There's no play book when it comes to reconnecting with distant family.
Before Aaron Rodgers kicks off another football season with the Green Bay Packers, the quarterback took a trip to Peru, where he explored ayahuasca. While the psychedelic drug helped the 38-year-old tune out what he called "negative voices," Aaron said it didn't help with his fractured relationship with his family.
"I really felt like I wanted to surrender and open up to the medicine for some healing to come through and some direction on how to kind of go about that," he shared with NBC Sports' Peter King. "And it didn't. It didn't necessarily."
At the same time, the experience still left Aaron hopeful that he could find some common ground with his family, including brother and Bachelor Nation star Jordan Rodgers.
"The big message was unconditionally loving myself is the key to being able to heal all relationships—with them, past relationships with lovers, whatever it might be," he said. "That gives me a lot of hope in healing at some point."
Back in 2016, Jordan appeared on The Bachelorette where he told JoJo Fletcher that he doesn't "really have that much of a relationship" with his brother Aaron. In a New York Times interview one year later, Jordan and Aaron's dad Ed Rodgers confirmed the NFL player had not spoken to the family since the end of 2014.
The Super Bowl champion, however, told reporters in 2018 that he'd been "at home with my folks in town" for his 35th birthday.
Despite the distance with his family, Aaron shared that his love for athletics is stronger than ever.
"I think I just fell back in love with football the last few years," he said in his recent interview. "It's due to a mindset, but also the people."
And while his football game may be viewed by millions of people every week, Aaron said he hopes to keep his family life away from any cameras.
"Many people have issues with family and deal with them in their own ways," he said on the Aug. 3 episode of the Aubrey Marcus Podcast. "For me, I've always tried to deal with it quietly behind closed doors. That hasn't always been the case or hasn't been good enough for a lot of people who want to write about it, or pick it apart, or talk about it."