Welcome to the Jungle with Andrew Blair

What would you do if life as you knew it crumbled around you, leaving you to rebuild from scratch? This is the extraordinary journey of Andrew Blair, who traded his corporate life in Baltimore for the tranquil landscapes of Costa Rica. Join us as Andrew opens up about his brief, tumultuous marriage, the painful loss of his father, and the familial expectations that once confined him. Through his story, you'll gain invaluable insights into facing life's curveballs and emerging stronger on the other side.

We navigate the raw emotions that followed Andrew's separation, exploring how deeply embedded anger and the victim mentality drove him towards drugs and alcohol. Listen as Andrew shares how Brazilian jiu-jitsu and journaling provided mental clarity and a much-needed sense of accomplishment. Discover how meditation became his anchor amidst the chaos of divorce and his father's illness, helping him reclaim control and focus on self-care. His revelations about his father's affair compelled him to question his upbringing, leading him to therapy and a transformative journey of self-discovery.

In the latter part of our conversation, Andrew reveals how hitting rock bottom was the catalyst for profound personal growth. He discusses the role of support systems, the importance of authentic connections, and his journey into exploring masculine archetypes. Andrew's work as a life transformation coach now empowers other men to face their own trials with vulnerability and resilience. Don’t miss this impactful episode, where Andrew's story serves as a beacon of hope and a testament to the power of healing and reinvention.

Transcript

Alex Lange 0:03

Hey, good afternoon and welcome to another episode of a man's journey podcast. Today I have Andrew Blair, who, like many of the men that I have on, I've met through the uncivilized nation crucible with him, and this man lives in Costa Rica now, which is so, so, fucking cool, and I just want to. I love this story. I actually heard a little bit bits and pieces here and there, and I and this is the first time that we're actually sitting down one-on-one, so this is really cool.

Alex Lange 0:38

Uh, andrew, uh, opened up before we started recording and told me that about six years ago, in 2015, he was going through a separation that was leading to divorce in April and then in August, his father, who he was very close with, was diagnosed and then passed away six months later. And it really took me back to similarity of when I, when I was going through the separation with my, my wife and then my wife having an abortion, of just how things come in threes. We were just talking about that and I thought I was the only one, and so I I wanted to bring Andrew on, because I think that there's a lot of value in men that are going through divorce or separation or any type of pain point that there are people out there that they can lean on and open up to. And, andrew, thank you for coming on. I truly appreciate it. Can you go ahead and tell me a little bit about yourself?

Andrew Blair 1:39

Yeah, yeah, thanks, alex for having me. Yeah, so I live in Costa Rica. I'm originally from the east coast of the United States. I was born in Baltimore, moved around a lot as a kid as a result of my father's employment decisions, put it that way and ended up back in Baltimore for college. Ended up back in Baltimore for college and lived there for over 15 years. It's where most of my family is from.

Andrew Blair 2:13

I worked for a long time in finance, then made a career change into IT and very much came from the corporate world and thinking that that was the direction my life was supposed to go, and there was always a feeling inside of me that that wasn't the right choice. That very much was the type of or at least I should say I had the belief that I was supposed to be working 50 to 60 hours a week, building up my 401k, making as much money as I could to provide for a family, which I never had. But that was very much my belief and did that for a long, long time. Never was truly happy in that world, did a lot of soul searching and that's led me to now living in Costa Rica.

Andrew Blair 3:08

As Alex said, we went through the coaching crucible together in the uncivilized nation. I'm trying to build my coaching practice. Above all, I'm trying to fulfill my dream of being a writer. That was my main reason for coming down to Costa Rica and my pursuit of that really drives all decisions I'm making in my life right now, for good and for bad. And yeah, I think that's probably a pretty good start right there in terms of an introduction to me, and we'll get into the more juicy bits here in a little bit, I'm sure.

Alex Lange 3:43

You know, I appreciate that and I just I do want to get to on on the writing piece, cause I think that that's great that you're pursuing that passion. Uh, let's go back to 2015. Take me back to that painful moment, um, when you decided maybe you lived out of touch with yourself. I know that you had some things that were that were going on, but it was that shift that you were like, hey, things have to change for me. And talk me through that, those two moments.

Andrew Blair 4:12

Yeah, yeah. So my ex-wife and I our marriage lasted just about one year before we got separated. Just about one year before we got separated. Actually, we tried to reconcile on our one-year anniversary and it did not work out, and that was actually the day, if I remember correctly, that we decided that we were going to officially separate was our one-year wedding anniversary year wedding anniversary. It was unexpected at the time but, knowing in hindsight what I know about my marriage and particularly where I was at the time, not that unexpected. To be honest. I was very much trying to live a life of working and building a relationship based on the relationship with my parents and what I thought was expected of me at that time in my life and, deep down, not realizing how unhappy I was with how things had kind of worked out and my ex-wife and I, we decided to separate. As I said, that was at the beginning of the summer.

Andrew Blair 5:29

Through the summer I moved out on my own, found a new place. I was working at the time. It was an IT job in the Baltimore area. I had a very supportive boss who I was able to talk to about my separation, but the work I was doing wasn't super satisfying. I was going through my separation and I was just pretty lost. You know that's it for any man who's gone through a separation. You know, most of the time we're putting 100 percent of our effort into our marriage because that makes sense. That's usually what's expected. I don't think I was putting a lot of effort into the things that made me happy and I was given the opportunity to really face that head on and I didn't know what to do with that at the time and I didn't know what to do with that at the time.

Andrew Blair 6:38

So that summer went along and in about mid-August of 2015, my father went and came back that he had cancer.

Andrew Blair 6:47

And this was all very surprising.

Andrew Blair 6:49

You know, my dad was one of the classic kind of men who and he taught me this, that you force your way through pain and I think he'd probably been having some type of abdominal pain for a little while before that.

Andrew Blair 7:06

And it just got to a point where, like, I remember going to visit him at that time and he just couldn't you could just see there was something really wrong with him and he was still kind of refusing to do anything about it until he had to go to the ER, basically. And that's how they discovered the cancer. And, yeah, this was August and he started to go ER, basically. And that's how they discovered the cancer. And, yeah, this was August and he started to go for chemotherapy and the cancer was in stage four pretty much right away, so the worst it could be and he was going into the hospital for 10 days at a time for his chemotherapy. And this kind of allowed me, in a way, to take what I had going on with my divorce and put it to the side because I had something else to focus on, which was my dad being sick going to visit him and that entire situation.

Andrew Blair 8:02

Now, a couple months into my dad getting chemotherapy, a pretty big skeleton in his closet came to light for the family and I can't even fully get into it because it's still something that some of my larger family doesn't know the full truth about, which perhaps we can talk about a little bit further here. But this, particularly for me and my mom and my four sisters, was really difficult for us. We were now facing a dilemma of contemplating the loss of her father to cancer, while also being very angry and disappointed in my father for some decisions that he had made, and it made things very complicated and very difficult. And at that time my dad's still getting chemotherapy, so things are going actually positively until the end of the year. So through the holidays and all of that, there's very much this weird feeling of my dad might die. I'm very angry at him, but I also need to love him and support him while he's sick. And this was around the time. You know, I have all these feelings going on with my dad, while also on the side hiring a lawyer, going back and forth with my now ex-wife and trying to finalize our divorce. And it wasn't in terms of my divorce, it wasn't this super, super bad like lots of fighting back and forth. There were definitely hurt feelings that led to a few disagreements, but all in all my ex-wife and I we didn't have any children, we didn't own a house or anything like that, so it was a pretty straightforward divorce. It was more that we just had to choose when we were going to say we're done, and that just took a few conversations. But by the end of the year my divorce was finalized and about a week after that the doctors came back and let my dad know that the first round of chemotherapy was finished and it looked like his cancer was gone and he was going to be okay. So this was good news.

Andrew Blair 10:44

Going into the new year and with all these feelings and everything going on, I started for the first time in my life to truly explore meditation and the benefits of that. My dad was in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. There's, my dad was in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and they have a I forget what it's called now, but it was like a prayer room basically and I would go in there and I'm not very religious myself, but it was the one place in the hospital I could go, where I could be by myself. You know, whenever I would go to visit my dad him having five children coming from a very large family I didn't get a lot of alone time not only with my dad but with myself when I was in the hospital. It was tough. So I'd go into this prayer room and I would meditate and really just start to try and focus on what was I really feeling and trying to not get lost in those feelings, try to figure out what I really needed to give to myself.

Andrew Blair 11:59

I had a conversation with my dad beginning of the year where he wanted to go on this solo trip, now that his it was at the time that his cancer was going to be okay and he was, he was going to be all right and I just had this sense that it probably wasn't going to be a conversation that my family was going to want to have, that everything that was going on, and I was okay, dad, I'll support you on this trip. And then a couple days later found out that the cancer had spread to his spine and things weren't okay and it was basically a decision at that point for my family and my dad. Of course, he could have at that point, just gone into hospice care and at that point, basically agreeing to live out the last month or two of his life and pass, or to try an experimental procedure for the cancer, and we as a family discussed it and my dad decided that he would try the experimental procedure, and this procedure did not go well. My dad spent a couple of days basically in a coma. His kidneys essentially failed and this was again a very hard time and eventually came back, but there wasn't much left to do for his cancer.

Andrew Blair 13:35

And on my 32nd birthday, february 29th 2016, is when the doctors told my father and my family that my dad's cancer was terminal, that there was nothing else to be done and it was time for him then to drop his care. And that's what happened, and about a month later, he passed away. So yeah, in a period of about six months separation and divorce, my father unexpectedly getting sick, some skeletons coming out of my father's closet that really changed my view of him as a role model, and he then passed away. So yeah, in short summary, those are the pain points for me and that has kicked off the last six years of my healing journey and my self-discovery.

Dealing With Anger and Addiction

Alex Lange 14:39

Yeah, I really appreciate that. You sharing that. I'm sure that that was really hard and I just want to say I'm sorry, sorry for your loss. Once again, I want to go back to the very beginning, when the separation took place, and walk me through. We'll get to all three. There's a lot there, all three. There's a lot there. When the separation took place, what were you going through the days the weeks following? Did you get that question that I asked? Yes, I did. Okay, I have to do some editing.

Andrew Blair 15:30

No worries, yeah, I'll start now. Yeah, I can tell you this, for probably those first few weeks, for sure, I was very much in victim mode. I felt like something had sort of been dropped on me and in hindsight, as I mentioned, that's not really fair or the reality of the situation, but those first couple of weeks I really felt like a victim of my circumstances. Like a victim of my circumstances. And there was also it was about the middle of the month when I, uh we first started to have some problems and when we officially separated I had to find a place to live in about three weeks, if I remember correctly. So I was kind of forced to find somewhere to live on my own, to clean out my place, including my ex-wife's things, while she was at a friend's. So in the very beginning it was very much I'm a victim. My now ex-partner is forcing all these things on me and there was a lot of anger, for sure.

Andrew Blair 16:51

But at that time in my life, and occasionally, sometimes now as well, I struggled with how to release and show anger, one of the things my father taught me. I came home from school one day and I'd been getting bullied. I was probably like 14 and a kid in gym class threatened to beat me up. We had just moved to a new school and I was the new kid, so I was easy to pick on, pick on, and my dad was home he wasn't at work and I asked him what I should do and he said you shouldn't do anything.

Andrew Blair 17:33

If you show people that you're angry, you're showing them that you care, you're showing them that they can get to you. And so I spent the rest of high school and most of my early twenties thinking that anger is something to be hidden, because if I show anger to somebody, they'll realize that they've gotten something over on me. So the very beginning of my separation, in terms of my anger, I was keeping it to myself and trying to act with my ex-wife like I had some type of mask of serenity, like, oh, you can't get to me with this thing that we're going through, like I'm totally okay with this situation, like I'm totally okay with this situation, when in reality I was very angry and very upset and very, very scared.

Andrew Blair 18:35

Because there was a lot of unknowns at that time, yeah, so the first thing, though, was where am I going to live, and how do I move forward, and what do I do with all this stuff that's in my house, and all those types of feelings were coming up. So, yeah, anger and fear were the two biggest emotions at that time, though, for sure.

Alex Lange 18:56

Absolutely. You know, in the work that we do in helping other men, I've come across a lot of times that when we suppress things, that they come out sideways in a different form. Was that happening for you with anger, and what was the form, if you don't mind sharing?

Andrew Blair 19:15

Yeah, totally, because it's a big part of my life. I was turned into drugs and alcohol for sure. I was turned into drugs and alcohol for sure. I'd say for at least seven or eight years of my life I was a daily cannabis smoker. That was my go-to in terms of how I dealt with stress and anxiety and anger At that time, I think if you asked me if I was angry, I would have said no, no, no, I'm fine.

Andrew Blair 19:53

So cannabis was the number one, and then alcohol. For sure I would go out with my friends and I was very lucky at that time that I had a good group of guy friends that I could go to and, yeah, we'd talk about the situation. It wasn't these deep conversations like I've had more recently in men's work, but I had great friends that I could go hang out with and spend time with. But I was just drinking myself silly every time I was going out. And I can just remember that I was going out and I can just remember that especially once I got this new apartment that I was living in the amount of times I drove home from Baltimore city out into the suburbs where I was living and should not have driven and would wake up on my couch in just a horrible state the it the next morning.

Andrew Blair 20:42

And yeah, it's just any time that I actually felt that anger or that fear that was a result of my separation. In that situation, uh, yeah, it was drugs and alcohol that I turned to. For sure, and just I, pretty much. If I wasn't at work, I was stoned, for sure. If I wasn't at work. I was stoned for sure, watching a lot of TV and listening to a lot of music, not a lot of just sitting with myself. You know, I was still doing some meditation, still trying to feel a little better, but I really did think drugs and alcohol were part of that equation at that time as a way to healthily move my feelings.

Alex Lange 21:28

Was that, and I might be wrong on this, but was that something you were doing while you were in your marriage, or was that something that you started after your marriage?

Andrew Blair 21:37

Drinking definitely was a part of my life. You know a lot of arguments that my ex-wife and I got into were a result of having gone out with friends to the bars and just drinking too much.

Andrew Blair 21:52

Um, you know I say that. Uh, I'm not sure if she would totally agree with that statement. She might, I don't know, but, um, I think if her and I weren't drinkers, I think probably would be a different story in terms of our ability to work through some of the things that we ran into as problems in our relationship. But yeah, alcohol was. You know, my overindulgence in alcohol at that time was to an extreme. For sure, marijuana, cannabis or whatever you want to call it. At this point in time, it was a big part.

Andrew Blair 22:28

My ex-wife, however, when we started dating, smoking was a big part of our relationship. Later on, she didn't enjoy it as much, so we weren't smoking together, but I was sneaking off to smoke by myself far too often, which is something that I recognize. Obviously, that's very poor behavior on my part, something that I'm keeping from my partner in our relationship. But, yeah, I think that there were parts.

Andrew Blair 23:03

If we were to talk about why my marriage fell apart, it was my inability to share what I thought my needs were and to be completely honest with my partner, so like, for example, if she went to the grocery store without me. I would sneak outside, smoke a little marijuana. She would come home know nothing about it. So that was definitely something I was turning to. While I was married, and in that relationship For a long part of my life, I thought I could combat stress and anxiety with cannabis, and I still feel it to this day. I'm much better at recognizing that it's not a necessity and in fact it makes me feel more anxious, but at that time and for a very long time, it was a crutch for me for sure.

Finding Healing Through Physical Activity

Alex Lange 23:57

So I appreciate you being honest with that. You mentioned a statement earlier and then we'll transition into the news about your father that in the relationship that you, your inability to identify your needs was a piece of it ending, and then you had the. You were able to shift your attention to your needs as you transitioned out of that relationship and you were separated. What were you doing for yourself, like, what were you doing for yourself to help you get over, or not get over, but process those feelings?

Andrew Blair 24:33

Yeah, that's a great question. I can think of two things right off the top that I started to do, off the top that I started to do. One was I had started practicing jiu-jitsu Brazilian jiu-jitsu to be exact and once my separation happened, obviously I had a lot more free time. So I started going to jiu-jitsu and training. I had two good friends that were doing it with me and met a bunch of great guys. I was going three or four times a week and that was really the first time that I started to put together the link between mental clarity and some type of physical activity. I'd always been pretty active. I played a ton of basketball when I was younger. I'd always been pretty active. I played a ton of basketball when I was younger again, I was going three or four times a week. When I was in in college in my early 20s, playing basketball all the time. But it wasn't until I had the separation and this heavy mental toll on me and I was going to jiu-jitsu actively and I was having two hours a night doing a physical activity where I literally could not think of anything else other than that activity.

Andrew Blair 25:50

For anybody that does Brazilian jujitsu, you know that when you're training. You cannot be thinking about your job, your bills, your relationship when someone's trying to choke you out, yeah, or bend your elbows in ways they're not supposed to bend right. It's hyper-focus, it's meditation, and I was doing that very consistently. And the other part of that that really, really connected with me was the slow, gradual improvement. Jiu-jitsu is not something that you can. Really connected with me was the slow, gradual improvement. You know, jiu-jitsu is not something that you can just jump into with confidence and expect to be good. It's a slow grind to building competence, not confidence, and I've realized since then how important that is for me on a daily basis and everything that I do is that slow build of competence and how that makes me feel I don't want to use a cliche more like a man, but I know that for me, being more in touch with my masculinity and what makes me feel really good is just every day, doing a little bit more in terms of physical activity. So right now for me it's calisthenics and some lifting weights. So it's like, oh, I did 13 reps this week. Last week I can only do 12, like that, for an example. So that really, really helped me. And then these relationships I was able to build, got closer with those two friends and other people at my gym his two friends and other people at my gym. There weren't deep conversations about my separation, but I was just able to connect with people, not isolate.

Andrew Blair 27:38

Number two, and something I still do to this day, is journaling sitting down and just writing with no purpose and letting my feelings come out of me. There's a book called the Artist's Way and I cannot remember the author's name. We'll have to make sure we add that. But part of that is that you write three pages every day first thing in the morning and you don't have an agenda. You just write whatever comes to you.

Andrew Blair 28:11

If you get stuck, if it's really hard, you just push through it. It takes a long time to write three pages. You'd be very surprised, but I did that for three years so right after my dad got sick, those first three years, and that was very, very helpful for me. It helped me to get out a lot of feelings. It helped me to recognize what was really coming up for me, recognize what I was focusing on that maybe my focus shouldn't have been on on that. Maybe my focus shouldn't have been on and also allowed me occasionally to feel really good about what I had going on in my life, be grateful for certain things and, probably most importantly, it was just more of a routine that I was able to maintain. Like, no matter what else happened, on a day at least, I wrote my three, my three pages, uh, and, like I said, I did that for three years.

Andrew Blair 29:09

I don't write three pages anymore. Uh, my writing habits are different at this point in my life, but but yeah, that was. That was really a big deal for me to get through the early stages after my divorce and my father's death was continuing to to journal and make sure I was doing that on a daily basis.

Navigating Life's Challenges Through Meditation

Alex Lange 29:33

You know what's funny or what I find interesting is doing jujitsu. I started jujitsu a few, about 10 months ago. Part of the part of the journey for myself was throwing myself in jujitsu and I feel like the physical activity that you're talking about helps you ground a little bit, helps you stay a little grounded in connection with yourself or possibly even like, depending on the physical activity, the earth right. I do a lot of hiking and trail trails. So it's I, I. I have found a commonality with a lot of men in physical activity. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. You started to find a routine. You started some. You started to find a way through navigating through your separation that led to divorce and then your father got sick. Take me through that moment of like. Okay, I am processing, still trying to process through my divorce. I'm still going through that and this, this has happened yeah, it.

Andrew Blair 30:43

it's one of those times in my lives where I remember feeling like what else is going to happen. We mentioned at the beginning of this that everything comes in threes. So it was like, okay, I'm getting divorced and now my father is sick in In the beginning don't know the extent of his cancer, we know it's pretty progressed, but he's able to go into the hospital and get chemotherapy and get treatment. So it's not a completely negative situation. We'll get to the effect of those skeletons that I keep mentioning.

Andrew Blair 31:33

But when it first happened, yeah, the biggest feeling I had was just what else can happen? Do I just suffer from really bad luck, putting myself in that victim, victimhood place where, like, these things are happening to me? And, yeah, that's a that's a really hard place to to move forward from. I remember those couple of months being really hard because it's just like what else is going to happen to me and not really knowing what to do and just kind of feeling like life's coming at me, life's hard working on top of that, you know, and just just kind of feeling like life was carrying me along and there there wasn't a whole lot I could do to make things better implemented meditation around this time.

Alex Lange 32:26

How did that help you through or navigate, navigate you through that, that news of your father getting sick?

Andrew Blair 32:53

Yeah, I mean I mentioned routine and it ties into that. I think it was really important for me because it was one thing I could do in my life at that time where I was taking control. You know, I I felt like my separation and divorce, you know that's a 50-50 situation, so I didn't have full control and even if I tried to do a certain thing with through communication with my lawyer to my soon to be ex-wife like we had to go back and forth, so I wasn't in full control in that situation. I obviously don't have full control over my father's health, don't have full control over my father's health, along with a lot of unknowns. But sitting down to do some meditation was something I could control. It was time I could give to myself. Like I said, I'm also working full time, 40 to 50 hours a week.

Andrew Blair 33:57

While all this is going on, and when I wasn't at the hospital visiting my father I'm just remembering this I worked in IT but there was a large factory that was connected to the office where I was employed and sometimes I would take breaks and I would walk through the factory, and sometimes I would take breaks and I would walk through the factory and it was this factory made blinds for windows and so I'd walk through and watch basically the entire assembly line of these blinds that were being made.

Andrew Blair 34:39

They're being constructed from wood and then they're being painted and the whole process and I would walk through and that was kind of a meditation because I was going for a walk. But then there was this one spot in the factory where I guess it was in a warehouse and it was just storage and there were never a lot of people and I would just kind of hide in between the big stacks of products and I would just sit there by myself trying to get a little bit of quiet time and just meditate. And it was so powerful for me because, again, it was me taking control, it was me giving myself something and it allowed me to just check in with myself and see how I was feeling. And I wasn't even advanced in meditation at that point Not that you can really be advanced in meditation, but like the skills I have now to be able to check in with myself and see how I'm feeling at that stage, like I had no idea I was even doing that, it was just you know what.

Andrew Blair 35:40

I'm just going to meditate and give to myself because I'm not really doing that, because when I'm not doing this, I'm running around for work, I'm running around trying to figure out the status of my divorce, and I'm running to either go visit my mom at home or go visit my father in the hospital. So, yeah, I think it was about control and truly being able to give myself some time and to check in and know how I was feeling, because there was a lot going on. So it was important for me to be able to say hey, andrew, how are you doing today, bud, are you angry, are you sad, are you frustrated? All right, cool, because I didn't have the skills yet to know what to do with any of those emotions. But that was a big step for me at that time to at least be able to recognize what I felt.

Alex Lange 36:39

Absolutely. You've mentioned many times, as we get to this point, about some news of skeletons that came out of the closet for your father, and we talked about the physical aspect of helping you get through your divorce, your transition from your divorce. We talked about meditation through finding out that your father was sick. Talk to me about these skeletons and how it affected your journey.

Facing Betrayal and Healing

Andrew Blair 37:11

Yeah, I mean, this is probably number one. We're talking pain points, or, or what really made me realize I had some work to do was this news. The main thing that came out of that was I decided I was going to go to therapy Before that. Therapy was always something that I looked down on. To be honest, I just didn't understand it. I looked down on, to be honest, I just didn't understand it. Um, but once these revelations came out, I was I was like yeah.

Alex Lange 37:49

I should go to therapy.

Andrew Blair 37:50

I need to talk about what's going on because, on top of everything I've already talked about today, this situation with my father just put everything like it was. I'm trying to think of a way to explain it, not say a cliche. It really was a thing that kind of pushed me up to the, to the edge of the cliff, where I had to make a decision on how I was going to progress, because, even though I was meditating and doing the physical activity and journaling, I was still very lost and the situation with my father, it made me question him as my role model. It made me question everything that he had ever taught me and for the first time in my life, I was truly mad at my father and we weren't super open with each other, but we had a great relationship, played golf with my father. Very often, you know, I would go visit him at his house and, to be honest, I would go visit my parents more so to see my father than to see my mother, which I feel so bad saying now in hindsight, but it was really true.

Andrew Blair 39:22

You know my, my dad, all he ever did was work, which I'm sure lots of men listening to this can can identify with. So it's like if my father was home and free, I felt like it was my duty to spend time with him and I would go see him and we would talk. Every conversation was about work, exercise or whatever he had just shot on the golf course. There really wasn't anything else that we talked about.

Andrew Blair 39:52

But I had modeled my entire life up into that point off of what he had taught me and what he had done. So I was working a job, working as much as I could, working as hard as I could, working past my capacity. I was trying to build a family. I'd gotten married, my wife and I, at that time, before our separation, we were planning to have kids, we were planning to buy a house. This was everything my parents had done, what my father had done. So now this situation, these skeletons, came out and, like I said, I was mad at him, I was disappointed in him and, for the first time in my life, I was questioning everything he had taught me, which, of course, was leading to me questioning what does it mean to be a man and what am I doing in my life?

Alex Lange 40:47

Because, I knew I wasn't happy.

Andrew Blair 40:52

I was going through a separation, divorce so that hadn't worked. That didn't make me happy. My job wasn't making me happy. My job wasn't making me happy. So, yeah, I started therapy. That helped me affirm the decisions I'd made in terms of journaling and meditation and physical activity. Like if you go to therapy, those are going to be the things your therapist is going to say to you. It's like something you can do so you feel better.

Andrew Blair 41:21

But therapy also helped me to start to explore my past, to recognize that some of the things I learned from my father and my mother directly led to some of my behavior, some of my mindsets, some of the ways that I had patterns that I'd never thought about before.

Andrew Blair 41:41

And it really started to help me to question all the things I'd done leading up to that point, but to also think more about the possibility of my future being different. And that was super powerful for me because I don't really think up until that point I'd ever considered wait a minute, I can do things for myself because I want to. Like I don't have to live up to anybody's expectations, I don't have to do things a certain way. I'd never really thought about that before. Really started to help me think about and make some decisions in my life about about doing things differently, and to start to say to myself I'm not going to do things the way my father did, which took me way down a rabbit hole that we can talk a little bit more about, but that was really the first time in my life where, like I want to do things differently than my father did Wasn't something I had totally thought about before then.

Alex Lange 42:54

This next question before I ask it. I want to. I want to ask this question to you and if you don't, that's okay, do you want to name the skeleton? This question to you, and if you don't, that's okay, do you want to name the skeleton, I do actually because go ahead if, if, if you are willing to go into this, tell me about the situation when the skeleton, when that skeleton came out, tell me what it was and what came up for you the weeks, months following that that led you to therapy.

Andrew Blair 43:31

Yeah, yeah, I've never. I've never gone public with this for various reasons which I'll get into in a moment. But yeah, so it was October and I went to visit my dad in the hospital. It was a very dark, cold night.

Andrew Blair 43:50

I remember this very well and I went and visited him, and it was one of the few times I went to the hospital to visit my dad where it was just him and I alone the two of us, and, like I said, we talked about work for about 20 minutes, and then he told me that he'd been having an affair with his business partner, which is a young woman that he had been mentoring for a very, very long time had been mentoring for a very, very long time and who was a friend of the family, so much so that I'd been to Thanksgiving at her family's house, I played golf with her husband, I was Facebook friends with her children and I was a financial advisor for a bit in my past and I'd actually helped her set up college savings accounts for her kids. I say all that because he was very close with her. He had taken my mom on vacations with her and her husband. It was a very, very intertwined relationship and situation. My dad's business was struggling. He'd actually already gone through bankruptcy and as a part of this bankruptcy, he had sold the business to this woman, his business partner. So it's just, it was a clusterfuck there's just no other word to use in terms of what was going on. And it's like when he told me, I was not surprised. But I was also surprised, and I think if anyone else has gone through this type of situation, they'll probably understand what I'm talking about when I say that it was just like dad, you've got to be kidding me Like that's so obvious and so gross in terms of the years of age difference and just it was so disappointing and this is why, as I was saying, it made it very difficult for myself, obviously, for my mother and my four sisters, to see this betrayal that my dad had done and then to show love for him as he's going through his cancer treatment, show love for him as he's going through his cancer treatment. It just made it very difficult to figure out what. You know, what emotion am I supposed to feel in this moment when I'm spending time with him? Um, so, yeah, that's the, that's the skeleton, that's the first of the skeletons in my dad's closet.

Andrew Blair 46:42

I went back to my car after leaving, obviously being very upset with my father. I remember getting back in my car, sobbing my eyes out, thinking about my mom and how she must feel, and punching my steering wheel really, really hard and, like any of the anger or frustration that I've been carrying around from my divorce and the situation with my dad being sick, I let it all out. I immediately drove to my mother's house, walked in the door. I immediately drove to my mother's house, walked in the door, my mom and my four sisters were all around the island in the kitchen. They all knew already, I think a couple days had passed and no one had told me, because they wanted me to talk to my dad and get it straight from him the news.

Andrew Blair 47:40

As soon as I walked in, I realized that everyone else knew and they'd been waiting for me to come back, and I remember I just grabbed a bottle of whiskey, poured a glass and then spent the rest of that evening just talking with my mom and sisters about the situation. So, yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's like I said, that's the first of the skeletons, but that was a huge moment in my life, for sure.

Alex Lange 48:12

So so you, you arrive at your house with your four sisters and your mom they had already knew and you had just found out and you were you poured yourself a glass of whiskey, walk me through the the next couple weeks and, and knowing that he's, knowing that he's ill, knowing that he has cancer or I think at this time you mentioned that it was gone, for they said that it was gone- he was still getting treatment at the time when his affair came out to the family.

Andrew Blair 48:48

I think he still had another two months of chemotherapy treatment in the hospital, so there was still a lot up in the air about his health. So yeah, as I mentioned earlier, it's like if I was sitting by myself one evening right after work. There's these two extremes for me in terms of what I'm thinking about. My dad might die from cancer and then, holy shit, my dad cheated on my mom and is still very much involved in this business and it's a financial mess and it affects the family. What the hell am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to feel? What's the right way to feel?

Andrew Blair 49:43

I remember thinking that a lot which is a funny thing to think about and the big emotions at the time again were anger, being angry at my father, being angry at the cancer that my father had, frustration with the situation because there was truly nothing that I could do to make the situation better, and a whole lot of sadness because there's a lot of unknown about my father's health. There's a lot of unknown about the future status of my parents' marriage, lot of unknown about the future status of my parents' marriage, which I was now in a position where I had modeled my behavior in my marriage around my parents and then my marriage had just failed. And then a few months later I was watching my parents' marriage fail pretty much and that just led to questions of I don't know what I'm doing in relationships. I don't know what marriage actually means. I don't know what love actually means.

Andrew Blair 50:51

Am I a failure at this? Did I learn the wrong way to do this? Just a lot of sadness there, shame and guilt, of course, and just really afraid that. You know those silly thoughts of I'll never find love again or I'll never be happy in our relationship again, but just not knowing what the hell is going to come along next, and just clinging to any type of routine that I could the meditation, the jujitsu, the journaling, and making it to work every day Work. While it wasn't that fulfilling for me at the time, it was something to do and it was a way for me to kind of escape and lose myself in something else that wasn't so emotional, it was a good distraction at that time for me.

Alex Lange 51:49

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. I want to ask you this question you went through a lot in a seven to eight month period. At what point did you say I have, you know, have to be more in touch with myself. I have to stop the drinking, I have to stop the uh, smoking marijuana, my job it's not working out Like. When did you make that decision? You know what? I'm going to be more conscious of what I want. Going back to you, what, identifying your needs.

Andrew Blair 52:21

Yeah, it took a little while. So my dad passed away, as I mentioned, and once that happened and his funeral was finished, I had started dating again, actually, and I had very quickly moved in with my first serious girlfriend after my divorce. In hindsight it was a poor decision and this relationship went way too fast. But I mention this because that relationship ended and I had to find somewhere to live and I ended up moving in with my mom. She needed emotional support, I needed emotional support and I didn't have anywhere to go. So I was 33 years old, I just lost my father and just gotten divorced, and now I was moving in with my mother and I just remember feeling like a failure at life in general and also recognizing that, and also recognizing that this was an opportunity for me to truly felt that way, that I had power over the situation. And you know it pains me to say it, but losing my father took a lot of weight off my shoulders. That period of him being sick and him going through that experimental procedure that I mentioned and him going into hospice and knowing that he truly was going to die. And then it, you know, watching him I don't know a better way to put it just wither away until he finally passed. That was such a hard time that the months after that there was a breakthrough. There was just for the first time in a while probably a year's worth of time there was finally some space in my emotional capacity for some positivity.

Andrew Blair 55:09

And it took me really getting to the lowest point in my life for me to finally be like okay, it's time to, it's time to do some things differently. And yeah, you know, the divorce happened and then that next relationship. You know when that ended and I had some clarity, I was like, yeah, that was, that was not the right decision to make, but it's another valuable lesson in relationships and allowed me to get to a point where it's just like, all right, starting brand new. I've already done a few things that I can recognize are beneficial for me. Let's really commit to these different parts of my life that are going well, that are you could call them basic, but they're very important. Now let's just keep moving forward with these and just start start building little, little things that make me feel and take time for myself.

Andrew Blair 56:24

And yeah, I really did that at that time. I mean, like I said, it really took hitting rock bottom and it's such a cliche, but I really think it's true that in everyone's life not just men, but everyone's life you have a point that you hit where it's just like you don't know it necessarily at the time, but you can look back and be like that was the lowest and then everything from there is a slow climb uphill to to heal yourself, to grow and to start to give to yourself what you truly need to grow and to start to give to yourself what you truly need Absolutely, and while you're going through all this.

Alex Lange 57:10

I didn't ask this question at the beginning, but I'm curious now is like when did you come apart of men's work and how did that help you transition?

Andrew Blair 57:16

Yeah, what's funny is so all this happened five or six years ago. I didn't get into men's work until one year ago. Um, at that time, like I mentioned, I had a pretty good group of male friends that I was spending time with, um people that supported me, my job, as I mentioned. I mentioned I had a boss that I could go into his office and talk to him about my divorce. He'd gone through one himself, so we were able to have conversations about that. I have an uncle, my father's brother, who I was able to turn to in the months and years after my father passed away. He stepped in for me and was really helpful. I could talk to him. But, yeah, my journey to men's work is the result of something you know kind of a bit of time later from the events that we're talking about, and I can get into that if you'd like.

Alex Lange 58:28

I mean, if you're willing to, yeah, go ahead.

Navigating Relationships and Career Changes

Andrew Blair 58:30

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in between my father passing away and let's call it two years ago, so that's a four year time period I went through a lot of slow changes. Really, where it started for me was my dating and relationship work. I would say when I talk about my relationships and when I talk about my relationships I usually say that particularly during my marriage and when I kind of started to get back out into dating. Let me start that thought over because I just remembered something. I was going to give a speech at my wedding where I was going to talk about how lucky I was that my wife had decided to marry me, basically saying that I was a schlub and how lucky I was that someone loved me and would be with me for the rest of my life Classic victim mentality and putting myself down. And somehow the DJ at my wedding he never came to me to give that speech and I'm so happy that he never did.

Andrew Blair 59:51

When I got back out into the dating world, through therapy and through talking with friends and family, I adjusted my thoughts on how I wanted my relationships to be, in that I was a good person and that I guess the best way to put it is this statement I don't love someone because they're beautiful. Someone is beautiful because I love them the idea being shifting that thought of I'm so lucky that this person wants me to, saying this other person is lucky to be in a relationship with me, and not saying that from this brashness or cockiness, but just having a belief and a confidence in myself that I'm a unique, wonderful person who brings important qualities to a relationship. That was an important shift for me and it was important for me when I went back out in the dating world to not just have some intention in what I was doing, be truthful for what I was looking for. So I went through years of of dating and had a few relationships that were I wouldn't call them long-term, but they certainly weren't. That were I wouldn't call them long-term, but they certainly weren't. You know they weren't years-long relationships, but they helped me to build confidence in myself and they helped me to see what I truly wanted in a relationship.

Andrew Blair 1:01:48

Now, while I was able to do that, what was lagging behind was my what I really wanted to do for work. I'd gotten into IT, but I was still just working, working, working wasn't happy, changed jobs a few times, basically got to a point where I was making more money than I'd ever made in my life. I had more responsibility and freedom. I still wasn't happy and I kind of got to a point where I was like, well, what does happy even mean? And this all kept building in me, particularly through 2020, with the quarantine and I know I'm not unique in this story but working from home, constantly waking up, making coffee, getting on my laptop, working for 10 hours, then I would take a break for dinner and then I'd work again until I went to bed. That was pretty much five days of the week for me, and I was working weekends on occasion.

Andrew Blair 1:02:51

I got burnt out and December of 2020, I got really sick. It wasn't COVID, it was this really bad stomach flu where I was sick for three weeks. I was basically not to be too graphic, but I was going to the bathroom basically every half an hour to an hour for three weeks. Uh, I lost 10 pounds.

Andrew Blair 1:03:21

I'm a pretty skinny guy to begin with, and I remember during that time that my biggest thought was not that I might need to go to the hospital for being sick, not like, what do I need to do to get over this sickness. It was being scared to call out of work. It was being scared to call out of work, scared that I was going to lose my job. I had nothing to do with my own self-care. And this is actually the time when I read Traver's book man Uncivilized and really for the first time I thought to myself, what if I quit my job? And I actually realized you know what I could and I would be okay. And so for a week or two I thought it and then, beginning of January 2021, I spoke to my boss. I told him I was putting in my two weeks and so I did that and I quit. And I remember talking to a lot of people at the time. They're like, what are you going to do for work? And I said I don't know.

Andrew Blair 1:04:46

I don't have a plan and it was very scary, but it felt like it was truly the right decision for me to make, and so I did, and by the end of January of 2021, my job was done.

Andrew Blair 1:05:06

I moved out of my condo and moved in with my sister and had no plan other than I was going to write and I didn't really even know what that was going to look like but be a writer and I was going to figure out a way to do it, and so that's where I was, and at that point, moving to Costa Rica wasn't even on my radar point. Moving to Costa Rica wasn't even on my radar. But I was a few months into a relationship with my current partner and she was planning a trip to Costa Rica and she wanted to invite me along, and at first I was resistant. I was scared to go on the trip. I'm not sure I've traveled outside of the country, out of the USS, in a long, long time. Covid was still going on. I was scared of going on the trip, but through her assistance and support and through something in my mind telling me it was the right call, we took a trip to Costa Rica in April 2021.

Andrew Blair 1:06:23

We were here for a month and by the end of that trip separately, both my partner and I had decided that we could live here in Costa Rica and when we returned to the States after that trip I mentioned to her probably the second day we were back in the United States, hey, what would you think about moving to Costa Rica? And she said yes, let's do it. And the rest is history. And we've now been living here for a year. So I know your ritual question, alex, was how did I get into men's work? So I know your original question, alex, was how did I get into men's work? So when I moved down to Costa Rica, I now did not have a job, which had been a major center point of my life for a very long time. I'd left behind my family that I was very close to, I'd left behind friends, some of which I'd known for close to 20 years, and I was by myself. My partner was here, but you know, my support systems weren't there anymore and the first couple months down here in Costa Rica were very difficult for my partner and I. You know, we were the only support system for each other and things became tough.

Andrew Blair 1:07:48

And, as I mentioned, I'd read Trevor's book man Uncivilized, and I happened to see an email from them that they had open registration for Uncivilized Nation and something compelled me to make the decision to sign up and do it.

Andrew Blair 1:08:07

And I'd also read a book called King, warrior, magician, lover, and I would recommend any man in men's work to read this book.

Andrew Blair 1:08:24

I went through each of these different masculine archetypes Again the king, the warrior, the magician and the lover and how these show up in our lives as men and realized where I was short that's kind of a negative way to put it Kind of the ways that I wasn't being as much as a king or as much as a warrior or any of these archetypes, for reasons from my past.

Andrew Blair 1:08:55

And I realized that if I looked into going from a boy to a man, I never really had an initiation when I was a kid. There wasn't like it's, like my dad took me on a camping trip or something like that. There really wasn't anything to move me from boyhood to manhood. And realizing that and realizing that I've never had great relationships with older men that are truly open there's always this feeling of wanting to hold back, being scared, to be vulnerable I realized that joining a group like the Uncivilized Nation would be helpful for me to find some mentors and to find some older men who I could open up to. And that's what got me started with men's work was that desire to be more open, to be more vulnerable and to make some new relationships with men and feel not alone.

Alex Lange 1:10:09

Yeah, there's a common theme in what you say with other men that I've talked to and even myself. Specifically, I like how you this is my own term and the way I see it but I like how you turn down the noise, right, you, you, you had the corporate job, you were close to family. You know if seen chaotic you were, you were experimenting through different relationships. And you took the chance to move to Costa Rica and you silenced the radio, you turned down the noise and you were able to really sit with yourself, really start to get internal. You know you were doing it with your current partner. And then the other theme is at some point and I'm just guessing here, but I think that you would agree you said, hey, I need some men, I need a support system of healthy, masculine men that I can speak to.

Alex Lange 1:10:59

And I've seen that commonality with a lot of conscious men like yourself who were like hey, I'm not happy with what I'm doing, I've experienced some setbacks in my life and something has to change. I, uh, I say all that cause. I want to know this Andrew now going through the divorce, going through the, your father getting sick, the affair coming out, the passing of your father, and then the, the experimenting through your different relationships that have come out over the last four to five years for you. What advice would you give yourself Back then? And I say that but I relate it to people that may be at the beginning of their journey- yeah, that's a great question.

Andrew Blair 1:11:58

I think the advice I'd give to myself would be slow down, and that ties into so many different parts of my life For a long time, especially when I was working, and I think all of us experienced this when you're just so busy busy to the point where you might have a moment in your day where you're like, oh my God, where did all the time go? Or what have I been doing? Like you know you're at work and you're doing whatever your responsibilities are there, but you're still like I couldn't even tell you what I've been doing for the last two or three hours. And that was so consistent for me and part of me turning to drugs and alcohol was because I wasn't used to slowing down. I wasn't used to being able to just sit with myself and then feel emotions come up or have certain thoughts come to me. Like I wasn't comfortable with that.

Andrew Blair 1:13:29

When I wasn't busy and I was trying to quote unquote relax, it still felt like I had to do that in a very certain way, like almost like be productive in my relaxation, and sometimes I still feel that way. It's like, okay, I have some time to myself. Okay, well, this time to myself, I need to write a certain amount of words for my book, or I need to work out for an hour instead of just kind of letting life come to me. And what you said about turning down the noise is perfect. I've never referred to it that way myself, but sometimes in life I just made myself so busy that I didn't have a chance to really connect with myself and ask myself the question is this really what I want to be doing? Question is this really what I want to be doing? And I did that for so long that when I did first turn down the noise, I didn't even know how to ask myself what I wanted.

Andrew Blair 1:14:34

It was like it's a question that frustrated me. I was like what do you mean? What do I want? Of course I know what I want, but I was getting frustrated because I didn't know what I wanted. It took me a long time to reconnect with myself so I could answer that question.

Alex Lange 1:14:52

Absolutely, that's so powerful. If so, anyone that's listening, if this, if this resonates, if Andrew's story resonates with you, andrew, how can they get in contact with you? How can they reach out?

Empowering Vulnerability in Men

Andrew Blair 1:15:06

Yeah, definitely. Instagram is my number one platform. I have two handles on there. If you're interested in just connecting with me personally, it's andrewblair.29. And then I also have a coaching page. I am slowly but surely building up my coaching practice. I'm a life transformation coach. I work with men who are going through divorce and career changes and with men who are looking to build better relationships and careers through change. That's at Andrew Blair coaching on Instagram.

Alex Lange 1:15:44

Okay. Is there a website or anything else, or just the Instagram?

Andrew Blair 1:15:47

Just Instagram for now.

Alex Lange 1:15:50

Okay, powerful Andrew, I just want to say thank you for your vulnerability. You have given many men and even women, if they're here listening permission to be vulnerable, permission to open up, permission to feel the anger, and I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart on going into that. I know there's a lot of first time things that you talked about today and it's made this conversation so more powerful.

Andrew Blair 1:16:19

Thank you, alex, I appreciate it and thank you for making me feel comfortable being vulnerable. That's a major part of it as well.

Alex Lange 1:16:28

Thank you, brother, you have a good day.

Andrew Blair 1:16:30

Yeah, you too.