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“Should” doesn’t sound dangerous.

It sounds responsible.
Logical.
Like the kind of thought that will get your life back on track.

It doesn’t stay small.

“You should be further along.”
“You should have handled that better.”
“You should be doing more.”

That’s all it takes.

One thought… and suddenly your entire life is under review.

And the worst part?

You don’t question it.

Because should doesn’t feel like a lie.

It feels like truth.

So you follow it.

You build on it.

You start collecting evidence…until you’re no longer dealing with a moment. . .you’re dealing with the idea that something is wrong with you.

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
— Seneca

The Spiral Starts

Would.
Could.
Should.

The other two imagine.

Should judges.

It doesn’t just suggest action.

It rewrites reality.

You don’t even have to say it out loud.

The implication is enough.

A single thought.

I should be somewhere else.

That’s the first crack.

At its core, should is about expectations.

All three words are.

But should carries weight.

It doesn’t imagine what’s possible.

It measures where you are against where you think you’re supposed to be.

And most of the time?

Those expectations are invisible.

Until they start hurting.

Stress doesn’t come from life being hard.

It comes from the gap between what is and what you think should be.

And when that gap opens…something in you tries to close it.

Forcefully.
Relentlessly.

“You should be in a different place by now.”

Sounds reasonable.

Until it isn’t.

Because now the question isn’t what happened.

It’s. . .What’s wrong with me?

And once that question lands…the spiral doesn’t stay contained.

It starts collecting.

Every mistake.
Every delay.
Every imperfect moment.

Even the things you’ve already made peace with get dragged back onto the stage.

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
— Daniel Kahneman

Now You’re the Problem

Now you’re not dealing with a situation.

You are the situation.

A walking list of everything that didn’t go the way it should have.

And your brain offers a solution.

“Fix it.”

Great.

Now we add overthinking.
Perfectionism.
Control.

You try to think your way out.
Organize your way out.
Force your way out.

Control shows up like a hero.

“If you can just get this together, everything will calm down.”

Right.

But the more you try to control it…the tighter it gets.

At some point, it stops feeling like thoughts.

It starts feeling like truth.

Like you are the problem.

Like you are one big walking mistake.

All of this…from one small shift.

Where It Broke for Me

I saw this clearly after I got sick.

Not a quick bounce-back kind of sick.

The kind that shuts everything down.

My routine? Gone.
Energy? Gone.
Basic functioning? Barely.

Life simplified to one question.

Can I take care of myself today?

Then I started to feel a little better.

Not strong.
Just enough to be dangerous.

So my brain stepped in.

“Perfect. Let’s get everything back on track.”

Of course.

Within days, the list showed up.

I should be writing again.
I should be productive.
I should be further along.
I should be bouncing back faster.

But I wasn’t.

And reality didn’t care about my expectations.

So the pressure built.

I hadn’t written in two weeks.
I didn’t have the energy to connect.
Some days I could barely take care of myself.

And instead of letting that be true…I fought it.

That’s when it clicked.

I wasn’t failing.

I was gaslighting myself.

I was trying to make reality into something it wasn’t.

Here’s the shift.

You don’t have to fix everything.

You only have to find one lie.

“I should be back to normal.”

No.

That wasn’t reality.

That was expectation.

“It is not things themselves that disturb us, but our judgments about them.”
— Epictetus

And the moment I saw that…everything else collapsed.

Every should lost its weight.

Not powerful.
Not convincing.

Just loud.

What’s Actually True

I wasn’t behind.

I was recovering.

I wasn’t failing.

I was rebuilding.

And more than that. . .I could see it.

The way I had been doing things wasn’t sustainable.

So this wasn’t a setback.

It was a redesign.

Sometimes it takes everything stopping…to show you what was never working in the first place.

“Should” isn’t guidance.

It’s judgment wearing a reasonable voice.

And the longer you listen to it, the further you drift from what’s real.

So stop asking what you should be doing.

That question is the problem.

Start here.

What is true.

Deal with that.

Everything else is noise.

This is the part of the article I couldn’t write.
What it actually felt like when nothing was wrong. . . and nothing was pushing me.
How quickly that state disappeared, and what showed up after.
This isn’t about staying balanced, but recognizing when you lose it.
And what you do when nothing is choosing for you anymore.

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I was going to write about laziness.

About how it isn’t just a matter of discipline.
How the brain settles when it feels safe.
How we reach for the scroll, the show, the easy dopamine.

We don’t move because nothing is forcing us to.

I’ve lived most of my life that way.

Fear and anxiety were my fuel.
If something felt wrong, I moved.
If something felt off, I tried to fix it.

Even my internal shifts came from that pressure.

Even my writing reflects it.

I write from the moment something breaks.
From the moment something doesn’t make sense anymore.
From the moment I can’t ignore what’s happening inside me.

That’s where the clarity comes from.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” — Carl Rogers

But what do you do when nothing feels wrong?

That’s what I kept coming back to.

Nothing is falling apart.
Nothing is urgent.
Nothing is forcing me to move.

And that’s exactly where things stall.

Because when nothing is wrong, there’s no pressure to change.
No external reason to act.
No clear signal that something has to shift.

So the mind does what it’s designed to do.

It settles.

No guilt.
No mental noise.
No internal argument trying to get me to move.

Just… stillness.

And at first, that stillness felt strange.

Almost like something was missing.

I was so used to movement coming from friction
that the absence of it felt like a problem.

Like I should be doing something.
Like I should be figuring something out.
Like I should be pushing myself forward.

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” — Virginia Woolf

So I let my mind go back to the word laziness.

But it didn’t land.

Because laziness carries a very specific feeling.

It implies avoidance.
A lack of motivation.
A disconnect from reality.

And usually, it comes with guilt.

The kind that says you should be doing more.
That you’re wasting time.
That you’re falling behind in some invisible race.

It creates a split.

Between what you think you should be doing
and what you’re actually doing.

And that split creates tension.

That tension creates stories.

Stories about who you are.
Stories about what you’re not doing.
Stories about what this means for your future.

And then the mind tries to fix it.

It argues.
It negotiates.
It pushes.

But I don’t have any of that now.

No guilt.
No internal argument.
No pressure building underneath the surface.

So the explanation stopped working.

Because I don’t feel lazy anymore.

And if I’m not lazy…

then what am I actually doing?

That’s where the shift happened.

I started to notice that I wasn’t stuck.

I was just sitting in a space where nothing was pushing me.

No pull.
No urgency.
No fear telling me I had to act.

Just a kind of quiet.

At first, it felt like numbness.

But it’s not numbness.

Numbness has a dullness to it.
A disconnection.

This felt… clear.

Like everything had gone quiet at the same time.

And what I realized in that quiet is this.

Nothing is choosing for me.

There’s no external force.
No internal pressure.
No emotional surge directing my next step.

So I have to choose.

And that’s the part that feels unfamiliar.

Because I’ve been used to reacting.

Reacting to fear.
Reacting to discomfort.
Reacting to something feeling off.

But this isn’t reaction.

This is selection.

And when you’re selecting instead of reacting, something changes.

The urgency disappears.

And what’s left is responsibility.

Not the heavy kind.
Not the kind that says you have to get it right.

But the kind that says:

This is yours.

Whatever you choose next… is yours.

“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

And the strangest part is this.

It doesn’t feel like there’s a right or wrong choice.

There’s no immediate feedback.
No signal that tells you this is correct.

It almost feels like the world doesn’t care what you choose.

And for a moment… that can feel unsettling.

Because if nothing is guiding you…

then what are you supposed to follow?

But then something else happens.

There’s a kind of relief in it.

No expectations.
No outcome you have to force.
No path you have to prove is correct.

Just something you can step into.

And see where it goes.

I’ve started calling it “leaning in.”

Not forcing.
Not figuring it all out.
Not trying to optimize the next move.

Just leaning toward what’s there.

Following what has even the slightest pull.

And letting it unfold from there.

Because when nothing is wrong…

there’s nothing to fix.

There’s only something to choose.

And maybe that’s what this phase is.

Not about solving a problem.

But about learning how to move without one.

Maybe the hardest part isn’t being stuck.

It’s realizing you’re free to choose…

and nothing is choosing for you.

And there’s nowhere left to hide.

I started working with my ancestors during a Samhain ritual, not really knowing what to expect. At first it felt formal and distant, but over time something shifted. The more I connected, the more questions began to surface — not just about them, but about myself and the nature of connection across time.

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You probably think your money problems are about you.

Your discipline.
Your decisions.
Your mindset.

But what if the beliefs shaping your relationship with money were already inside you?Long before you ever earned your first dollar?

What if scarcity isn’t just a habit of thought…

What if it’s inherited?

Not only through family stories and childhood experiences.

But through generations of people who lived in worlds where survival meant holding tightly to everything.

Think about the people in your family who lived through hard times.

What did they have to believe in order to survive?

When I began looking closely at my own beliefs about money, I realized something uncomfortable.

Many of them were not mine.

They belonged to my ancestors.

Looking backward through the family line

When I started exploring where my beliefs about money came from, I went back through my family history as far as I reasonably could.

As a writer, I naturally started imagining what their lives must have been like from the fragments of information I could find.

Small details began turning into stories.

Farmers.
Laborers.
People who lived through economic instability that I can barely imagine now.

Wars.
Hard winters.
Generations where survival meant working with whatever was available and hoping it would be enough.

Scarcity wasn’t just an idea to them.

It was reality.

When you look at life through that lens, holding tightly to resources isn’t irrational.

It’s survival.

And slowly I began to see something clearly.

Scarcity didn’t start with me.

It traveled through generations.

When the past stops feeling distant

While researching my ancestors, something unexpected happened.

The more I looked into my family tree, the more fascinated I became by the people I was finding.

They stopped feeling like distant names in a record.

It started to feel more like standing in a room filled with people who had quietly been there all along.

Many cultures throughout the world actively honor their ancestors. Some keep altars with photographs or personal objects belonging to those who came before them. Sometimes incense is burned. Sometimes there are special days devoted to remembrance.

The exact practices vary, but the idea behind them is simple.

The people who came before us are still part of the story.

The writer Alex Haley once said:

“In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage.”

Looking back into our lineage is one way we begin understanding ourselves.

When the veil grows thin

In pagan traditions, one of the most well-known times to honor ancestors is Samhain — what many people recognize as Halloween.

It is considered a time when the veil between the living and the dead becomes thin.

A moment when communication with ancestors becomes easier.

I have been fortunate to experience this connection for many years.

At first, I thought I was simply connecting with my family line.

My grandparents.
Their parents.
And the generations behind them.

But the more I explored ancestor work, the more something surprising began to appear.

It wasn’t just my blood relatives showing up in the story.

It felt like the past itself was much larger than I had imagined.

Eventually I learned why.

The six circles of ancestors

Most people think of ancestors as the relatives in their family tree.

But many traditions describe several different circles of ancestors.

Learning this changed the way I understood the past.

Because suddenly the number of people connected to our lives grows much larger.

Ancestors of Blood (DNA)
These are the relatives in our family tree — the people whose lives directly shaped the generations that eventually led to us.

Ancestors of Cultural Heritage
These are the people who shaped the traditions, customs, and collective experiences of the culture we come from or are descended from.

Ancestors of Lineage
These are teachers within spiritual paths, crafts, and bodies of knowledge passed down over generations.

Ancestors of Place
These are the people who lived on the land before we did. The history of the land itself carries their stories.

Ancestors of the Ancients
These are the wisdom keepers of humanity — philosophers, mystics, elders, and teachers whose insights echo across time.

Ancestors of Past Lives
Some traditions believe our souls may have shared other lifetimes with certain people. These relationships can echo forward through time.

When you begin looking at ancestors this way, the past becomes very full.

There are countless people connected to us in one way or another.

And with that realization comes an unexpected comfort.

The North on the transformational wheel

Within the framework of the Transformational Wheel, ancestors belong to the North.

North is the direction of elders, lineage, and deep time.

It is the direction where we turn to remember what stands behind us.

It reminds us that our lives did not begin in isolation.

They are the continuation of many lives that came before.

As the psychologist Carl Jung once observed:

“The dead are not absent, they are only invisible.”

The North reminds us that our lives are part of a much longer story.

Learning to listen

I began working with my ancestors through several practices.

Shamanic journeying.
Tarot readings.
Simple rituals acknowledging their presence.

What surprised me most was not the guidance they offered.

It was their willingness to be remembered.

Many of the ancestors I encountered seemed genuinely happy that someone was thinking about them again. Some offered insight. Others simply sat quietly in the space.

Presence was enough.

Over time, working with them began shifting things in my own life.

Scarcity slowly loosened its grip.

Because alongside the survival stories in my lineage, there was something else I had overlooked.

Courage.

Generations of people who endured difficulty and kept going anyway.

The wisdom we inherit

The ancestors didn’t just help me understand scarcity.

They helped me understand people.

They showed me what it was like to live in generations shaped by war. What it was like to grow up in worlds defined by prejudice and judgment. What it felt like to carry fears that came from unstable times.

Their worldviews made sense once I understood the conditions that shaped them.

And beneath all of those differences was something else.

Love.

Not always expressed the way we might express it today, but present through the generations nonetheless.

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote:

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Working with ancestors is one way of understanding life backwards.

And once you begin to see the story clearly, something important becomes obvious.

You did not inherit only the struggles of the past.

You also inherited the wisdom that survived them.

And somewhere in that long line of people behind you…

is the courage that carried them all this far.

In this episode, I talk through the thinking process behind my article about scarcity and ancestors. What started as a simple reflection on my relationship with money turned into a deeper exploration of the beliefs I inherited from my family. As I traced those ideas back through my parents, grandparents, and generations of farmers before them, I discovered something unexpected. Alongside scarcity, my ancestors may have also passed down courage.

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I never expected to write about money.

But the more I looked at my relationship with it, the more I realized something strange.

Some of my beliefs about money didn’t start with me.

They started long before I was born.

The Beliefs That Came Before Me

Growing up, I never believed the idea that you would work for one company your entire life. That world was already fading by the time I entered college and started looking for my first job.

What I didn’t realize was that even though the world was changing, I had already absorbed something much deeper.

My parents’ beliefs about money.

I was raised with what people now call a scarcity mindset.

At the time it was just normal life.

There were starving children in China, so you cleaned your plate. My mother made most of my school clothes until I was nine. My mom was called “Auntie Generic” because our pantry was filled with store brand groceries. Coupons were gold in my house.

We never went out to eat. Everything was homemade.

Money was never a joke.

My dad even worked extra hours just to rent the flute I was learning to play and pay for my lessons. I didn’t know that at the time. I only understand it now.

The message was simple.

You worked hard.

You never got ahead.

Wealthy people were not to be trusted. They stepped on everyday workers to get ahead.

My parents were born during the Depression. My grandparents lived through it as adults. The stories of that time were everywhere in my family. There are even stories that my grandparents lived in a boxcar for a while because they couldn’t afford housing.

Hard times weren’t theory in my family.

They were memory.

“We are shaped by every place we have been.”
— Maya Angelou

The Life I Built on Those Beliefs

I was taught to work hard. I was the first and only person in my family to attend college and graduate. That education was supposed to be the ticket out of scarcity.

But it wasn’t.

Somewhere inside me was the belief that life was not supposed to be easier.

If you earned money, you paid for it with suffering.

Without realizing it, I would place myself in situations where work meant enduring the abuse of supervisors. I worked long hours at whatever job I found myself in. Enjoyment was something that belonged in my free time.

Dreams were hobbies.

Things you loved were things you did quietly on the side. They were never supposed to make you money.

All of this was invisible to me at the time.

When Fear Showed Up

Then my life changed.

I found myself off the traditional work grid but still responsible for bills and a mortgage. My savings started disappearing faster than I expected.

Every time I thought about money, fear flooded my body.

It wasn’t mild concern.

It was fear down to my bones. My muscles would freeze with stress.

When I felt that fear, I made desperate choices. I wanted someone to hand me the golden plan that would fix everything. A map I could follow without risk.

But life doesn’t work that way.

So I did what I have always done when I don’t understand something.

I started reading.

I read the wealth building books. The abundance books. I tried the exercises and the mindset shifts.

None of it worked.

Eventually I realized why.

All of those strategies were sitting on top of beliefs I had never questioned.

One word kept echoing in my mind.

Scarcity.

Tracing Scarcity Backward

I realized I had believed in scarcity my entire life. That belief quietly shaped how I saw money, work, and even my dreams.

I believed that following my passions would leave me penniless. I believed real money could only come from a job. I believed there was never quite enough.

When I traced those beliefs back, they didn’t start with me.

They started generations earlier.

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
— Gustav Mahler

I don’t come from money people.

I come from farmers.

Farmers who worked the land year after year and rarely had much beyond the necessities. Money was hard earned and easily lost. Frugality wasn’t a philosophy.

It was survival.

For a long time I interpreted that inheritance as limitation.

What My Ancestors Actually Taught Me

Then I started thinking about what it actually means to be a farmer.

Farmers live with uncertainty almost every day of their lives.

They never know what the weather will do. Crops might flourish one year and fail the next. A storm or drought can wipe out months of work.

And yet they plant again.

They face uncertainty over and over.

When I saw it that way, something inside me shifted.

The people I come from are not small.

They are courageous.

They lived their entire lives facing uncertainty and kept going anyway.

For the first time I felt proud to be descended from them.

For years I had quietly pushed my ancestors into a mental closet, as if their struggles had nothing to do with me.

Now I see something different.

Their resilience lives in me too.

“The greatest inheritance we can give our children is roots and wings.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Learning to Face Uncertainty

I am still working with my beliefs around scarcity and abundance. That work is not finished.

But when fear around money shows up now, I remember something important.

I come from people who faced uncertainty their entire lives.

And if they could face it…

So can I.

Some inherit scarcity.

I inherited courage.

Not polished insight, but the process behind it … the stories the mind creates, how they spiral, and how I catch them before they become reality.

I speak through what I’m noticing as it happens.

Especially the subtle ways the brain tries to protect through narratives that aren’t actually true.

This is the space where the thoughts are still forming, before they become clarity.

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You are lying in bed at 2am grappling with a decision.

You want to make the best choice possible.
So you logic your way through it.
You weigh everything.
You make the most reasonable decision you can.

Yet it still feels wrong.

Not loudly wrong.
Not dramatically wrong.
Just quietly wrong.

And that quiet wrongness is unsettling.

Because nothing is technically incorrect.
Nothing is reckless.
Nothing is obviously harmful.

But something inside you does not settle.

Sometimes there is a secret choice you would make.
If it didn’t have to be explained.
If it didn’t have to be justified.
If it didn’t have to look responsible from the outside.

Then there are the 2am ideas.

The ones that arrive when everything is quiet.
When the noise of the day is gone.
When the pressure to perform is asleep.

An idea appears.
Clear. Alive. Almost electric.

And immediately your brain asks.
“Have you lost it?”
“That’s unrealistic.”
“That’s too much.”
“That’s not safe.”

But the idea does not disappear.

It sits quietly in the background.
Like an itch you can’t scratch.
Like something that wants your attention without demanding it.

So you cautiously check it out.

You research.
You explore.
You look at it from a practical angle.

And sometimes the most surprising part happens.

It’s viable.

Not fantasy.
Not delusion.
Not chaos.

Just unfamiliar.

That is usually when the ego catches on.

Not with panic.
Not with dramatic sabotage.
But with containment.

It throws you breadcrumbs.

Small plans.
Safer versions.
Controlled interpretations.

It reshapes the idea into something manageable.
Something that fits inside your current identity.
Something that won’t disrupt the nervous system too much.

At first, this looks supportive.
Responsible, even.
Protective, even.

But over time, you begin to notice a pattern.

The idea never fully breathes.
It gets trimmed.
Reduced.
Adjusted until it no longer feels alive.

I used to think this only happened during big decisions.

Now I catch it in small ones.
Daily ones.
Quiet ones.
Personal ones.

Especially during periods of change.

I have been honoring my nervous system more lately.
Trying not to stress it.
Trying not to force myself the way I used to.

And that is when a new voice got louder.

“You are vulnerable.”
“You shouldn’t push.”
“Writing is too much on top of a part-time job.”
“You should rest more.”
“You shouldn’t reach for anything big right now.”

It sounded caring.
Measured.
Protective.

Almost wise.

But something about it felt… off.

Because there is a difference between regulation and restriction.

My nervous system does have requirements.
It needs pacing.
It needs steadiness.
It needs gentleness.

But it does not need me to abandon what matters.

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.” — Hafiz

It does not need me to shrink my life in the name of safety.

That realization was uncomfortable.

Because I have experienced real gaslighting in my life.
And I know how disorienting it feels.
When something true inside you is constantly questioned by another voice.

I never expected to recognize a quieter version of that internally.

Not as cruelty.
Not as self-hatred.
But as partial truths dressed as logic.

The ego is very good at this.

It doesn’t always lie loudly.
It offers edited versions of reality.

Versions shaped by fear.
By past stress.
By the desire to stay in control.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.” — Albert Einstein

It tells you that hesitation is maturity.
That doubt is realism.
That staying small is stability.

And if you are someone who values responsibility then you listen.

You listen very carefully.

But there is another voice present too.

Much quieter.
Almost easy to miss.

It doesn’t argue.
It doesn’t spiral.
It doesn’t flood you with explanations.

It simply whispers.

Whispers that live in the heart.

Not in the racing thoughts.
Not in the fear loops.
Not in the endless analysis that keeps you awake at 2am.

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.” — Rumi

The heart does not debate.
It recognizes.

It nudges toward expansion in ways that feel steady instead of overwhelming.

This is deeply personal for me.

My heart whispers about my writing.
About how important it is.
About how it is not something I do only when conditions are perfect.

My ego prefers things small and controllable.
Predictable.
Contained.

Writing consistently does not feel contained.
Growth does not feel contained.
Change does not feel contained.

So the mind tries to reinterpret reality.

“It’s too much right now.”
“It will stress your nervous system.”
“You should wait until everything is stable.”

But stability, in this context, can quietly become avoidance.

Not loud avoidance.
Refined avoidance.
The kind that sounds intelligent.
The kind that sounds self-aware.
The kind that sounds like protection while slowly disconnecting you from what is meaningful.

That is how the internal gaslighting works.

Not by shutting you down completely.
But by convincing you that staying smaller is the most responsible version of yourself.

There is a strange part to this.

You can logically agree with your thoughts and still feel misaligned in your body.

You can make the “right” decision on paper and still feel unsettled in your chest.

You can follow every rational step.
Still sense that something true was quietly overridden.

That is not irrationality.

That is awareness.

The mind speaks loudly.
The ego speaks strategically.
But the soul does not shout.

It whispers.
Often at 2am.
Often through the heart before the brain has time to rewrite the story.

Not because they are less important.
But because they are less resolved.

Fearless Mindset is where I share the perspective.
The Back Room is where that perspective is still forming.

It’s where I speak more honestly about the process behind the writing — what is unfolding in real time, what I’m noticing in my nervous system, and how I am actually working with fear, stability, and change while life is still happening.

This also includes the quieter parts of my practice.
Reflection. Symbolic tools. Metaphysical orientation.
Not as performance, and not as escape ... but as grounded ways I stay steady while things are still in motion.

You won’t always find conclusions there.
You’ll often find the middle.

The part where I am working with things instead of pretending I’ve mastered them.

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I used to joke that if I ate a cockroach first thing in the morning, nothing worse could happen to me that day.

It was funny to say, but impossible to do.
Like many affirmations, it was less about action and more about perspective.

We all have bad days. That is the balance of life.

But if you are not paying attention, the bad days stop feeling occasional and start feeling cyclical.
It begins in small ways.
Traffic delays. Technology glitches. Spilled coffee before something important.
Minor inconveniences that stack quietly.

By the end of the day, your nervous system is shot.
You tell yourself that if you can just make it to bed, tomorrow will be better.

Sometimes it isn’t.
Then the week isn’t any better.
Then you start looking forward to relief instead of living your days.

At some point, I began to notice something deeper than bad luck.

When Reality Starts to Feel Heavier

When stress lines up long enough, the events themselves matter less than how you experience them.
The outside world starts to feel sharper. More urgent. More confrontational.

It could easily be brushed off as a run of bad luck.
But another possibility quietly appeared.

What if the external world was not changing as dramatically as it felt?
What if my internal state was shaping how I was experiencing it?

Over time, I started to see a pattern. The outside world seemed to mirror what was happening inside of me.

Not in a mystical sense.
In a nervous system sense.

Building a Life — and Forcing It

For years, I wanted to build a life I dreamed about.
A life I had waited years for.

I bought the things I would need slowly and stored them away. Preparing for the day I would finally put myself first.

And then I did it.
I quit my job.

There were no detailed plans, just ideas and determination.
So I did what I believed disciplined people were supposed to do.

I created a schedule.
Then I made it stricter.
Then more structured.
Then nearly impossible.

There were not enough hours in the day to complete everything I assigned myself, even though I was no longer working.

I became a drill sergeant to my own life.

Every day was a checklist that was never fully finished.
And strangely, I was more stressed than I had ever been at my actual job.

I was forcing a way of life that my nervous system did not want.

The Burnout and the Mirror of Lack

Burnout did not arrive dramatically.
It crept in through exhaustion, financial pressure, and constant internal urgency.

I was not making money yet.
My savings were disappearing.
And my attention narrowed almost entirely to what was not working.

Lack.
Scarcity.
Pressure.

After a while, the mind begins to believe the thoughts it repeats the most.
Mine repeated fear.

I noticed the world started to show me how I lacked.
How much scarcity there was.
There was confrontation everywhere.

As Viktor Frankl wrote,

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”

I had compressed that space completely through exhaustion and pressure. Everything felt immediate. Everything felt threatening.

Was reality actually becoming more hostile… or was I only able to perceive it through a nervous system already in survival mode?

Panic as a Signal, Not a Failure

Then the panic attacks started.

Not subtle ones.
Clear ones.

My nervous system had reached a point where it refused to be ignored.
It was letting me know in terms I could no longer override with discipline or willpower.

Fear set in quickly after that.

I began turning inward in a harsh way.
I believed I was failing.
Failing to build the life I wanted.
Failing financially.
Failing creatively.

My writing became forced, and I could feel it.
The words were there, but they were not true enough at my core.

As Bessel van der Kolk notes in The Body Keeps the Score,

“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.”

I realized I did not feel safe inside the life structure I had created for myself. Even though nothing external was directly threatening me.

Was I actually failing… or was my nervous system rejecting the way I was trying to live?

Fighting for a Place in the World

That question revealed something deeper.

It wasn’t just about lack.
I was fighting to be seen.
Fighting to be taken seriously.
Fighting for every dollar.
Fighting to have a place in this world and to feel that I mattered.

I was almost fighting for every breath I took.

No wonder my system was on overload.

I had structured my life like a battlefield and then wondered why reality felt hostile.

Relaxing the System, Shifting the Mirror

Instead of pushing harder, I began doing something unfamiliar.
I practiced relaxing.

Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
Just intentionally.

I checked in with my body several times a day.
Were my shoulders relaxed?
How was my breathing?
Was I actually present?

At first, it wasn’t easy.
My instinct was still to force things.
To push.
To control outcomes.

But slowly, my body began to settle.

And something surprising happened.

Nothing external changed.
My responsibilities were the same.
My circumstances were still real.

But the world stopped feeling immediately dangerous.

A Softer Structure the Nervous System Could Support

I redesigned my system in a gentler way.

Instead of overwhelming to-do lists, I chose three minimum actions.
Each one only two minutes long.
Not as a productivity trick, but as a signal to my body that showing up did not equal threat.

My journaling shifted from dumping negativity into morning pages to becoming a space for reflection and encouragement.
My tarot practice changed from “What do I need to know to avoid danger?”
to “What energy do I want to lean into today?”

This subtle shift removed the sense of constant defense.

Within a few weeks, I noticed something unexpected.
I was calmer.
More present.
Less reactive in my daily interactions.

I stopped fighting people to make my view of reality work.
I let life be and observed where it naturally went.

Reality as a Mirror, Not an Enemy

And then I noticed the deepest mirror of all.

I had not failed at building the life I wanted.
I had built it in a way my nervous system could not support.

When my system was overloaded, reality mirrored scarcity, pressure, and confrontation.
When my system began to settle, reality felt more open, manageable, and even quietly interesting.

Carl Jung observed,

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

What I had been calling lack, pressure, and confrontation may have been my internal state reflected back through an exhausted system.

The external world had not transformed overnight.
But my experience of it had.

Maybe reality was never the enemy.
Maybe it was reflecting the internal state I was living in.

Not as punishment.
Not as blame.
But as feedback.

And once my nervous system stopped living in constant fight,
the mirror finally stopped showing me a battlefield.

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I had my first anxiety attack a couple of days ago.

I hadn’t felt one in three years, which is why it scared me as much as it did.

At first, it didn’t announce itself clearly. My chest tightened. My thoughts sped up. I kept telling myself I was fine. Nothing was actually wrong.

But my body didn’t agree.

It felt like something inside me was bracing for impact. I was about to lose something important and didn’t know how to stop it. It was easy to trace once I stopped fighting it.

I’m worried about my future.

About how to keep supporting my dream of writing while still supporting myself. About not losing my house. About whether I’m allowed to want a life that doesn’t cost me my health.

That realization made me angry.

I Thought I Had Worry Handled

What really pissed me off was thinking I had already dealt with worry. I thought that part of my life was behind me. I thought I could finally focus on what I actually wanted for my future without constantly scanning for danger.

Instead, it felt like my goals were suddenly fragile—like they could be taken away at any moment. Like everything I was working toward could be knocked over with one wrong move.

I don’t even like planning goals anymore. Every time I’ve tried to do things the “right” way, something gets derailed. And when that happens, my body doesn’t read it as inconvenience. It reads it as threat.

As Bessel van der Kolk writes:

“The body keeps the score.”

That’s what this felt like.
Not a mindset issue. Not a lack of confidence.
A body remembering what it costs when I ignore it.

That’s what makes this scary.

I’m trying to build something for myself. I’m afraid to do it because things go sideways fast. When they do, I feel the pull to walk away from my dreams entirely. To retreat into familiar patterns that may have made me miserable. At least it felt predictable.

What Fear Took From Me

I’ve been scared most of my life.

Most of my decisions used to come from fear—even the ones that looked responsible on the outside. Fear chose my jobs. Fear chose who I tolerated. Fear decided how much of myself I was allowed to bring into a room.

I ended up in situations that weren’t healthy, working for people who didn’t care about me, giving more and more of myself just to stay safe. I became a performance monkey—valuable only as long as I could produce.

I was burnt out. My health declined under the constant pressure. But the worst loss wasn’t physical.

It was creative.

Why Losing My Voice Hurt the Most

Losing my self-expression hurt more than anything else.

Self-expression is how I understand reality. I get overwhelmed easily—by information, by emotion, by physical sensation. Writing, creating, and expressing myself has always been how I sort through that overwhelm and make sense of what’s happening.

There’s a reason that loss felt so destabilizing. As Audre Lorde wrote:

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared.”

When I lost my ability to express myself, I lost my orientation.

I worked jobs where I sold my soul slowly, one day at a time. I worked my fingers to the bone. I gave everything I had, hoping it would finally be enough. It never was. The work was never appreciated, and I learned the hard way that over-giving doesn’t earn safety—it just erases you.

The Blueprint My Body Rejected

For the last two years, I’ve been trying to build something for myself. But I followed a sales-driven blueprint that promised stability and delivered pressure instead.

I wasn’t performing to their standards. I felt reduced to numbers. To money. To output.

I still want to write. I still want to help people. But I’m not willing to do it by disappearing again. I want to do this with me at the helm.

The truth is, I wasn’t listening to myself.

Fear had quietly taken over again.

I wanted to scream at the hustle culture I found myself in. I struggle doubly hard to orient myself in new environments, and at first it was fine. I was learning how to write online, learning a completely different way of expressing myself.

But when it was time to move to the next stage, I got left behind.

My Path Has Never Been Linear

My path has always been a slow grower.

I wasn’t seen as someone with dreams, or as someone doing meaningful work quietly in the background. I have to change my own mind about myself—to build confidence that isn’t borrowed from external approval.

I’m not afraid to walk with fear. I just don’t move in straight lines. I take a meandering path, stopping to check my footing, adjusting when something feels off.

That meandering path is how I stay oriented.

The Cost of Constant Orientation

I’m deaf and neurodivergent, which means I’ve spent my life working hard to orient myself in a world not built for how I process information.

Because sound isn’t an option, I rely heavily on my other senses—visual cues, pattern recognition, intuition. I’m constantly piecing together context, reading situations, making sure I haven’t missed something important.

That effort never turns off.

My nervous system lives close to fight or flight because it has to. Missing information has cost me before—time, money, trust. So urgency hits me harder than it hits others.

I take in information in small pieces, but when I process, I go deep. I turn it over until it fits. That depth gives me insight—but it also makes rushing dangerous.

Why I Can’t Rush Myself Anymore

As always, I underestimated myself.

I used to hate this part of me. Now I see it as a strength. I may be uncertain while I’m walking the path, but once I’ve negotiated it, I understand what I’m doing in a way others don’t.

I’ve come to trust my intuition—not because it’s mystical, but because it’s practical. The problem isn’t that I don’t have it. The problem is that I don’t give myself time to hear it.

That’s the hard part.

Slowing down enough to listen. Letting intuition lead instead of urgency. Fear-based decisions have never worked for me, even when I’ve been able to turn them into wisdom later.

What I need now is time.

Time to listen.
Time to choose from love instead of fear.
Time to stop rushing myself back into a life I already survived.

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We are bombarded with stereotypes every day.

Societal stereotypes don’t live as long as they used to.

The housewife of the 1950s was replaced by Superwoman in the 1980s. Superwoman morphed into today’s Influencer. Each era swaps one costume for another, but the function remains the same.

A script for how a life is supposed to look.

Stereotypes become dangerous when we internalize them.

They stop being social commentary and start becoming an inner compass. We orient our decisions around them. We don’t have to think for ourselves anymore—the projection does the thinking for us.

We go on automation.

That’s when the box forms. The box is seductive. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. Nothing is expected of you.

Over time, safety turns into a rut.

The rut becomes a way of life.

Life isn’t seen accurately from inside the rut-box. The walls act like filters, letting in only what confirms the script. While inside it, nothing truly new can be seen. Your rut meshes neatly with other people’s ruts, and the world becomes predictable.

Everyone is following a role.

Life becomes a poorly directed play.

We don’t notice the boundaries of the box until something slips past the filters.

That happened to me while I was a junior in college.

The Moment the Script Cracked

I attended an evening math class.

There was a very interesting couple with me in class.

The man was about seventy-five and attended class with his wife. I was fascinated by them from the start.

The classroom was typical. Most of us were in our twenties, rushing in from jobs or other classes, stressed about assignments and exams.

But not them.

They arrived early every session.

He’d pull out his notebook with careful precision. She’d settle in on the side of the room with her knitting bag, pulling out whatever project she was working on. While he listened to the lecture, his wife’s needles moved in a steady rhythm.

During our dinner break, I watched her set out a simple meal for the two of them.

Tupperware containers with what looked like homemade sandwiches. A thermos of something hot. They ate quickly, smiling at each other, entirely absorbed in their small shared world.

The class itself didn’t mingle much, but I overheard conversations. (It’s always the overheard conversations that matter.)

He had retired from his job and was now pursuing a degree in mathematics.

I don’t even remember what his former career was. What struck me was that retirement hadn’t stopped him. He was still learning. Still following something that mattered to him.

At seventy-five, he was doing what most people say they’ll do “someday.”

This stayed with me long after graduation—especially now, as I enter an older phase of life myself.

But it was his wife who unsettled me the most.

She attended every single class. She rarely spoke—maybe answered “good evening” when greeted. She always smiled. Her presence was quiet but constant.

I grew up with the woman-at-home stereotype. And without realizing it, I placed her neatly inside it.

I was offended on her behalf.

Here she was, sitting through math lectures in support of his dream. What about hers? She couldn’t possibly find differential equations interesting. She was just there because—well, what else would a wife of that generation do?

My internal monologue ran wild with assumptions.

She probably didn’t work outside the home.

Probably spent her whole life supporting his ambitions. Probably never got to chase her own education because she was too busy raising kids and managing a household.

I projected an entire life story onto her based on absolutely nothing.

I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know her life. I didn’t know if she had a PhD or had never finished high school. I didn’t know if she was bored out of her mind or fascinated by the material.

But I knew the story I had assigned her.

As the semester went on, my outrage softened into curiosity.

What if my assumptions were wrong?

Maybe she was a math professor herself, attending class to help him. Maybe she was the CEO of her own company and welcomed the stillness after a demanding day. Maybe knitting was her joy. Maybe this was simply how they chose to be together.

The possibilities multiplied once certainty dissolved.

Whatever her reason, she inspired me. Not because she defied stereotypes loudly—but because she didn’t seem to organize her life around them at all.

Homemaker or executive didn’t matter. She appeared content. Present. Unbothered by how she might be read.

In my mind, she threw the stereotypes out entirely.

I tried to do the same.

The Stereotype I Didn’t Notice Turning Inward

For years, I thought that moment freed me from stereotypes.

But over time, I noticed something still operating beneath the surface.

I had stopped stereotyping roles—but I was still stereotyping responses.

I carried a belief that if I revealed too much of my inner world—my spirituality, my way of seeing, the parts of me that don’t translate cleanly—I would be dismissed. Not attacked outright. Just subtly set aside.

I assumed rejection before it happened.

This stereotype didn’t look like fear. It looked like discernment.

I softened language before it was challenged. I explained myself before I was questioned. I translated inner knowing into acceptable terms.

It felt like wisdom. It felt like maturity.

But it was still a box.

This kind of box is the hardest to see because it feels thoughtful.

You’re still engaged. Still articulate. Still present. Just not all the way.

The walls are invisible, but they filter everything—what you say which truths stay untranslated.

The world becomes predictable again—not because people are limited, but because I had already decided how they would respond.

The stereotype wasn’t that others were small-minded.

It was that I assumed they would be.

What I’m Still Unlearning

I am still unlearning the belief that my inner life must be defended before it’s offered.

That spirituality needs justification to be credible. That depth requires translation to be acceptable. That being fully myself carries an automatic social cost.

Sometimes it does.

But often, the cost is paid only because I expect it.

I notice this pattern most clearly in my writing.

I’ll draft something authentic.

Something that came from a real spiritual experience or inner knowing. Then I’ll go back and soften it. Add qualifiers. Insert “I think” or “maybe” or “in my experience” before statements that I actually know to be true for me.

I’m translating before anyone asks me to.

No one challenged me. No one questioned it. I defended myself against an attack that existed only in my head.

The woman in that classroom wasn’t living in reaction to perception. She wasn’t managing the audience. She simply showed up as herself—knitting needles and all.

That’s the freedom I’m still growing into.

I’m practicing showing up without the preemptive translation.

This means publishing something that feels vulnerable without adding the safety net of scientific explanation. It also means sharing a spiritual practice without first explaining why it’s not “woo-woo.”

Or simply it means trusting that the people who need to hear what I have to say will hear it.

The ones who don’t are simply not my audience.

I’m learning to let my work find its people instead of trying to make it palatable to everyone.

This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring about clarity or accessibility. It means I’ve stopped apologizing for depth. I’ve stopped assuming that spiritual language needs constant translation into secular terms to be taken seriously.

The irony is that the more I practice this, the more connection I actually create.

When I stop managing everyone’s potential reactions I just share what’s true for me.

The right people respond. They tell me they’ve been looking for someone who talks about these things without apology. They say they’re tired of spiritual content that feels like it’s constantly defending its right to exist.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one living in that particular box.

Freedom, Revisited

Freedom isn’t rebellion.

It isn’t proving anything. It isn’t explaining yourself into safety.

Freedom is letting go of the reflex to pre-shrink.

It’s allowing yourself to arrive without apology—and letting the response be whatever it is.

Some people won’t understand. Some will quietly drift away. Some will surprise you.

That was always true.

The difference now is this—I no longer need the stereotype to decide for me.

And that, slowly, is what stepping out of the box actually looks like.

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I thought they were my friends.

A whole group of people who cared about me, who saw me as more than just a name on a Zoom screen.

They were imaginary.

Not in the clinical sense—these were real people. But the relationships? Those existed only in my head.

You know the kind I mean. Where everything feels one-sided. Where you interpret their actions as friendship and ignore every red flag screaming otherwise. Where you end up with a broken heart when that connection you felt turns out to be something you manufactured entirely on your own.

This seems to be one of my favorite habits.

The Ending That Woke Me Up

I worked with someone kind of famous for the last two years. When I sent the email explaining why I wasn’t renewing my membership, communication shut off.

Not even a “thanks for your time.”

Nothing.

I wasn’t devastated. There’s even a name for this—parasocial interaction. It’s where we imagine relationships with people that don’t actually exist.

But then I realized something uncomfortable.

This wasn’t about them being famous. I’d been doing this everywhere—with my boss, my coworkers, people I saw every day. Manufacturing connections that never existed.

The Cost of Living in Your Head

When we create imaginary relationships, the energy toll is massive.

We invest time and effort into connections that can never be reciprocal.

We become reactive and vulnerable to people who have no idea we’ve cast them in starring roles in our internal narratives. We interpret their actions based on relationships that don’t exist.

We twist ourselves into shapes we think they want.

We hide parts of ourselves we’ve decided don’t fit the role.

We perform for an audience that isn’t watching.

These relationships don’t have to be with people in front of us right now. We bond to potential instead of reality. We see one inspired moment in someone and build an entire relationship around who they could be, not who they actually are.

You see this everywhere in romantic relationships. The “honeymoon is over” phase is when we wake up next to someone we’ve never actually met. We bonded to the promise of someone, not the actual person.

We’re in a relationship with a future that hasn’t happened while ignoring what’s actually in front of us.

Why We Keep These Fantasies Alive

The imaginary relationships spare us the risk of rejection.

But they also spare us reality.

We keep them alive by denying what’s true. By avoiding our own vulnerabilities. By feeling validated by actions that never had the meaning we assigned them.

An imaginary relationship isn’t imaginary because you made it up.

It’s imaginary because it survives without mutual participation.

The Evolutionary Trap We Fall Into

Our survival mechanism wants us to be part of a community. To belong to a tribe. Rejection from the group meant death to our ancestors.

So our brains create these imaginary bonds as insurance. If we believe the connection exists, we can pretend we’re safe. We can feel like we belong even when we’re standing outside the circle looking in.

We change ourselves to fit what we think they want. We hide parts that seem too weird, too much, too different. All because we’re desperate to be seen and valued.

But here’s what I discovered. the imaginary relationships I created were all about trying to prove I mattered. That what I was doing had worth. That I existed as more than just a transaction.

I twisted myself into shapes that didn’t fit my actual personality because I thought that’s what would make them care.

I was fighting against my own worth because I didn’t value what made me unique.

What Actually Changed

About a month ago, I felt incredible stress.

I felt I would meet the apocalypse walking around a corner.

There was a feeling of doom I couldn’t shake. It pressed from above on me, squeezing me into a small space. I felt crushed under the pressure.

Then I sent that email saying I wasn’t renewing my membership with the semi-famous person’s program.

The relief was immediate.

I felt lighter than I have in years. Freer. Happier than I can remember being maybe ever.

I wasn’t under anyone else’s expectations anymore. I didn’t have to perform or hide or twist myself into someone else’s vision of what I should be. I could just be me—weird parts, unconventional approaches, different brain and all.

For the first time in a long time, I was interacting with people who commented on my writing with my full, honest opinions. No filtering. No performing.

Just me.

And it felt incredible.

The Gift Hidden in Disappointment

I realize now that all my imaginary relationships were about the same thing. Being seen. Feeling valued for who I actually am.

Nobody wants to feel like a cog in a machine. We all want to matter as individual humans with thoughts, feelings, and unique perspectives.

I was trying to force outcomes that don’t fit my personality. My brain works differently processing information, creates solutions, sees patterns. I was judging myself harshly for not following the “right” path when that path was never designed for brains like mine.

The parts of myself I hid and judged? Those are the parts that make me valuable.

But I’m not broken.

I’m just me. And I can be me and make my dreams happen.

How to Spot Imaginary Relationships

Real relationships don’t require constant mental narration.

They don’t need you to explain away behaviors or fill in gaps with optimistic interpretations. They don’t demand that you twist yourself into uncomfortable shapes to maintain them.

Real relationships have reciprocity. Energy flows both ways. You notice it’s not just you putting in all the effort—they show up too. They ask questions. They care about your answers. They remember things about you.

Real relationships are quieter in your head because they’re louder in reality.

They happen in shared presence, not inner rehearsal.

When you find yourself constantly having imaginary conversations with someone—explaining yourself, defending yourself, trying to make them understand—that’s your signal. The relationship exists more in your mind than in the space between you.

What You Can Do Right Now

Look at your relationships honestly.

Not with the story you’ve been telling yourself, but with what’s actually there. Are these connections one-sided? Are you the only one reaching out? Are you constantly interpreting neutral actions as signs of deeper connection?

The mind shift that needs to happen is this: you don’t need these imaginary relationships. You’re worthy and lovable just because of who you are, not who you pretend to be.

It starts with accepting yourself. All of yourself—even the parts that don’t fit neatly into anyone else’s mold.

Make sure you’re investing in relationships that actually exist.

The Truth About Freedom

Freedom begins when you stop trying to be understood by someone who isn’t listening—even when that someone is just a voice in your own mind.

When you stop performing for an audience that was never actually there, you get to discover who you are when you’re not trying to be anyone else.

And that person? The real you underneath all the performing and hiding and twisting?

That person is pretty damn incredible.

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The days are getting longer again.

I know we’re all carrying a lot right now. The world keeps spinning faster, demanding more, asking us to keep up with everything and everyone.

But here’s something different to read today. Something simple. Something that reminded me why the sun on your face still matters more than most of what we’re chasing.

I found this passage in a book called “The Worm Forgives the Plough,” and it warmed my heart. Not because it’s profound or revolutionary—but because it’s so beautifully ordinary.

Sitting In The Sun-The Passage

To sit in the sun. This is still one of the greatest life experiences of life...And it is free...

At the chosen moment I lay down, curled up and closed my eyes while the sun shone upon my face. Often a strong chilly wind blew, but it didn’t come near me, I received only the sun.

Then I entered my own special simple paradise...

Let the world outside carry on, I would say let them dash hither and thither, let them kill one another wholesale, let them go to hell, I wrapped in the embrace of Nature and filled with peace and love!

And like any dog, like any savage, I lay there enjoying myself, harming no man, selling nothing, competing not at all, thinking no evil, smiled upon the sun, bent over by the trees and softly folded in the arms of the earth.

That’s it.

No productivity hack. No self-optimization strategy. No five-step framework for better living.

Just a reminder that lying in the sun is still free. Still one of the greatest experiences available to us. Still worth doing.

The sun is coming back. The days are getting longer.

Maybe that’s enough good news for today.

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I was browsing a book’s copyright page when something stopped me cold.

“No part of this book may be uploaded to AI for learning purposes.”

My first reaction? Eye roll.

How arrogant.

How would you even know if someone did? Is there an AI police force scouring the internet? Or maybe—just maybe—you already did it yourself and now you’re protecting your crime?

But then the deeper question hit me.

Was I watching creativity die in real-time, or was I watching it transform into something I didn’t yet understand?

———————

The Depression That Paralyzed My Writing

For days, I couldn’t write.

Not because I had nothing to say. Ideas were there, crowding my brain, demanding to be expressed. But every time I sat down to create, a voice whispered What’s the point?

AI could do this better. Faster. More efficiently.

I didn’t feel like it was me doing the writing anymore.

It felt like everything was up to AI now—to do a better job than I ever could.

The spark that had driven me for years? Gone.

Extinguished by the belief that I’d become obsolete while I slept.

———————

The False Beliefs That Kept Me Trapped

I used to believe not everyone was gifted to be creative.

I was starting to suspect I wasn’t one of the gifted ones.

For years I’d convinced myself that if I just wrote for myself, authentically, everyone would see what an exceptional person I was. Hidden genius waiting to be discovered.

But people kept telling me I had nothing to say. And now AI was proving them right—doing all the writing, only better.

I bought into the idea that writing and other creative things were dead.

Simple.

———————

The Pattern I Couldn’t See

I was stuck in the pattern that there was only one way to think about AI as the enemy stealing our creativity.

I could put a thought into ChatGPT and watch it generate an entire book. My revolutionary ideas about mindset?

Suddenly they felt small.

Common.

Not worth protecting—yet I zealously guarded them anyway.

I stayed trapped because I refused to look at things from a different perspective. I let fear convince me that my self-expression was dead because AI was taking over everything.

It was like AI was living the life and I was the robot.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

But that didn’t make it hurt less.

Here’s the twisted logic my brain created. If people didn’t think my ideas were any good, then I wasn’t any good. And with AI in the picture generating brilliance in seconds, how could my ideas ever be good enough?

I was looking for danger around every corner. Trying to force things to go the way I expected.

Making AI the competition instead of recognizing it as a tool.

———————

The Late-Night Scroll That Changed Everything

I was scrolling through 2026 content predictions late one night, exhausted from lack of sleep due to worry.

My brain was numb from reading forecast after forecast about how AI would kill human creativity, how writing was dead, how we were all obsolete.

Then I stopped on one article.

The language felt eerily familiar.

It was almost word-for-word what people said when the internet started in the ‘90s. Books would die. Libraries would close. Artists and writers would become irrelevant because everything would be digital and automated.

I sat there staring at my screen and suddenly laughed.

Actually laughed out loud.

Because here I was—decades after those predictions—still writing. Still creating. The internet hadn’t killed creativity. It had expanded it beyond anything we imagined.

I realized I’d been scared of the internet too, back then. And I survived. Adapted. Thrived, even.

This time was different. I got tired of trying to plot the future based on everyone’s dire predictions.

I’d already lived through one “creativity apocalypse” that never came.

Maybe AI was just the next expansion, not the final ending.

———————

The Internal Battle That Had to Happen

Fear: “This is stupid. Everyone’s doing this AI thing better than you. Just quit.”

Logic: “But you’ve invested years into this. Walking away now—”

Fear: “Years of what? Being mediocre while AI does everything better? People told you that you had nothing to say, and they were right.”

Logic: “That’s not fair. You’ve built something here.”

Fear: “Built what? A collection of ideas that AI can generate in 30 seconds?”

Wise Self: “Hold on. You’re putting expectations on this that aren’t real. You’re making AI the enemy instead of asking what’s actually true here.”

Fear: “What’s true is I’m not good enough anymore. I thought I was exceptional—turns out I’m just another writer in a world that doesn’t need writers.”

Wise Self: “No. What’s true is you forgot why you started writing in the first place. It wasn’t to be the only one with an idea. It wasn’t to prove you were exceptional.”

Logic: “Then why? Why keep going?”

Wise Self: “Because writing is the expression itself. It’s not a means to prove your worth—it IS your worth. People mean everything, not just as a means to an end. The writing means everything too. Not as a path to recognition, but as the act of creating.”

Fear: “But what if it’s not good enough?”

Wise Self: “Good enough for what? You’re fighting expectations of what should be happening instead of seeing what really is. What if you just... wrote? What if you let AI be a tool instead of a threat?”

I let all parts of myself have a say.

Then I combined it into something that sounded viable. Stop fighting. Start creating. Use whatever tools help you express what you see.

———————

The Surprising Truth About Creativity

I reminded myself that money and expectations weren’t the end goal.

Writing was not the means to get somewhere else.

Writing is both the means and the end.

It’s the same twisted thinking that treats people as means to the end of making money—as if people don’t mean anything. But people mean everything.

And the writing? The creative expression? It means everything too.

I was fighting my expectations of what should be happening instead of accepting what really was.

Once I stopped fighting, something shifted.

It became possible to enjoy the writing again. To enjoy the people I was meeting. To see AI not as competition but as a tool that could expand what I was capable of creating.

Nobody has truly original ideas anyway. We all steal from somewhere.

You read an interesting book, combine it with another interesting idea, and now you have “your” idea.

I thought I was working on the edge of neuroplasticity and mindset—arrogant, I know.

Then I watched videos of people light-years ahead of where I am.

At first, my ego shut down. It couldn’t take the hit.

Then I felt relief.

There were maps of where we’re going. And I could take those ideas and adapt them for my own brain.

Kinda original.

———————

What Actually Doesn’t Work (I Tried Both Extremes)

What doesn’t work? Treating AI like it’s 1999 internet fears all over again.

I tried it.

I avoided AI for weeks, thinking I was protecting my creativity by keeping it “pure” and human-only. I zealously guarded my ideas like they were so revolutionary someone would want to steal them.

But really? I was terrified they weren’t good enough to matter.

People (including me) keep trying to protect creativity by avoiding the tools that could expand it. We get stuck in either/or thinking. Either I’m creative on my own OR I’m just another AI user with nothing original.

I also tried the other extreme—putting a thought into AI and watching it generate a whole book, then feeling worthless because “why bother if a machine can do this?”

Both approaches missed the point.

Creativity was never about being the only person with an idea. It’s about how YOU express what you see in the world. It’s about the connections YOU make that no one else makes quite the same way.

What works instead. Find your own creative expression and go with it. Let AI expand that if it helps you grow faster. Stop putting expectations on how things “should” work out and stay open to the unexpected—which can be even better than what you expected.

Our creativity needs to be expressed, period.

The tool you use doesn’t determine if it’s “real” creativity or not.

———————

The Survival Pattern We’re All Living

This is basic survival 101.

Our brains are wired for pattern recognition—to spot threats and keep us safe. When something new and powerful emerges, our ancient survival programming kicks in. We see threat, not opportunity.

I was looking for danger around every corner. Trying to force things to go the way I expected. Making AI the competition instead of recognizing it as a tool.

But here’s what I discovered. Our job isn’t to will the world into being what we want it to be.

The world is going to do what it does.

Our job is to see the world as it is and respond to that reality.

Identify your expectations and learn to let them go. We can’t control the future. We can only see clearly in the present and respond with curiosity instead of fear.

This mindset shift does away with the fear mindset and allows us to enjoy and see opportunity where we wouldn’t have before.

———————

What I’d Tell My Past Self (And You, If You’re Stuck)

I’d tell them what I wish someone had told me when I was paralyzed with fear.

AI isn’t here to replace your creativity—it’s here to show you how much creative capacity you actually have when you stop fighting and start creating.

Your voice matters.

Not because it’s exceptional or revolutionary or the only one saying these things.

It matters because it’s YOURS. The specific way YOU connect ideas, the particular lens through which YOU see the world, the unique expression that only YOU can create—that matters.

Stop guarding your thoughts like they’re so precious someone would steal them.

Instead, CREATE more. Express more. Use whatever tools help you get your vision out into the world faster and clearer.

And here’s the thing nobody tells you.

Creativity isn’t a gift that some people have and others don’t.

It’s a language. The language of nature. And nature is constantly adapting, always using new tools, always finding new ways to express itself.

Remember when the internet was supposed to kill books? Libraries? Human connection?

We survived that. We adapted. We found ways to use the internet to expand our creativity, not replace it.

We’ll survive AI too.

So lean into it. Believe in yourself more—not because you’re exceptional, but because your expression matters. Write for the joy of writing. Create for the act of creating.

Let AI be a tool, not a threat.

———————

The New Creative Reality We’re All Navigating

I’m starting to see AI doing what the internet did.

Expanding what’s possible.

Yes, predictions abound. Writing will become obsolete. Everyone will want real people, not AI. Everything is going video. There are supposedly more books on Amazon than people on the planet.

Funny—I still plan to write fiction.

I don’t use the AI detector anymore.

I still think for myself. If I read something and I like it, whoever put their name on it did good work. That’s enough for me.

Our creativity is more than a name on something.

It’s about digging deep in ourselves and putting our ideas together. It’s an expression of the beauty we see in the world reflected back from inside us.

Creativity is the language of nature.

And nature is adapting—always has been.

Maybe we should too.

Even if you’re on the leading edge of thinking in whatever you do, loosen up a little.

And if someone thinks your work is good enough to study with AI?

That’s a compliment, not a competition.

I can help you look at your anxiety to give yourself a successful start to the New Year.

Tarot Offer

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I drove past my old workplace recently.

Three year since I’d walked out. I quit without a backup plan.

And there it was again—that familiar feeling in my chest. The one that whispers. You weren’t good enough. That’s why they didn’t fight for you.

I wasn’t even planning to drive that route. But there I was, grumbling through my errands, taking the shortcut that happened to go right past the building where I’d spent nearly a decade of my life.

The building looked exactly the same. Nothing had changed on the outside.

But I had changed. And somehow, driving past it still brought up all the old questions.

The Barney Rubble Effect

For most of my life, I’ve been the sidekick.

The person walking in someone else’s shadow. The one who shows up, does the work, stays quiet, and watches others get the spotlight.

I couldn’t see my own worth—even when I had a decade of experience, the degree, the skills. Even when I could do things the person who replaced me couldn’t.

None of it mattered.

Management had already decided I wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping.

The person who took over my position? They had about a year of experience there. No degree. They couldn’t even do most of the physical work that the job required.

But they had something I didn’t. The ability to play the game. To cozy up to the right people. To never challenge, never question, never make waves.

I’ve never been good at that game.

Here’s what really happened at that job.

I had opinions. When I shared them, I got bullied until I agreed with the boss.

I believed in dialogue—that conflict could be a learning opportunity if we’d just sit down and talk. Miscommunications could be cleared up. That everyone could walk away a winner.

My managers? They believed in one winner. Them.

If you didn’t cozy up to the boss, you were on the losing side. I don’t cozy. I just don’t have it in me to perform that kind of compliance theater.

So I did what felt safer. I stopped replying. I went out of my way to avoid conflict.

Which, ironically, created more conflict. Because my silence was seen as insubordination. My refusal to engage in their game was interpreted as defiance.

I was treated like I couldn’t think for myself. Like I was machinery to be used until I broke down, then tossed aside when I was no longer convenient.

Driving past that building, running errands I didn’t want to run, all those old questions came flooding back.

Why didn’t my experience matter?

Why didn’t my value as an employee matter?

Why wasn’t I worth saving?

These weren’t new questions. They were the same ones I’d been asking my whole life, just wearing a different outfit.

The Pattern I Couldn’t See

This wasn’t new.

I’ve wondered about this my whole life. It feels like people give up on me too soon—like with a little conversation, a little clarification, I would have been a success.

But success in their terms always seemed to require me becoming someone I wasn’t.

There was a point in my youth when I felt even God and Jesus had given up on me.

I was looking for them to save me from what felt like evil all around me. I prayed. I waited. I believed that rescue was coming from somewhere outside myself.

Instead, I ended up saving myself.

That path taught me self-reliance. It showed me that I had more strength than I’d given myself credit for. It gave me the courage to eventually walk away from that job—to choose myself even when it meant walking into uncertainty.

I knew I was worth saving. Threatening me with a job I hated was the spark I needed to see the world on my own terms—outside the 9-5 culture that kept telling me who I should be.

But here’s the thing about old wounds. They don’t heal just because you made the right decision.

You can do the brave thing and still carry the doubt.

I had quit. I had chosen to leave. I knew it was right.

But the feeling of unworthiness stayed with me anyway.

It sat in my chest like a stone. It followed me through my days. It whispered in moments when I should have felt free.

As I fell asleep that night after driving past my old workplace, the feeling got stronger instead of weaker.

Like my subconscious was trying to tell me something I wasn’t ready to hear.

The Oracle Card That Changed Everything

The next morning, I woke up with a clarity I hadn’t felt before.

This wasn’t about the job. It was jealousy—jealousy that someone else was getting something I thought I deserved. Jealousy that they had been chosen and I hadn’t.

But underneath that jealousy was something deeper. A question I’d been too afraid to ask. What if I actually deserved better than what I’d been fighting for?

I pulled an oracle card from the deck I use for moments like this. Each card has a quote that usually answers whatever question I’m sitting with.

The quote I pulled stopped me cold:

I read it once. Then twice. Then a third time.

I almost fell to my knees in gratitude.

This bumped up my self-worth factor by a thousand. It shifted everything.

Because suddenly, I understood. Staying in that job would have been the real betrayal.

Not of them. Of myself. Of the gifts I’d been given.

What I had done—leaving that job, choosing myself, walking away from a place that diminished me—wasn’t just about survival.

It was sacred.

I was giving back by using the gifts I’d been given. By choosing to honor what was in my heart rather than staying in a place that slowly killed it.

The choices I’d made weren’t just brave. They were right. They were aligned.

All those months of processing the dark and sad feelings—the doubt, the unworthiness, the fear—had led me here. To this moment of knowing, deep in my bones, that I was exactly where I needed to be.

I was on the right path. Deep inside, I’d known it all along.

The oracle card just gave me permission to believe it.

What This Means for You

If you’ve ever felt like you weren’t worth saving—if you’ve stayed in places that dimmed your light because you were afraid no one would fight for you—let me tell you something.

You are worth saving.

And sometimes, you have to be the one who does it.

Not because others didn’t see your value. But because you needed to see it clearly enough to walk away from anything that made you doubt it.

The moment you honor what’s in your heart—when you use your gifts instead of hiding them to make others comfortable—you give back to something greater than yourself.

That’s not selfish. That’s sacred.

There will be days when the old feelings come back. When you drive past the place that didn’t choose you and wonder if you made a mistake.

When you question whether you gave up too easily. Whether you should have tried harder. Whether they were right about you all along.

But here’s what I’ve learned.

The mistake would have been staying.

The mistake would have been shrinking yourself down to fit into someone else’s vision of who you should be.

The mistake would have been dishonoring your gifts—your talents, your perspective, your unique way of seeing and being in the world—just to keep a job that made you feel worthless.

The real answer came when I stopped asking why wasn’t I worth saving and started asking what am I here to give?

That question changes everything.

Because when you’re asking why you weren’t worth saving, you’re giving your power away. You’re letting other people determine your value based on their limited vision of what you should be.

But when you ask what you’re here to give, you reclaim your power. You remember that your worth isn’t determined by who chose you or didn’t choose you. It’s determined by whether you’re honoring what’s alive in you.

Whether you’re using your gifts or burying them to make others comfortable.

Whether you’re living from your truth or performing someone else’s script.

What would change if you saw your courage to leave—or your desire to leave—as a sacred act rather than a failure?

What gifts are you being called to use that you’ve been holding back because someone made you feel like you weren’t good enough?

Sometimes the places that don’t fight for us are doing us the greatest favor. They’re forcing us to choose ourselves when we wouldn’t have had the courage otherwise.

You are worth saving. But sometimes, you have to be the one who does it.

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The Thanksgiving dinner torture begins.

Cooking and hosting the perfect dinner. Family you’re supposed to love because you share DNA. The grocery bill that could fund a small vacation.

All that work transforming what should be a celebration into an exhausting performance you’ll spend the weekend recovering from.

This is society’s answer for gratitude.

We spend hundreds on a single meal, then hours cooking it. We follow it up with Black Friday chaos, spend the weekend eating leftovers nobody wants, and return to work Monday already dreading December.

Simple.

I spent most of my life trapped in this pattern—from childhood into my 30s.

Going through motions because that’s what you do on Thanksgiving. Never once asking if this actually made me feel grateful.

—————

The Kitchen Memory

I never had to cook the big turkey for my family.

We always brought sides—green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, rolls that came from a can. The whole meal didn’t fall to one person, which was something.

My best Thanksgiving memories happened when I was 7 to 11 years old.

My family followed the patriarchal script—women prepare the meal while men sit and watch TV. My mom would get up early and start cooking the turkey. She was cooking for about 20 people most Thanksgivings.

We rotated houses so the same person wouldn’t have to host year after year.

Somehow the women still did all the work regardless of whose house we were in.

Sitting in the kitchen with the women while they worked on dinner was amazing.

We had three generations present. It was casual talk, mostly about what was going on in their lives. My grandmother’s stories. My mom orchestrating everything. My aunts offering advice and gossip.

The sound of women’s voices rising and falling with laughter punctuating the chopping and stirring. I didn’t always like everyone in the room, but we were bonding.

The turkey was just the excuse.

The real feast was connection.

Those mornings in the kitchen taught me more about being human than the actual dinner ever did.

—————

The Slow Fade

But naturally, as time went by, families grew apart.

People moved for jobs. Marriages ended. Old grievances that had been buried under mashed potatoes finally surfaced.

There were no more big family Thanksgivings.

I would dutifully show up for the gatherings that remained, but my heart wasn’t in it.

It was the same thing every year.

Make dinner, overeat to the point of discomfort, go home to stare at the TV for the rest of the weekend. The connection I remembered from childhood was gone. We were going through motions, following a script because that’s what you do on the fourth Thursday in November.

Eventually I moved away from my family.

It was just my husband and myself.

The turkeys got smaller over the years as I got tired of eating leftover turkey in May.

(I’m not exaggerating—we’d still have frozen turkey soup when spring arrived.) I cut down on the sides because we never ended up eating them all. They’d sit in Tupperware containers in the fridge, little monuments to good intentions and food waste.

But the same pattern always happened.

I would get up knowing I had at least an afternoon ahead of me cooking.

Hubby was always a great help and we did it together. That was probably my favorite part of the holiday—working side by side, making something together.

Even if what we were making was something neither of us really wanted.

I like some turkey left over because turkey sandwiches are to die for.

But hubby and I like different parts of the bird, which meant someone was always disappointed.

We were performing gratitude instead of feeling it.

—————

The Question That Changed Everything

This year, at the beginning of November, I asked myself a simple question: Why?

Why was I doing this? Not the surface answer—because it’s Thanksgiving, because that’s what you do, because everyone else does it.

But the real why, the one that actually mattered.

I felt gratitude in me throughout the month.

Real gratitude, not performed gratitude. I smile and feel my heart greet the universe with happiness and joy because I am genuinely grateful for my life.

For the work I get to do.

For the person I’ve become. For the relationship I’ve built with my husband that’s based on genuine partnership, not obligation.

I just wasn’t going to be stuck with another commercial dinner that left me exhausted instead of nourished.

If I was going to celebrate gratitude, why not spend the day doing what I actually enjoyed?

Why not eat my favorite foods? Why not create a celebration that reflected who I am now instead of who society says I should be?

So that’s what I decided to do.

—————

The Taco Revolution

We all joke about how much we love tacos.

They’re actually one of my favorite foods—easy to make, endlessly variable, and satisfying in a way that turkey never quite manages. I enjoy making them and I enjoy eating them.

I can make fish tacos with lime and cilantro.

Or carnitas with all the fixings. Or keep it simple with seasoned ground beef and let everyone build their own perfect combination.

I take joy in choosing exactly what I want.

The food always tastes better when you’re making it from genuine desire rather than obligation.

There’s something sacred about cooking food you actually want to eat, for people who actually want to be there.

No performance. No pretending.

Just real food and real connection.

—————

What I’m Really Celebrating

I can spend time communicating with my loved ones—or spending time loving myself first.

I’m proud of all I’ve accomplished this year.

I love giving myself rest and healing instead of stress and performance anxiety over whether the turkey will be done on time or if there’s enough stuffing.

I’ll communicate with family, but more importantly, I’ll communicate with my chosen family.

The people I love who make my life richer. It doesn’t matter whether they share DNA with me or not. I just surround myself with really great people who see me, celebrate me, and let me do the same for them.

These are the people who’ve shown up for me.

Who’ve laughed with me over failures and cheered for my wins. Who don’t need a holiday to tell me they care, but who make holidays feel genuine when we celebrate together.

I made this decision at the beginning of the month, and it’s transformed my entire relationship with November.

This whole month has been one of gratitude—not just one Thursday surrounded by obligation and overeating.

—————

Your Permission Slip

Maybe you can throw away the turkey and have your favorite foods too.

What would your own day of gratitude look like if you stopped performing and started choosing?

If you honored what actually brings you joy instead of what you’re supposed to do?

Maybe you love the traditional dinner—the ritual of it, the comfort of familiar flavors, the satisfaction of mastering that perfect turkey.

If that’s true, beautiful.

At least you’re honest with yourself about what you want.

But if you’re like me—going through motions year after year, wondering why this celebration of gratitude leaves you depleted instead of nourished—maybe it’s time to ask different questions.

What would you eat if no one was watching?

Who would you spend time with if obligation wasn’t a factor?

How would you celebrate if you were designing it from scratch, based on what actually fills you with gratitude?

It might be worth finding out.

—————

Whatever you end up doing, I hope it’s a joy-filled day full of real gratitude.

Not the kind that comes with exhaustion and resentment, but the kind that fills you up and spills over. The kind that makes you excited rather than anxious. The kind that nourishes rather than depletes.

We have much to be thankful for.

Give the world your joy by doing what fills you with joy.

And you might find tacos on your menu as well.

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I’ve been hiding.

Not from you—from myself.

For months, I’ve been writing under this vague umbrella of “Transform Your Perspective”. I thought if I stayed generic enough, I could help everyone while keeping the real me safely tucked away.

But here’s what I realized at 3 AM last week when fear had me by the throat.

You can’t help anyone from behind a mask.

The Middle-of-the-Night Truth

Let me tell you what really happens when you try to build something authentic.

Fear shows up. Not occasionally—constantly.

The more truthful steps I take, the more fear multiplies. It’s exponential. I wake up heart pounding, mind racing through every reason this is a terrible idea.

Every bold move gets its own horror story complete with a cast of characters I know intimately.

Fear (the lead), Anxiety (close second), with supporting roles from Doubt, Worry, and that old friend “Who Do You Think You Are?”

They write elaborate fiction about my inevitable failure.

I’ve lost count of sleepless nights. I joke that you can sleep when you’re dead—a holdover from my college days of cramming for exams with coffee the size of a small pot.

But this is different.

This isn’t studying for tests. This is betting on myself while my brain screams that I’m delusional.

The Confession I’ve Been Avoiding

I tried to be an expert on change. I positioned myself as someone who had this figured out.

But I’m not a therapist. I’m not done transforming. I’m in the middle of it—right now, today, this moment.

The truth? I’m a spiritual person.

There. I said it.

For months, I’ve been calling spirit “our connection to reality” because I wanted to appeal to everyone. I didn’t want to be seen as one of those spiritual people.

Now I don’t care.

Want to know what’s funny? AI analyzed my writing and called me a “spiritually reformed skeptic.”

I love that even more than my carefully crafted generic positioning.

Why I’m Actually Skeptical

I’ve done decades of spiritual practices. Some work. Most don’t—at least not the way they’re taught.

Here’s why I’m skeptical. Most of this can’t be directly proven. I have circumstantial evidence. Indirect proof. Patterns I can’t ignore.

But here’s the thing about circumstantial evidence—it’s all your mind has.

Nothing in reality can actually be proven. Your eyes reverse light so your brain can process it. We take in 11 million bits of sensory input per second but can only process 40-50 bits.

Our entire reality is determined by a tiny sliver of available information.

This is how fear is born.

Our brains evolved to compare current input against past situations. Otherwise, the saber-tooth tiger would have gotten us.

This same survival mechanism now hijacks modern life, turning every bold move into a life-or-death scenario.

The Practice I’ve Been Hiding

Full confession mode. I read tarot cards.

It’s probably my strongest spiritual practice. Decades in the making. I’m done hiding it.

I’m not talking fortune-telling. I use the cards for self-understanding, for seeing patterns my conscious mind misses, for accessing intuition beneath all the noise.

Does this sound woo-woo? Probably.

Do I care anymore? No.

Because this is about me. Not about performing some acceptable version of spirituality for your approval.

What This Means For You

So what’s in all this for you?

Fear doesn’t have to rule your life.

I think of fear as my arch nemesis. The bigger the enemy you take on, the larger you become to meet it.

All of us have a really large life to live. Fear is what hides it from us. It hides who we really are behind smoke and illusion.

I have some tricks to outsmart it. Sometimes it gets me—until I turn the tables and see it for what it really is. Stories my evolved brain tells to keep me safe from dangers that no longer exist.

This will be an ongoing journey until I die.

I don’t have all the answers. You probably have some too.

Maybe we can share.

The Real Invitation

Even if we just get together to share stories. To know you’re not alone. To make sure no one gets left behind.

If this doesn’t sound like a journey you want to make, I understand. Please unsubscribe with my full support.

But if you’re staying, know this.

I want to talk to people who want to challenge fear. Who are willing to question everything—including popular spiritual wisdom. Who understand that transformation is messy and non-linear.

I can promise I might not agree with all your life choices, and you won’t agree with all mine.

We can share our truths anyway. No one has a corner on absolute truth. But we all have pieces of it.

One truth I know for certain. This can no longer be “Transform Your Perspective.”

It’s time to come out of the shadows and claim what this really is.

Welcome to Fearless Mindset.

This is where the real work begins.

What fear are you ready to face? Reply and tell me—I read every response.

If you’re thinking “this is too intense for me”—good. That means you’re paying attention to your own boundaries. Honor that.

If you’re thinking “finally, someone who gets it”—welcome home. Let’s do this together.