My journey
Burnt-Out, Overwhelmed Entrepreneur in an Unhappy, Sexless Marriage: What To Do If Life Goes Sideways On You…
PART 1: Descent into the Darkness
I was raised on "hard work, is the only way to get ahead." So I believed achievement and success required tons of motivation, discipline, and effort to attain. Back then, I thought that if I wanted something bad enough, I could just work longer and harder to make it happen.
So, for ten years as an entrepreneur, I worked longer and harder than anyone I knew…80+ hour workweeks were the norm. Sleeping 3-4 hours a night on average, I sacrificed my physical health, my relationships, and my mental health. In those days I thought that I was invincible and could keep pushing and grinding forever. I never considered that I would burnout. Until the day that I finally did, and my life changed forever.
My story starts on February 26, 2016:
A grenade goes off in my head and the lights suddenly go out.
My eyes slowly open to see bright fluorescent lights above. As I come to, I realize I am on my back. I hear loud music, shouting and cheering in the background, but all I can focus on is the pressure in my head.
Someone kneels beside me and asks if I'm okay. Not knowing what just happened, I fumble out “yea… I think so.”
When I woke up that morning, I was a successful entrepreneur, owner of two thriving businesses. I had a beautiful home and a real estate portfolio, having created financial independence. I had just gotten married and returned from an eight-week honeymoon in Australia and New Zealand and that summer was headed to Hollywood to host a network TV show. I was a competitive athlete, competing in Ironman triathlons, obstacle course racing and CrossFit. I had a great community of friends. At 30 years old, I had checked all the boxes I thought I was supposed to check and achieved the goals I had set for myself.
However in that moment, I had never been so afraid and confused. The pain in my head is 10 out of 10, every heartbeat feeling like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat. Moments before, I was redlining in the last minute of competing in a CrossFit competition, doing walking lunges with a barbell over my head.
I head a headache daily for the next seven months, could not focus, and couldn’t raise my heart rate above resting for the pain would spike to unbearable levels.
After much searching as to what happened to me, I would come to find out that the capillaries in my brain ruptured due to the maximum heart-rate combined with poor posture and incredibly tight muscles from carrying a mountain of stress for so long.
In the weeks and months that followed, I tried to play it cool and put on a happy face. I went through the motions of life as best I could, but deep inside a storm was brewing…
I was slowly facing the reality that I was miserable with the life I had built, and it felt like the cage was inescapable.
From the outside looking in, it seemed I had it all…and yet, inside I was exhausted, burnt out, unhappy, and unfulfilled. I felt something was missing, and yet I could not articulate what it was at the time. I deeply hoped there was something more to life than this daily routine of just getting by.
2016 was a year of darkness, meeting my inner voices and the parts of myself I hated, all the while pretending like nothing was wrong. I fluctuated day-day between wanting to burn it all to the ground and doubling back down on what I knew, suppressing the emotions and keeping them tightly locked inside so I could function in daily life.
I felt no one could possibly understand, so I shoved the pain, hurt and insecurity further down inside.
In Summer 2016, I had a brief escape from it all when I flew to LA for three months to host a network TV show, called Altar’d. I was cast out of seemingly nowhere, and wasn’t searching for this opportunity, but it found me. While filming, I was able to forget all the stresses at home and be a completely different person. I felt spacious, free and alive!
January 2017, the show aired and I was invited back that summer to film a second season. The second summer, the contrast became so clear to me between how I was living and feeling as “LA Chris” and “Florida Chris.”
PART 2: The Initiation
I knew I could not keep living with this crippling burden of stress and misery. I needed to find another way…But I was doing all I knew how to do. I was doing breathwork, meditation and journaling which was helping, but just enough to keep me functional.
As soon as I admitted to myself, “I need some help, I need some support.” It showed up.
In 2018, I met a series of new friends, mentors, and coaches that opened my eyes to another way. I started to have moments of realization that life didn’t have to be this hard.
I started coaching business owners online and streamlining my businesses, working myself out of 90%, of my day-day responsibilities.
This cracked open the door to a lifelong dream of mine to buy an RV and travel the country.
The vision was clear and strong. I implemented systems, worked smarter, and by the end of the year I was on a four-week long RV roadtrip with my (then) wife.
I planned it so that I could coach at two conferences en-route, and was working from a laptop on the road.
The freedom from burden that I felt during this trip was intoxicating and irresistible like bees drawn to honey.
After four weeks went by, we were driving home to re-join “the real world”. I could feel the weight get heavier every mile I drove. As we crossed the Georgia border into Florida, I broke down into tears and had to pull over to the side of the road.
"I can’t do this anymore. I want to turn around and go anywhere but home.”
The day after BurningMan, we were sitting by the pool of a hotel, resting and recovering. I was high on life and felt a renewed sense of excitement that life was going to be OK! I was in my own world that I didn’t notice the emotional storm that was brewing inside my wife.
She casually said “We need to talk. I fell in love with (a man) in our camp and I want to separate so I can pursue a relationship with him.”
With that one sentence, my real initiation began.
I was shocked, confused, angry, sad and hurt all in one moment. I didn’t even know how to respond, so I just left. Wandering around Reno in sandals and a bathing suit, crying for hours in a park. When nighttime came, I got so cold that I had to go back to the hotel. I didn’t know what I would say or do, but I had to face this.
Through the next few weeks, we were “separated” but still traveling together in a 25’ RV with our two dogs. I no longer had work to distract myself with and again found myself in a period of deep inner reflection. Fortunately, I already had a weeklong Elk hunt planned in Montana to escape to. I set her up in the RV park, and headed off into the woods for a week.
As I sat alone in silence everyday, I stared at the mountains and cried for hours.
I left the forrest with a little more space and capacity to face this initiation, but returned back to chaos. Our dogs couldn’t handle the tension of our relationship and when I left, my wife said one started attacking the other, other dogs and people. The next day I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends as we re-homed him to a no-kill ranch in Montana. Rock bottom just got deeper.
We decided to officially separate. I drove her to Austin, where she wanted to move. Set her up, packed a backpack, and left the RV and what was left of my past life as I boarded a plane to the jungle of Colombia. Months before everything fell apart, I had booked a trip with two of my most closest friends, to go sit with Ayahuasca for the first time…and the initiation continues.
I walked in the jungle stripped raw of everything I thought I was. This was the hardest and darkest internal work I had ever done. I faced everything that was presented, and let it all go in the jungle.
I left the Jungle of Colombia a completely new man.
The cage of a life I had built for myself felt so strong and indestructible that I would never be able to escape it. Very soon I would come to discover that “cage” was entirely inside me.
I washed away the tears and drove home, but something was different. I felt a hint that a new life was on the horizon for me, but I couldn’t even imagine what would come next…
January 2019, I joined an online program called Training Camp for the Soul. I had done alot of personal development work in the past, but it was all in the head. This program encouraged feeling emotions and revisiting past traumas, something that was completely foreign to me! In TCS, I learned the root of my unconscious patterns and behaviors were inherited from mom and dad, and lessons from childhood development are just re-played over and over again in adulthood.
The most important thing I gained from the program was self-permission to follow my heart.
That was the nudge I needed to make some HUGE changes this year. I planned another, longer, cross-country RV roadtrip. I didn’t consciously admit it, but somewhere deep down I would never fully return.
That year I volunteered at a few TCS retreats, attended other transformational events, and explored plant medicine ceremonies. I dove head-first into full-time transformational work, uncovering my shadows and re-visiting the darkness I had scratched the surface of a few years prior.
Midway through that year, we decided it was time to fully cut cords with our past life. We decided to sell our house, other real estate, and businesses. We put them on the market and flew back only to sign closing papers and clear out things into storage.
2019 ignited a deeper sense of liberation, but it also revealed some deep wounding in my marriage that had been covered over by focusing on only my work for so long. While things looked great on the surface, we started to see the deep co-dependency in our relationship and the tension built as we both tried our best to wrestle with it. We went through cycles of blame to the root of the problems we were happening and I finally admitted how unhappy I had been in this relationship.
Little did I know, for all the work I had done, my initiation hadn’t even begun.
August 2019 my (then) wife and I attended our first BurningMan with some new friends. It promised to be an experience like no other imaginable…and it certainly was the most fun and liberation I had ever experienced.
PART 3: The Rise
As 2020 began, I was on top of the world. I had studied with many mentors and teachers in 2019 and was invited to start facilitating and take over the business as CEO and Co-Owner with TCS. I felt clear, aligned and alive.
The lessons of the past weren’t fully baked in yet, but I knew who I was and what I was put on this earth to do.
I had a real gift, one that was truly blossoming. I continued to hone my craft throughout the year, continuing to learn, study and practice with great teachers.
The events of 2020, while surprising, had very little impact on my life. I doubled down on service to others and poured my energy into my dharma work.
I rushed back into relating with women, only to find that the major lesson and gift of my separation had yet to sink in.
I was seeking love in another, before I truly loved myself.
I committed 2020 to finding love in myself, for myself. I hired coaches and did programs around masculinity, intimacy and sexual healing. Every day I brought more and more love in until I could look at myself in the eyes in the mirror and say with 100% honesty, “I love me".”
That year I searched for love in many women, until I finally came home to and found it in myself.
The summer of 2020, I also felt the calling that men really needed the support of other men right now. In the midst of the fear and uncertainty of 2020, I planted a flag and ran my first In-person, men-only retreat. I personally invited 24 men, and 20 answered the call to gather. Later that year, I ran another for 20 men.
In 2023, I felt the vision and next calling. I came together with other outstanding Men’s Facilitators and created Thirteen Pines, a worldwide men’s movement dedicated to depth. We each saw something greater than ourselves and a gap in what men were yearning for, deep, authentic, masculine brotherhood.
We ran our first event together at the end of 2023 and was clear that we needed to continue. We ran a program together and another retreat in 2024. We started our online men’s community and brotherhood, The Lodge and began teaching other men how to facilitate Men’s work and groups.
We now offer a number of different opportunities for men to work with us. You can find more on the In Person Event and Online Program pages.
Also in early 2023, while spending a winter in Mexico with Victoria, we decided it was time and we said yes to bringing a child into this world. We were deeply aligned with our hearts and again the Universe delivered quickly! Elizabeth Rose Marhefka was born November 22, 2023.
And with that, my next evolution and initiation into fatherhood began.
The first year was challenging, confronting, and stress-tested Victoria and I. It was also brought the most beautiful gift of joy and love that I could ever imagine. Instead of running from it, we both faced the challenge together and emerged stronger as a partnership and family.
Becoming a parent in a conscious way has been one of the greatest gifts and the strongest personal development.
I am again a new version of the man I love. And I share all of the wisdom and lessons of this journey with my clients. I hope that in reading this vulnerable story of my journey, you know me deeper. If there is a trust in me, and you feel called to work with me, I hope you follow that call. It is my life’s work to be of service and you give me a gift by allowing me to support you in your highest evolution in this life.
I continued to run retreats and online programs for TCS, and people started coming to me for 1:1 coaching. I had enough happening, so I resisted the call for awhile. Eventually, I had a woman come along that changed that. She was a fantastic saleswoman and she sold me to be her coach!! She is now very successful in business, and I am not at all surprised! Looking back at that initial call is hilarious to me.
Stepping into 2021, I didn’t think that life could get any better. I finalized my divorce and felt complete and whole in every way. And it was in this energy in a meditation, that I had a vision of the woman for me. I released any energy of searching and trusted she would appear when I was ready.
I even wrote a list of 100 qualities of this woman. I went through this list one by one and reflected on if I was already that. If I wasn’t, I immediately took action. For example, I desired a woman who was an artist and musical, that would fill our home with beauty. I hired a guitar teacher, bought a guitar and started practicing. I started painting once/week. I cleaned up my bachelor pad home, and filled it with plants. I desired a woman that was well-travelled and spoke many languages, so I started learning Spanish. And the list goes on.
Well, I forgot how fast the Universe responds when you are in alignment, because she showed up almost instantly, and it caught me by surprise!
A few months later, I read the list to Victoria, my future wife, as we both realized she was 99/100 things I wrote down. I knew this was it.
We went to BurningMan together and fell deeper and deeper in love. We had visions of our future children together. We committed to enjoying each other first and doing everything we wanted to do before we said yes to babies. We took a year and travelled all over the world, the Caribbean, Europe, that same jungle of Colombia together, Mexico. 2022 was a year of so much fun, adventure and love!
A the end of this year, it became clear to me that my mission was no longer with TCS, so I parted ways with my partner not knowing what was next.
Again, I followed my hearts knowing and the Universe delivered.
