Growing Forward · Letter No. 1 · July 2026← All letters

Fine on the outside and falling apart on the inside

Feeling successful on the outside but empty, disconnected, or short-fused on the inside is more common than it looks. If you've wondered why you feel this way even though your life looks fine, here's what it felt like for me — and how I found my way back.

On the homepage, you get a couple of lines about why Oak Forward exists. This is the fuller version. The part that didn't fit in two paragraphs.

It was Covid when things really started to crack for me. Nobody knew what the future held. Daily routines fell apart. The kids were home from school, I was working from home, and I didn't handle it well.

It wasn't just anger. That was just the one emotion everyone else could actually see: the one that leaked out sideways where it could hurt someone. Underneath it was everything else I'd never let myself feel, stacked up with nowhere to go.

It started showing up in my body. I had panic attacks: the kind where you're convinced you're actually dying. I know how that sounds. But that's what unprocessed emotion did to me: it turned into something physical, something that felt like it might actually kill me if I didn't find a way to let it move.

There were days I'd walk outside just to cry. Alone. Isolated. I didn't want anyone to see it.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I lost myself. Not all at once. Quietly, and completely. I lost the joy I used to have. I was going through the motions of my own life. I'd do the things that used to make me feel like me, and feel nothing, like I was watching myself do them instead of actually doing them.

If I'm honest, the thing that finally moved me wasn't insight. It was fear. I knew that if I didn't change, I was going to lose my family. And even if I somehow didn't, I think I would have just stayed a very unhappy man, for a very long time.

I didn't know, some days, if I was going to make it through this the way I was going. That might sound dramatic. It's just what it felt like.

I tried talking to my wife first. It didn't go well. I was too self-centered and emotionally immature to see how much I'd hurt her. You can't repair something with someone you've hurt if you're not willing to hold space for their pain first.

Then I tried therapy. That didn't go well either. Then my wife and I tried couples therapy, and if I'm honest, it made things worse for a while too. I got defensive in that room, because I hadn't done any of my own work yet.

Slowly, I started to see, even though it wasn't fully clear yet, that I was the problem. Not my wife. Not Covid. Me. I was the thing that needed to change.

It was in that process (even the parts that didn't work, even the defensiveness) that I finally understood something: the way I'd been showing up used to serve me. It didn't anymore. And it was hurting the person I loved most.

That's where the real work began.

I'd achieved everything I ever wanted. And I was failing at the one thing that actually mattered: being a good husband. I could have blamed other things. That wouldn't have changed a thing.

The only way to a different outcome was to take a hard look in the mirror and wrestle with myself. Seek help. Admit I was hurting. Own my mistakes. Not as a project to complete, but as a man learning, slowly, how to actually love someone well, starting with myself.

There's a phrase I picked up somewhere: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. That's the best way I can describe the whole process. The last six years have been slow, by design. And because I slowed down, I've grown more than I ever expected. It feels far away now.

But I don't want anyone else to go through what I did, at least not alone. I'm writing this to offer some hope to anyone walking through something similar.

If you know a man who might need these words today, would you consider sharing this letter with him? Sometimes the right message arrives at exactly the right time.

— Jonathan Worrall