My Story

I was seven years old when my mother took me to a toy store. She told me to wait there while she went to get something. I waited. And waited. And waited.

She never came back.

I remember sitting there, watching other kids with their parents, watching the store employees look at me with confusion, then concern. Eventually someone called the police. I never saw my mother again.

My father? He was around, but he wasn't really there. The bottle was his family. The bar was his home. I had no aunts, no uncles, no grandparents who stepped in. At seven years old, I learned that I was on my own.

When home isn't safe, when there's no food in the fridge, when your father is passed out and you're hungry and scared, you find another family. The streets became that family for me.

Gangs gave me what I didn't have: belonging, protection, purpose. Sure, that purpose was destruction. But it was purpose. It was something.

Drugs? They started as escape. A way to numb the pain of being abandoned, of feeling worthless, of not understanding why I wasn't enough for my own mother to stay. Then drugs became something I sold, then something I couldn't live without.

I got locked up. More than once. Each time I came out, I told myself things would be different. They weren't.

Then came the homelessness. Sleeping under bridges, in shelters when I could, on cardboard when I couldn't. The depression got so dark I couldn't see any light. I felt worthless. I was just surviving, not living.

I remember one night, sitting alone in the cold, thinking this was it. This was all my life would ever be. Pain. Struggle. Survival mode. Forever.

I started reading anything I could get my hands on. Meditation. Neuroscience. Epigenetics. Mind-body medicine. Spiritual practices from every tradition.

I learned that our brains can change. Our bodies can heal. Our lives can transform. It's not just positive thinking bullshit – it's science. Real, proven science.

I practiced meditation even when my mind wouldn't shut up. I did the work even when I didn't feel like it. I kept choosing self-transformation even when self-destruction felt easier.

Here's what I want you to know: I haven't "made it." I'm not standing here claiming to have all the answers. I still struggle. I still have dark days. I still have moments where destruction feels tempting.

But I'm still here. Still choosing. Still transforming.

And I realized something: I can't do this alone. None of us can. We need each other. We need a community of people who understand the struggle because they've lived it.

That's why I started Our Daily Choice. Not because I have it all figured out. But because I know how powerful it is to have people in your corner.