Track 6
Crack Pot
May 18, 2026
A note on memory.
I’d be out walking. And then......clunk. Another piece would fall into place.
That’s how I learned my memory had holes.
I was fifty when I figured it out. I can remember plenty from childhood. But certain big emotional moments? What’s in my head is completely different from what others remember.
For most of those fifty years I thought everybody else was lying. I’d get angry when they told me their version. Sometimes loud about it. It was easier to push back than to sit with the embarrassment of not being able to hold your own story straight.
Turns out they weren’t lying. Turns out I wasn’t either.
This is what trauma does to memory. Sometimes the timeline shifts. Sometimes the pieces don’t fit together the way they should. Now I am a writer and some days it’s a mess. That’s not sloppy storytelling......that’s how trauma brain works.
My memory doesn’t come back in order. It comes back in feelings. The sequence gets murky. The dates blur.
I’ve walked away from writing my book many times. Then I’d go for a walk and clunk......another piece. My writing team took more abuse than they deserved as I tried to put the pieces of my life back together.
Writing this, I can see what that must have looked like from the other side. A man who feels everything but can’t always place it. Who gets frustrated when you ask him to be precise. Who sometimes finds it easier to end the conversation than explain why the walls went up.
Thinking about my past relationships. Navigating a peaceful divorce. Staring down yet another ended relationship. I have to wonder......will anyone ever love me?
Should they?
I don’t know how some of these women in my life loved me anyway. But some of them did.
If you’ve been there, you know. If you haven’t, this is what it looks like.
Writing this story multiple times with help helped me piece it back together. Maybe reading it will help you too.
Oh......hey thanks team. But how does that help me deal with my future memory hick ups?
Here’s what I do now and it’s made a massive difference.
Every morning I sit down and put my hand on my heart. Right where a shirt pocket would sit.
I do four or five box breaths. Breath slowly and deep four seconds in, hold four counts, four seconds out, hold four counts. Repeat three or four times. If I am feeling a little sticky that morning, I like to do 1 or 2 big clearing breaths to start. Borrowing from my yoga it ends with a big open mouthed HAAAA sound.
Then I name a few things I’m grateful for. Out loud or in my head, doesn’t matter.
I did a training recently and they gave me another layer to add:
Then I think of someone I’m bugged at, or someone who might need some love. I send them some. And I say to myself......“I choose peace with this.”
That’s it. Five minutes. Hand on heart, breath, gratitude, love, choice. Putting something good in the heart-pocket so I don’t lose it. Hand and breath are how it sticks.
✱2 Here’s why it works. Your body’s been wired to scan for trouble since cavemen days. Not its fault, that’s just the wiring. Hand on the heart settles you. The breath does the same. Naming something you’re grateful for tells the brain there’s good stuff worth noticing. Stack all three at once and the body believes it.
✱3 Do it every morning for a couple months and the wiring starts to shift. The thing your brain looks for first when you wake up changes from what’s wrong to what’s good. Same way you learned to swing a hammer......you practice, the body remembers.
That last bit......the I choose peace part......that’s the one that does the most work. Acceptance is a powerful choice. It’s not a give-up. It’s a strong choice and over time has big impact, and most importantly gives freedom in the moment.
Choice is a muscle to work on every day.
Anyways cats that’s what I have cookin’ in my scene. Remember it’s your life and there’s always a choice to be had. If something isn’t groovy throw some chaos at it. Go play and see you on the flip side.
Two Beers with Leo
Hey Jhöl. I know I usually go last but I gotta jump in here.
Dood. Give yourself a break.
✱1 They’ve got a name for what you just described. Peritraumatic dissociation. Fancy way of saying when something terrible is happening to you, the brain doesn’t have time to file the memory the way it normally would. The brain’s busy keeping you alive. So the story gets shoved in the closet sideways and the pieces come back later. Sometimes years later. The body hands it back when the body decides you’re ready.
That wasn’t you being broken. That was your nervous system saving your life.
And here’s the kicker. The doctors who measure this stuff don’t even claim they can pin a survivor’s memory down. The research literally says......interpret these reports with caution. Memory shifts as a person heals.
You weren’t lying. You weren’t a problem. You were a man whose brain was protecting him. The fact that you’re sitting here writing about it now means the protection worked.
OK. Back to you.
For full sources and citations, see The Research Trail at themensdateproject.org/research
—Leo
Back Room with Ruby
Ruby: When you wrote “I don’t know how some of these women loved me anyway, but some of them did”......what comes up in your body when you read that line back?
Jhöl: Room. I felt room. Like something got out of the way when I felt that.
Ruby: Where in your body did you feel it?
Jhöl: My chest.
Ruby: What’s it like?
Jhöl: It just felt like I could breathe a little deeper and a little warmer there when I took that breath.
Ruby: Take one more breath into that room. What’s in there with you?
Jhöl: Peace.
Ruby: Let it stay as long as it wants.
Jhöl: Now what would you do with this, Ruby?
Ruby: First, I’d mark this. The room. The warmer breath. Peace in your chest, found by reading your own sentence. That’s a resource. Your body just showed you the way back here. Next time the trauma brain tells you nobody stayed......hand on your chest. Remember the breath, the warm, the peace. The body already filed it. You don’t have to remember it perfectly to find it again. The mind has the fear. The body has the evidence. We don’t argue with the fear. We just keep showing up at the body’s address until it’s a place you trust.
Jhöl: Are you saying you can repair memory by trusting the body not the brain?
Ruby: Not exactly. Memory itself......the dates, the order, who said what when......that part might stay broken. The brain doesn’t always file it back, even with all the body work in the world. What the body can repair is what the missing memory cost you. The pushing people away. The fear that nobody will stay. The shame that won’t sit still. Those live in the body, and the body knows how to put them down once it’s safe enough to. Your chest just told you something the brain can’t argue with. Some women loved you anyway, and your body remembers. The dates can stay murky. The peace doesn’t need them.
Ruby: Before you go......take one more breath. Memorize where peace lives. You can come back here whenever you need it.
—Ruby
Daisy’s Juice Box
Hey Jhöl. Can I tell you a story?
There’s an old one from India. A water bearer carries two pots to the well every day. One is perfect. The other has a crack. By the time he gets home, the cracked pot is half empty.
The cracked pot is ashamed of itself. It apologizes to the bearer for two years. Tells him it’s broken and useless and only half what the other one is.
One morning the bearer walks the cracked pot back to the path and says......look down. The cracked pot looks. There are flowers all the way along the path on the cracked side. Bright. Wild. Alive.
The bearer says......I knew about your crack. I planted seeds on your side. You’ve been watering them for years. You weren’t broken. You were growing something the perfect pot couldn’t.
That’s you, Jhöl. The crack you’ve been ashamed of is the part of you that’s been feeding the people walking next to you. The leak you’ve been calling failure was the garden.
Now keep telling your story. I just wanted you to know.
—Daisy