Shows / Your Effin’ Love Story
Your Effin’ Love Story
I didn't turn on the mic to coach you, teach you, or tell you what you want to hear.
I turned it on because everybody was talking and nobody was saying anything real that spoke to me and the shit I'd been through.
Your Effin' Love Story is about love, marriage, relationships, intimacy, grief, shame, identity, and the complicated relationship we have with ourselves.
Death.
Cancer.
Rage.
Hope.
Lust.
Aging.
The quiet shit we carry around but rarely say out loud.
Five marriages.
Four divorces.
A…
Episodes
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 58 |Justify This: I Don't Owe Anyone an Explanation for My Life. And Neither Do You.
People have told me — more than once, and from people who consider themselves spiritually advanced — that it seems like I'm trying to justify my happiness…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 11 | Who Are You When Culture Has Been Telling You Who to Be?
I've been thinking about culture — what it means to be born in this country to Black parents, to be taught what a man is, to have a worldview handed to me…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Why Do I Still Attack Myself So Hard Even After All the Growth Work?
Even after a lot of self-inquiry, growth, and expansion, a small mistake can still drop me straight into my own ass. That’s what this episode is about. I was…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 57 | That Veil: Social Media Illusions, False Appearances, and the Truth About Who We Are
How much of what we see on social media is real, and how much of it is an illusion we've decided to believe? In this archive episode of The Real Empowered…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 10 | Learning What Love Is When You've Never Felt Lovable
What happens when the one thing you've wanted more than anything else in your life is to love and be loved, but you don't actually know what love is? This…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Your Own Choices or Not. Who's Deciding Your Life Right Now?
When did you start making your own choices? And how many of those choices are actually yours, rather than decisions you've made to satisfy somebody else's…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
The Ugly Unsaid: When You Don't Fit In, Don't Feel Deserving, and Don't Know What You Really Want
What happens when you've spent most of your life feeling like you don't belong, and even the things that are supposed to help you change your life don't seem…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Well, Here We Are: Love, Dating, and the Parts of Ourselves We Hide
How in the fuck are we supposed to find someone who loves us for who we really are when we're so busy managing what they get to see? Sharon and I are finally…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
What If You Just Let Yourself Like the Person You’ve Been Running From?
For most of my life, I believed I was broken. Not temporarily broken. Fundamentally broken. I collected the evidence: childhood abuse, four divorces, four…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 09 | Stop Waiting for Permission to Be Loved for Who You Are
July 31st, 1999, my infant son Malachi died. I carried that loss for years as proof that I was a bad person—that somehow I deserved punishment. But the…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Confession | I Used to Think I Was Too Broken to Be Loved
I recorded this on July 28th, 2026 with no intro music and no polish. I am 60. No PhD. I spent most of my life feeling broken and out of place — parental…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 56 | Finding Your Groove: From Hotel BMW to Loving the Constant Variable. Me.
Another archive episode recorded on a Friday morning in May 2023, and it’s a direct, unsexy look at the brutal necessity of personal accountability and owning…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 55 | Steroids and Spirituality: The Illusion of Shortcuts and the Literal "Weight" We Carry
Another archive episode that I share with you. As always, it’s a raw, unvarnished take on the shit that happens on the inside of us when we buy into the…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 54 | I Write and Hide: Stumbling Across My Own Past While the Podcast Broke
A raw, unvarnished rant recorded on a Thursday evening in May 2023, sparked entirely by a broken website widget and a couple of Guinness Extra Stouts. After…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 53 | When Hope Isn’t Enough: Surviving the Waiting Room of Life
This isn't a polished episode. It’s a raw archive from April 2025, sandwiched between the reality of my life today in 2026. Two years of silence, a brush with…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 52 | Freaks, Ho’s, and the War on Normal: Why We Judge (And Why It Doesn't Matter)
I was sitting on public transit, listening to two strangers tear an actress apart, calling her a "ho" simply for existing outside their narrow version of…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 08 | The Ugly Truth About Grief, Guilt, And What We Don’t Say Out Loud.
spent Friday in federal court, and the date of my next deadline—July 31st—hit me like a freight train. It’s the 27th anniversary of my son Malachi’s death…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sweating, Donuts, Cartoons, and the Voice in Your Head That Won't Shut Up
It's 10:12 on a Saturday night in St. Louis and it was hot enough today to slap you the moment you walked outside. I've got two chocolate glazed donuts in me…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 51 | I Have A Felony. I Am Not A Felon. — And Yes, There's A Difference. And Who Might You, "Be?"
I have a felony on my record. I'm not going to soften that or dance around it. What I am going to do is make a distinction that changed everything for me — and…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 50 | You Are Amazing — And I Know You Don't Believe That Yet, But That's Okay...
It's late. Sharon's in the bedroom waiting to watch something on BritBox. I'm trying to keep this one brief. I had conversations at work today that confirmed…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 49 | Trigger Warning — You Are Responsible For Your Own Choices (Yes, Even That One)
Here's your trigger warning. I didn't get a fucking “trigger warning” the morning I found my son Malachi’s lifeless body on July 31st, 1999. There was no one…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 48 | Sourcing — Why Knowing Where The Cow Came From Won't Make The Steak Taste Better
This is an archive episode that was originally created on April 28, 2023 at 7:48 AM, and when you hear different details within the episode, that's why. So…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 47 | The Biggest Lie You Tell Yourself Every Day — And It's Not What You Think
I lied my ass off as a kid. Not because I was a bad person. Because I was trying not to get beaten. When the truth was going to get you hurt, you learned fast…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 07 | Let Me Clear A Few Things Up
This is Sunday Stroll 07. I've been getting emails. Some of you think I'm anti-religion. Some of you think I'm telling you to leave your marriage. Some of you…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 46 | Dating, The Club, And The Ritual That Never Actually Worked — Here's Why
You know the ritual. Pre-drinks at home. The outfit deliberation. The cologne decision. The mirror check. The mental rehearsal of how the night is going to go…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 45 | What Really Matters — The Question I Finally Asked At 4:49 In The Morning
It was 4:49 in the morning. No alarm. Just awake. I rolled out of bed as quietly as I could and Sharon reached out and found my hand in the dark before I even…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 44 | You're Not "The Technician" — So Stop Telling "The Universe" How To "Fix" Your Life
My day job is tech. People bring me broken laptops and then stand there telling me how to fix them. They don't know how to fix them. That's why they brought…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 43 | Hope — And the Question Nobody Asks You Before You Start Paying for Things You Can't Take Back
I didn't want to have children. Ever. I said that out loud for the first time not too long and ago, and then again in this episode — publicly, on a microphone…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 42 | What We Tell Ourselves — And Why Getting "Wet" Didn't Fix A Damn Thing
I've been baptized somewhere between four and five times. Different denominations. Different water. Same me standing there afterward, still carrying everything…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 41 | You Are Not "Only" Human — And My Motorcycle "Proves" It
We've been told our whole lives that we're only human. Only. As if human is a limitation. As if it's the explanation for everything we can't do, everything…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Mystical Now? And You Won't Believe What You Already Know
We were going to make a different episode today. Sharon and I were behind the microphone, the direction was clear, and something was off. Not dramatically off…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
You Got Sexted, Ghosted, and Confused — And You're Still Asking the "Wrong" Questions
You did everything right. Asked the good questions. Waited the appropriate amount of time. Finally gave up the booty. And they disappeared. And now you're…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 40 | The 300 Songs Nobody Heard — And Everything Else We Leave Behind
Another from the archive. Three years ago. My wife deep into chemo and radiation, and I, her husband, still having those inner conversations that I'd never…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
This Shit Is Hard — And I Built It That Way On Purpose. Yep, It's True.
If you've tried the affirmations, bought the course, done the work someone else told you to do, and you're still exactly where you were — this episode is for…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
The Words I Wanted To Hear. And Feel.
If you grew up hearing I love you from the same people who hurt you, you already know what this episode is about. It means that a lot of us have moved through…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
The Shit That "Self-Help" Won't Even Touch. Ever.
Another episode that I wasn't planning on posting. But like the others, here it is. I recorded this for myself. Voice memo. Private thoughts. The kind of…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Speed Bumps, Late Fees, and the Art of Chilling the F*ck Out
I missed a bill. I had the money. It was in the calendar — every device, every platform, no excuse. And I still missed it and had to pay the late fee and I…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Open Your Eyes and Heart — If You Can
I joined the Mormon church for a woman's ass. Sure, I told myself that it was all about finding and getting “right” with Jesus, but actually and I knew it in…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 06 | What The Fuck Am I Actually Doing?
I'm 60 years old, sitting behind a microphone at 11 PM on a Sunday in St. Louis, humid as hell, not making a dime, and somewhere between a George Michael…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
We Say The Shit Out Loud — When Two People With Different Wiring Choose The Same Day Anyway
I didn't want to record today. I said that into the microphone first because it was true — bad mood, grout cleaner fumes, two people with completely different…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Family, Friends, Fakes & Frauds (Part 2) — I Photoshopped Out My Tattoos (yeah, I really did...)
Hey, if you didn't listen to Part One, why not? Hmmmmmm? *shakes his head...* Go ahead and listen to the first part.... __________________ I photoshopped my…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Family, Friends, Fakes & Frauds (Part 1) — And Why You Keep Them Around
I got my ass beaten with a rubber paddle while my father held me down with his forearm and my mother switched hands when her right arm got tired. They called…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 39 | The Ever Changing: Who I Was, Who I Am, and What I'm Actually Doing Here
I've got a cold Guinness, headphones on, and Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings playing while I talk into this microphone. Very few people know I'm a…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
She's Here (FINALLY) — And No, She's Not Introducing Herself
I've been talking about bringing Sharon on for years. Today she's here. Sitting across from me, right in front of the microphone, on a Monday in June that we…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
What About That Fucking List is Really True?
I made a list. Four marriages worth of lists actually. One could reasonably say that I sucked at finding the one to love, the one with whom all of life could…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 38 | None of This Tech Holds My Hand
I'm on the sofa next to my wife. Coffee's hot. The trees outside haven't leafed out yet but the birds are already doing their thing on the light post and I'm…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Mundane Musings: What Makes It True? *TRIGGER WARNING*
⚠️ Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of childhood abuse, sexual abuse, and suicide. This is another one of those episodes that I wasn't going…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Get The Freebies First — No Email, No Catch, No Bullshit
I got burned. More times than I want to count. Free masterclass, free workbook, free something — and what I got was a well-packaged lead magnet designed to…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 37 | Everyone Has An Opinion — What's Yours Of You?
Full transparency. As of June 16th, 2026, my day job is delivering food via a delivery service in 97 degree St. Louis heat and fucking humidity so thick that…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 05 | Cherry Pick The Good Stuff
I'm sitting on the sofa next to Sharon with my coffee watching birds land on a light outside the window. I've got an iMac, a Vocaster 2, Bose speakers, a…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 36 | All People Suck — And Other Bullshit You Tell Yourself
All people suck. Men are dogs. Women just want one thing. You keep attracting the same type and you've decided that's just how people are. It isn't. That's how…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 35 | Mistakes, Missteps, And The Apology That Never Came
My father never apologized for what he did to me as a child. I spent a long time waiting for that apology. I thought I needed it. I thought that without it I…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 34 | We Are Not Broken
This episode was recorded March 26th, 2023. Like so many of the of these earlier episodes while Sharon was dealing with her medical challenges, at this time…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 33 | Squirrel Nuts, Two Guests And A Saturday Night
It's 10:40pm on a Saturday in March 2023. I don't usually record this late. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to say. Two guests at the day job today. The…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 32 | You Get To Be Off Balance
I didn't sleep well last night. Don't know why. Maybe the cereal I ate too late. I just know I didn't sleep well and today I've been a little off. I came to…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 31 | The Easter Postcard — And Letting Beauty In
A coworker handed me a postcard for an Easter service at her church. No pressure. No sermon. Just someone who felt comfortable enough with me to share…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Sunday Stroll 04 | Manifest What, Exactly?
Someone sent me an email about a person who channels an alien. That's where this one starts. It ends with me realizing I got testy with Sharon this morning…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 30 | Tidying Up — And Why Bother
I almost didn't post this one. I was tired when I recorded it. Emotionally exhausted. Hadn't planned on recording at all — just followed a thought about…
- Your Effin’ Love Story
Episode 29 | AirPod Down — And Why That Actually Matters
I lost an AirPod yesterday. One of the ones I paid real money for. Probably fell out of my pocket somewhere between the car and the grocery store. And here's…