The Rocket

After some recent relational wounds, I decided to dedicate my next block of ketamine therapy to the root of it all.

Let’s just say this:

Ketamine remembers EVERYTHING.

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I’ve seen this before.
Once, I had a session in November that painted my mind like a timeline:

•  Orange for Halloween and Thanksgiving
•  Red for Christmas

It took me all the way back to my aunt’s house — the place I stayed when my dad was in a coma for a month and eventually passed away in October–November 2002.

The medicine doesn’t forget.
It stores the seasons, the colors, the feeling of loss.

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And now, with the 4th of July coming — and fireworks just outside my work —
ketamine used that too.

This time, the fireworks weren’t outside.
They were inside me.
A heartbreak lit the fuse.
It hurt — but it pushed me deeper into my healing.
I’m not hiding that.

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️ This time my love launched like a rocket

I used to say that ketamine didn’t take me to the cosmos —
it took me home.
Back to Brazil.
Back to my roots.

But this session?
It was different.
It felt like a final surge — a powerful launch.
A reminder that my heart doesn’t need to stay small just because old patterns want it to.

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It showed me every place I’ve ever felt truly seen:
 Communities that lift me
 My training grounds
 My dreams for my Amazon journey
 My people — near and far

I went from feeling “outside the circle”
to realizing I’ve always owned my own space.
I’m not here to beg for belonging anymore.
I’m here to take up room — with my whole heart.

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And the best part?
There was no bitterness in it.
No grudge.
Just gratitude for what was real — and clarity for what no longer needs my energy.
I felt my love rising — not staying parked behind.
Not as crumbs for anyone.
But as proof that I can stand soft and strong at the same time.

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 What the Rocket gave me

Back in January, I went in asking for abundance in school and my business.
I thought I’d see numbers, charts, logistics.
But instead, I saw myself showing kindness when the time comes to move on.
Be kind, even when you leave — that was the takeaway.

This session gave me the same gift:

“Don’t shrink your light for anyone.
Don’t scorch the earth either.
Launch it.
Expand it.
Leave behind the proof that your heart never needed to stay small.”

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 This is my Arena now

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t belong — trust me, you do.
Maybe not in the places you kept trying to fit.
Maybe not with the people who couldn’t hold your biggest love.
But always in the space you claim for yourself.

You don’t need permission.
You don’t need perfect people.
You just need to stand in your truth and build your own circle — your own arena — with people who meet you there.

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If you’re ready to look at your own patterns too — if you’re ready to let your love become a Rocket instead of staying stuck — you deserve healing that goes deep.

I get my treatments at Better U — they’ve helped me see my wounds and my wings.
If you’re ready to start, you can use my promo code NANDO84 at betterucare.com for $100 off your first ketamine package.

You deserve to stand in your Arena too.
Don’t park your light.
Launch it.

– Fernando

The Arena

🥊 The Arena

I got the title of this post from one of my favorite quotes by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

If you’ve never read that before — read it twice.
Because it’s not the critic who counts.
It’s not the passive onlooker, the spineless lurker, the cheap-seat heckler.
It’s the one in the arena — sweating, stumbling, daring greatly.

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💛 Brené Brown puts it like this:

“If you’re not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

She talks about the 3 C’s of wholehearted living: Courage, Compassion, Connection.
Courage comes from the Latin cor, which means heart.
Compassion and connection come from that same place: vulnerability — from vulnus, meaning to wound.
To be vulnerable means to risk being hurt — and to do it anyway.

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🕊️ On the other side of wholehearted living is shame.

Shame says: “You’re not enough. Stay small. Stay hidden.”
Shame thrives in secrecy — in what goes unsaid, in the stories we twist to protect the comfort of people who’ve never stood in the ring with us.

⚡️ Here’s what I know now:

If you can’t show up in the arena when it’s messy — you don’t get to talk about how I swing my punches.
If you can’t stand with me when I’m bleeding — you don’t get a seat when I’m rising.
If you haven’t lost sleep, cried real tears, spoken the hard truth out loud — you don’t get to tell me how to do any of this.

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🔥 Trip. Heal. Rise.

I’ll keep showing up.
I’ll keep loving hard.
I’ll keep standing in the fire when others flinch.
I’m here to live wholehearted — with people who know how to hold the line.

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💙 If you’re ready to stand in your own arena…

I’ll always share how I got here.
My ketamine healing journey ripped my shame wide open and showed me what was mine to carry — and what never was.
If you’re curious, check out Better U — the clinic that helped me keep fighting for my life.
When you’re ready, use my code NANDO84 at betterucare.com — because the arena is no place to stand alone.

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🗝️ The critics don’t count. 

It’s you — the one with dust, sweat, and blood on your face — who counts.
If you’re in the arena with me, you have my heart.
If you’re not, you’re just noise.

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Trip. Heal. Rise.
See you in the ring.

Already Gone

Already Gone

I got the title of this post from a famous Kelly Clarkson song. I used to play it on repeat during the middle of a major fallout in my life.

2022 was a year from hell.

I was being severely mistreated at work.
My cousin died suddenly in a plane crash.
My brakes failed and I landed in the ER.
And while I was still trying to process all that, the girl I was lowkey dating ended things with me in the most brutal, cowardly way—ghosted me right when I needed someone most.

Even though I won a TV for a peer award—for going “above and beyond” for the customer—I was constantly reminded I wasn’t enough. My work ethic was weaponized against me. I kept showing up. Kept delivering. And kept getting cooked by managers and HR while pretending everything was fine.

I was doing all the right things: talk therapy, EMDR, ADHD support groups, improv classes. But underneath, I was just trying not to drown.

Ironically, the one person who really saw me was a customer.
She told me I should be CEO for the way I handled myself in that toxic place.
She called out what everyone else ignored: that I was holding shit together in a system that wanted to break me.  Sadly, she took her own life two years later.  

The company folded shortly after.  That felt like cosmic justice.

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The Seed That Grew in the Fire

During that time, I would disappear to a private room just to cry for fifteen minutes. I couldn’t even say my cousin’s name without falling apart. One day, I broke down so visibly, three coworkers came to check on me. I wasn’t hiding it anymore.

I didn’t know it then, but that season of breaking was planting something in me—
a seed I wouldn’t recognize until three years later.

The seed that would grow into the decision to return to Brazil.

I had already tried to leave once. I gave my two-week notice. I was ready to go.
But I let a director reel me back in with false promises.
I stayed. And the mistreatment continued.

But that voice inside me? It never shut up.
And eventually, I started listening.

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Rebirth through Fire

Over the last year, I’ve gone through deep healing.
A full year of ketamine treatments.
A year of journaling.
A year of emotional release.
A year of integration with counselors.
A year of clearing out the bullshit I was never meant to carry.

During that same time, I was traumatized again—hit by a car in a store parking lot at my next job. And that moment snapped something into focus:

The Fernando who tolerated everything?
He’s dead.

The new Fernando?
He’s building freedom.

I’ve learned from the best in the game how to flip products, how to make money on my own terms, how to walk away when the environment is toxic.

I’m no longer trying to survive in someone else’s system.

I’m building my own.

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The Return

Now I’m done missing Jiu Jitsu classes.
I’m done missing Festas Juninas.
I’m done missing life.

Brazil isn’t just where I’m going.
It’s who I’ve always been.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that year of collapse gave me the push I needed to finally come home—to my body, to my truth, and eventually, to Brazil.

I was already gone.
Now I’m just catching up.

The Handwritten Note That Completely Disarmed Me

When I started my Associate’s degree at LDS Business College, I was scared out of my mind. That season of life felt like walking into a storm with no umbrella—raw, exposed, and uncertain. I had just learned I likely had ADHD (it was confirmed later that summer), and I didn’t know what that would mean for my future. My grandpa—my mom’s father—had just passed away. I was devastated. Grief was fresh, my confidence was shattered, and I felt like I was barely holding it together.

During that time, a friend shared a song she had written when she was just 14. It was meant to comfort me—and somehow, it did. Here's the song. Something about the innocence of it, the heart behind it, cracked open a space in me that needed to feel.

Still, walking into those classrooms brought flashbacks. I remembered something my 11th-grade English teacher, Mrs. Douglass, once told our class—right in front of me:

"I told all of my classes how Fernando is an example of what not to be like."
She said that while I was fumbling with index cards for a research paper on insomnia. That moment stuck like a splinter under my skin. So when I started at LDSBC, I was carrying that shame with me.

Out of survival and desperation, I disclosed my fears to my instructors. I was terrified of them. Not because of anything they had done, but because I had internalized this deep fear of being a failure or a burden. But what I found instead was something unexpected: kindness. Genuine, patient, unwavering kindness.

I used to stay up all night pulling panicked all-nighters, sending emails to my professors explaining where I was at with my work. I felt like I was drowning, but I wanted them to know I was trying. One person in particular saved me—Matt Fellows. He was the kindest, most compassionate tutor I’ve ever had. Without him, I don’t think I would’ve made it through my Accounting classes. He didn’t just help me study; he helped me believe in myself.

The next semester, things started to shift. My new roommate was warm, outgoing, and inclusive. He started involving me in everything: mentoring new students, helping teach a class called Foundations of Learning, and even calling me into the improv team. I also started helping lead a club called Play Theory, where we used improv to teach four core principles:

1. Be 100% present

2. Let go and play

3. Say yes

4. Look outward—make your scene partner look good

It was love and connection all around me—but I didn’t know how to receive it. I isolated a lot. I was still buried in overdue assignments, ashamed of my ADHD diagnosis, and haunted by the voice of Mrs. Douglass telling others not to be like me. I’d flunked out of college before. I’d been in a relationship where I felt unseen and unworthy. And now that I had community, I didn’t know how to trust it.

People would say, Why don’t you hang out with your friends more?
But the truth is, I was terrified of being seen. I felt defective.

And yet—the love never stopped. It kept pouring in. And I had no idea what to do with it. I didn’t want anyone to think I was taking their kindness for granted, so I started writing big public thank-you notes on Facebook. It was my way of saying, I see you. I feel you. Thank you for not giving up on me. (That tradition lives on, by the way. Here’s my most recent one from UVU: UVU Spring 2024 Special Thank Yous.)

I couldn’t make sense of what was happening at the time. Matt—my tutor—wasn't just helping me with coursework. He was helping me survive. And then there was the Honor Code officer who oversaw the mentor group. He made me a coordinator because, in his words, he liked the way I made people feel. We still joke around to this day. One of my instructors even kept in touch for years and still reminds me of my potential.

Then came the end of the semester. I turned in a final assignment—a personal learning booklet. It was three days late, and I was mortified. My instructors had been generous with extensions all along, but my fear of disappointing them still had its claws in me.

And then, I opened the front cover and saw a handwritten note:

“Fernando, you put your heart and soul in this booklet. May your kind and loving heart reach out to those around you and be a blessing to them. See page 17 for a thought.”

I flipped to page 17, and he’d written how I could achieve anything I put my mind to.

That note disarmed me. It shattered something hard and cold inside me. For years, I had internalized shame as my identity. But in that moment, I felt something shift—like maybe I wasn’t broken. Maybe I was just carrying too much for too long.

Years later, a professor at the University of South Florida would echo that same truth. He once told me,

“It may be a lot to process what you are carrying, but I promise you: if you work hard, take care of your body, and have the right support, you will make it.”
He encouraged me constantly and reminded me to advocate for myself. That I mattered.

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I still don’t have it all figured out. But I’m starting to see what those professors and mentors saw in me: someone worth believing in.

That handwritten note?
It didn’t just validate me.
It helped me rewrite the narrative.

From “What not to be like”…
to “You can achieve anything.”