Episode 114
114 - are you focused on the strongest reason for doing the inner work?
The strongest reason to do inner work and heal is yourself, since you're the only part of your life you can control. On this solo episode, Mike Forrester shares what he hears most often on discovery calls with men starting coaching. Many want a marriage that feels close, alive, and intimate again. Others want their kids to trust them, laugh with them, and come to them. They want to be the dad they never had. Some want respect at work, purpose in their career, and money that finally flows. Mike calls every one of those a great thing to want. He also points out that each one rests on someone else's choice. A wife decides whether she wants to forgive and rebuild. Kids carry the anger and hurt they learned from the man their father has been. Managers decide who gets chosen and who gets overlooked. Mike compares inner work to training new muscles at the gym. Years of beliefs are being pulled apart, and the stretching hurts. A reason built on other people won't carry a man through that.
Instead, Mike points men toward what they can control. That means their thoughts, their emotions, their actions, and how they show up. The goals he names are personal ones. He wants men to feel worthy and confident, to know they matter, and to stand on their values. He wants them comfortable in their own skin. He encourages men to picture who they want to be as a husband and father and work toward those values. He warns that change can bring pushback from family and friends who feel the boat rocking. To stay with it, he offers a few plain practices. Be patient with yourself. Watch your self-talk, and choose encouragement over self-criticism. Surround yourself with trustworthy men who build you up.
Mike knows this from his own life. As he healed, he reached out to his parents hoping to hear that they loved him and were proud of him. They chose to keep placing the blame elsewhere. If they had been his reason, he says he would have given up and slipped back. He also describes the path he saw for himself before the work began. He pictured himself divorced in a dark one-bedroom apartment, playing video games alone and depressed. His marriage, his relationships with his kids, and his work did change, and he calls himself fortunate. Mike lives and teaches that healing doesn't guarantee anyone comes back. A man heals so he's whole whatever they decide, and so he becomes a man worth reconciling with. Mike also reminds men that unhealed hurt gets passed to their kids and grandkids. If you're a dad hoping your healing wins your family back, start with the one man you can change.
What You'll Learn In This Episode:
- Name the reason for your inner work that will hold up when progress feels slow.
- Recognize why a better marriage, closer kids, or a promotion can't carry the work, since each depends on someone else's choice.
- Focus on what you can control, including your thoughts, emotions, actions, and how you show up.
- Use patient, encouraging self-talk and a few trustworthy men to keep going when family pushes back.
- See why picturing who you want to be as a husband and father gives you something solid to work toward.
- Understand how changing yourself stops the hurt you inherited from passing to your kids and grandkids.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:01:00 - why inner healing feels like training new muscles
00:02:00 - why a better marriage can't be your main reason to change
00:03:00 - what to do when your kids aren't ready to forgive you
00:04:00 - why career success is a shaky reason for doing the inner work
00:05:00 - how to handle pushback from family when you start changing
00:06:00 - what you can actually control while you heal
00:07:00 - when your parents won't give you the validation you want
00:08:00 - why healing may improve your marriage but can't guarantee it
00:09:00 - how to picture the man you want to become
00:10:00 - how to focus on who you want to be as a father and husband
00:11:00 - how to stay patient and encouraging with yourself while you heal
00:12:00 - how to stop passing generational hurt to your kids
Connect with Mike Forrester
Transcript
And so you're removing all these things and it's just like going to the gym. You know, you, you are exercising new muscles and, and doing new activities and there's going to be stretching and growth. There is pain that comes along with it. Those muscles are going, Hey, I don't really care for this. What are you doing to us?
And so the same is, uh, same as the case for when we're doing emotional and mental healing. When we're going to those gyms and stretching those muscles and changing how, you know, how we are in that aspect. So, uh, things that I'll hear a lot is I'm doing this to have a better marriage, you know, a marriage that I'm close to my wife and that, you know, we're just, it's vibrant, it's alive, it's intimate.
great thing. And, um, it's, [:That's not something you can control. And so I've had other men who are like, look, I. I'm wanting this for the relationships with my children, because you know, right now it's distant and I want to be close with them. I want to have fun. I want to laugh. I just want to enjoy and be trusted and have them come to me and be that dad that I've never had.
ere may be anger, resentment [:Let's reconcile. It's, you know, let's go after this together and just have. Uh, father, son, father, daughter, relationship, um, that everyone wants. So it's a great thing, but it's not a guarantee. And you know, so other men will say, I want to be respected at work. I want that career where it's successful, where I just feel like I have purpose there and, and that the money's coming in and my finances.
I'll, you know, having more [:What's going to go on with your managers, you know, supervisors levels above you, um, whether somebody else gets chosen or whether you get chosen and, you know, you could be overlooked. And so using that as the reason why you're making all of these changes, why you're going to put in this effort to do the inner work and the healing and.
best and strongest reason to [:It's not going to necessarily be easy. Your making change. There can be pushback from family and friends, those close to you that are, you know, you're just rocking the boat and you need to know that, yes, this is worth it. And, you know, even if those come into question, I'm sold out on improving me of experiencing the life that I want and that I've dreamt of.
'm significant, right? That, [: g an employee and corporate, [:Um, it may be one of those, you know, I've talked about this before, like with. As I healed, um, I had reached out to them and I was hoping to have that, that son to father and son, the mother relationship a little bit. I wanted to, to get that confirmation from them, that validation that, Hey, I love you. I'm proud of you.
know, doing the work to heal [:Then I would have given up and reverted when they didn't respond. And so it's gotta be you, you personally, you have to be that bedrock, that foundation, the sole reason that that source, that you're making these changes, um, it may come about with other benefits, but they're not guarantees. I was really fortunate that, yes.
Hey. It did end up, you know, changing my marriage. It did end up changing the relationship with my children and it has changed the relationship or the results from, you know, work. So, um, they're all things that surround it and can be beneficial. And for most of the men that I've coached, that's the results they see, but it's not a guarantee.
that, um, and it's going to [: rced. My kids didn't want me [:It was a dark apartment with a TV playing video games and no friends, no family. And. You know, just live in life in shorts or underwear, you know, inside my apartment and being fully depressed and alone, that was the alternative and where I saw my life going. Um, so I don't know where you see yourself as far as the path you're on.
Again, like we talked about recently, um, I would encourage you to focus on what you do want, not what you don't want. So instead of saying, Hey, I don't want to be that single guy, or I don't want to be like my parents see who you want to be as a father, as a husband, look at those values and characteristics and work towards them.
u want to be? And. You know, [:Don't be, self-critical be encouraging to yourself, surround yourself with other men that. You know, are trustworthy that are encouraging, um, and just keep at it. You can do this. I fully believe that I know that to be true. Um, if I could get from where I was and the path that I was on to where I'm at now.
he one that makes the change [:And so it's not just going to be you that hurts your going to be passing that hurt along to your children. And most likely it'll continue onto your grandchildren and become a heritage and a, you know, just a legacy that's passed along and you didn't ask didn't inherit what you got, but you have the option of standing Paul of making that tough decision.
questions, reach out to me. [:
