The MAJOR Shift I l've Been Feeling

Lately, I’ve been blogging more about my ketamine journey — especially the transformation that hit after the treatment started to really sink in. And I won’t lie: the road here hasn’t been smooth. I’ve been through hell this past year. Moving to Utah County, losing my cat, my laptop dying for almost a year, getting deferred from the plasma center after being betrayed by someone I trusted… it all stacked on top of me. Even with ketamine, there were days I felt painfully stuck in my life.

But then something shifted. And now everything has been changing so fast I’ve been trying to keep up with myself.

I went from being the guy who cried in his professor’s office after failing two tests… to retaking that same class and passing it — after failing it four times before. I’m falling in love with Math and Statistics again. I’m learning how to build an Amazon business through this new mentorship, and the wins there keep getting more and more specific. I’ve been helping my mom launch her online store. And I just pre-launched a YouTube channel called Let’s Get You Unstuck.

The ketamine didn’t just help me feel better — it showed me how safe I actually am. And the integration guides at Better U taught me how to take everything I felt in those sessions and weave it into my life instead of letting it fade. The Continued Support and Care team there has been incredible. If things keep moving the way they are, I might even end up working with them in the new year.

My credit score jumped. My mind feels sharp again. I’m planning my return to jiu jitsu once my work and school schedule line up.

And yesterday… I had the sweetest connection I’ve had with a girl in a long time. It’s too early to know where it’s going, but my nervous system felt good in her presence — for the first time in what feels like forever. Healing does that. It softens the things you swore would stay hard forever.

I’m not saying everything is perfect. But for the first time in a long time, I can feel the ground under me shifting in a good way. I can feel myself actually moving — not stuck, not frozen, not trapped in the same old patterns — but truly, finally, in transition.

The Two Words That Disarmed Me

There’s this person at my job that, for the longest time, I swore was rude. I avoided them. I kept my guard high around them. My body saw them and instantly tightened — not because of anything they did, but because they reminded me of a thousand old patterns of being caught off-guard, dismissed, or blindsided.

Even my ketamine sessions tried to nudge me: “Don’t take this person personally.”
But my trauma brain? It didn’t want to hear that. It wanted danger where there wasn’t any.

Then one day, I tripped on this person, and irritation shot up through my chest. I snapped a little: “Give me a heads up next time.”

And without hesitation, they looked at me and said — gently, humbly — “I’m sorry.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

I apologized too. And it’s been sitting with me ever since.

Because the truth is:
This isn’t Byte.
This isn’t January when someone actually hit me with a car.
This isn’t my past, my trauma, my old environments where people were unsafe, unpredictable, or cruel.

This was just a human being who wasn’t trying to hurt me.

And it hit me how often my irritation is actually just a flashback disguised as a personality trait — a trauma response wearing the mask of a mood.

It’s painful to realize how many innocent people I’ve internally punished for harm they never caused. How many times my nervous system has reacted to ghosts. But it’s also freeing.

Because now I can see it.
And when you can see it, you can change it.

The Final Wall

Last week, I had two of the most meaningful ketamine sessions I ever had. I wrote about them in my last post.

But a couple of days before I had my integration session with Better U, I had a major purge. I took back my power from what the Swirl did to me this summer. The Swirl chapter has been closed for some time now. And then last night, I wrote a document of everything that does align with me and everything I value.  

Then I had my integration session today, and this is what I was able to capture. It was a lot of information. But it came back down to safety, since we talked a lot about that after the Charlie Kirk shooting.  

"This comes back to religious trauma. I had to abide by a lot of rules to feel safe.  

If I am no longer performing and following rules for safely, what living for me look like?

If I had complete certainty in my safety, what would my life look like?  

Your brain may then have a hard time flowing through that exploration, what is the point of my thinking like that? I had walked through moments like that, did you not make it through anyway? If I right now am proof that I can survive worst case scenarios is that not proof that every was and will be ok anyway?

What is stopping us from being the most actualized version of ourselves?

That is the final wall I am about to break down. And once I get clarity about that, I can get clarity about who I am hiding, that is not a block.....is it just fear? lack of trust in myself or around the world?"

My guide told me to sit on this for a bit. I have a lot to reflect on. No ketamine sessions for the next week. But I cried knowing that the final wall is now breaking!  

Expanding And Cleansing

I usually write about one ketamine session at a time, but this week I had two — and both hit deep.

The first one was all about expansion. It felt fitting, because in Linear Algebra we learn about vector spaces, spanning sets, and linear independence — ideas that mirror what’s happening in my life right now. My capacity to hold more — in business, in mindset, in purpose — is expanding.

The help I’ve been getting in my Amazon business through the Scaling Society has gotten more specific and intentional. I’m beyond grateful.
Chris Mangunza has been an incredible mentor — not just skilled, but someone of real integrity. He genuinely cares, and he’s gone out of his way to make sure we’re supported and actually making money. This doesn’t just help me — it helps everyone around me. This session reminded me that the wealth and knowledge I’m building are tools to lift others, not just myself. It echoed the same energy as my 4th of July and rocket sessions — both of which centered on rising after chaos and using growth to empower others.

Between those two sessions, a couple things made me really happy:

1. I found out that one of my friends started ketamine therapy through Better U — partly inspired by my posts. Knowing that my story helped even one person heal made it all worth it.

2. I helped my mom with her business — spending an hour on Shopify fighting for a refund on a ghost store we didn’t even know we had. I was proud of how calmly I handled it. I drew from my Rogerian communication style, my call center experience, and everything I’ve learned through ketamine integration. It was the first time I really felt how much I’ve grown.

My most recent session was an energy cleanse — a deep one.
No more fake friends. No more fake energy. No more “support” that disappears the moment you stop serving someone else’s comfort.
Let them lose me.

I’ve already had sessions about protecting my energy, but this one hit harder. Disrespect no longer has a place in my life. I was reminded of someone who once said all the right things — promised support, made plans, talked about “always being there.” But when it got real, they threw cheap insults about my age. I’m not carrying that kind of energy into 2026. Let them fall off now.

This new version of me is focused, grounded, and done apologizing.
He’s thriving in school.
He’s building two businesses.
He’s spent the last 18 months doing the inner work through ketamine therapy — all while working full-time.

Anyone who can’t respect that, support that, or grow with that… gets left behind.