In 2018 I broke, not metaphorically - completely, I was suicidal. The world told me what the problem was. The word used was PTSD, the professionals were confident, the system was clear. A label was applied and medication was offered. But something in me disagreed.
Not because I rejected help, because it didn’t feel true. The explanation didn’t match the experience.
What I felt was something different. Something deeper.
This blog aims to explain this experience in a way that is tangable, because often the hardest thing to explain is how you feel, so if this resonates so far, maybe you're not broken, maybe - Your a Ferrari in a War Zone.
Before I continue I want to set some conditions before you read on, based on two things truth and environment.
What is truth vs your truth?
Truth is a belief (a thought and a feeling) based on the assumptions of people with influence and or power.
The environment you reside in creates that truth, based on the principle function of the mind which is to keep you safe.
If you feel different, not good enough and the life you know you should live is unavailable, it's because the truth you have been sold, doesn't match your inner environment. The lens in which you navigate the world is not based on your truth, but the truth of those with power and influence.
As you read this blog I want you to notice how you feel, as the words pass over your mind, don't fact check them based on logic but feel them.
If you have a challenge in your life at the moment bring that to mind right now.
Then notice how it feels and where you feel it.
Close your eyes and say this
" I give myself permission to feel this feeling, in this moment I am safe, my mind and body are trying to help me".
Notice what happens to that feeling.
As you read on, be aware of how your feelings shift and change, this blogs intention is to impart more than words and information, but to allow you to feel, that maybe it's not you, to give you hope that with the right environment you move from the war zone to the race track.
A Ferrari is not broken because it struggles to drive across a battlefield full of craters, explosions and debris. The car isn’t the problem.
The environment is. Ferraris are engineered for something very specific:
Precision roads
Careful maintenance
A team that understands how they work
The right conditions to perform
Drop that same car into a war zone and suddenly it looks dysfunctional.
But the truth is simple. It’s not a broken car. It’s the wrong environment.
To survive I learned to wear a mask. Imagine a Ferrari in a warzone, it's given bullet proof glass, steel guards to protect it, higher suspension, the petrol tank is replaced with diesel, it's still a Ferrari, but it's not optimised to be what it's supposed to be, but now it fits into it's environment.
At first driving this new version feels heavy, un-natural, but overtime you accept it as truth because you have now become useful in someone elses war whilst fighting your own war inside.
Many people know this experience. You learn to read the room constantly:
Micro-expressions, checking if it's safe to show up.
Tone shifts, have I given the game away that I don't belong?
Emotional temperature, is it safe to talk, express myself?
You become highly skilled at predicting people’s reactions.
It keeps you safe, but it costs energy. A lot of energy.
All that armour is heavy, all that weight overpowers the circuits, all that pressure bends the chassis.
Over time the mask becomes so heavy that you start asking a deeper question:
Who am I without it?
That period after 2018 was a long struggle with identity. Not just who I was, but where I belonged.
Seeing the War Zone now, but unable to leave.
Eventually awareness arrived.
I could see the environment clearly. I could see the battlefield.
But awareness didn’t solve the problem.
It created a new one.
Imagine a Ferrari driver who suddenly realises they are on a destroyed road… but there is no exit.
You know the environment is wrong.
You know you need a race track.
But you can’t get there.
You're team friends, family, colleagues look after tanks and their reality is based on fear, fitting into the system that the war department has told them is a truth, but you're not a tank. Even though you were told you were, deep down you know the truth but it's not safe to exit and even if it was you don't know where the exit is.
All the inner and outer work can feel meangless without belonging, it's what humans require.
Formula 1 legends have frequently emphasised that individual success is impossible without the collective effort of the team. Iconic figures such as Ayrton Senna, who famously stated,
"There is no merit from a person, but from a team", and Michael Schumacher, who noted,
"Without my team, I am nothing", underscore that victory is a shared achievement
Mechanics, engineers, strategist, supporters.
An F1 Team needs the people, as do we all, but the garage makes it safe to operate, so the driver can go to war, and we are no different.
The garage repesents a place of connection and belonging.
Most theraputic approaches provide the garage in the way of labels but they don't allow you to step into the world and be full accepted, the same can be seen in our relationships.
If you are a Ferrari without access to the garage, the team or the track, you sit still. You know what you are capable of, but capability alone doesn’t move the car.
Like many people, I started chasing the obvious solution - Money, and there is a whole business model that says, buy my modility, heal yourself and then make money to live your dream life - These are the Mercenaries of War.
They profit from the war, they create a temporary sancturay but you pay the price.
Money buys access:
The mechanic, the road, the opportunity
But here is the reality, this is often like driving a simulator, driving at a 100 mph around Monaco on an XBOX. It isn't the same as doing it in real life, and just because you have the best lap time on a console, doesn't mean Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur is calling you up.
When you are a Ferrari in a war zone, people don’t necessarily need you, but they will benefit from you.
They might admire your potential.
They might acknowledge your skills.
But eventually in the wrong environment you become a liability, as your resources and value slip away, rather than an asset, so rejection repeats.
If the environment won’t change, maybe the problem is internal. Maybe it’s the fuel. Maybe I can drive myself out of this.
You start adjusting the inside:
Physical Health, Nutrition, Supplements, Hormones, Brain Chemistry, Mindset.
You begin exploring dopamine, serotonin, the nervous system.
If the chemistry changes, perhaps everything else will too.
But for me, it didn’t.
On the 9th of March 2026, after a six and half year war, being made redundant, with few clients coming in, that suicidal feeling rose again, this time though I could lean in.
I was driving in my car in the mountains of Mid Wales, trying to still my nervous system and eventually something unexpected appeared.
I was searching for a memory, a feeling of safety that didn't need to be bought and I realised that only one person ever made me feel safe, a safety that was unconditional, a safety that wasn't loud, it was a hug from my Great Auntie.
As I write this tears are falling down my face, I am loved by so many, but in my whole life only one person ever saw me, and she passed many years ago.
This was the garage to my Ferrari, it wasn't fancy, complex or seen but it was safe, secure and welcoming.
It was a moment where someone saw me and without words said you are safe.
Not praised. Not analysed. Held.
This hold was not transactional, it didn't require money, it didn't require me to work for it, it was given without expectation.
Every Ferrari needs a garage. Every Human needs a garage, a place where without asking you are accepted, loved and more importantly held.
Not a race track - Performance and being seen is nice, but you can't race all the time.
Not a crowd - Validation is nice, but it fades, being seen and held as you are is the source of peace.
Not a cheering stadium - External riches of the race should enhance, but if you cannot share them with people who see you, it becomes a new war
A place where the car simply rests.
Where nothing is required.
Where performance is irrelevant, and this is where most conversations about mental health miss something important.
We talk constantly about dopamine and serotonin, but the breakthroughs I saw were coming from something else entirely.
Connection, Touch, Safety - But that can't be taken in pill form, it's a spiritual experience that only love can create.
I have know this for sometime, in fact my clients have had the most amazing shifts, if they have had the oppotunity to open that garage, having that one person who said I believe in you and they showed it.
I've done the work, my mind is a well tuned Ferrari but without the garage I know, I don’t feel physically or emotionally safe.
Not because people dislike me.
Not because support doesn’t exist.
But because the safety available in my life has always contained a transaction.
Someone gains something first and now I am all out of energy, no one gains by my presence, the value I bring now comes with boundaries and that means people can't take advantage.
This is why suicidal thoughts are created, it's the minds engine management system telling you to turn the ignition off, so the engine doesn't get damage, but to fix the issue you need the right garage, mechanic and resources and at this point you become a barn find, with no energy to shift the needle, and no one giving back, because when safety depends on exchange, the nervous system never truly rests.
Imagine that Ferrari now being seen more for scrap parts than being rebuilt, if the Ferarri had the energy just to survive it would do this
Stays alert - Scanning - Predicting - Preparing.
Even when the road is smooth outside the garage, the ECU (The Mind) expects another explosion.
When safety hasn't been felt for decades, this kind of alertness becomes deeply wired.
Not just psychologically.
Not just physiologically.
It settles into something deeper, your sense of being.
But they are not the foundation. The foundation is simpler and harder at the same time.
Non-transactional love. A relationship where someone doesn’t say “I’ve got you” as a phrase. They prove it through action.
They move heaven and earth because they care, not because they gain.
For my clients I am often that person, the one that sees them and helps them transition back to safety, connection and trust, that is possible because I know the rules, but I have yet to find my garage.
In every hero’s journey there is often a turning point.
Not a system.
Not a programme.
One person.
Someone who says:
"I believe in you" and elevates you, they stand by your side with all the resources at hand and say go.
Mentors often play this role and that's why I am The Mind Mentor, but even mentoring sits on top of something deeper, because belief isn’t enough without somewhere to rest.
We often frame mental health around brain chemistry and a whole industry from mental health, performance coaching, supplements and big pharma tell you the issue is dopamine and serotonine, because you can't fake true connection.
The deepest regulation often comes from something older and simpler.
Connection - Touch - Presence and Oxytocin.
The chemical signature of feeling safe with another human being.
The place where the Ferrari thrives isn’t just about the car, or the fuel, or the road.
It is about the ecosystem.
A Ferrari like all of us has needs to perform at it's best, and becomes extraordinary when it has the right environment, the right team, the right support
But underneath all of that is one essential element.
A place where the car can park without proving anything, a place where it is valued simply for existing.
The real key to success, happiness and true wealth isn’t optimisation or productivity.
It isn’t dopamine, it is the experience of being:
Seen.
Safe and
Loved without condition.
The person who provides that becomes something rare and powerful.
A valet, someone who holds the keys not to control the car, but to protect it.
Someone who creates the garage where the Ferrari rests between races, because life is a war zone sometimes, and can feel like a battlefield.
But if you have a battlefield in the place you go to rest and feel safe then you just have a cage.
We all spend periods driving through chaos, but experiencing somewhere to return to, which isn't just a place, but a sancturary where transactions stay locked away, somewhere where you don't just rest, but you are elevated and you feel that sense of purpose and connection, without having to create it yourself is rare - Why?
Because we all have our battles and when a Ferrari gets neglected, then those who don't know their true potential will be even more scared.
Some people like the garage, where it's safe and familar, but the Ferrari, has a symbol that is deep.
Francesco Baracca, Italy’s top fighter ace during World War I, adopted the prancing horse as his personal coat of arms. It served as a symbol of courage and protection during battle.
But if the symbol no longer represents the purpose, trust is lost and safety moves away.
Real confidence is not created in war, but in safety before war.
A great fighter pilot is not confident because he is constantly under attack. He is confident because, before the battle, he has:
So the paradox is this:
The best “fighter” is often built in conditions of safety, not danger.
War may reveal capability, but it does not create the deepest foundation for it.
Safety creates:
A person who is always in survival mode may look alert, but they are often spending huge energy just trying to stay intact. That is not the same as true confidence.
True confidence comes from being held well enough that your system can practise power without fear, knowing the words - Rest. I’ve got this are true.
But more than that it's action, doing something to demonstrate you got this so they can truely rest.
And when that happens, something remarkable occurs, the nervous system softens, the mask drops, the engine breathes again, and suddenly the Ferrari doesn’t just survive the war zone.
It finds the road it was built for.
We spend so much time trying to fix the car, but the truth might be simpler.
Sometimes the greatest gift we can give another human being is not advice, therapy, or optimisation. It is creating a space where they feel safe enough to stop driving for a moment, because everyone needs a garage, and sometimes, that garage is simply to feel loved.
If this blog stirred something in you, if it gave you hope for yourself or someone else, please share it
If you need a garage, even a temporary one for just 20 minutes then please watch my Webinar - Taking Off the Mask.
I believe everyone of us has a purpose, I know mine so help me share it with the world, just click the image below.
