Today felt like one of those quietly life-changing days — nothing dramatic, nothing big, just a series of ordinary moments that revealed how far I’ve come.

It started at my son’s football match.
Normally, that environment would trigger something in me: awkwardness, self-consciousness, a subtle panic about social dynamics. But today was different. I moved through it all with a strange, grounded clarity.

I spoke to other parents lightly.
I kept conversations simple and human.
I didn’t overstay, overshare, or disappear.
I helped my son connect with his friend.
I sat with myself without spiralling.
And when a dad who’d previously ignored me said hello, I simply said hello back — no resentment, no tension.

It’s only afterwards that I realised what that was:
presence, regulation, groundedness, care, kindness, balance.
The exact qualities I’ve spent years trying to build.
The exact qualities I’ve admired in secure men.
And today… I lived them.

When my son was hit hard in the face with the ball, the old me would have panicked, rushed in, or flooded.
Instead, I watched, waited, trusted.
The coach comforted him.
He handled it beautifully.
And I handled it beautifully too.
I felt proud of him — and, for once, proud of myself.

The Warmth in My Stomach

Later, when reflecting on all of this, something happened internally that I wasn’t expecting.
A softness — and then a warmth — appeared in the centre of my stomach.

For most of my life, that place has held emptiness.
A hollow ache.
A preverbal “no one is coming.”

So when I said a simple line to my younger self —
“Hang in there, man. It’s not going to be easy. But you’re going to be okay.”
— and felt warmth instead of emptiness…

That meant something profound.

It meant the message landed.
It meant the child in me trusted it.
It meant my adult self finally reached him, not through theory or concepts, but through simple, human truth.

My therapist has been guiding me toward this for months:
less theory, fewer explanations, more feeling, more simple language.
She was right.
My younger parts don’t speak psychology — they speak tone, safety, warmth.

And today, they heard me.

The Firmness I Had to Build

Warmth has always been natural for me.
Connection, empathy, emotional openness — those have never been the problem.

The part I had to work at was firmness.

Firmness means:

  • boundaries
  • clarity
  • containment
  • stability
  • pacing
  • not collapsing into others
  • not overextending myself
  • saying “this is what I need” without apologising

And today, firmness showed up effortlessly.

In a simple moment where I said,
“I appreciated that I wasn’t being assessed,”
the firmness wasn’t forceful — it was matter-of-fact.
A quiet line drawn from a place of self-worth.
A sign of how integrated that boundary has become.

Even the situation with my neighbour earlier this week —
a moment that once would have overwhelmed me —
was handled with calm clarity and emotional steadiness.

That’s the part of me I’ve fought to build.
And now it’s showing up without effort.

The Therapist I’m Becoming

In therapy this week, I explored the fear that I might not be able to work with every client.
My therapist didn’t minimise it.
She let me stay in that reality.

Carl Rogers, Irvin Yalom — the greats could meet almost anyone.
But they didn’t start that way.
They grew through their blind spots.

I will too.

And I don’t have to do it alone.
Supervision exists for a reason.
It gives me security, support, and a relational container to grow inside of.

For the first time, I feel like the man I am now could become a good therapist — not because I know everything, but because I have the raw ingredients:

  • presence
  • warmth
  • firmness
  • humility
  • self-awareness
  • the ability to sit with discomfort
  • the willingness to keep growing

Experience will come.
Skills will come.
Pacing and structure will come.
But the core?
It’s already here.

A Quiet Realisation

I’m starting to appreciate life’s small moments more than ever — the ordinary, gentle, human ones.

Maybe I wasn’t “meant” to get this far.
Maybe statistically I shouldn’t have.
But I did.

Through work.
Through pain.
Through reflection.
Through stubborn hope that felt pointless at times.
Through parenting.
Through therapy.
Through the loneliness.
Through the rebuilding of myself from the inside out.

Tonight, sitting with myself, I feel something new:

Hope doesn’t feel dangerous anymore.
It feels possible.
It feels earned.
It feels like the beginning of the man I’ve been fighting to become.

And I’m proud of him.