Doing Ends. Being Doesn't.

Closing the gap between my external and internal life.

I used to call my sadness “walking-depression”. I took the concept of walking pneumonia, cut it with the condition I have battled for a lifetime and left it at that.

Walking = Functioning = Accomplishing

I have held VP and Director roles.

I was a lead trumpet. Star baseball player. Entrepreneur.

I hiked off a mountain with a broken leg.

I am told I am hard to know. Hard to get close to.

I have over-identified as traumatized and lost friends because of it.

I have avoided my feelings by substance abuse. I am someone who met relief and joy via alcohol. Without the awareness and skills to embrace joy while sober, I not only leaned into consumption, but I built a life and career around it. As proud as I am of many aspects of that career, I see it as a true example of my achievements overpowering my needs and enabling me to avoid the honest truth.

Looking back, I realize that I operated most of my life trying to be either useful or invisible.

Safest when admired for a solo on stage, a tough play on the field, another A+, or completely in the background.

But doing ends. Being is constant. One doesn’t hide the other.

The gap between these two realms is where my pain grew and my doing activated. I started college on a full ride for academics and trumpet performance. I dropped out of conservatory in my sophomore year and lost half my scholarship. I was joy-deprived and not ready for the emotions music brought out of me. Eyes not ready for that spiritual mirror.

Having held these two disparate lanes of life concurrently for all of my life, by age 35 I was ready for some help to close the gap. I was exhausted from carrying the weight of unresolved darkness. I had lived in 9 different states, gained awards and accolades in the craft beer industry, remained single and dysfunctional, and was an active alcoholic. I retreated to New Orleans to get my shit together without an audience. To be alone with my pain. To cry freely. To recategorize my addiction as dysfunction, not freedom. To unpack the spiritual signs that I matter. To love myself despite my brokenness. Because of it.

I got real with myself. I refused to see my doing as separate from my being.

Fear of being the new allergenic kid again -> Climb the ladder in my career.

Disrespecting myself for feeling sad and angry -> Relocate to run away.

Identifying as impossibly broken and unfit for this world -> Refusing the potential of fatherhood.

Overwhelmed by shame -> Numb with alcohol only to amplify the shame in the end.

Feeling undeserving of love -> Sabotaging relationships, choosing toxicity instead.

At 35, I adopted the mantra, “Zac, you can’t go back”.

That took ending relationships, ending a career, filing bankruptcy, being uncomfortable with the lack of distractions I was accustomed to, and still finding a way to sleep at night. It’s been hard and rewarding.

Then I heard this amazing woman named Dr. Judith Joseph being interviewed by Rich Roll about her new book entitled ”High Functioning”. Her years of work with patients just like me piqued my interest so much that before the end of the podcast, I had ordered her book.

Before reading Dr. Joseph’s book, I wasn’t able to accept this melancholic thread in my life. I didn’t understand it. Worse, I saw no integrity in it.

My melancholy felt like my allergies - an anomaly and incurable.

Another useless diagnosis that just reminds me that life is just harder for me. There’s less food on earth for me. The generosity of a meal may kill me any day. No reason why.

As an active alcoholic, I flaunted how deeply I understood my problem. No follow up.

I now aim to live through my labels and diagnosis, not as them.

Dr. Joseph showed me that I was born with the power to work on my problems. A power proven by the problem. Validated me in relation to what I saw as broken, not in opposition to it.

So I now go inward for my fuel. Eyes wide open.

Blessings and Gratitude,

ZBop (Me) and Sukhi (My writing partner is recovering from an accident, so here’s a recent photo of me)

Early Central Oregon Adventures!