Veteran Dad Podcast

I just returned from a looong 2600 mile road trip to Nebraska and back, visiting friends and family, while getting some much needed R&R. Although the trip went off without a hitch, I found myself upside down and backwards quite a few times along the way. I tried to maintain my level of discipline on the road, as if I was home, and although found success in it for the first half — I quickly found m...

Part 2 of the 2-Part Interview with Dr. Carlos Garcia --------------------------- Episode Monologue: I crawled into 2020 not wanting to live anymore. The 11 year journey to rock-bottom led me down a path to better understanding why I was so fucked up. 5-years later and I’m on the mend, off the couch, and forward living for the first time since separating from the Military.  Back in 2017 — I had se...

I crawled into 2020 not wanting to live anymore. The 11 year journey to rock-bottom led me down a path to better understanding why I was so fucked up. 5-years later and I’m on the mend, off the couch, and forward living for the first time since separating from the Military.  Back in 2017 — I had set out to learn why so many other Veterans, like myself, struggled after service to create a life wort...

How do we balance being a dad and still being a human being.? I love being a dad but dadding non-stop makes me delirious and I begin not liking my kid.  In reality, it’s a reflection of how part of me feels about the rest of me which is then projected outward to be noticed and addressed. I’ve come to distinctly recognize 3 different elements of myself; ego, human, and spirt / higher self. Carl Jun...

For years — any emotional disturbance I had was either expressed aggressively or bottled up inside for a “rage out” at a later time. It took me years to draw correlation between the downplaying and expressing of my true feelings and all the rage I still contained inside. As time went, self control became a novelty, and the emotional triggers began consuming me. Eventually, I couldn’t maintain rela...

This past Saturday, my wife Heather and I were hanging out in the living room playing with Penny, our daughter. With spring in the air, we had our balcony door open with our magnet screen curtain closed. Rain was on the way making it a gray hazy lazy Saturday. After a long week, my wife and I were cooked and thus lounging was more necessity than want at this point. Sore, stiff — close to 40, Satur...

What does it mean to allow your faith to be bigger than your fears? Faith is the anti-thesis to fear because fear is based in the unknown and faith is founded in belief.  To allow fear to run your life while claiming to have faith is living counter-intuitive and in-turn chaotic. Faith irons out the wrinkles of the unknown by allowing trust in something bigger than YOU — that is still YOU, to fill...

When we were under contract and in-service to Uncle Same, “killing time” was a prerequisite of the job. Our indentured servitude warranted such a mentality because “hurry up and wait” wasn’t just a statement — it was the military’s motto and moniker.  I remember one year at the gas chamber. We got there around 6:45AM, which means we were in formation at 5:45AM, only to drive 15-minutes up the road...

I had a good friend once tell me that “done is better than perfect.” Yet, being a Marine used to mean that done WAS perfect. These last 11-years showed me that everything is divine in timing thus perfect even if incomplete. So what does it even mean to be perfect or to reach perfection? Especially if it’s widely agreed that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?  To admire a tree, is to observe it...