The Reclaimed Man

For forty years I ran on a sentence a ten-year-old boy heard from his mother. It became an operating system. Prove yourself. Prove it again. Earn the right to be loved. It produced a lot. It nearly destroyed me too. In this episode I want to make a claim: you are unconditionally worthy, and nothing you achieve or fail at changes that. Then I want to go deeper — because that claim on its own...

Life can be hard. I get it. Work that matters. People who depend on you. A family you love. It's a lot to carry — and most days you carry it well. So most evenings — almost before you've decided to — you reach for a beer. Turn on the sport. Pick up your phone. You've earned it. There's nothing wrong with switching off. And there isn't. That's the thing. But somewhere underneath t...

Dublin Airport. August 2022. One of the proudest moments of my life — watching my son play at the World Championships — and my first panic attack hits out of nowhere. That was the beginning of two years I didn't see coming. Debilitating anxiety. Intrusive thoughts. A stage four prostate cancer diagnosis with metastases in my pelvis. And one idea that held me together through all of it:...