When chaos is the water you’ve always lived in, sometimes you don’t recognize it as chaos at all.

And healing begins when you finally see there may be another way.

💜

A year-long “rehab tour” provided James with something he didn’t have when he left:

An education in drugs, manipulation, and how the wrong crowd operates.

And before long, he put some of it to use.

In this episode of Tethered, James continues the story of The Two Kathies— his mother, Kathy, and the woman who became an important part of their family.

👇

By high school, James says and a group of friends had built what amounted to a teenage crime syndicate: burglaries, stolen vehicles, guns, a fence to move stolen property, and enough money to make them feel untouchable.

The Two Kathies eventually realized something had to change.

So they moved him out of San Antonio.

But there was one problem:

You can change locations without changing what’s happening inside you.

⭐️

Dallas brought a new school, a job in a rough pawn shop, different people…

…and eventually the very drug use James had been falsely labeled for years earlier.



This episode is about environment, influence, labels, and the things that slowly become “normal.”

Again…

When chaos is the water you’ve always lived in, sometimes you don’t recognize it as chaos at all.

And healing begins when you finally see there may be another way.

___________________

📓 Grab Andy’s book (or audiobook) “Soul & Spirit | Health + Healing” = www.GY6.online/SSHH

📕 Join the book launch team for James’ upcoming book = www.GY6.online/james

⭐️ James’ website = www.JamesForVets.com

📳 The Adverse Childhood Experiences Assessment = www.GY6.online/ACE

🎙️GY6 live events = www.GY6.online/events

To change the fruit you must deal with the root!

🙏

As a kid, James gets beaten up by another boy living in an apartment complex filled with Hell’s Angels.

His four-foot-something redheaded mother finds out…

… marches straight into the middle of the bikers…

… pounds on the door…

… and confronts the boy’s mother.

🐾

What follows is an unexpected lesson in courage, respect, protection, and the strange ways people can become connected.

But that story opens the door to something much deeper.

James talks about being placed in a group home, the abuse he experienced there, his mother’s own recovery from alcoholism, and the year of his teenage life spent moving through treatment centers for an addiction he says he never actually had.

👇

The more nobody believed him, the more James learned how to tell them exactly what they expected to hear.

And along the way, he received an education he never needed.

⭐️

Sometimes the solution to one problem becomes the beginning of another.

Again, this episode explores what happens when we manage symptoms without ever reaching the root—and why real healing requires going deeper…

___________________

📕 Join the book launch team for James’ upcoming book = www.GY6.online/james

⭐️ James’ website = www.JamesForVets.com

📓 Grab Andy’s book (or audiobook) “Soul & Spirit | Health + Healing” = www.GY6.online/SSHH

The story of trauma and chaos and confusion didn’t begin with the military, service dogs, or the battlefield.

It began much earlier.

With a teenage mother…

A broken marriage…

An abusive stepfather…

Constant military moves…

And a childhood where chaos became normal.

In this episode of Tethered, we go back to the beginning and meet Kathy—James’ mother—and Uncle Lloyd, two people carrying enormous amounts of trauma of their own.

(Nope, their stories didn’t start with the *first moment of trauma either.)

👇

James recounts the violence inside his home, the years of alcoholism and abuse, and the way those experiences shaped his understanding of anger, survival, trust, and family.

Then the story takes an even darker turn.

After Kathy suffers a brutal attack, her life begins to unravel. James is temporarily placed outside the home, and Uncle Lloyd— a Coast Guard veteran carrying his own unresolved trauma— steps into the story in a way James would never forget.

⭐️

But this episode isn’t simply about what happened.

It’s about why people become who they become.

Disorder.

Decision.

Drive.

Trauma. Environment. Responsibility. Survival.

Sometimes the better question isn’t, “What’s wrong with you?”

Sometimes it’s: “What happened to you… and what are you still carrying?”

❤️‍🩹

Or, to ask it another way…

Do we have compounding chaos or do we have compounding order…?

___________________

📓 Grab Andy’s book (or audiobook) “Soul & Spirit | Health + Healing” = www.GY6.online/SSHH

📕 Join the book launch team for James’ upcoming book = www.GY6.online/james

⭐️ Personal coaching = Jenkins.tv/PC

📳 The Adverse Childhood Experiences Assessment = www.GY6.online/ACE

🎙️GY6 live events = www.GY6.online/events