Let Go of the Label. Reclaim the Driver’s Seat.

MAP owner Paul recently shared something that stuck with me:

“You are not depressed. You are not anxious.
These are states, not identities.
Depression is tied to the past.
Anxiety to the future.
Both are rooted in one thing: your expectations.”

That word—expectations—hit harder than I expected.

For me, everything growing up revolved around the war in Afghanistan.

• I missed time with my dad while he was deployed.
  
  

• I grew up watching terror attacks unfold in the UK.
  
  

• Young girls killed while watching a concert.
  
  

• Constant fear. Constant tension.
  
  

Eventually, I followed the same path.

• I deployed.
  
  

• I gave years of my life.
  
  

• I lost friends.
  
  

• I gave everything I had.
  
  

• So did many of my friends.
  
  

And then I watched it all collapse.

• People clinging to planes, falling to their deaths.
  
  

• Parents throwing their babies into razor wire, praying soldiers would catch them.
  
  

• A suicide bombing tore through civilians and soldiers just days before the final flight out.
  
  

At first, I was bitter.

I could’ve stayed there—angry, ashamed, grieving.

But I realized: no amount of outcry will change what happened.

And I wasn’t alone in that feeling.

Many veterans who have served since World War II have felt the same: no clear victory, no closure, just silence.

But I’ve come to understand something important:

I didn’t fail anyone. We didn’t fail.
We rose to the occasion. We stepped up. We did our part.

The ones who should hang their heads in shame are not the men and women who showed up, it’s those who led from comfort, not consequence.

Some of my mates never made it back mentally.

They were labelled with PTSD, and over time, that label became their identity.

But here’s something I’ve learned:

You are not the clouds.
You are the space they pass through.

You are not the trauma you experience. What we go through is real, but it’s not who we are. It’s what we lived through. It shaped us, but it doesn’t own us.

The most profound suffering often comes from holding onto what we thought should have happened.

Paul said it best:

“Your inability to relinquish your expectations of the way things SHOULD be prevents you from accepting the way things ARE.”

You can’t rewrite the past. But you can choose what happens next.

You’re not broken.
You’re not just a diagnosis.
You’re not what happened to you.
You’re the one who made it through.

And that means you still hold the wheel.

Ready to shift how you move forward?

Book a call with me or one of our coaches at masterathletic.com.

Let’s talk about what comes next—and how to get there with purpose.

Nat Galloway

Coach, Master Athletic Performance