why exercise keto and cold showers didn’t make me happier

discovering that real happiness doesn’t come from hacks

I had incredible habits, and I lied to myself everyday. Exercise, fasting, and cold showers made me feel great — most of the time. But they were a distraction, letting me avoid the hard truths in my life. The messy stuff. The important stuff. 

I was afraid to speak the truth: I’m not okay. I’m not happy right now. I sure could use a little help. When the voice of truth bubbled up, the voice of reason hammered it down. NO. Like a dog in training. The voice was my heart. 

Burnout. Trauma. Shame. A bloody mess. How did it happen?  

I could blame my role models — easy targets. The titans of self-improvement: Ferris, Huberman, Hoff. Freeze your balls off to a better you. All telling me to shape, control, hack, improve, carve, mold myself. Goggins made them look lazy. I ate it up, every last bit of it. Routines, protocols, supplements. 

This idea isn’t new. It dates back to the Romans, at least. Western rugged individualism defined by domination over nature. They said let’s shape the world, let’s build roads and chisel our bodies into stone. Change yourself. A not-so subtle act of aggression.

Hippocrates said the brain is the mind. My life reduced to neurochemical firing. Tony Robbins put a nicer label on it. He said, change your body, change your life. We started to use external solutions for internal problems. People loved it. It stuck. Somewhere along the way I fell into the hole…

No.

It wasn’t them. It wasn’t society. It wasn’t the Romans or Hippocrates or Robbins or Huberman or Ferris. Pointing my finger, three fingers point back at me. It’s so easy to blame, and old habits die hard. Own it. 

I got sidetracked. I disconnected from truth. I filled a vacuum with whatever was advertised. Change your body, change your life. There’s truth there, sure. Cold showers work better than antidepressants for some. My mood was sky-high. Mental disorders can be metabolic. Change your metabolism, goodbye depression. You gotta lift, bro. That’s basic. Pump it. 

I still love all of it. I can’t lie. Put me in a sauna with a leafblower and dump a bucket of ice on my head. I’ll take it any day. 

Because it feels good to be in control, when so much is not. Polycrisis. Metacrisis. Pandemic. Can’t fix that. But at least I can control what I put in my body. And I feel better. Energized. Motivated. Productive. Badabing, badaboom. Problem solved. Then I track it, trace it like a hawk. What gets measured gets managed. My world, my life, becomes a self-improvement project. Sell it all to me.

What’s for breakfast today? Suppression. I chug a coffee and push my way through to unachievable success. Focused on the future, never enjoying the gift of the present. Stimulants take me away from myself. Manipulating dopamine, pushing down the feelings. I can’t ask for help. I never learned how, or is it that I forgot? I am a self-made man, I tell myself. A myth. Garbage ideas picked up by the velcro mind swirling in a continuum. Pick up the ball and run; you’re being chased by a tiger. Can’t shake the feeling.

Meditation? Okay. I put on the app for 20 minutes. The goal is set. Soothing voice, temporary relief. Clear the mind for more productivity. A solitary mind. A lonely mind. Full of crap. Time is money, and time well-spent in meditation will make me rich. Manifest that shit…But it’s not working. Quiet desperation slowly eating away at the foundations of the mind-body-heart. 

I see now – where I took the wrong fork in the road. 

It’s not what I was doing, but the how. My relationship to it – to myself and to everyone and everything – was the thorn cutting into my heart. Slice. You cannot optimize me, or fix me, or upgrade me. These are words for machines. But I am not a machine.

I am not limitless. I have limits.

I am not superhuman. I am human.

I cannot be everything and do everything. I can do a few things. 

It’s a trap. 

Truth: I am whole. Perfect just as I am. I poop, cry and take a walk in the park. I pick my nose and judge the person in front of me at the grocery store. I forget my true nature. Until I put my phone away and listen to the silence. The phantom, the echo, the dream. And then I remember.

There is nothing missing. I am doing just enough, worthy by just being alive. Does nature need an upgrade? An acorn, a turtle, a lake. These are perfect just as they are. Believing otherwise is a form of separation, disconnecting us from what’s true. Separating us from the Great Mystery of life. It’s an optical illusion of the mind, said Einstein.

And, I am not an island. Self-sufficiency? Doesn’t exist. Never did, never will. I am not just floating in space by myself, amassing almond butter and daily hacks for a better brain. You see it’s easy to look at the external, the tangible, the measurable. 1s and 0s make the world go round. But it’s the stuff that’s hardest to measure that’s most important, isn’t it? 

They live longer in Okinawa and Sardinia. The Blue Zones, you’ve heard of them. Everyone lives to a 100 and is full of smiles. But it’s not the veggies or the diet. They are…together. Not alone. Family, friends. Moais, or tight-knit groups. A sense of shared purpose and ikigai. Meaning arises naturally. This is how we evolved. The most natural part of being human. You and me. 

We live in relation. The mind is relational. We’re not just electrical signals in the brain. Everything flows through our brains – relationships makes our minds. So what’s in my mind? Insta, Tik Tok feeds. Abstractions, metrics, goals that are never-enough. Black and white thinking. A dumpster truck piling up trash. Where’s the starlight and waterfalls, stories and dragonflies? 

No starlight, just blue light. 11 hours a day on screens. 75% fewer friends than we used to have compared to 20 years ago. PhDs hacking teenage brains and killing them from a distance. No joke. But statistics feel cold. Remember: These are all real people, just like you. With hopes, dreams, doubts, fears, desires, longings, friendships. It could be you.

What I believe now: Health is not just physical health, but it includes it. It’s not an either-or question. I can freeze myself, mold myself, and supplement myself. But I have to nurture my life. Tend the garden with myself and my relationships. Otherwise it will never feel enough. There will always be a hole. 

I jump under a cold waterfall, run a marathon, and chug a coffee. It feels awesome. It’s wonderful to be alive! But I remember the brain is not the mind, and feeling good like this is not enough. I have to be with others, open myself to them. And open myself to myself. Let the relationships atrophy, and you die.

So how did I heal from my burnout? My trauma? It’s an ongoing journey. Heartmind, the Daoists call it. The integration of heart and mind. There’s no one protocol, pill or routine I can tell you. No one therapist, coach or mentor did it. I am finding space for 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. In community. In relationship. Together. 

Now I’m reading a story to my 1 year old son about the Rainbow Fish. A fish with beautiful shining scales, but very few friends. Consulting the wise Octopus, she tells him to share his scales. He won’t be as beautiful, but he will have many friends. And so he does — giving away his scales one by one — and he’s the happiest fish in the sea.