September 30, 2026
Grand day rising.
My Conversation with God.
I woke up around 4:45 this morning with fear in my body.
And sadness.
Not overwhelming.
Not panic.
But enough that I could feel my nervous system beginning to run.
I had fallen asleep around 11:30, so once again sleep wasn’t exactly stellar.
But this morning wasn’t really about sleep.
My mind immediately started jumping into the future.
Business.
Money.
Clients.
My body.
Recovery.
Everything I’ve been building.
Everything I’ve been responsible for.
And underneath all of it was this fear:
What happens if I can’t keep pulling all the levers?
I’ve been down for months now.
Surgery.
Recovery.
Infection.
Hospitalization.
Another surgery.
PICC line.
Antibiotics.
Weakness.
Muscle loss.
Sleep deprivation.
Trying to rest.
Trying to heal.
And yet somewhere inside me is still this machine that believes:
If you’re not producing, something is going to fall apart.
If you don’t show up, everything could collapse.
If you stop pulling the levers, who the fuck is going to keep the machine running?
And for a few moments this morning, the fear got loud.
Am I going to lose everything?
Not just romantic love.
The business.
The clients.
The thing I do.
The thing that gives me purpose.
The thing that, if I’m being brutally honest, has often made me feel valuable.
Useful.
Important.
Worthy.
And then all the usual characters walked into the room.
Comparison Carl.
Worry Willie.
Fearful Freddy.
Shame Shane.
Not-Good-Enough Eddie.
Everybody showed up early today.
Apparently nobody needed an invitation.
And for a few minutes, I couldn’t even comfort them.
Because I was scared too.
That may be one of the most vulnerable things I can say.
Sometimes I talk about becoming the parent to all these wounded children inside me.
I talk about saying:
“I see you.”
“I’ve got you.”
“You’re safe.”
But this morning?
Adult Colin was sitting there going:
Fuck. I’m scared too.
And maybe that’s part of the truth I’ve been afraid to expose.
Because from the outside, I probably don’t look like a man who should be scared.
I look strong.
I look healthy.
I’ve built businesses.
I’ve driven nice cars.
I’ve had a beautiful wife.
We looked like a power couple.
I’ve coached people.
I’ve stood on stages.
I’ve rebuilt my body.
I’ve survived surgeries.
I’ve survived addiction.
I’ve survived financial crashes.
I’ve rebuilt shit before.
So if somebody looked at my social media over the years, they could build whatever story they wanted.
Colin has it figured out.
Colin is successful.
Colin is strong.
Colin is confident.
Colin and JJ have this incredible marriage.
Look at the house.
Look at the cars.
Look at the body.
Look at the life.
And I didn’t necessarily lie.
But I also didn’t always correct the interpretation.
That’s different.
I allowed people to see what they saw.
I allowed the image to stand.
And maybe the scariest part of Becoming Colin is that I am no longer willing to let the image tell the whole story.
Because behind the strength there has been fear.
Behind the confidence there has been insecurity.
Behind the success there has been financial pressure.
Behind the body there has been pain.
Behind the power-couple image there were two human beings trying to figure out love, intimacy, identity, connection, hurt, betrayal, forgiveness, and themselves.
Behind the businessman there is still a little boy who wonders:
What happens if I’m not enough?
And this morning that little boy got loud.
Yesterday, an old friend came by.
A man I’ve known for about 40 years.
We laughed.
Talked shit.
Caught up.
It was good.
He came to this country with maybe eleven or twelve hundred dollars in his pocket and built an extraordinary life.
Financially successful.
Healthy.
Relaxed.
He genuinely seems to live his best life.
He doesn’t appear to obsess over money.
He doesn’t seem consumed by stress.
He doesn’t carry himself like he’s waiting for the next tower to fall.
Even when I looked at his labs recently, I was surprised.
Hormones looked remarkable.
Metabolic markers looked good.
Nothing jumped out.
And Comparison Carl looked across the room yesterday and started taking notes.
Look at him.
Look how he did it.
Look how easy he seems.
Look where you are.
That story started running somewhere beneath the surface.
And then this morning something even more uncomfortable landed.
For years, if I ever compared our lives, there was one thing I believed I had that was more valuable to me than his wealth.
JJ.
Let that land.
I thought:
Yeah, maybe he has more money.
Maybe he figured some shit out financially that I didn’t.
But look what I have.
I have this woman.
This marriage.
This partnership.
No amount of money is worth more than that to me.
And now?
I don’t even have that certainty to use as the counterweight.
That realization hurt.
Not because JJ is a possession.
She isn’t.
But because I realized how much of my own worth I have measured through what I could point to outside myself.
My body.
My business.
My money.
My relationship.
My ability to produce.
My ability to carry.
My ability to survive.
And what happens when all of those things feel uncertain at the same fucking time?
Apparently, you wake up at 4:45 in the morning and your inner children throw a board meeting.
And all of them want the microphone.
The fear started time traveling.
Not into anything that had actually happened.
Into what could happen.
Business collapse.
Loss.
Embarrassment.
Shame.
Failure.
People watching me fall.
People thinking:
Damn. He really lost everything.
And my body was reacting to a future that did not exist.
That’s what fear does.
It takes possibility and turns it into certainty.
Then makes your body live through it before it ever happens.
And while I was lying there, something else started moving.
Grief.
Tears.
Real tears.
And I knew immediately:
This isn’t all about today.
These tears are old.
Years old.
Maybe decades old.
This is grief that never had anywhere to go.
Fear that got stuffed.
Sadness that got swallowed.
Shame that got hidden.
Because there was a little boy who learned early that some emotions weren’t welcome.
Stop crying.
Toughen up.
Go to your room.
Come back when you can smile.
Think about that.
A child is overwhelmed by an emotion he doesn’t understand.
And instead of curiosity—
“What happened?”
“What are you feeling?”
“What do you need?”
“Come here.”
He learns:
Your emotion makes you unacceptable.
So what does the child do?
He hides it.
He stuffs it.
He figures out another way to be loved.
Be good.
Be useful.
Be strong.
Be impressive.
Achieve.
Produce.
Provide.
Protect.
Take care of everybody.
Maybe then you’re safe.
Maybe then nobody sends you away.
And then that little boy grows up.
He looks successful.
Strong.
Confident.
Maybe even powerful.
And nobody realizes that some of those wounded children are still sitting underneath all of it pulling the fucking levers.
The masculine has been taught this forever.
Don’t cry.
Don’t let them see weakness.
Handle it.
Fix it.
Man up.
But stuffing emotion doesn’t remove it.
It just puts the child in the driver’s seat where nobody can see him.
And this morning I realized something.
All of these parts of me are welcome.
Comparison Carl.
Worry Willie.
Fearful Freddy.
Shame Shane.
Not-Good-Enough Eddie.
Sad Sammy.
All of them.
Nobody gets sent to their room anymore.
Nobody has to come back with a smile on their face before they are allowed to sit with me.
But they also don’t need to drive.
That was when I heard something.
Call it God.
Call it intuition.
Call it Source.
Call it the deepest part of me.
I know how it felt.
It said:
All I ask is that you let me take the wheel for a while.
Get in the back seat of the limo.
Let me drive.
I know the destination.
I know the route.
The road may feel bumpy sometimes.
I’ll cushion it as much as I can.
You are not alone.
You have never been alone.
I’ve got you.
Keep your faith in me.
I will show you the way.
And I just sat with that.
Because maybe the hardest thing for a man who has spent his entire life pulling levers is to stop fucking pulling them for a minute.
To let somebody else drive.
To trust.
To surrender.
To admit:
I don’t know where this road goes.
Maybe that is faith.
Not believing nothing bad will ever happen.
I know better than that.
I’ve watched towers burn down before.
I know bodies break.
Businesses struggle.
Markets crash.
Relationships change.
Plans fall apart.
Faith isn’t pretending those things can’t happen.
Maybe faith is:
I don’t know what happens next, but I trust I’ll meet it when it gets here.
That feels different.
So I started talking to those scared parts of me.
I know you’re scared.
I know you’re worried.
I know you feel behind.
I know you’re comparing yourself.
I know you’re afraid you’re not enough.
I know you think everybody else has figured something out that you missed.
Come here.
I’ve got you.
We are okay.
We are safe.
And eventually I came back.
Not into tomorrow.
Not into next month.
Not into some imaginary collapse.
Back into my body.
Back into this room.
Back into this breath.
Back into now.
And in this moment?
All my needs are met.
That is my truth.
In this moment, I am safe.
In this moment, I am loved.
In this moment, I am secure.
I like who I am.
And in this moment, all my needs are met.
I took a deep breath.
And I landed.
Nothing outside me had changed.
The business didn’t suddenly double.
The money didn’t magically appear.
My knee didn’t suddenly become perfect.
JJ didn’t walk back through the door.
Nobody handed me a guarantee about the future.
The only thing that changed was where I was living.
I stopped living in an imaginary future.
And came home to now.
And maybe this is the scariest part of Becoming Colin.
Not crying publicly.
Not talking about my marriage.
Not talking about addiction or betrayal or mistakes.
Maybe the scariest part is saying:
I don’t always feel strong.
Sometimes I am scared financially.
Sometimes I compare myself to other men.
Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve done enough.
Sometimes I wonder whether everything I built could disappear.
Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck happens next.
Sometimes I am physically weak.
Emotionally overwhelmed.
Spiritually unsure.
Sometimes I need somebody else to drive.
And maybe showing you that part of me destroys the image.
Good.
Maybe that image needed to die.
Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being admired for a version of myself that requires me to hide half of myself.
I would rather be known.
And maybe the deepest question under all of this is one I’ve been avoiding my whole life:
Who am I when I stop using what I can produce, protect, build, own, or keep as proof that I am enough?
I don’t have the complete answer yet.
But this morning I know this:
I am still here.
Breathing.
Healing.
Feeling.
Writing.
Talking to God.
Allowing the tears to move.
Allowing the fear to speak.
Allowing all of me to belong.
And right now—
that is enough.
Thank you, God, for our time together today.
Thank you for listening.
Namaste.
Colin F. Watson
One important ask: please don’t reach out to JJ about what I share here. She is processing her journey privately, and I want to respect that. Even with the best intentions, please give her the space to experience this in her own way and on her own timeline.