The Vulnerability of Excitement

Letting the spark I used to guard be seen—and trusting that I’ll be met.

When I was a kid, every trip to Toys R’ Us started the same way.

I’d head straight to the LEGO aisle and find the space station monorail set—the one I was quietly obsessed with.

Motorized and futuristic, the little train ran on a 9V battery, gliding around a looping track—clicking between imagined galaxies. I’d just stand there, staring. Tracing the shapes of the track with my eyes. Imagining how epic it would be in my room.

It was the most expensive set in the store—$179. A number I never spoke aloud, but never forgot either. It was etched in me like a boundary I wasn’t allowed to cross.

And I never once told my parents I wanted it.

Not because I didn’t want it, but because even then, I had already learned: my excitement wasn’t fully welcome.

Yes, finances were tight—I could feel the unspoken pressure of that. And maybe that was part of it. But more than that, I had learned there wasn’t space for the wanting itself.

It wasn’t that anyone told me I couldn’t want it. It’s that no one met me in my wanting—then or elsewhere. There was no encouragement. No reflection of, “That’s amazing—tell me more!” No sense that the brightness in my chest was something inherently worth celebrating.

So I learned to tuck excitement away—quietly, tightly, without ceremony. It became something I held in—like a breath beneath the surface, silent and alone.

It didn’t just happen with toys. I remember sharing early dreams of who I might become—a doctor, an architect. Not from a place of achievement, but from wonder. From the joy of imagining myself in the world. And the responses would come: “Doctors deal with a lot of blood.” “Architects have a hard time finding clients.” Subtle nods toward practicality and realism. Doses of adult reality that seemed to say: don’t get too lit up.

No one meant harm, but the effect was the same. The energy of “that’s hard” or “that’s not realistic” quietly closed the door on my excitement before it could fully open.

So I stopped knocking. I learned to dream quietly. To want things privately. To keep the electric pulse of excitement folded inside me, where it was safe from disappointment or dismissal.

The Imprint I Never Got

This week, I learned from my friend

Andrew Silver

that one of the essential ingredients of secure attachment is encouragement—the kind that says not just “you’re safe,” but “I see you, and I love watching you light up.” A child needs to feel not only protected and soothed, but mirrored in their joy. Supported in their curiosity. Met in their wonder.

It’s such a simple thing—and I didn’t get it.

Not around the LEGO set. Not around the things that lit me up. Not around the early dreams that started to form in me.

So I internalized something: that my excitement wasn’t something to bring into connection. It was something to retreat into—something to feel privately, to hold alone.

Over the past month, I found myself wandering into toy stores again—not with Ember, not as a dad. Just me.

I didn’t even think about it at first. I was just drawn to them.

I’d linger in front of model kits—wooden catapults, metal Star Wars X-wings, intricate mechanical machines that stirred something ancient and joyful in my chest. I’d study the details. I’d imagine how fun it’d be. I’d feel that same childhood buzz, rising quietly in my body.

And mixed in with the enjoyment was always the quiet knowing that I likely wouldn’t be buying anything, with thoughts like:

“It’s not worth the money.”
“You’ll only enjoy it for a little while.”
“You don’t need more junk in the house.”

I walked out empty-handed—from three different stores.

It wasn’t until this week that I finally caught what was happening. The shutdown was so reflexive, I thought it was just practicality. I thought I was being sensible, thoughtful, mature.

But I was still doing what I did as a kid. Still holding excitement quietly in my hands, then setting it down before anyone else could see it. Still cutting it off before it had a chance to breathe.

And then something even deeper landed: I had mistaken that voice of practicality for me.

I thought the shutdown was me—my discernment, my essence, my natural restraint.

But it wasn’t.

It was an inherited pattern—an old, protective script. The internalized dismissal was a way of bracing against disappointment by never reaching in the first place.

What I thought was “me being realistic” was actually me dimming my life force before it got too bright.

I hadn’t seen it until now, but my excitement is my essence. That upward-moving, chest-opening, eye-widening spark—that’s me. That’s the pulse of who I am, of what wants to move through me.

And the thoughts that shut it down?

They were never mine to begin with.

The Dream I’ve Been Scared and Excited to Share

The ache I felt wasn’t just about the toys.

It was about the part of me that still doesn’t quite know how to be in connection while feeling excited. That still tenses up around the idea of sharing something that lights me up before it’s useful or certain or complete. That still sometimes wants to retreat to his office to open up new toys at home, rather than being seen in my excitement. That still doesn’t fully trust I’ll be met.

And that pattern isn’t just showing up in toy stores. It’s showing up in how I relate to a dream I’ve been quietly holding.

As my Sex, Systems, and Sacred Union series has been unfolding, a vision has been forming, one of guiding couples to embark on their own sacred sex container—a practice that for my wife and me, has irrevocably shifted how we show up in partnership, in the most beautiful way. I feel a yearning to create a field of reverence and rawness. A place where sexual intimacy becomes a site of devotion and transformation. A temple, really.

It’s a big dream. And it lights something up in me. Like, really lights something up.

Because it checks all the boxes for what I believe makes transformation real. It’s emergent, not performative. It meets couples exactly where they are. It works with what’s actually alive, what’s tender, what’s stuck. It expands capacity, deepens intimacy, and sends love to the places that haven’t had it before. It’s the closest thing I know to a sacred medicine journey without actual medicine. And because it lives inside relationship, everything it touches ripples directly into the family, the home, the ecosystem of daily life.

A journey like this doesn’t just increase sex. It changes how we relate to life itself. It’s the closest thing I’ve discovered that integrates everything I’ve experienced in personal growth into a coherent offering that aligns with my soul’s purpose. And it feels like something I could pour my whole heart into—something sacred, something real, something that wants to change lives.

And still—right alongside all that excitement—I sometimes feel stuck. Not because the dream is in the wrong direction, but because the act of sharing my excitement around it still feels so vulnerable.

For most of my life, I’ve protected the things I was most excited about. Especially when they were still in seed form. I didn’t want the bubble to burst. I’d feel a clenching in my stomach and not share if I wasn’t certain my excitement would be received. I didn’t want to risk the tender magic of a dream being met with confusion, silence, practicality.

But I’m starting to see that the pathway to healing isn’t to guard my excitement. It’s to let myself be seen inside of it.

It’s in training my system, over and over, that the world can actually meet me in the places that light me up. That I don’t have to dim what I love. That I am safe—not just in my fear or pain—but in my excitement.

That’s what shifts the imprint.
That’s what rewires the pattern.

Trusting That I’ll Be Met in My Excitement

Rewiring the pattern doesn’t always require something huge. Sometimes it looks like giving that joy a small but meaningful yes.

Like buying myself a LEGO vintage typewriter—beautiful, unnecessary, and more expensive than I would’ve ever let myself justify before.

Not the space station monorail—that’s a collector’s item now. But this one—soft mint green, with movable keys—felt like something meant for wonder. Something fun. Something the kid inside me really loves but thought was too expensive.

And this time, I didn’t shut it down. I didn’t justify it. I didn’t make myself earn it. I let myself want it. I let myself have it.

I showed that little boy a different world. One where excitement doesn’t have to be dismissed. One where joy doesn’t need justification. One where delight gets to take up space.

And it felt like something inside me finally got to exhale.

Because I wasn’t just buying a toy. I was practicing something.

I was practicing honoring my excitement amidst the voices that said I shouldn’t. I was honoring my own essence.

And that practice continued later that week, when I asked my men’s group, “Can you be excited with me?”

I asked them for an imprint of something I never got as a kid. Not just encouragement, but companionship in the things that lit me up. Not just protection, but presence.

And I let myself stay in the joy and aliveness of sharing my dream of guiding couples in their own sex container—without downshifting, without hedging, without turning the volume down. I asked them to just be with me in it, to set aside all practicalities or feedback. To just feel the spark of it with me, as something I was genuinely excited about.

It was the longest I’ve ever let myself stay in my excitement while being witnessed and reflected back. There was laughter. There were tears. There was that unmistakable feeling of being met—not in my pain, but in my passion.

And, surprisingly, I received a reflection that I was magnetic in my excitement—and I felt it, in a way that I haven’t felt before. I got to feel what it’s like to stand at the edge of a new pattern. To risk letting my excitement be fully felt, with someone. To invite intimacy, not just certainty.

It felt amazing—and I know I’ll need more of it. Because this is what I missed as a kid.

And now, I’m giving that to myself—moment by moment. I’m intentionally creating experiences to give my nervous system new evidence that it’s safe to be lit up. That my excitement is sacred. That it belongs.

Because the truth is: excitement is vulnerable. To feel it is to be alive without a guarantee. To stand at the edge of something that matters to you—before it’s validated, before it’s reciprocated, before it’s “ready.” And still say yes. Still stay open.

That’s the moment I’m in. Learning how to feel excitement without needing to contain it. Learning how to stay connected while I’m lit up. Learning to trust that the Universe and Life welcomes and loves my excitement.

This is the practice now—to let myself be seen, not just in my clarity or confidence, but in the ignition itself. In the moment where something beautiful begins to flicker, and I don’t yet know what it will become.

To ask: Can you be excited with me?

And to trust, more and more, that the answer will be yes.