Thank you Harriet Corvine, That Woman Who Writes Things, and many others for tuning into my conversation with Damon Mitchell!
Damon Mitchell is a coach for men. He’s one of the few people on Substack whose comments consistently make me stop and think, so I asked him to sit down with me and talk. This is that conversation.
Damon got sober in Costa Rica after seven months of drinking and drugs took him somewhere he didn’t want to be. He doesn’t call himself an addict. He calls it an abusive relationship with alcohol, and we spent some time on why that language matters.
From there we got into how change really works. I shared the difference between technical problems and the deeper ones, the kind where the real obstacle is a belief you’ve been treating as fact your whole life. I walked through a real example of a woman who couldn’t make time to eat well, and how the thing stopping her had nothing to do with willpower or knowing what to do.
Damon came at the same territory from a different angle. He works with parts, the idea that we’re not one single mind but a system of protectors doing their best to keep us from feeling old pain. Different maps, same terrain. Most of what stops us from changing is a protection system we’re not fully aware of.
I told Damon about the scariest thing I’ve ever done, which was looking at my daughter’s body at her funeral. And the second scariest, which was learning to drop out of my head and be present with what was happening in my body. I resisted that for years. I thought the body stuff was nonsense. It turned out to be the thing that changed everything.
We closed on why men need other men. Not advice. Not fixing. Being witnessed by another man when you finally the vulnerable things out loud. Most men have never had that anywhere in their lives, and most don’t know they need it until they feel it.
The thing holding you back isn’t weakness. It’s protection, and most men have no idea what theirs looks like.
If you’ve lost someone and you’re still going to work, still paying the bills, still telling everyone you’re fine, I built a free tool that shows you what’s actually going on.
It takes about ten minutes and it’ll name the pattern you’ve been living inside without knowing it. It’s called The Gut Check
And if you love a man who’s lost someone and you can’t reach him anymore, there’s a version built for you too.
