What did I learn today? Lessons on the Journey to Unconditional Self Love

  On Saturday I ran a 5k race. Not my first 5k , but the first time I ever ran one in the full blaze of the afternoon sun. Over 30 degrees. No breeze. No mercy. I usually run early, before the sun wakes up, when the world is still cool and quiet. So when I heard this race was happening during the day, I resisted. For a whole week I told myself, and anyone who asked, “That sun? Not me, papa. I will miss out on this one But something in me shifted. I wanted to do something small that reminded me: I can still do hard things.   Not dramatic things. Not life‑changing things. Just something that nudges me outside the comfort zone and says, “You’re still here. You’re still capable.” So I signed up. And just as I expected, the day was scorching. The kind of heat that makes you question your life choices. When I arrived, everyone else seemed pumped up, excited, ready. I kept looking around thinking, “Are they not feeling this sun? Is it only me?” The race started. I set one intent...

  Over the past few days, I’ve been struggling with the feeling of being lost . Presently, I’m in between contracts. Waiting on the word to resume work. I paused events for a bit. And suddenly my calendar , usually full, buzzing, purposeful hadd one lonely item on it: boxing . I actually chuckled when I saw it. Because I’ve grown so accustomed to working, doing, moving, producing, showing up, filling every hour with something that looks like progress. And here I was, staring at a day with nothing but gloves and a punching bag. What do I do now? That question surprised me. Not because I didn’t know what to do, but because I didn’t know how to be when there was nothing to do. This break which is partly chosen, partly given, left me feeling unanchored. And instead of rushing to fill the space, I decided to observe myself. What I noticed was… interesting. My conditioning told me that being bored is for kids. That adults should be productive. That maybe I was being lazy. That maybe I...

September arrives with a reminder I didn’t know I needed: Fun is not a reward,  it is one of my tools of spiritual practice. For a long time, I carried this quiet belief that joy must be earned. That fun comes after the hard work, after the discipline, after the proving. As if pleasure was something I had to qualify for. As if ease was only allowed once I had done enough. But life has been teaching me differently. Fun is not the opposite of seriousness , it is the companion of creativity. Fun is not a distraction , it is a doorway. Fun is not childish , it is liberating. When I allow myself to laugh loudly, to move freely, to be spontaneous, something shifts inside me. My spirit opens. My mind softens. My heart remembers that I am more than my responsibilities. And in that spaciousness, new ideas arrive. Humility arrives. Courage arrives. The willingness to try again, try differently, try with joy arrives. Fun is spiritual because it brings me back to myself. It reminds me that abu...

There’s a question David Hawkins asks in Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender that has been sitting with me lately: Can I feel what I feel without allowing the feeling to control what I do? If you had asked me this last week, I would have said no. Not because I don’t want to grow, but because when I observe myself honestly, I see the patterns. I see the ways I try to escape the intensity of my own emotions. For me, it’s usually one of three things: food, isolation, or doom scrolling.    My holy trinity of avoidance. When a feeling comes up that I don’t want to face, I reach for something , anything , that will distract me from the discomfort.  And I’ve learned something about myself in that cycle: no feel, no deal, no heal. If I don’t allow myself to feel it, I can’t deal with it. And if I don’t deal with it, I definitely can’t heal it. Avoidance has many costumes. Sometimes it looks like depending on something. Sometimes it looks like cutting someone off. Sometimes i...

  Alicia M. Rodriguez says, “The mind is a skilled negotiator… The body is a ledger.”   I didn’t fully understand that until my own body staged a quiet rebellion. The mind can declare a matter closed. It can say, I’ve processed that.   It can produce evidence , the therapy sessions, the journaling, the books read, the years that passed, the calm composure at the dinner table. The mind is brilliant at convincing us that we have moved on. But the body… The body does not negotiate. The body does not perform. The body simply records. For a long time, this was just a concept to me , something people said in healing circles, something I skimmed past in books. Then came the shoulder injury. Bizarre, stubborn, unexplainable. I did everything: physio, therapy, rest, stretching, strengthening. I stopped driving. I stopped running. I stopped doing the things that made me feel like myself. And still, the pain stayed. It lived in me like a tenant refusing eviction. I read Th...

I’m learning, more and more, that thoughts are choices. They are small, powerful decisions happening in the background of our lives. And if I’m not paying attention, those choices can quietly steer me into places I no longer want to live in, old patterns, old fears, old stories that sabotage my growth. But when I notice a thought ,truly recognise it, something shifts. Recognition is the first doorway to healing and change. It’s the moment where I stop sleepwalking and start consciously participating in my own life again. Someone said to me recently, “Thoughts are choices.” And it landed. Because it means I am not helpless in the face of my mind. I am not at the mercy of old conditioning. I can choose to replace what is unhealthy with what is loving, forward-moving, and true. I can choose to interrupt the spiral and affirm something different. Something aligned. Carolyn Myss puts it beautifully:  “As spiritual adults we accept responsibility for co-creating our lives and our he...