A little boys dream,

Ripped away in the blink of an eye.

Then the dreams stop.

Life happens.

We stop dreaming.

We forget that we can have as many dreams as we want.

We are infinite,

So we get to have infinite dreams.

If we are breathing,

We can have dreams.

I don’t want to die with the music still inside of me.

Screws and staples.

Playing football for the Minnesota Vikings was my dream.

I was consumed by this dream.

Morning and night.

I saw it in my mind.

I was on the path.

Unti…

Who am I?

That is the million dollar question.

I got lost.

So lost.

Who is this boy named Troy?

A football player.

A bodybuilder.

A dad.

A personal trainer.

A coach.

A dude.

A Spiritual Warrior.

Divorced.

A fitness enthusiast.

A cyclist.

A golfer.

All of those things are great.

But, who am I?

Emasculated.

My inner power got stripped away.

I looked everywhere to figure out who I am.

Always searching outside of myself.

Trying to figure it out.

You are not enough as you are s…

There isn’t anything I have to do.

Just be still.

Be aware.

Be aware of being aware.

Sit back and observe.

I am being breathed.

I feel a peace that passes all understanding.

A smile comes over me.

A tear runs down my face.

A tear of joy.

A deep sense of love.

A wholeness that I can’t describe.

The senses want to pull me in so many directions.

My mind can spin with relentless thoughts.

Most of those thoughts aren’t even true.

The truth is I am being breathed.

The best thing I can …

Very different.

Not better.

Just different.

99.5% different.

It’s just a statistic, but it’s important to me.

It’s a deep understanding of who I am.

It’s been a journey of radical Self-acceptance.

Male.

INFJ Myers Briggs Personality Type.

Introverted, so introverted.

Almost off the charts introverted.

HSP

Highly Sensitive Person.

My body processes dopamine differently.

That’s it.

My nervous system is highly reactive.

Loud noises create chaos in my system.

Violent images stay wit…

The pain of feeling misunderstood.

Why don’t you get me?

Maybe a better question to ask is why don’t I get myself?

I have been trying to get people to understand me my whole life.

To accept me for who I am.

I have tried to fit in so I feel understood.

I have sacrificed who I am.

I haven’t been true to my soul.

The truth is I haven’t understood myself.

I haven’t accepted who I am.

I have sacrificed myself to try to fit in with the crowd.

It hasn’t felt safe to be me.

I feel trapped an…

I got it all wrong most of my life.

I searched for power in all the wrong things.

I was misled.

Money.

Followers.

Likes.

Muscles.

Religion.

Sports.

Relationships.

Things.

Body.

Image.

External validation.

The search outside of myself led to despair.

We are sold a way of living that creates constant seeking and attaining.

Know thyself.

That is true power.

It’s right there.

It’s too obvious.

It’s too simple.

It’s profound.

Know myself.

That is where the wisdom is.

Master my…

I was lost.

And now I am found.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So many poor choices.

So much pain.

So much desperation.

It was buried deep down.

I journeyed for years carrying a deep burden in my soul.

Sadness pervaded my spirit.

Heaviness.

Darkness.

The shadow.

The truth was slowly revealed.

Understanding came bit by bit.

Healing through tears.

The revelations that came.

It first tore me down.

Took me to my knees.

Slowly ever so slowly,

I started to wake up.

The deep cond…

I have relentlessly trained my body through the years.

Being disciplined has always been a strength of mine.

Eating a vegan diet, it’s all good.

I simply made a choice one day to stop eating animal products.

That’s that.

Getting to the gym every day, no problem.

It’s just what I do.

But one area that has been an ongoing struggle for me is my thoughts.

I have heard this scripture before a thousand times.

“Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.” -Proverbs 4:23

It’…

“Put everything away except your pencils.” That is the directive from my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Carlson, signaling it is creative writing time.

A collective groan comes over the class.

Desperately wanting to fit in and be part of the crowd, as I was so good at back then and still have moments of wanting to fit in, I moaned and groaned along with them, but secretly my insides were doing a happy dance.

Expressing My Creative Side Without Shame

As Mrs. Carlson put the creative writing prompt…

My GPS on my phone is really confused these days. It doesn’t know where my home is. When I get into my car sometimes it tells me I have fifteen minutes to get home, but that is where I lived last month. Sometimes it tells me I have twenty minutes to get home, but that is where I lived last week. 

The fact is I have lived in a lot of homes since September of 2021 when the call was put on my heart to sell the majority of my belongings and begin my journey into the unknown with God embracing uncer…