About ASM

Preston's Story

If you want to understand why ASM will likely work for you, please read my story…

I grew up in Washington State, on the east side of Seattle in the shadow of the Microsoft neighborhoods. There was quite a bit of wealth around me. I was so naïve. In my family, presenting well was far more important than being true to oneself. My parents were good people, and they loved me, but there was an unspoken rule: play the part, look the part, and never let the cracks show. We were a religious family. I think a lot of people grew up like this, but in my family, it was especially pronounced. The pressure to be something other than who we truly were took its toll on all of us.

As the oldest, I felt the weight of setting an example, but I was only willing to do this in presentation. I didn’t excel for real—I was too scared to. If I actually tried my hardest and still failed, what excuse would I have? As long as I held back, I could always tell myself that I wasn’t really failing, I was just choosing not to try. I was the epitome of an upper-middle-class firstborn: unmotivated, childish, floating through life without ever really engaging.

Religion magnified this tenfold. I had no idea how much religious trauma I was carrying until much later in life. I was told my natural instincts were wicked, that questioning authority was dangerous, that I should submit, trust, and obey. That became even more difficult when I was hurt at the age of 13. When that happened, in my religiously domesticated mind, I  understood it meant I was unclean and unworthy of entry into the kingdom of God. I was tainted. Ruined. I tried to bury the memory and the shame. 

My religious leaders taught me that I needed to let go of anything ungodly—which I believed was a lot of me—and simply follow the teachings blindly without asking, without questioning, and without too much introspection.

“Stay in the game,” they told me. Not just anyone, but someone very high up in the church.

What they really meant was to bury the parts of me they didn’t approve of, and behave in a way, or pretend, to be perfect.But how could I? I was never going to be worthy of anything godly ever again. Now, it was as if my life was something to be endured in servitude to them, rather than lived as myself. Shame was molding me into something other than me. Maybe if I just embraced the shame it will force me to be better?

I had known since I was very young that being true to myself wasn’t acceptable—and now, I had to become the man they told me to be, or else I was convinced I was going to burn in hell.

This shaped everything. It led me into a relationship where I was infantilized, emotionally stunted, where my worth was tied to staying in someone else’s good graces. So much of what was given to me in adoration wasn’t for me—it was for what I represented. A “good man”, which turned out to really mean, a man from a good family, a man who had money, a man who was a leader in the church, and out. But underneath the surface, I wasn’t proud of myself. I didn’t even know myself. I was skating through life, shallow and unobserved by myself in any meaningful way. I was dead inside.

The unraveling began when an affair I was entangled in came to light. It forced me to confront a truth I had been avoiding my entire life: I felt empty inside. I didn’t know who I was, and because I didn’t know who I was, I couldn’t be proud of who I was. And if I couldn’t be proud of who I was, then there was no reason to act in ways that might make me feel proud—only to avoid getting caught doing things I wasn’t proud of. It wasn’t about being a good person; it was about maintaining the illusion of being one. My life had been shaped by what I wasn’t rather than what I was. And that kind of thinking is fertile ground for addiction. And an addict, I absolutely had become. The only thing that gave me any respite were the distracting and dissociating behaviors that made me feel more disgust about myself. I didn’t have a reason to live anymore, and I started trying to figure out a way to leave the planet so that my children didn’t have to grow up with me as their father, but also didn’t leave the stain of a parent committing suicide on their lives. I was nothing. I was nothing. I was nothing.

I hit rock bottom hard, and I was open to help.

I threw myself into personal transformation like a drowning man clawing for air. I went to 32 days of treatment, came home for a week, and then went straight into secondary 28 day treatment. For the first three months of my recovery, I went to at least one 12-step meeting every single day and did therapy every day I could which was five days a week. After those first three months, I kept going to 12-step meetings almost every day and continued my therapy.

I stayed on that path for six months before moving my therapy down to three days a week, still keeping up with 12-step meetings almost daily. That lasted another six months. After that, I transitioned to two days a week of counseling, continuing for a total of six years. Over time, my 12-step meetings slowly tapered off until I stopped going about a year before I finished personal counseling twice a week. One day I decided to count up how many hours that was, and it turned out to be just under 2500 hours. 

I wasn’t looking for a quick fix—I needed real change. I knew that if I didn’t give everything to this process, I would lose myself completely. So I committed, fully and without hesitation, to do whatever it took to uncover my life from the inside out. I didn’t just leave it up to whatever my sponsor, counselor and peers told me to do, I started dissecting every scrutiny I could find within myself. There was no part of me that was too sacred for change. Everything was on the chapping block, except my children. I was willing to throw everything else away if it meant I was going to be healthier. I don’t know how to say this strong enough to make sure what I’m trying to say gets across. I was willing to do anything to genuinely and honestly love myself. I threw away my religion, all but one of my friends and acquaintances – all of them, and my marriage. I even gave up my personality and had to relearn how I talk and present ideas. I relearned to speak in ways that were more truthful and accurate. 

And through this, I uncovered something I had always known deep down: we are precious, we are valuable, and we deserve to treat ourselves as such.

As my children approached adulthood, I wanted to offer them something more than advice—I wanted to give them a Rite of Passage. To do this, I had to distill everything I had learned into something tangible. 

I discovered that there were several tenets I had come to mean almost everything to me and was serving me as a guide every day in my life, and as my children approached adulthood, I wanted to teach them these truths. So I decided to perform a Rite of Passage for each of them on their 18^th birthdays. To do this, I needed to codify what I had learned and condense it into something clear and digestible. This was the moment I came to understand that everything came down to these three steps.

1. Honesty

2. Integrity

3. Letting Go of Things You Can’t Control

This all seemed so simple, and yet it was so profound. With my children, we created the HIL Sept, our family group dedicated to Honesty, Integrity, and Letting Go. I loved teaching them these principles, but the wisdom didn’t stick as I had hoped. Practicing Step 1 takes a remarkable amount of learned focus on being better and healthier—you can’t just do it a little; you have to do it all the time. It requires a fervent dedication to uncovering the small blemishes inside that would otherwise go unnoticed, a willingness to pursue emotions that flicker out of existence and disappear into the ravages of time.

I would talk to them about it occasionally, but I’m their dad, and that kind of stuff usually isn’t always welcome from a parent.

But a blessing was right around the corner.

I had lived my whole life riding on the coattails of my father’s wealth. Although I had made a significant amount of money myself over the years, most of what I gained wasn’t through my own hard work, but through my father. I never really saw money as an issue—until I was getting close to running out of it.

I knew how to make money through land development, but I didn’t want to make money just for the sake of making money. That wasn’t enough. I wanted to do something impactful, something aligned with my Authentic-Self—something that would actually bring me fulfillment rather than just financial security. So I chose to go back to school and get my Master’s degree to become a counselor.

What I discovered in school unsettled me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I had unknowingly placed myself back into a system where I was once again disempowered—told that I didn’t know what I knew, that my ideas were unwelcome, that I needed to silence myself to fit in. It stirred up my religious trauma, and I found myself struggling, not just academically, but emotionally. I wasn’t just a student—I was back to fighting for my right to trust myself.

 

Then, two of my professors and the Dean of the Masters in Counseling program called me into a meeting. They told me that if I didn’t stop referencing my life coaching work in class, they would report me to the Washington State licensing board. Not because I had done anything wrong in my coaching practice, but because I was discussing those experiences in their classrooms. They insisted I was “conflating” the two professions and that if I violated that boundary—again, not in my life coaching practice, but in class discussion—“someone” would report me.

It was devastating—not just because of the threat itself, but because it forced me back into an all-too-familiar role: the obedient child, the one who must surrender his own judgment in favor of the institution’s decree. Once again, I was being told that my truth didn’t belong, that my voice was a problem, that my own ethics were irrelevant in the face of their authority.

I immersed myself in understanding myself so that I could better understand others. I spent countless hours in deep thought and meditation, unraveling why and how things work the way they do. Step 1—Honesty—evolved into a framework for self-inquiry, a way of thinking that illuminated the hidden corners of the mind. Step 2—Integrity—transformed from an abstract ideal into a tangible, actionable process—something you could actually do to reshape your life. In my free time, I studied neuroscience, searching for answers in the mechanics of the brain, trying to understand why change is so difficult and what makes transformation truly stick.

Then one day, while I was teaching a client Step 3—Letting Go of Things You Can’t Control and Controlling the Hell out of the Things You Can—I found myself explaining something off the cuff. “It’s kind of like if your brain was in a jar…”

And just like that, something clicked. A concept I had been circling for years suddenly came into focus. ASM was born.

ASM evolved from three simple steps into a fully developed philosophy—an entire framework for understanding the self. What began as a deeply personal journey became a 600+ page manual, a teaching modality, and eventually, a movement. The Authentic-Self Modality Institute now trains those who have not only walked this path themselves but are ready to guide others through it. This is my life’s work, my purpose—the way I have turned my suffering into something meaningful.

I have made mistakes—many of them. But I am grateful for the man I am now—one who is deeply happy, grounded in integrity, and dedicated to making a real difference in the world. What I’m really trying to say is this: I am proud of who I have become, and I have forgiven myself for my past.

I want to make sure I really get this point across, I genuinely live a phenomenally and genuinely happy life. Honestly, how many people do you know who can say that?

Perhaps you’d like to feel the same way too.

Authenticity is not a passive state—it is an unrelenting commitment. It demands the courage to strip away everything you were told would make you valuable and embrace what truly does. It is often painful, often difficult, but living the life of an Authentic is worth everything you have to give.

This is ASM. This is the way.