I Miss The Guy I Used To Be

By Derek Colvin, LPC-S — The Giant Therapist

Real. Raw. Unfiltered Reflections on Growth and Grief

There’s a moment every man has when the mirror feels unfamiliar. You catch a glimpse of yourself and think, “I miss the guy I used to be.” Sometimes it’s nostalgia for the body that could still dunk or run full-court without pain. Sometimes it’s the version of you that laughed easier, carried less pressure, or believed the best about the world before life had its say. And sometimes, strangely enough, it shows up after things have gotten better—after you’ve healed, grown, or built something new. Growth has a quiet grief attached to it. You can move forward and still ache for what used to be.

The strange grief of getting better

We don’t talk much about that tension—how the very act of becoming can feel like a kind of loss. When I sat down on The MAJO Podcast with PJ and Corby, both of them spoke to it in different ways. One is rebuilding life after heartbreak, fatherhood, and starting over in a new city. The other has lost almost five hundred pounds and is learning what it means to live inside a new story, a new body, and a new marriage. Both of them kept circling the same truth: even when life improves, part of you wonders if something essential got left behind.

As a therapist, I see that every day. A man gets sober and misses the ease of not feeling. A couple repairs their marriage and still mourns the wildness that first drew them together. Parents become empty-nesters and discover they’ve been parenting so long that they forgot who they were before that. It’s not regression—it’s remembrance. And remembrance is part of healing.

When who we were was simply trying to survive

So much of what we now call “unhealthy patterns” was, at one time, intelligent survival strategies. People-pleasing was often a way to stay safe in unpredictable homes. Overworking was a way to stay needed. Silence was a way to avoid being shamed. When we start living more authentically—when we stop performing and start feeling—we don’t have to shout boundaries across the room. They begin to appear on their own. The world rearranges itself around the honesty we begin to live. That’s what emotional growth looks like in practice: not harder lines, but truer living.

Transparency, not performance

We used the word vulnerability a lot in that episode, and I said something I still stand by: men often hear “vulnerability” and think weakness. I prefer emotional transparency. It’s the simple act of telling the truth about what’s happening inside of you without handing someone else the power to define it. It’s saying, “That hurt,” instead of weaponizing silence. It’s choosing to be seen, even when you’re afraid you might not be understood. That kind of openness doesn’t always make life easier, but it makes it real—and real is where connection lives.

The faith that keeps you rebuilding

PJ said something that stayed with me. He called this season of his life his rebirth year. He’s been through loss, isolation, sleeping in cars, and starting over again with a daughter he adores. He told us that what kept him going was faith—literally scriptures taped to the fridge, affirmations by the door, and prayer before work. There was nothing polished about it; it was raw survival shaped into devotion. That’s the kind of spirituality I understand. The kind that keeps you moving when logic says quit. The kind that says, “I still have purpose, even in the wreckage.”

Learning to thank the old you

Toward the end of the conversation, I asked both men, “If you could thank the man you used to be, what would you thank him for?” Their answers landed heavily. One said, “Thank you for listening to your own voice. ”The other said, “Thank you for not giving up.”

I think I’d say the same. There were seasons when quitting—on life, on faith, on myself—seemed easier. But the younger version of me kept showing up. He didn’t do it perfectly, but he stayed. And that persistence is why I’m here now, able to write these words.

Making peace with the parts you once condemned

Therapy—real therapy—often comes down to reconciliation with your own ghosts. Not exorcising them, but understanding them. I’ve had to make peace with the teenager who fought his way through chaos, with the twenty-something who tried to earn love through performance, with the thirty-something who still mistook productivity for worth.

I used to want to destroy those versions of me. Now I see they were doing their best with what they knew. Integration, not elimination—that’s the work. When you stop warring with who you were, you free up energy to actually live.

Both can exist

You don’t have to hate who you were to love who you’re becoming. That’s the paradox of growth: both can exist at the same time. You can grieve and move forward, remember and rebuild, carry the lessons without carrying the shame. That’s maturity—not perfection, but wholeness. So if you’re reading this and missing a version of yourself, pause for a moment. Say thank you. He got you here. Now let the next version of you take it from here.

Keep the conversation going

This reflection grew out of our MAJO Podcast episode, “I Missed the Guy I Used to Be.” If the themes here hit close to home, listen to the full conversation—three men talking honestly about identity, faith, and the cost of change. And if you find yourself in that in-between space—grieving who you were while trying to accept who you’re becoming—therapy can be a place to do that work safely. That’s the heart of what I do: helping men, women, and couples build emotional intelligence, repair connections, and live more authentically.

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