Hours in Silence / Warriors' Table Ep.02

Silence is a feeling of peace that we sometimes forget because we are in the middle of so much chaos and so many responsibilities. When I decided to step away from all the noise of my “successful” life, I was able to experience a beautiful moment of reconnection with something greater than myself — and with myself.About Us: https://wydahowarriors.com/services/⁠September 15th, 2023, I disappeared. Not metaphorically. Not I mentally checked out. I meant I was gone. No one knew where I was. I didn't want anyone to know. And honestly, part of me didn't plan on coming back. Here's what makes this even harder to say out loud. I went dark right in the middle of peak wedding and event season. All around me, literally all around me, people were celebrating, toasting, dancing, cutting cake, and I couldn't be any part of it. I couldn't perform it. I couldn't fake it one more time. If you're a chef who's ever stood in the middle of someone else's best day and felt absolutely nothing, well, this episode is for you. This is a Idaho Warrior Warrior Table, and I'm Chef Steve Murphy. And this is an episode I never thought I'd record. And to be honest, I've never done content or podcasts or any of this other bullshit in the past. And so this is literally my first attempt. So let me paint you a picture of who I was before September 15th. CIA graduate, chef and owner, single dad, big beautiful home, white picket fence. Built a catering company with my soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law from scratch in Teton Valley, Idaho. On paper, I had it together. Behind the scenes, I was crumbling. This business partnership unraveled in ways that took more than just money. And at home, the one place a man is supposed to be able to come and exhale, my marriage was ending. We had been separated, and she wasn't living with me now for about six months. That's not a blowup, not one single moment. Just a slow, painful unraveling happening in the background of every fourteen to sixteen-hour day shift. And every morning, I was still waking up, putting on the chef coat, firing up the line, and pretending. Because that's what we do, right? We don't talk about it. We don't slow down. We push. We grind. We tell ourselves the next season will be different. And it wasn't. It got worse.