A Deeper Story

I was born in Toronto to Italian parents under circumstances that shaped my nervous system before I had language. My birth was premature and traumatic. I lost my twin brother, and my mother narrowly survived. For my first month of life, I existed in isolation, separated from her, learning safety without touch, connection, or attunement.

Before I understood the world intellectually, my body learned it as unpredictable and unsafe. That early imprint stayed with me.

As I grew, I developed coping strategies to manage anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and a deep longing for security and connection. Some of those strategies were unhealthy. Substances, food, and stimulation became ways to self-soothe long before I understood what I was doing.

In adolescence, another boundary was crossed—an event that further fractured my sense of safety and trust. From that point on, my inner world was shaped by anger, shame, and survivor’s guilt. I carried the unspoken belief that I should not still be here.

I was highly empathic, deeply sensitive to others, and often confused by the dissonance between what people felt and how they pretended everything was fine. I felt much—and felt alone in it.

Like many men searching for love without feeling worthy of it, I built my adult life quickly. Marriage, fatherhood, responsibility —all sincere, all real. And yet beneath the structure, I was still trying to earn what I didn’t believe I deserved.

Over time, relationships ended, homes were lost, investments dissolved, and identities collapsed. By my late thirties, I found myself stripped of everything I once believed defined success—carrying grief, exhaustion, and a profound sense of failure.

I had done everything I thought a “good man” should do. It still wasn’t enough. Not for others—and not for myself.

I turned to spirituality searching for validation, discipline, and relief. I fasted. I meditated. I devoted myself. And when peace didn’t arrive, the question underneath everything surfaced: What else do I have to do to be worthy of love?

Within a short span of time, I lost my mother to cancer and our family business—a salon that had existed for over four decades. It felt as though every time life began to stabilize, it was taken away.

I reached a breaking point.

In an attempt to regain control, I moved in the opposite direction—seeking power instead of connection. That path only deepened my shame and disconnection. I learned, painfully, that we don’t attract what we want—we attract what we are.

Everything fell apart.

And then something shifted…

I made a conscious decision that if I was still here, I would not waste this life. Writing my first book became a turning point—not because it solved anything immediately, but because it forced honesty. Patterns surfaced. Blind spots became visible.

One relationship in particular exposed the nervous-system responses I had never addressed—anxiety, defensiveness, people-pleasing, and the constant need to prove myself. For the first time, I saw the pattern clearly.

I realized I had spent my life confusing effort with worthiness, accommodation with love, and endurance with intimacy.

As these insights integrated, something unexpected happened: life began to soften. Relationships changed. My internal state stabilized. I stopped chasing love and started inhabiting myself.

What once felt chaotic began to make sense—relationships, polarity, nature, spirituality, and the human nervous system all speaking the same quiet language.

Today, my life is markedly different.

I feel at home in my body. I trust my perceptions. I no longer abandon myself to be chosen. Love is no longer something I try to earn —it’s something I allow.

I live with self-respect, discernment, and clear boundaries. Conversations are clean. Conflict no longer feels like annihilation. I move through the world with more compassion—for others, and for myself.

This is the place I now teach from.

Not from theory.
Not from perfection.
But from having walked through disintegration and learned how to integrate what remains.

If any part of this resonates, know that nothing about you has failed, and you don’t have to carry it alone.