A father's equinox reflection on an eighteen-year chapter closing, and what's left to hold onto when you stop trying to control the current. Well here we are at the equinox again. I always find this to be an interesting time where a natural pause moves in and I'm inclined towards a little reflection. The energy of Summer is full and robust. There is a vitality and a whooshing of momentum, like navigating a brisk rapids on the river. I stay in the flow of things, move through

Learning to read your own early signals, and adjusting one small step at a time. We have walked through some heavy places together in these pieces. The loop, the loss of self, the long climb back. I wanted to end here, in the Light, because this is where the story actually lives now, and because I think it is the most useful thing I can leave you with. There are two parts to it. The first is learning to catch the early tells. The second is learning to grow towards what gives

**Grainy long exposure photo of our group atop a sand dune in Morroco at night. Sovereignty is not isolation. Why we find stability in the presence of others. In our last blog I mentioned the phrase "nobody is coming to save you." This time I want to dive into the other layers, the more enriched and complete version of the journey. It's simple: you are the author of your own life. And you were never meant to do it alone. Both of these are true at once, two complete concepts b

On finding what actually works for you, and owning the authority over your life. I want to share with you one of the most painful, freeing, and empowering concepts that I learned, and I want to say it plainly, because softening it would rob it of that power. Nobody is coming to save you. I know how that can sound. It feels cold and distant on the page. But this is the exact realization that propelled me forward, fueled my charge to feel better, pushed me outside of my comfort

Why you cannot think your way out of a worry loop, and what actually sets you free. You have heard a little of my story now. The parade of sticky thoughts, the worry loops that would not let go, the OCD that slithered through my mind. This piece is about the machinery, the mental tendencies and patterns, because many of them run in almost everyone, just at different volumes. Let’s start with the thing nobody tells you. Rumination feels like problem-solving. That is what makes

The story underneath the practices, the hardest and most transformational thing I have lived, and how we came to what actually works. You have mostly heard from Bob in this space. This time it is me, Thomasina. This is the most personal piece I have written for you. It is also the most difficult, and the most transformational experience I have lived through. Thank you for reading it, for sitting with the layers, and for letting me introduce myself, and us, a little more openl

The quiet turn beneath the map, and the one who was here the whole time. These past two weeks we have been busy, in the gentlest sense of the word. We learned to see the map of you as a map, and then we learned how to revise it, widening the record until the story of self becomes more robust. That work is good, and it is worth continuing for as long as you live. And this week we want to point at something that is almost its opposite. Because underneath the whole project of be

Why real change runs inside out, and how the map of self gets redrawn. Think of the last time you set out to change something about yourself. Chances are you started with behavior. A new routine, a new rule, a promise made in the second week of January or on the quiet drive home from a hard conversation. And chances are it held for a while, on effort alone, the way you can hold a door shut against the wind. Then came one tired Tuesday, the effort lapsed, the old way was right

On who you take yourself to be, and where it came from. If you've been reading the summer series with us these past weeks, you now have some familiar vocabulary for the inner life. We untangled the knot of experience so we could closely understand each strand. A thought is not a sensation. A feeling is not the story the mind wraps around it. Attention is not awareness. And through all that watching, one thing sat quietly in the corner, never questioned, never really examined.

On the discomfort of the unknown, and the relief of not needing every answer. We’ve all experienced those nights where we just cannot get the mind to stand down. Something is unresolved. A conversation that did not land right, a decision you cannot yet make, a result you are waiting on. You turn it over and over, looking for the angle that will finally let you put it down. But the information is not there, the answer has not arrived, and still the mind keeps reaching, because

On how the inner life feeds on itself, and how attention is where you break the cycle. Picture a moment that did not go your way. A message lands wrong, or a conversation turns, and within a few seconds a great deal is happening all at once. There is a heat in the chest or a drop in the stomach. There is a wave of hurt or anger or fear. (Or all three!) There is a story running about what they mean… and what it says about you… and what you will do next. Your attention narrows

On the felt thing in the middle, and the two things that arrive with it but are not it. You glance at your phone. A short message, a few words, no warmth in them. Before you have consciously decided anything, your chest tightens, your stomach drops. You feel it. On top of that, a story is already running. What did they mean by that? Did I do something? You go back and reread the message you just sent, trying to work out how they might be taking it. Here we go again. Thirty se

On the body's direct contact with the world, and the layer of experience that is happening before we name it. Right now, whether you have noticed it or not, something is touching you. The chair is holding your weight, or the floor is pressing up through your feet. There is fabric against your skin. The air in the room has a temperature, and your skin is reporting it. None of this stopped while you were reading. It was all happening the entire time, below the level of notice,

On the most familiar kind of content, and how easy it is to mistake it for the whole of who we are. You are driving, or walking, or standing in the shower, and you notice that an argument is underway. Someone said a thing. You are responding. They are countering. You have a better line ready this time. There is heat in it. The only odd detail is that none of this is happening. The other person is not here. The conversation has not occurred, and may never occur. And yet for a

On the difference between the space where experience happens and the things that happen in it. A thought arises as you read this sentence. Perhaps a thought about whether you agree with what you are reading. Perhaps a thought about what to make for dinner. Perhaps just a stray observation about the room you are in. Whatever it is, notice that it arose. The very act of noticing a thought also indicates that there is a "something" doing the noticing. Something that is not the t

On the act of directing your awareness, and what it is not. You are standing at the kitchen counter waiting for the kettle to boil. Your eyes dash around. They are on the kettle, the dishes in the sink, yesterday's mail on the counter. Your hand is resting on the counter. The kettle has yet to whistle. In this moment, where is your attention? For many of us it is somewhere else entirely. It is on what happened earlier. It is on what is coming next. It is on the conversation y

On the words we don't have for what is happening inside us, and why having them matters. It's 3am. You wake up with a feeling. You are not sure what it is. Is it anxiousness? Are you scared? Is it just that your bedroom is too hot? The mind, always at the ready to provide an explanation, gets to work immediately. It offers narratives that fit the limited data it has. Maybe it was that conversation yesterday. Maybe it's the thing at work. Maybe it's something old, something de

On the radio program we live inside, the sovereignty of attention, and the practice of placing awareness on the life that is actually here. Most of us spend our days with our attention glued to the thoughts in our head. There is a near-constant narration running underneath everything. A voice describing what is happening, anticipating what will happen, replaying what already happened, judging it all on the way through. The mind is a useful tool. But often it can also be an en

On what to do with understanding that hasn't yet become change. There is a specific feeling that arrives, often quietly, somewhere along the way while you are paying attention to your own life. You read the book. You listened to the podcast. You had the conversation that finally named the thing you had been circling for years. Maybe you have had a few of these moments by now. Each one feels important. Each one brings something new to the surface. And then time passes. You ret

On knowing the character you wear, and bringing all of yourself into coherence with it. We have explored the idea that the self you walk around in every day is more like a costume than a fixed truth. Something worn by a much larger mystery. That idea can land as liberating or a little unsettling, depending on where you catch it. But either way, it raises a question worth sitting with seriously: if it's a costume, are you wearing it well? Most of us have a character. We develo