investments. I carry crisp clarity of where my money goes, a crisp sense of my budget, that then allows me to have a life where I can follow my creative impulses. Every day, I wake up and ask myself the question, “What should we do today?”. Rarely do I have to attend any meeting I don’t want to or have the calendar app tell me where I should be going. I enjoy occasional fun adventures—like a nice dinner date with good company that I’m not shy of paying for—while also not feeling ashamed of doing most of my kitchen shopping at Goodwill and maintaining a low profile where the wealth is not very evident.

Spirituality

In 2016, I had no awareness of my sexual trauma. I had just discovered that noticing my breath for fifteen minutes every day seems to help me break out of otherwise debilitating depression. Just been shaken awake out of my materialistically scientific dismissal of spirituality and developed a fascination about Enlightenment—which my then linear, scientific, productive mind saw as the end goal.

In 2026, I’m five years into full recovery of my memories, which somehow quenched my thirst for Enlightenment. It has made me realize that the part of me that was seeking Enlightenment or Awakening just wanted to finally be in the Light and to be seen and accepted by me fully.

In the process, I broke through my numbing depression into the suicidality that lied underneath. I am freed of suicidality now, due to the grace of God, while also being free of the religious dogma that engulfed me as I first encountered Jesus.

My life is free of psychiatric substances and most strong Western medicines—leave aside some anti-histamine when the pollen gets intense in WNC or the very rare anti-inflammatory if I get a high fever, which I mostly see as my body burning off karma and typically just let myself breathe and rest through it.

I do cycle through what one might call depressive cycles, but, internally, my framing of it has changed. The charge that the word used to carry has dissipated. I see it now as grief attempting to make its way out of my system and my body needing some time and stillness to soften its resistance. As such, being still, restful, contemplative and tender is just a natural part of a creative life and need not be pathologized as “depression”. It is an artist PMS-ing. The stage right before the periodic watery surges of Grief cleanse the body of what it doesn’t need to hold on to. Just like menstrual blood does so for women.

What a decade, boys! Game well played! And this is just 39 y’all! Happy glorious birthday to me!

So utterly grateful for the Grace of God and all that that it has brought me.

Primarily, the steadfast connection to Truth, Love and Forgiveness—the template for a glorious life. The clarity that I can pray away my anxiety, my stress, my shame, and any ill will that I hold towards any other human. The wisdom that I absolutely should choose to pray away any ill will I hold towards any other human.

I can just look heavenwards and ask the Heavenly Father to take these away from me, with full faith that the ask is all that is needed. And then allow my body to yawn out the denser external energies that create these lower thought forms inside me.

May this journey continue to glorify God!

In the gym, in writing and in bed!