“With great power comes great responsibility.” — Spider-Man (Peter Parker)

I came to a conclusion this morning.

I am not a superhero.

I enjoyed comic books as a kid and have watched several modern big-screen adaptations over the years. “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Avengers: Endgame,” and “Logan” are probably my favorites, and The Dark Knight Trilogy was also fantastic. I’ve also really enjoyed recent series like “The Peacemaker” and “Creature Commandos.” I become immersed in such stories and love picking these characters apart. I’m fascinated with contrast between their humanity and their superpowers.

I’m just a life coach — a passionate, yet flawed one. And I don’t often critique myself with the same amount of intrigue, fairness, or grace that I do my favorite fictional characters.

Most mornings, I don’t wake up feeling like rescuing myself or anyone else, for that matter. But even the most badass superheroes with the coolest superpowers have deep character flaws and specific weaknesses. This all occurred to me this morning as I woke up frustrated with my shortcomings, drove my kids to school, and tried to look at the positive aspects of who I am. What is my value in this world when I have so many areas of dissatisfaction? What is my superpower and is that enough?

Empathy is my superpower.

I naturally understand and feel what people say when they confide in me. I discovered this ability one day, joined a coaching cohort to hone my skills, and have since sought opportunities to help others. This has become one of my passions in life.

At the same time, imposter syndrome has long been a thorn in my side. Progress is often hindered by guilt over past decisions and ongoing struggles. Calling myself a “life coach” feels absurd sometimes because I don’t always feel qualified. But like superheroes, life coaches don’t need to be perfect to make a difference.

The reality is that I still don’t have a consistent influx of clients. My life as a single dad means my kids’ well-being comes before my own. Sometimes, that responsibility feels too heavy to bear. I was also recently diagnosed with ADD, which has brought frustration with who I’ve been my whole life and the new obstacles that lie ahead in learning to overcome.

Despite knowing the importance of prioritizing my health, progress isn’t always easy — and that has been challenging to accept.

Here are five superheroes with character flaws similar to mine. If you’re a superhero expert, you might find some inconsistencies. If so, please provide corrections in the comments! For those who enjoy the dichotomy between superheroes and ourselves, I hope this resonates with you.

Iron Man (Tony Stark)

Known for his intelligence and charm, Tony Stark also struggles with anxiety and personal demons.

Black Panther (T’Challa)

As Wakanda’s king, T’Challa symbolizes strength and resilience, facing depression from leadership’s weight and his father’s loss.

The Flash (Barry Allen)

Barry Allen’s speed and quick wit, along with his scattered tendencies, make him relatable to those with ADD.

Cyborg (Victor Stone)

Cyborg grapples with self-doubt due to his transformation, offering a narrative of overcoming insecurities.

Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)

Wanda, with her complex emotions and idealization of her relationship with Vision, is relatable to those who romanticize relationships.

If you’re a fellow life coach, I hope this encourages you to stop seeing yourself as an impostor. You are a real-life superhero, capable of making a big difference in the lives of others.

If you’re looking for a life coach to help you through a transition, know this: we are far from perfect, but we can empathize with your struggles and help uncover underlying truths.

No matter who you are, consider your own superpowers and how you might embrace your imperfections.

STEPHEN R. SANDERS | Instagram | Linktree

I was diagnosed with severe ADD a few days ago.

I turn 46 in a week and a half. I’m jobless. I’m a single dad with 2 daughters living with me Monday through Friday. I got separated from my wife of 18 years the October before the pandemic. The past 5 years has been very difficult and confusing for me.

I’ve had several jobs since I decided to leave my 18 year career in multimedia production. I’ve dabbled a little since, but mostly I’ve gone from pursuit to pursuit and have probably left each one prematurely. I’ve managed and provided despite these failures. I’ve done this while being a parent to daughters who have their own challenges. Some of which are severe in their own way.

I’ve also attempted dating relationships during this time with women. Good women. Many of whom have the types of struggles I was oblivious to before this season of my journey. I’ve maintained friendships with most of them to varying degrees, but I remain single.

When I was married, I didn’t need to be a decider. I could just linger in who I thought I needed to be while balancing that with how to feel the least amount or resistance possible. Because decisions pile up over the course of a day, a week, a year, a lifetime; this damn maze of walls could have never been navigated in time if I tried. I’d never have moved in any direction if I tried to take these things in stride. On my own, there’s not much to balance it with but me and that has been impossible.

There has always been this albatross in my mind. To cope, I’ve created these walls and they are for protection from all of the things that have created anxiety in my life. Every decision I have ever been faced with has brought with it an immediate response that serves to protect me.

How many opportunities have I failed to see the more promising side of? How many daily tasks and challenges have felt like failures because I just couldn’t… push… myself… through.

Through all these times and situations the past 5 years, I’ve come to realize the reason why many years of my life were miserable. I’ve spent so much time trapped in my head and riddled with anxiety. Time, time, time… and the thing about time is… it never, ever makes compromises or empathizes. Time is what it is; we’re just incapable of seeing it for what it truly is. Instead, we each see it through our own ever-evolving and fluidly distorting viewfinder.

“The way your brain processes your concept of self is on dial up while many people get to enjoy 5G.” — My Psychologist

I’ve known my diagnosis for 2 days. I’ve suspected since middle school that something was wrong with me. Can you imagine the walls my brain has erected the past 35 years? There’s so many layers to this and I don’t know which layer to survey first. Do I go back to middle school and work my way forward? Do I start with today and work my way back?

I don’t know how exactly I am going to proceed, but I do know that this is a gift. It isn’t a death sentence and I don’t have to wallow in misery or regret. I have been given an opportunity to discover myself to the fullest extent in a much healthier way than I have in the past.

I can and will unlearn bad habits and chisel away at some of these walls one day at a time. Perhaps over time, this maze will become a labyrinth.

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

I know I’ve been here before, but don’t remember the last time I was in a bed like this. But here I am. Literally, in bed, but also metaphorically: this bed I’ve made for myself, unwillingly.

I wake up about every 2 hours these days; a snap back onto reality from some of the most vivid dream sequences I’ve ever experienced. Chalk it up to the stresses of merely existing through a worldwide pandemic… and a personal one. The thoughts in my head are sheer pandemonium. These poor decisions I’ve made have birthed an outbreak. The damage… done.

Imagine a sci-fi film where the war has finally ended and you’re slowly introduced to this sweeping birds eye view of the fog… then shrapnel and rubble… then the utter decimation that lies below.

That’s what my reality feels like right now. Snapping out of vivid dreams, then slowly remembering where I truly am. Laying in this bed I made. Resting in it. Sleeping and dreaming sporadically. Embracing this pillow of anxiety that feels more and more comfortable the longer I lay.

This is life sometimes. We all fall short. We all let ourselves down… and others. We all make beds. The sooner we choose to lie in them, the sooner we can embrace the natural anxiety that follows, and eventually forgive, correct, rest, replenish, and hopefully never make another bed like that again.

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

I’ve heard it said that your career doesn’t need to be your passion. For a long time, I’d assumed I was lucky enough to have a career I was passionate about. For most of my adult life I have worked hard… diligently… with pride… with love and purpose… for my honor… for my daughters… for comforts I seldom feel like I deserve.

“I don’t have time for a passion” is what I’d told myself for years.

On top of that, childhood pain was ignored. Because everyone has something. Right? Join the party. But hear this because I promise you it is 100% true and SO valuably important…

Just because you ignore it, doesn’t mean it’s not still there.

For 18 years, my career was in multimedia, but recently I discovered a new passion. It’s the first one I’ve had in a while… not one I wanted to strive for, but one that I knew THAT I KNEW I was going to pursue wholeheartedly…

The Archaeology of Self.

Deep inside, almost forgotten… dormant beneath the soil and rubble and rubbish…

The past couple years, I’ve patiently and painstakingly chiseled away at the layers for relics and artifacts so far gone, they’d been long forgotten in this excavation site.

Every layer, an exciting mystery once it’s unearthed, carefully dusted off with gentle and circular motions with this delicate hand of mine. Even the broken and unrecognizable artifacts are full of beauty. They hold a unique glory that didn’t exist when they were brand new and freshly dropped, lost or tossed in the dirt.

But deterioration and time … dehydration and rust… immobilization and atrophy… decomposition and stain… here’s the overarching truth that remains after self archaeology…

It’s okay

to be passionate

about yourself.

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

Every morning, I wake up, pour some coffee, roll a cigarette, and journal. Today, it started much earlier than usual. In an attempt not to wake my 8 year old, I grabbed the necessities, snuck out the back and walked around my house to my front porch where I enjoy my daily ritual. Like most things these days, I forgot something. Today, it was my journal. So here we are.

I actually just took up smoking a couple months ago. I’d ditched the habit in 2004, but somehow it found me again almost 20 years later. The coffee never left. I’ve been drinking it since I was a kid. The journaling… something I was challenged to do when I started therapy 4 years ago and finally made a necessity along with the nicotine. It’s become like the air I breathe and the water I need to live. Without my journal, my brain spins out of control with anxiety while I lay stagnant with depression.

I still woke up my kid, by the way. Peace is hard to come by these days.

I live within hearing distance of train tracks. I take in its sounds behind the crickets and frogs in the trees nearby. These calls soothe me reminding me there’s a simpler world out there outside of my own. I have lived trapped safely within my mind for as long as I have known. The people in my life have always seen the best sides of me and are often surprised by the view of my world when I try to share my perspective on it.

6am snags my attention after my daughter wakes up early and I tell her to go inside and read a book or draw. My cat sneaks out the front door after it closes and almost immediately begs me to let him back inside. Never… a moment… of peace.

My coffee is cold from the pot I’d placed in the fridge 2 days before. It’s black and I like it this way whether it’s hot or cold outside. This morning is brisk and I inhale deep while imagining my favorite season right around the corner. I relight my cigarette and wonder how the day will shake out as I flick it in my yard.

This awareness and this writing keep my mind in a safer (saner?) place than it usually is. Most of the time, it is either stuck in the past or bracing for the future. I’m learning to exist in the present as much as I can. It takes a lot of effort because I can drift so easily into regret or worry without realizing it.

The sky is blue and purple now with a few stars visible from my tiny front porch. The cold is embracing my bare legs and arms as I type this with chilly fingers and stiff hands. And the world seems to have suddenly awakened with garbage trucks and joggers and my daughter coming outside for the 3rd… and 4th time.

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

Right back where I was before
My feet hit the floor and I’m flying
I don’t feel like dying; I’m not far away

Everything I used to be
I have yet to see where I’m landing
But I’m understanding a little more everyday

It seems to me
We were meant to be free
But if I’m wrong
How soon or how long
Do we need to be strong?

Yesterday don’t mean a thing
The days before, I am waiting
Anticipating the days ahead

A step ahead, a step behind
I can’t rewind the hands of time
So I’ll just lie here all alone in my bed

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

We’re messy, broken people
But you’d never know it when you look around
‘Cause most of us seem vivid and glossy and sound

Shiny twinkles in our eyes
The shimmers are only revealed in our smiles
Are seldom there behind our doors and inside files

We can lay around all day
But deep inside we’ve travelled so many years
Our pillows soaked in tears as bed sheets cover fears

We’re messy and were broken
Ugly, shameful, retched, lonely and filthy
They’re lying if they tell you any differently

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

When is the right time to ask for help?
How do we know who to ask?
Why does life come at us so fast and how long, oh, how long will it last?

I’m asking because I don’t recall
A conversation at any point at all
Remotely eluding to a life that’s going like this.

My dad told me one time a few years ago
He said that every body needs help
And sometimes, that “body” is you so just be you if it’s all that you do.

I think that was his simple way
To say that there’s seldom an easy day
But when there is, you’ll know it is and that’s the point of it all.

When is the right time to ask for help?
How do we know who to ask?
Never… but do it anyway… and ask anyone who you think might help.

Because life comes fast and it’s over like that *snap*

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

It is a sunny Saturday in RVA. October’s crisp air with the scents of donuts, aromatherapy & the surrounding nature of Bryan Park. You almost don’t notice (you’d really need to focus) the white noise of 64 and 95 blended together with folk music & fun, vendors & birds… nature… words…

What’s not to enjoy? My Self. My decisions & mistakes. These things, they shame me & I lose control of by ability to Be… just Be.

So, I leave.

My struggles render me unable to be Me in just about every social scenario: work, family, self care, studies, duties… so, here I am. Typing alone on my phone & missing out on life because I just can’t Be in the world around me.

At what point does this become insanity? When you enjoy something so much that you keep on trying to make it fit into all this good work you’ve done on You. But it can’t & it won’t because…. just because.

Pause…

I instant replay all the “could haves” and “should haves” and edit them into a story. It fits into the problems from my past like a brand new glove. I must have a closet full of once-worn gloves from the “times and times agains” and the “Man, I just can’t wins.”

At what point? At what length? After which promise? Before what failure? This is a pattern that just won’t end… until I put both feet into reality and dig with my hands and bury this burden for good… and mend.

Today, it ends.

“Away!” with the temporary pleasure that masks itself in freedom from pain. Goodbye, my love, you lose. I’m losing you and gaining Me… just Me.

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders

The Fleming Family Reunion happened every summer at a state park about an hour from my childhood home. I didn’t see much of my dad’s family growing up so this was something I’d get ridiculously excited about as a kid. Mostly because it’s one of the only times I got to see my cousin, Tony.

A few years older than me, Tony was someone I looked up to a lot. Looking back, it’s hard to tell if he looked forward to seeing me or if his parents told him to hang out with me. But he was a good kid who always seemed to be into all the coolest things I never had access to. Family reunions were either a highlight of my year or a massive drag. And this hinged on whether or not Tony was there.

One year, Tony arrived at the family reunion, not with his parents, but in his Suzuki jeep. He’d recently gotten his license so he wanted to not only drive there, but also brought a friend, as teenagers often do. I think his name was Chris and I remember immediately wanting to be a part of whatever they were about. It was obvious they weren’t from the place I grew up because no one I knew talked or dressed like them.

They didn’t spend much time at the reunion events. Instead, they drove around the state park over and over and over again with grunge, punk and metal music blasting through blaring subwoofers that rattled every inch of that 2-seater Suzuki. And they invited me to tag along pretty much immediately from what I recall.

I’d never felt so cool crammed into the trunk of that jeep as it winded through those mountain roads… unfamiliar music booming in my ear with Tony and Chris laughing and checking in with me ever so often.

That was the last reunion Tony came to until we were well into adulthood. I visited him a time or two after that but we fell off eventually. After my last visit there when I was in middle school, I sent him a letter and a mixtape with songs I thought he’d like. Some were incredibly inappropriate and I seem to recall my aunt confiscating the package and told my parents about it. He seemed mad that I’d gotten him in trouble and we really didn’t talk much after that.

This was one of many examples of how incredibly naive I’ve been at times at the expense of desperately wanting to be a part of something that felt genuinely interesting to me. I’ve always searched for somewhere I belong; a place where I can be accepted for me. I have always tried just a little bit too hard to fit in. But I’ve seldom shared who I really am… because I still don’t feel like I actually know myself.

Therapy has allowed me to (re)discover that person, but it’s required pursuing myself despite feeling like it’s somehow wrong to do it. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like I’m worthy of such a selfish investment. Maybe I don’t trust myself to make a determination of who I am. It’s easier to assume others know better than I do; like I’m the last person to be let in on the punchline of this really long joke that has been my life.

I’ve taken everything seriously… but myself.

I’ve neglected self care because I give up so easily on anything that only benefits me.

I’ve abused drugs and alcohol many times to feel something outside of my daily perspective or to stop feeling the inner pain that won’t go away.

I’ve always made jokes at my expense, but hurt deeply when others do the same towards themselves… or when the joke is directed towards me.

I still haven’t uncovered who I really am, but I have begun. The closest person in my life told me recently with tears in her eyes that she wishes I could see how amazing I am. It seems truly baffling to her.

I have tiny moments these days where I can see the light. Blogging, journaling, songwriting and poetry have become methods of self expression that are slowly pulling me out of my head. There’s something about seeing my thoughts on a page and hearing them aloud that help it all make sense. And there’s something about doing it creatively that makes it all feel worthwhile. On occasion, I tap into something deeper than what I’ve previously believed.

And that’s where the belonging comes into play. The “deeper.” Even if it’s just a little bit, the familiarity with myself, my true self, breeds confidence. And with confidence… comfort with who I am. That’s been the key for me. Because I don’t recall many times in my life where I’ve been comfortable at all. The anxiety, the analyzing, the surveying the world around me preoccupied so much of my attention that there hasn’t been time.

So with all these things considered, and my thoughts and intentions on this page, I can say with all honestly the following. I hope it sticks for me and for you.

Belonging starts within.

https://linktr.ee/stephenrsanders