He got himself a dog, a golden retriever. His eyes are again full of life, as is his smile, which in recent years had been relegated to rare appearances.

The 69-year-old Kansan, a Jayhawk at heart, is at ease again.

Gone are those long restless nights of staring at the ceiling while helplessly trying to solve a mountain of problems — from medical hardship in his own family to financial issues that would lead to tough decisions in the diocese to a sex abuse scandal that was rocking the Catholic Church — that had fallen into his lap.

“I would lay in bed and I would kind of rehash the events of the day,” he said of those difficult times in 2018. “I’d be thinking, ‘OK, I’m the bishop. And I’ve got to figure out the solution to these things. What’s the right thing to do?’”

Eventually, the enormity of it all — night after sleepless night of worrying — began to show in Conley’s appearance. He felt bad physically and he looked worse, his family and friends told him.

A trip to the Mayo Clinic for two days of testing confirmed he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, situational depression, anxiety and tinnitus — a constant ringing in the ears.

In December 2019 — four months before the world was shut down by the pandemic — Conley, after getting permission from the Vatican to take a leave of absence, wrote one of the toughest letters of his life, a full-transparency note to the people of Lincoln about what was ailing him.

Telling the truth wasn’t the hard part, as much as breaking through a lifetime of internalizing depression by toughing it out. It’s the way he was raised, he said.

“What I had to overcome was the shame,” he said, remembering his father, Coral, a World War II veteran who kept his feelings close to the vest. “… You don’t show any weakness.

“A leader is supposed to be kind of impervious to those kinds of things. He’s supposed to have that strong, invincible kind of leadership style.”

But in showing vulnerability, the residual impact was that Conley set an example for everyone around him. He let a community know that it’s OK to ask for help, that there isn’t anyone on this Earth — not even the highest-ranking official in the Diocese of Lincoln — capable of doing this alone.

He’s not alone. Right around the time of Conley’s leave of absence, others — the National Football League among them — launched mental health care campaigns stressing the importance of asking for help when needed.

“Looking back now on it, leadership can be more effective if you show vulnerability,” he said. “People will relate to that more, and it’ll give them permission really, to be vulnerable and to be honest.”

That kind of openness makes for better business leaders, better parents and maybe even better politicians, Conley said.

Conley took 11 months off from his post. He moved to Arizona and surrounded himself with a circle of friends that included a psychotherapist, a physician and a spiritual director. There was also a handful of families of former students, who he stayed with.

“That was very therapeutic,” he said.

And when he was ready, he returned to Lincoln and things just gradually began to fall into place.

“The first year back was a little bumpy,” he said, pointing out the financial stresses caused by a construction project at the Newman Center, located on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. The cost of the project ballooned from $25 million to $40 million.

“It was a big albatross,” he said.

And then at the end of 2021, the church received a $15 million gift from a community member for the Newman Center, which alleviated that strain, Conley said.

Soon after that, the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office issued a report on sex abuse scandal in the church, stating it had found no more evidence of wrongdoing.

Attorney General Doug Peterson released the report, expressing frustration that no accused offenders in the church would face charges because the statute of limitations has passed in the vast majority of cases, The Associated Press reported. In some of the cases, accused priests have died or their whereabouts were unknown. In one case, an accuser declined to participate in a prosecution.

Conley has sadness when pondering that chapter in the church’s history, which caused a lot of human suffering and led more than a dozen dioceses to declare bankruptcy under the financial strain of civil lawsuits.

“That was always hanging over us,” he said. “Maybe there could be this huge settlement, that kind of thing. But we got up from that.”

The church has put in safeguards. This weekend, five new men were ordained into the priesthood. Before they took their vows, Conley said he spent hours with them, offering counsel. And they were required to read and sign a code of conduct.