Shadow Life

Living the Shadow  Life means owning the WHOLE of yourself so you can grow real and live your best life.

The Shadow Dance: Reclaiming Your Unlived Life

/////

The Ego and the Shadow Self are In Constant Conflict: This is the SHADOW DANCE

Most of us are living what Thoreau described as “Lives of quiet desperation” – this is because we’re ‘living’ and acting out a version of ourselves that is, at best, a fragmented fraction of who we really are in wholeness:

We wear masks, we suppress certain parts of ourselves, and we become tangled in a never-ending dance between who we think we are (Ego) and who we’ve buried in the Shadow Territory (the real self we abandoned along the way because of shame, guilt, and/or trauma – check out Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World to go deeper).

This dance – which I like to call the Shadow Dance – is the internal struggle that stops us from fully stepping into our REALNESS – those most alive and purpose-driven version of who we actually are in TRUTH.

If you feel restless, ‘stuck’, or just generally full of friction and frustration – because things never seem to go ‘right’ – then here’s the uncomfortable truth that will ultimately ‘save’ you (help you get back on the track towards wholeness):

Everything you truly want, everything that would you feel whole, everything that would bring you back to a sense of deep alignment, is hidden in the SHADOW TERRITORY.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

How We Lose Ourselves in the Shadow Dance

Let’s break it down to understand how we end up in this situation:

  1. We are born real and connected to wholeness.
    As children, we don’t overthink our actions – we just are. We express freely, feel deeply, and move through life without the weight of self-judgement or societal expectations.
  2. Something happens that causes us to feel shame.
    It could be trauma, rejection, criticism, or simply an experience that makes us believe that who we are isn’t fully acceptable and causes us to feel SHAME (the most common cause of this inner split). At that moment, fragmentation begins and we start to act, feel, and/or think as other than we actually are in TRUTH.
  3. Parts of us get sent into hiding.
    Maybe we were told we were “too much” or “too sensitive” or “too wild” – whatever the case, we start suppressing these real parts of ourselves (both ‘good’ and ‘bad’), locking them away in the Shadow Territory where they remain unseen but never go anywhere because what’s real is always real.
  4. We create a mask to survive.
    In response to this fragmentation, we construct an identity – an ego– that is shaped by external approval rather than internal truth. We become what we think we need to be to fit in, to be loved, to stay safe.
  5. We identify with the mask, and the Shadow Dance begins.
    At this point, we’ve forgotten that the mask is just a survival mechanism. We think it’s who we really are. Underneath, though, there’s always a tension – a friction between the ego we show the world and the shadow self we’ve rejected.

This dance between ego and shadow is exhausting and can totally derail our lives – it keeps us playing small, living half-truths, and wondering why we feel unfulfilled, stuck, or disconnected from life.

The reason is simple: we are disconnected from life and so we need to find our way back so we can close the Void.

Why We Fear Our Shadow Self (Even Though It Holds Our Freedom)

Most of us avoid our shadow because we assume it only contains pain, shame, and darkness and, while those things might be buried in there, they’re not the full story. In fact, our greatest gifts are also locked away in the shadow:

  • Our creativity (suppressed because we were told it wasn’t practical)
  • Our real emotions (buried because they were “too much”)
  • Our authentic desires (hidden because they didn’t fit into the expectations placed on us)
  • Our power and energy (diluted because it made others uncomfortable)
  • Our connection to God, truth, and flow (ignored because we prioritised external validation over inner knowing)
  • Our ability to TRUST ourselves and life and get the REAL results we want (ignored because we grew up in a cynical world and trust is seen as being impractical).
  • Etc. Etc. Etc.

Everything we yearn for in life – passion, depth, meaning – is waiting for us in the shadows but to access it, we need to stop protecting the ego’s illusion of safety and start trusting the process of real integration.

Here’s how you can start to do so:

Breaking Free: How to Step Out of the Shadow Dance

How do we stop running from our realness and reclaim the unlived life we abandoned along the way?

1. Recognise When You’re ‘Protecting’ the Ego

The ego’s job is to keep us comfortable and so it avoids anything that threatens its identity (this is why certain events can ‘trigger’ or ‘activate’ people). The problem is, real growth is uncomfortable and so if we only listen to the ego, we’ll never evolve.

The short-version is that the ego takes us out of reality because it’s the opposite of reality. If we want results, then we need to flip this on its head because the only place we can get results is…reality.

Start paying attention to when you’re defending yourself, making excuses, or resisting change – more often than not, these are moments when the shadow is knocking at the door and you’re refusing to answer because you’re not making conscious choices but being prompted by the old conditioning of ego.

Ask yourself:

  • Am I avoiding something because it challenges who I think I am?
  • Am I afraid of stepping into something bigger but, ultimately, better for me?
  • Am I staying small because it feels ‘safer’ despite what I know I really want?

2. Reclaim the ‘Parts’ of You That Were Sent into Hiding

What did you love as a child but abandon as you grew up? What aspects of yourself have you suppressed out of fear of judgement?

A powerful exercise: Make a list of qualities, desires, and interests that you’ve ignored or denied then, ask yourself:

  • Where did this suppression start?
  • Who does this suppression benefit (if it’s not ‘You’ then you need to make a change and grow real)?
  • What would happen if I allowed this ‘part’ of me to resurface?
  • How can I start integrating this into my life again by taking REAL ACTION?

For example, if you used to be wildly creative but shut it down because it wasn’t ‘practical’ or ‘useful’, then start creating again – not for external success or validation but simply because doing so is REAL to you.

3. Merge Past, Present, and Future into One Flowing Reality

True integration happens when we bring together who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming into one seamless, flowing experience of REAL life.

  • The past: Instead of avoiding old wounds, integrate them – face them, process them, and see them as part of who you are in wholeness rather than a reason to remain fragmented.
  • The present: Live moment to moment, responding to reality as it unfolds instead of reacting from old patterns which are always EGO.
  • The future: Use your vision as a compass – not something to obsess over, but something that creates a healthy tension that pulls you forward while keeping you in flow.

When we do this, we stop being at war with ourselves and can stop the Shadow Dance from pulling us to pieces – instead, we move with life rather than against it.

4. Let Go of the Fear and Just Trust the Process

Everything we’re looking for is on the other side of letting go:

Letting go of old identities, letting go of ego-driven fears, letting go of the belief that staying safe is more important than being real (though, paradoxically, your REALNESS is the safest thing in the universe).

If you keep letting go, then eventually you’ll find the TRUTH – this is a fact. If you don’t feel stable within yourself, then it means there’s something to let go of that’s keeping you from your REALNESS. Letting go in this way takes TRUST but you will always find what you want in the end.

Despite popular misconceptions, trust of this kind isn’t passive – it’s an active surrender to the process of unfolding. The more we trust, the more we flow; the more we flow, the more we reclaim the energy we’ve buried in the Shadow Territory and can start to live our real life.

This also brings more energy because we no longer have to keep fighting reality and feeding into our illusions (ego) – and the more energy we reclaim, the more alive we become.

Final Thoughts: Living the Life That’s Really Yours

Your REAL, unlived life isn’t lost – it’s just waiting for you in the shadows. The version of you that feels whole, powerful, creative, and deeply connected is still there, beneath the layers of ego and F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real”).

The choice is always there: stay ‘safe’ in the illusion or step into realness.

Stay real out there,

Check out Shadow Life: Freedom From BS in an Unreal World to go much deeper into the Shadow Dance and what you can do about it.

Unconscious Conscious Superconscious: The Call to Integration and WHOLENESS

/////

When an Idea Won’t Let Go the GO WITH IT

There’s something thrilling about an idea that just won’t leave you alone – one moment, it’s a fleeting thought, barely graspable; the next, it’s gripping you by the collar, demanding attention, rearranging your life, and reshaping how you see yourself, the world, and reality itself.

When this happens, it’s more than just inspiration – it’s a call:

A call from the depths of your unconscious, and in the highest cases, from something even greater – the Superconscious, the Universal Mind, the Ether, whatever name you want to give it…that something that we all know is where we long to return because – deep down – we all know that it’s REAL.

When these ideas start to break through, we have a choice:

We can ignore them, try to push them back down, pretend we didn’t hear or we can listen, surrender, and trust the process. The first of these option always leads us more deeply into the EGO; the second allows us to face the SHADOW SELF and whatever we’ve been ‘hiding’ as we let this idea take us back to where we belong: a state of WHOLENESS.

But here’s the thing whichever option you CHOOSE:

If the idea is REAL, there is no stopping it.

The Ideas That ‘Choose’ You

Think about the moments when something truly creative, meaningful, or transformative has entered your life – it might have been a book you suddenly felt compelled to write, a project you needed to complete, or a truth about yourself that refused to stay hidden and so you decided to pull on the thread and unravel yourself (or, more accurately, your ego).

In many cases, these aren’t just passing whims but invitations – to grow, to express, to evolve into something more REAL.

Most recently, I’ve felt this myself with my latest book, TRUST, and before that with the Flow Builder Journal. Both started as whispers – faint but persistent…then they became obsessions.

Before I knew it, I had no choice but to follow them to completion (if I wanted to accept myself and not have to spend all day wrestling in my mind).

That’s the nature of real ideas. They come when the time is right, when some unconscious ‘thing’ inside you is ready to be made conscious.

And that’s why ignoring them doesn’t work – because the ‘stuff’ that’s ‘down’ there is often some of the realest ‘stuff’ about you… it’s just been hidden because of the great Shadow Dance between the Ego and the Shadow but – when the time is right – and it sees some cracks to send some light through to the surface of your life, well, it’s just gonna come bursting through so you better be ready.

The Conscious, Unconscious, and Superconscious Minds

Every person carries an unconscious mind, full of forgotten experiences, suppressed emotions, and unprocessed fragments of the self. Carl Jung called this the Shadow – the parts of us we’ve rejected or buried because of underlying shame, guilt, and/or trauma (that’s how I see it, anyway, and talk about in my book Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World).

When an idea emerges from the unconscious, it’s often because something REAL but hidden deep inside you is ready to be integrated.

You might not even realise it at first, but that creative urge, that itch to start something new, is more than just self-expression – it’s an attempt to bring wholeness back to yourself so you can become the real human being you were meant to be (instead of the idea of one that you may currently be identifying with).

In the highest cases, these ideas don’t just come from your personal unconscious, but from something even greater – the Superconscious, the Universal Intelligence, the deeper flow of life. This is rare but people often confuse the unconscious becoming conscious for this (I’ll write a post about how to tell the difference in the future – it’s also in my book TRUST).

When this happens, you’re not just expressing something personal – you’re bringing something into the world that’s needed to make not just yourself more REAL but the world more REAL too.

Trusting the Process: Why Resistance Leads to Frustration

The short-version of all this is that if a REAL idea comes through you, it’s because you’re the right person for it because you’re at the right place in your relationship with yourself for it to be realised. It really couldn’t come at any other time because it’s appearance depends on you being open enough to yourself to let it arise.

The problem is that the mind often resists because it’s in the service of the Ego.

This is made even more complicated because real ideas require commitment and commitment to something real is always perceived as a threat by the Ego (because the ego is unreal and the opposite of reality).

Real ideas shake up routines; they demand energy. They take you into the unknown – away from the familiar sense of ‘order’ and control’ that the Ego has carved out for you – and they force you to confront the parts of yourself that might rather stay hidden (which will dissolve the Ego once faced as the Ego only exists as a reaction to avoiding these parts and keeping them locked in the Shadow Territory).

But resisting these ideas leads to one thing: frustration.

When you try to push them down, they’ll just keep resurfacing. If you try to ignore them, then you’ll feel the unexplainable tension of the Void. This is basically because your unconscious is trying to give you something – the gift of your own realness – and you’re refusing to accept it.

This is why the only real choice is to trust and let go.

Integration: The Healing Power of Following an Idea

Following these ideas isn’t just about creativity – it’s about healing (and healing literally just means returning to WHOLENESS instead of fragmentation –“The word “healthy” comes from the Old English word hāl, which means “wholeness, being whole or sound”).

Anytime you commit to a REAL idea that’s breaking through, you’re allowing something unconscious to become conscious – you’re integrating a missing piece of yourself.

Jung believed that psychological healing happens through a process of individuation – bringing together the fragmented aspects of the self into a cohesive, whole identity.

When you follow an idea that’s calling you, you’re doing exactly that.

You’re taking something that was once hidden and making it real. As you do this, you allow some of those Shadow ‘parts’ of yourself to return to where they belong and to play a conscious role in your life so you can become WHOLE again.

You’re merging your unconscious drives, your conscious mind, and – if you’re truly receptive and the time is right- something greater than both.

What we’re talking about is the difference between chasing ideas and being chosen by an idea:

When you chase ideas, you’re often acting from a fragmented place – trying to prove something, trying to force creativity, trying to control outcomes. All of this just comes from ego rather than from your REALNESS.

On the other hand, when an idea ‘chooses’ you, it’s coming from the deeper layers of your mind, from the ‘part’ of you that knows what you need before you do.

Practical Application: How to Know When an Idea Is Real

So how do you know when an idea is REAL?

How do you separate the passing whimsy of ego from something that truly needs to be followed through to completion and integration?

Here are a few signs:

1. It won’t leave you alone

Real ideas don’t just come and go – they persist because the Shadow Self may start whispering for your attention but will start screaming for it the longer you go without listening. You might try to ignore them, but they’ll resurface again and again in different ways (including being projected ‘out’ as signs and symbols in the world).

2. It excites you and scares you at the same time

Real ideas stretch you. They force you to grow and that can be uncomfortable. If an idea lights you up but also makes you nervous, it’s probably real becuase it’s going to take you out of your comfort zone, stretch you beyond your edge, and show you who your really are.

3. It feels like it’s ‘choosing’ you – not the other way around

You don’t force a real idea – it finds you by flowing to you. You might not even know where it came from, but suddenly, it’s there, demanding attention and – upon closer examination – following it and flowing with it is the most natural thing in the world given where you find yourself at the time.

4. It connects to something deeper

A real idea isn’t just about external success or validation (ego) – it connects to your values, your truth, and your personal evolution (realness).

5. It feels inevitable

When a real idea takes hold, it feels like there’s no other choice – even if you resist at first, deep down, you know you’re going to follow it. More than that, you know that you’re going to COMPLETE it because you can trust the process until it’s DONE.

How to Follow the Idea Without Ego Resistance or Distortion

Once you know an idea is real, the next step is to follow it without unnecessary ego resistance or distortion.

Here’s how:

1. Commit to the journey

Accept that this idea is here for a reason and decide to follow it – even if it takes time, even if it’s inconvenient, commit to seeing it through.

2. Trust that it will unfold in the right way

You don’t need to force it but to FLOW with it. The idea has a life of its own and – if you stay receptive – it will lead you where it needs to go (which is more life of your own).

3. Let go of perfectionism

Don’t overthink or try to control every detail. The idea isn’t asking for perfection – it’s asking for expression through you and your realness.

4. Allow your routine to shift

Real ideas require space so be willing to adjust your habits to give it the time and energy it needs.

5. Stay connected to your WHY

Remember why this idea matters – connect it to your deeper values and personal growth and the process of the UNCONSCIOUS BECOMING CONSCIOUS so that you can become more whole (though you can always go deeper).

Conclusion: Go With It – There’s No Choice Anyway

When a REAL idea comes through, it’s not just a passing thought – it’s a process of evolution that will leave you changed forever once you’ve seen it through to completion.

It’s something breaking through the unconscious demanding to be made real and – if it’s coming through you – then you’re the one ‘meant’ to bring it to life.

There’s no need to resist; there’s no need to second-guess; there’s no need to force.

Just let go, trust, and follow it where it leads.

Because at the end of the day, there’s no choice, really. The idea has already chosen you.

Stay real out there,

The Unreal Mind Games People Play: Understanding ‘Gamey’ Behaviour as a Survival Mechanism

////

Hurt People Hurt People

Ever noticed how some people seem to play unnecessary, manipulative, or confusing ‘games’ with you for seemingly no logical or rational reason?

For example, maybe they drop passive-aggressive comments, create unnecessary drama, or try to control situations in ways that feel unnatural – it can really flabber your gasters.

Here’s something I learned that helped me not to get sucked into these kinds of ‘games’:

The unreal games people play often seem very real to them (even though they’re not).

That’s because these behaviours aren’t always conscious choices – they’re often outdated survival mechanisms, scripts written in childhood, or past experiences that no longer fit the present reality but that people need to ‘act out’ in order to keep their EGO where it is and avoid facing the Shadow Self bubbling away beneath the surface.

Once triggered, these programs start running automatically, even when they don’t make sense in the current moment (to the person or people witnessing these ‘games’ or even the people playing them).

Understanding this doesn’t mean excusing ‘bad’ behaviour, but it does give us a powerful way to navigate the world with more clarity, less frustration, and stronger boundaries so we can stay REAL and focus on our own ‘stuff’.

Let’s break it down:

Why Do People Play Games?

At its core, ‘gamey’ behaviour is a survival response -it’s a way people unconsciously try to:

  • Control their environment (to feel safe – usually because they have a nervous system that’s out of regulation and they have sympathetic dominance so they’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode)
  • Manipulate others’ perceptions (to avoid rejection because of some unresolved pain in the past that screwed up their image of themselves)
  • Protect themselves from emotional pain (to avoid vulnerability and triggering SHAME – the biggest and most common problem in the world because it causes people to live in the Void)

These patterns usually stem from early experiences where someone felt powerless, unsafe, or unseen – over time, they learned to cope by developing strategies – ‘games’ – that seemed to work at the time and maybe even did for a short while.

The problem? Many of these strategies outlive their usefulness but they didn’t OUTGROW them:

Imagine someone growing up in a household where they were only shown love when they were in distress, for example – that person might develop a tendency to exaggerate their struggles or create unnecessary problems in adulthood. This is because, deep down, their nervous system equates the ‘attention’ given in times of distress with “receiving love” (for example).

The game isn’t rational – but to them, it’s seems real, because it’s a strategy they’ve been using for years to navigate reality (and because it occasionally got them what they wanted, they assume it must be true).

Recognising the ‘Code’ Beneath the Games

I used to get incredibly frustrated when I saw people playing these social games.

Manipulation, guilt-tripping, passive-aggression – it all drove me mad.

Why? Because my own ‘code’ had an aversion to being controlled, a script written by my own childhood experiences. This meant that whenever I sensed someone trying to ‘manipulate’ me, my old programming kicked in: I’d get annoyed, reactive, and sometimes even aggressive in my need to not be controlled.

The irony? That was just my own survival mechanism playing out and a sign that I needed to catch up with the life I was living in CURRENT REALITY so that I could let go, drop my projections, and become present again.

As I worked on my own ‘stuff’, I started seeing things differently; I realised that when someone is being ‘gamey,’ it’s NOT who they are in their REALNESS it’s just a script they’re running on autopilot that takes them out of reality and makes them UNREAL (and ego is the opposite of reality).

The more real I became, the easier it was to see when someone else was being unreal. And once I saw it as just a script, not the person themselves, I didn’t have to take it personally anymore, which meant I could have a better relationship with them because I wouldn’t involve my own projections and the frustrations they triggered… Instead, I could just let them get on with it without being personally affected (and removing myself if necessary because “Gimme something real or GTFO“).

Common ‘Gamey’ Behaviours and What They Reveal

Here are some common ‘gamey’ archetypes you might come across, reverse-engineered for your convenience and edification:

1. The Worry Projector

Ever had someone try to make you worry when you weren’t? They’ll text you constantly about a situation, check in nervously, and say things like, “Don’t worry” – even though worrying wasn’t even on your radar.

At first, this can feel a bit ‘off’, bizarre, or even just plain annoying but, often, they’re not actually responding to your situation – they’re projecting their own internal anxiety onto you.

They don’t know what to do with their worry, so they unconsciously try to transfer it to someone else. If you also start worrying, it validates their emotions and makes them feel less alone in their anxiety (whcih is kinda sweet if you think about it but it’s not REAL).

What’s the outdated script?

  • “If I don’t worry, something bad will happen”.
  • “Caring and worrying are the same thing”.
  • “If others are calm, they must not understand how serious this is” (personally, I’m vexed by this one because when we’re not calm we can’t respond to life properly and actually solve whatever problem we’re dealing with).

2. The Guilt-Tripper

This person subtly (or not so subtly) makes you feel bad for prioritising yourself:

Maybe they act ‘distant’ when you set a health boundary to protect your own realness or make passive-aggressive comments like, “It must be nice to have time for yourself” or “I guess I’m just not as important as [some REAL thing that you’re doing]”.

What’s the outdated script?

  • “Love = sacrifice” (the unhealthy, one-sided kind where you’re sacrificing for them but not vice versa).
  • “If people care about me, they will always prioritise me no matter what” (even if you’re on fire or something).
  • “If someone puts themselves first, it means they don’t love me” (when actually it means you have healthy boundaries because even though you need to SERVE the people you love you can’t do that if you don’t look after yourself – “you can’t pour from an empty cup”).

3. The Drama Magnet

Some people always seem to have something going wrong – usually something that requires your attention, help, emotional involvement, and the most important assets you have: your time, energy, and attention. They’ll stir the pot in social groups, overcomplicate situations, or always seem to be in some kind of conflict (which is true: they have conflict in themselves because they’re fragmented and lost to shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

What’s the outdated script?

  • “Chaos is normal” (which it is but they have become so used to having problems all the time that they don’t know who they are without them – it literally feels ‘weird’ when things are okay so they need to start drama to muddy the waters again and calm their ego).
  • “If things are calm, I’ll be forgotten” (because typically that’s the only time they’ve been given ATTENTION in the past and they’ve confused this for the love they don’t know how to give themselves because they’re lost to the Void).
  • “Problems make me valuable” (because it gives them struggles to talk about and they can get ego strokes form buying into a victim mentality and dragging people into the drama triangle).

4. The One-Upper

No matter what you share, they’ve done it bigger, better, or worse:

If you had a bad day, theirs was worse; if you achieved something great, they’ve done something better. If you went somewhere, they went somewhere better, etc. etc. etc.

What’s the outdated script?

  • “If I’m not impressive, I’m invisible” (because they are driven by shame which makes them need to externalise their own value to themselves and the world.
  • “I have to prove my worth constantly” (again, because of underlying shame that makes them lose touch with their REALNESS and get caught up in constant judgements of themsleves and others).
  • “Being ordinary = being worthless” (because they don’t know how to be REAL and so they don’t know how to ACCEPT themselves).

How to Handle ‘Gamey’ People Without Losing Your Mind

Now that we understand where some of these behaviours come from, how do we actually deal with them?

1. See It for What It Is

When someone plays an unreal game like the examples given, try to recognise that it’s just their ‘old code’ running. This doesn’t mean you have to tolerate it, but understanding that it’s not personal helps you respond from a place of clarity rather than reactively bringing your own ‘stuff’ into the equation and opening up a cycle of negativity and nonsense.

Instead of thinking, “Why is this person being so annoying/manipulative/etc.?” try:

  • “This is just their survival mechanism at work”
  • “This isn’t really about me”
  • “I don’t have to participate in this game”

Or the ultimate killer of such games:

  • “THIS IS UNREAL”

2. Set Boundaries Without Drama

Just because you understand why someone is playing a game doesn’t mean you have to engage with it – boundaries are key and help you to protect your sanity.

Essentially, a boundary is just about saying “NO” to anything unreal so you can focus on what’s actually REAL:

  • If someone tries to guilt-trip you, don’t defend yourself – just calmly stand your ground and do what you know is REAL for you.
  • If someone projects their worry onto you, you can acknowledge their feelings without taking them on and taking yourself off your own REAL path.
  • If someone thrives on drama, avoid feeding into it by reminding yourself that it’s not REAL.

A simple, “I hear you, but I don’t feel the same way” or “I’m not worried, tbh, but I appreciate your concern” can go a long way.

Alternatively, you can just smile, nod, and then do whatever the hell you wanted to do in the first place.

3. Stay Grounded in Reality

As we’ve been saying, people play games because – on some fundamental level – they’ve disconnected from what’s real.

The best way to counter this is to stay anchored in reality yourself by working on your REALNESS (book a call with me to get started):

  • Focus on facts, not emotional distortions: When someone tries to pull you into a game, stick to what’s actually happening – not the exaggerated or projected version because of your own ‘stuff’ pulling you into unreality.
  • Practice mindfulness: Staying present helps you avoid getting caught in someone else’s script because mindfulness keeps you in a place of wholeness but the scripts are always just somebody’s fragments.
  • Choose real connection over performance: If you sense someone is playing a game, try shifting the conversation toward something more authentic – ask them a PATTERN BREAKER question that brings them back to themselves (something about their real interests, their true feelings, whatever).

4. Lead by Example

The more real you become, the less gamey people around you will be – at least in their interactions with you. This is because if you work on being real and present then you set the TONE that allows unreal people to take a leap of faith and do the same thing (though some will act the other way and get more unreal as your realness triggers their Shadow Self and then ego ‘stuff’).

When you’re grounded, rooted in your REALNESS, unshaken by manipulation, and refuse to engage in drama, you subtly encourage others to meet you on the same level. They may not change overnight, but they’ll begin to realise that their games don’t work on you and so they’ll either start to look at themselves or move on to somebody they can manipulate (which is no loss to you because you haven’t lost anything real).

Final Thoughts: The Power of Reality Over Games

We all have our own outdated scripts running in the background – some of us just have more obvious ones than others. Either way, the key to navigating a world full of ‘gamey’ behaviour isn’t frustration or avoidance – it’s understanding (essentially that “hurt people hurt people”).

When we see these behaviours as unconscious survival mechanisms rather than deliberate attacks, we can handle them with greater clarity, set stronger boundaries, and remain grounded in what’s REAL.

Ultimately, the less we engage in the games, the more we create a lifewhere real connection replaces manipulation, and authenticity wins over outdated scripts.

Stay real out there,

More on this: ‘Why Do People Play Mind Games?’ – The Truth About POWER, SCARCITY, and EGO

Assumptions Shape Your Reality: Life Through a Veiled Veil

/////

Are You Living in Reality or Are You Flying Blind?

Human beings are meaning-making machines.

We walk through life viewing the world not as it truly is, but as we interpret it to be. Every encounter, every decision, and every experience is filtered through a veil of assumptions, expectations, and beliefs.

These mental shortcuts – our assumptions – help us make sense of an otherwise overwhelming world of chaos and confusion, but they can also lead us astray, keeping us from truly engaging with reality.

Really, it’s a bit of a paradox: while our assumptions allow us to navigate life and to survive in the world, they often prevent us from seeing things clearly and getting to a place where we can truly thrive.

I guess the challenge really lies in recognising when these assumptions serve us and when they hinder us – to know the difference between the REAL and the UNREAL because if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s this:

Real always works.

The Veiled Veil: Living Through Filters

Imagine walking through life with a veil over your eyes – not an opaque one that blinds you completely, but a translucent one that subtly distorts what you see. This is how the human mind operates:

Between your perceptions and the external world lies the filter of your thoughts, beliefs, and past experiences.

We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.

Everything we encounter is coloured by our perceptions, our inner emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and/or trauma, usually), and our conceptualisation of what we perceive (this is the Veiled Veil of limited perception (because our bodies are limited) and the limited interpretation (based on our ‘stuff’).

Your interactions, judgments, and decisions are all influenced by this filter, which has also been shaped by your upbringing, cultural conditioning, personal experiences, and even the evolutionary wiring of your brain.

It’s a cocktail of your past, how willing you are to face it, and the ego you’ve created for yourself in reaction to it that’s sent many ‘parts’ of you hiding in the Shadow Territory. Everything you assume is rooted in all of this – not necessarily the TRUTH of what’s REAL.

At its core, this filtering process is a survival mechanism – the human brain, faced with a world of infinite complexity and chaos, simplifies in order to feel a sense of order; it prioritises what’s relevant and discards the rest, helping you avoid sensory overload.

But this comes at a cost:

In simplifying the world, our minds also distort it. Assumptions – those untested, UNREAL beliefs we treat as facts -take the place of direct experience of something REAL.

What Are Assumptions, Really?

Assumptions are mental shortcuts that help us navigate the unknown. At their most basic level, they’re pieces of data that we treat as true, even though we haven’t verified them.

For example, if you’ve always believed that you’re “bad with money” you might approach financial decisions with an air of defeat before even trying to manage your finances properly. This assumption becomes self-fulfilling, not because it reflects reality, but because it shapes your behaviour in ways that reinforce the unreal belief (it’s unreal because being “good with money” is a skill and attitude that you can learn).

The problem isn’t that we make assumptions; it’s that we forget they’re assumptions in the first place – we mistake them for reality and just float through life acting according to them instead of what’s actually going on ‘out there’.

This conflation of assumption and fact is where things go wrong. If we’re not careful, we end up living in a mental world of illusions, disconnected from what’s really happening, and finding ourselves lost to the Void as we (mis)perceive life instead of actually living it.

Assumptions Are Not Always About Facts

Leadership expert Peter Senge, in The Fifth Discipline, points out that assumptions don’t just revolve around facts. They also include methods, goals, and values. In other words, assumptions dictate not only what we believe to be true but also how we think things should be done and what we consider important.

This is why assumptions often lead to conflict – both with ourselves and with others. If you’ve ever argued with someone about the ‘right’ way to do something, for example, or about what’s ‘fair’, you’ve experienced the clash of differing assumptions.

The key to avoiding unnecessary conflict?

Make the unspeakable speakable.

(This why a real conversation can change your life).

Bring assumptions to light – instead of arguing over surface-level issues, dig deeper:

Ask others questions like, “What do you expect of me?” or ask yourself probing questions like “What do I assume to be true here, and why?”

Essentially, if you’re acting on assumptions then you need to go deeper – if you don’t know if you’re acting on assumptions or not but you have a lot of conflict or frustration in your life (which means you’re out-of-sync with reality) then you need to keep digging until you get to the ROOT of whatever it is that you really think.

Only then can you free yourself and grow real.

Expectations and Ego: The Illusions We Cling To

Closely tied to assumptions are expectations – our internal projections of how things ‘should’ go or even BE.

The short-version is that expectations are often born from our needs, insecurities, and desires – all inspired by our underlying, unresolved SHAME and how it forces us to try and control the world and the people in it so we can keep our ego were it needs to be in order to avoid facing ourselves. They’re less about reality and more about our ego trying to stake a claim on the world.

(This is different to standards which are healthy boundaries about how we’ll be treated or how we’ll show up in life).

When expectations go unmet, it’s easy to feel frustrated, hurt, or even betrayed but the issue often isn’t the situation itself – it’s our attachment to how we thought things ‘should’ be based on what our ego needs to feel satsified (i.e. to keep the Shadow Self at bay).

Letting go of these attachments doesn’t mean lowering your standards; it means approaching life with curiosity and openness instead of rigid demands and the control freakery that sustains ego and holds us back from growth.

Instead of asking, “Why didn’t this go my way?” ask “What’s actually happening here?”

In doing so, you align yourself by with reality by taking ‘yourself’ out of the equation rather than fighting against it by forcing your ego onto things.

Real Always Works

This brings us to a key point: real always works.

Reality doesn’t care about your assumptions, expectations, or beliefs. It simply is. All we can really do is:

  1. Accept that it is what it is.
  2. Try to resist it and be frustrated and/or miserable.

If you want to get results- whether in your career, relationships, or on a personal growth journey – you need to engage with reality as it is, not as you wish it to be.

When you align your actions with reality, things start to flow.

You can’t build a house on imagined foundations and expect it to stand – in the same way, you can’t build a meaningful life on unexamined assumptions and illusions.

You need to build on something solid and the only solid foundation is REALITY in TRUTH.

Steps to Engage With Reality

Breaking free from the prison of assumptions and aligning with reality takes effort, but it’s worth it – here are some practical steps to help you:

  1. Cultivate Awareness

    Start by becoming aware of your assumptions – pay attention to the thoughts and beliefs that guide your decisions.

    Ask yourself:

    • What am I assuming to be true in this situation?Is this assumption based on evidence or is it a projection of my past experiences or fears?

    Journaling can be a powerful tool for this. Write down situations where you felt stuck or frustrated and analyse the assumptions that may have been at play. Almost always (in fact, always) it’s not reality that’s causing us problems but our assumptions about it.


  2. Question Your Assumptions

    Once you’ve identified an assumption, challenge it.

    Ask yourself:

    • What evidence supports this belief?Is there an alternative perspective I haven’t considered?

    Treat your assumptions like hypotheses rather than facts. Be willing to test them against reality and always stay curious and keep learning. The more we’re caught up in ego, the more we need our assumptions to be true.

    That means we end up believing what we need to believe to resist real growth, not what’s actually true and can help us grow in the first place (“the ego is the opposite of reality” for this reason).


  3. Practice Active Listening

    When engaging with others, focus on understanding their perspectives rather than imposing your own. Ask open-ended questions and genuinely listen to their responses. This helps you uncover hidden assumptions – both theirs and your own – and fosters better communication.

    Really, the key point is that asking questions will almost always serve you because – if you’re asking from a real place – you’ll always learn something real in return. This can serve you to grow in the way you need and want to instead of holding yourself back behind mere interpretations in the service of the ego.


  4. Let Go of Expectations

    Practice approaching situations with curiosity rather than rigid expectations – instead of trying to control outcomes, focus on observing and responding to what’s actually happening.

    For example, if a meeting doesn’t go as planned, resist the urge to label it a ‘failure’. Instead, ask: “What can I learn from this for next time round?”.

    This will also help you to develop an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity one because it will help you to detach from the need for things to be something that they’re not and to be open to new opportunities.


  5. Test Yourself Daily

    Refuse to judge yourself, but promise to test yourself (challenge yourself without judgement). Step out of your comfort zone and engage with the world in ways that challenge your mental shortcuts and old patterns and habits (which are assumptions too if you think about it).

    Whether it’s striking up a conversation with someone new or trying a different approach to a familiar task, these small actions help you align with reality because they push you through your EDGE (the place where your ego meets reality) and help you stretch into something more REAL.


  6. Seek the Truth, Not Comfort

    Pursuing the truth can be uncomfortable, but it’s the only way to grow. Commit to being honest with yourself, even when it’s difficult – reality always works, and facing it head-on is far more rewarding than living in denial.

    The only reason the truth is uncomfortable is because “the truth will set you free (but first it will piss you off and make you miserable)” – in other words, it will free you but it will first threaten your ego which has been designed to resist it.

    What you need to remember is that there is a difference between physical danger and emotional discomfort. The ego finds the truth to be emotionally uncomfortable but presents it as a threat – it’s not, it’s just going to help you find yourself again and to become more integrated as the ego gets out of the way and the real ‘you’ hiding in the shadows comes to the surface.

A Practical Exercise: The Assumption Audit

Here’s a simple exercise to help you uncover and challenge your assumptions so you can implement some of this ‘stuff’:

  1. Choose a Situation: Think of a recent event where you felt frustrated, confused, or stuck.


  2. Identify Your Assumptions: Write down everything you assumed about the situation. For example:
    • “They don’t respect me”.
    • “This will never work”.
    • “I’m not good enough”.

  3. Challenge Each Assumption: For each assumption, ask:
    • What evidence supports this?
    • Could there be another explanation?

  4. Look at the Emotions Hidden in Each Assumption: Dig a little deeper and see what is the emotional tone of each assumption:

    For example, if you feel disrespected, maybe you already feel a lack of self-worth and you’re just projecting it out (in other words – it’s not REAL, just an extension of what’s already going on inside you…if you can face that, you can heal it).


  5. Replace Assumptions with Curiosity: Rewrite each assumption as a question. For example:
    • “Do they respect me? How can I find out?”
    • “What steps could I take to make this work?”
    • “What strengths do I bring to this situation?”


  6. Take Action: Based on your new perspective, take one small step to engage with reality more effectively.

(Awareness (Deconstruct Ego), Acceptance (Integrate Shadow), and Action (Trust and Move Forward) works every time – call me to find out how to go deeper in your own journey)!

Final Thoughts

Assumptions are inevitable, but they don’t have to control us – by cultivating AWARENESS, questioning our beliefs, and engaging with and ACCEPTING reality, we can live more authentically and effectively by taking REAL ACTION.

Life is too short to live behind a veil of illusions and to spend all your time shadow boxing with yourself; strip it away, and you’ll find that the truth -messy, beautiful, and imperfect as it may be – is always enough to start building with. Real always works.

Stay real out there,

*Based on ‘Revolution’ number nineteen in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness

Master the Unconscious Mind: Unlocking Real Transformation

////

The Conscious Goal-Setter and the Unconscious Goal-Getter

There’s a simple but powerful saying in coaching:

The Conscious Mind is the Goal Setter, and the Unconscious Mind is the Goal Getter.

At first glance, this might sound like some kind of motivational gunk or even spritual bullsh*ttery, but within it lies a roadmap to transforming how you live, work, and show up in the world.

To be honest, despite the profound results it can bring, the idea is simple:

Your conscious mind (the ‘goal setter’) decides what you want and your unconscious mind (the ‘goal getter’) – the deeper, automatic part of you – works behind the scenes to make it happen (if you can get out of your own way, LET GO, and trust).

Unfortunately, the problem for most people is that they sabotage this process without even realising it – they consciously set one goal while their unconscious mind gets wildly conflicting instructions. It’s basically like putting the wrong destination into your sat-nav and wondering why you end up in the wrong place.

In this article we’ll explore how this disconnect happens and how you can realign your conscious and unconscious minds to stop spinning your wheels and start moving toward the REAL life you actually want.

The Goal-Setting Trap: Mixed Signals

Your unconscious mind is like a loyal worker bee – it doesn’t overthink or second-guess; it simply acts on the instructions it’s given from the command centre (your conscious mind). There’s only one caveat: it takes all your instructions, not just the ones you ‘think’ you’re giving it.

For example, if you consciously decide, “I want to become healthier” but then spend the rest of your day binging Netflix, eating junk food, and thinking “I’ll never stick to a routine anyway”, then you’ve sent two very different signals to your unconscious mind.

On one hand, you’ve set a goal; on the other, your actions and beliefs have communicated that you don’t actually value or believe in that goal and so…nothing happens.

This kind of dissonance and disharmony causes confusion and so your unconscious mind simply sticks with what it already knows – your old habits, behaviours, and self-sabotaging patterns.

Here’s where things get pretty interesting: the problem often boils down to the ego and the shadow self and the Shadow Dance that they’re involved in (this is just a kind of ‘battle’ between the image you’ve created of yourself to survive whatever you’ve been through in life (ego) and the TRUTH about yourself that often gets hidden from view to keep this image in place (shadow)).

The conscious mind may have good intentions, but if your ego is running the show, clinging to fears, insecurities, or old stories about who you are, those deeper, shadow parts of yourself will distort the signal and pull you in a direction that you don’t think you want to go in but which is actually more REAL for you.

For example, maybe you keep telling yourself at the conscious level that “I want to lose weight” but you never actually do…This is because deep down beneath the shadows you have an UNCONSCIOUS INTENTION to NOT lose weight. Because the unconcious mind is the ‘goal getter’, this is what you get.

To stop sabotaging yourself, you need to align your conscious goals with your unconscious mind and its intentions and that means doing the internal work to get clear on what’s driving your behaviour.

At the heart of this is a simple principle:

You have to BE before you can DO or HAVE.

This is where most people get stuck; they try to jump straight to ‘doing’ part – ticking boxes, grinding away, or chasing external results – without first focusing on who they need to become.

The unconscious mind works best when your actions align with thedeeper identity of your REALNESS which means that you need to show up as the person you’re trying to be, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

The Ego vs. the Shadow: A Tug-of-War

Like we said, much of the misalignment between the conscious and unconscious minds comes from the battle between the Ego and the Shadow Self and the Shadow Dance that they’re engaged in:

  • The Ego is the part of you that wants to look ‘good’, feel safe, and maintain a sense of control. It’s the surface-level ‘you’ that sets goals based on societal expectations, fear of failure, or the need for approval. At heart, it’s a reaction to underlying SHAME (most commonly), guilt, and/or trauma that makes us feel we need to be a version of ourselves besides what we actually are.
  • The Shadow Self is the hidden, disowned part of you that contains all the emotions, traits, and desires you’ve repressed because they felt ‘unacceptable’ or uncomfortable in reaction to the ego and how you think you need to appear in order to be ‘good’ (without shame, basically).

When the Ego and Shadow are out of balance, the goals you set often aren’t authentic or real because they’re based on the need to keep the illusions of ego in place rather than express anything true:

Maybe you chase status, money, or approval because your ego thinks it’ll make you happy, but deep down, your Shadow Self knows that these things won’t bring fulfilment – or maybe you consciously aim for success, but unresolved feelings of unworthiness from being disconnected from the Shadow Self keep pulling you back.

To overcome this, you need to:

  1. Raise Awareness – Deconstruct the ego and its surface-level motivations.
  2. Cultivate Acceptance – Integrate the shadow self by facing the parts of you that you’ve ignored or rejected.
  3. Take Aligned Action – Set goals that reflect your real values and take consistent steps to embody them.

(Awareness, Acceptance, and Action – it works every time! Book a call with me to find out how it can help you)!

The Power of Being Before Doing

Transformation doesn’t happen because you wish for it or hustle harder – it happens because you start being the person you’re trying to become, right here and now.

You do this by putting yourself in the PROCESS of real life and action instead of just thinking (at a conscious level) about the goals and outcomes you want from this process.

Think of it this way:

Your unconscious mind doesn’t respond to your future plans; it responds to your current identity.

If you see yourself as a victim, a procrastinator, or someone who just isn’t good ‘enough’, then that’s the identity your unconscious mind will reinforce, no matter how many affirmations you repeat or vision boards you create.

On the other hand, when you start acting as though you’re already the person you want to become – even in small ways – your unconscious mind takes note and begins to adjust your habits, behaviours, and thought patterns to align with this new identity.

Over time, this carries you from Point A to Point B through the process of cause and effect and closes the ‘gap’ so that you can become aligned (i.e. your conscious and unconscious mind are both pointing in the same direction instead of tearing you apart).

Practical Steps to Align Your Conscious and Unconscious Minds

To make this concept practical, here’s a step-by-step process you can use to realign your conscious and unconscious minds, overcome self-sabotage, and move toward your REAL goals with clarity and purpose:

1. Get Clear on What You Really Want

  • Take time to reflect on your goals. Are they truly yours, or are they driven by societal, cultural, or familial expectations?
  • Ask yourself: If I stripped away all external pressure, what would I want my life to look like?
  • Write down your goals in specific, measurable terms. Avoid vague statements like “I want to be successful” Instead, define what success looks like to you as CLEARLY as possible and framed in the positive (focusing on what you want – not what you don’t want).

2. Raise Awareness

  • Pay attention to the thoughts, behaviours, and emotions that arise when you think about your goals.
  • Notice where the Ego might be creating resistance or distortion (resistance = holding you back from doing what you need to do; distortion = blocking your view of what’s real).

    For example, do you fear failure, judgment, or rejection? Are there old stories or beliefs holding you back?
  • Journaling or working with a coach (*cough*) can help you uncover these hidden dynamics.

3. Cultivate Acceptance

  • Instead of fighting against your Shadow Self, start to embrace it. Acknowledge your fears, insecurities, and past mistakes without judgment. Here are 100 Shadow Work Exercises to get you started. You can also check out my book: Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World.
  • Practice self-compassion – remember that growth requires discomfort and it’s okay to feel uncertain or vulnerable as you push through your EDGE.

4. Focus on Identity-Based Habits

  • Start showing up as the person you’re trying to become:
  • For example, if your goal is to become healthier, don’t just set a target to lose weight. Instead, ask yourself: What would a healthy person do today? Then do it. It sounds simple (and it is) but it WORKS.
  • Small, consistent actions are more effective than grand but unsustainable gestures.

5. Use Visualisation and Affirmation Wisely

  • Visualise your goals, but don’t stop there – make sure you actively take ACTION otherwise you’re wasting your time.
  • Use affirmations that reinforce your identity, such as “I am someone who takes care of my body,” rather than focusing solely on outcomes like “I will lose 10 pounds”. Use this to guide your ACTIONS (i.e. don’t just think about it, do it).

6. Take Aligned Action

  • Break your goals into actionable steps and start taking them – don’t wait for motivation or the ‘perfect’ moment. Once you really know what you WANT then keep your FOCUS on that instead of how you might ‘feel’ from moment to moment (your feelings are temporary but what you want in your realness remains).
  • Remember that action creates momentum and momentum builds confidence. The more you do something, the more you can do something.

7. Review and Adjust

  • Regularly check in with yourself:

    Are your actions aligning with your goals? Are you staying true to your REAL desires and not just the desires of your ego?
  • If something isn’t working, be willing to adapt. The journey to growth is rarely linear and even the pathway of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action goes through spirals.

Conclusion: REAL Always Works

The bottom line is that real transformation happens when you align your conscious goals with your unconscious mind in a REAL way.

This requires honesty, courage, and the willingness to embrace discomfort as you step into a new identity and leave the old ‘ego’ behind.

If you raise your awareness, integrate your shadow self to cultivate acceptance, and take inspired action, you’ll stop spinning your wheels and start moving forward with purpose and clarity.

Remember: REAL always works – when you chase something true, instead of what’s driven by ego or external pressure, you’ll find that your unconscious mind is your greatest ally.

Let it do its thing – but first make sure you’re giving it the right instructions then get the ego out of the way and trust it.

Stay real out there,

Shame Puppets: Breaking Free from the Strings of Shame

////

Are you driven by something REAL or are your strings being pulled by SHAME?

We all know that feeling when we’re not quite ‘ourselves’ – when something inside seems to pull the strings and motivate our actions, making us behave in ways that feel out of character or against the grain of who we know we can truly be.

Sometimes this kind of thing is just a momentary lapse, but for many of us, it’s a constant, underlying tension or restlessness – like we’re on autopilot, reacting to life from a place of emotional compulsion, rather than our capacity to make authentic, self-directed choices.

If you’ve ever found yourself caught up in compulsive habits or unhealthy cycles of behaviour – chasing validation, seeking approval, or acting out of fear or defensiveness – you might be dealing with what I call a ‘Shame Puppet’.

This is something that can affect all of us , whether we’re aware of it or not – and the only way to truly escape its grip and take control of our lives is by reconnecting with our TRUTH and GROWING REAL so that we can dissolve our underlying shame and get into the present moment of our lives as they actually are (not as we sometimes misperceive them to be because our ‘strings’ are constantly being tugged).

Let’s dive into what it means to be a Shame Puppet, why it happens, and most importantly, how you can break free and return to your REALNESS and the life that you’re meant to be living.

What are Shame Puppets?

Imagine a puppet with strings attached to its limbs, controlling its every move: the puppet doesn’t make choices for itself – it’s simply reacting to the strings being pulled and doing what it’s ‘told’ to do.

In a similar way, when we’re caught in the web of shame, we become like those puppets – we react to life not from a place of free will or authenticity, but from a place of fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. This makes us act out of compulsion rather than choice and it can affect our whole lives and the way that we SHOW UP (or don’t) whilst we’re here.

The root cause of this ‘puppetry’ is SHAME – that deep, gnawing feeling that something is fundamentally ‘wrong’ with us.

Whether it’s a result of past trauma, societal pressures, or even childhood experiences, shame tells us that we’re not ‘good enough’, that we don’t deserve love, success, or happiness and so – in an attempt to compensate for this feeling of inadequacy – we begin to act in ways that feel safer; chasing external validation, playing the victim, seeking attention, or inflating our sense of self.

These behaviours, though they might temporarily soothe our pain and bring a kind of RELEASE to the TENSION of being unreal, are ultimately addictive – they offer us a quick, fleeting sense of relief but never truly address the root cause.

In fact, the more we act out of shame, the more we become entrenched in the very patterns that keep us stuck and go deeper and deeper into the Void of being unreal.

Why Do We Become Shame Puppets?

The journey to becoming a Shame Puppet often begins early in life:

Maybe it’s through experiences of rejection, neglect, or criticism that cause us to feel disconnected from our true selves and our REALNESS. Or perhaps it’s messages from family, society, or school that reinforce the idea that we’re not ‘good enough’ unless we prove our worth through external accomplishments.

Over time, this disconnect from our true nature creates a split – a void where our real self should be as we create a false version of ourselves to ‘hide’ from the shame and to send many very real ‘parts’ of who we are into the Shadow Territory. This creates a void and a constant sense of inner conflict as the Ego we’ve created to survive the world battles our realness in the form of our Shadow Self (this is the great Shadow Dance between Ego and Shadow).

To try and feel a sense of ‘peace’ or safety, we desperately attempt try to fill and fill the void with external things: attention, validation, achievements, or even the approval of others.

The problem is, no matter how much we chase these things, they can never fill the void because the take us further and further away from the only thing that can ‘fill’ the void: the TRUTH which is what we became disconnected from and which led to our sense of SHAME in the first place (really, shame is just a disconnection from the truth)..

The more we try to compensate for our shame, the more fragmented we become, which just exacerbates the problem – we’re constantly reacting to life, and pulled by strings that we don’t even realise exist.

This emotional fragmentation, this separation from the truth of who we are, leaves us living in a state of disconnection, where we’re on autopilot, following patterns of behaviour that we don’t fully control.

We might even look back on our actions and wonder, “Why did I do that?” – but the answer is simple: our shame was pulling the strings.

The Cycle of Addiction and Compulsion

Shame-driven behaviour is addictive because it helps us to escape all of the feelings that come with the void opened up by the inner split.

Just like any other addiction, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, or even attention-seeking, the initial high feels good because it brings a temporary release, a momentary sense of being ‘seen’ or ‘validated’ (and this seems like it fills the void – if only just for a moment).

Unfortunately, that feeling quickly fades, and we find ourselves chasing it again – the more we chase it, the less satisfaction we get, and the more frantic the pursuit becomes, as we go deeper and deeper into addictive behaviours (chasing that temporary release we got when we first discovered the behaviour in question).

Take, for example, the need for approval:

In the short term, getting attention or praise feels wonderful but, over time, the more we rely on external validation, the more disconnected we become from our own sense of self-acceptance (which means embracing the TRUTh about ourselves).

It reaches the stage, where we start to feel as if we can’t exist without that validation and so the strings of shame just tug and pull on us even harder.

The cycle intensifies as we try to fill that void but the problem is it’s a bottomless pit. Nothing will ever be enough to ‘fill’ it, because the only thing that can heal that void is reconnecting with the truth of who we are and becoming the void by accepting that it only exists as a sign that we’ve disconnected from the truth about ourselves, the world, and reality.

External validation can never replace our internal sense of ‘worth’; only self-acceptance can do that.

Breaking the Strings: Returning to the Truth

So how do we cut these puppet strings and GROW REAL?

The answer is simple, though not always easy: we must reconnect to the truth.

Truth is what we are in our deepest essence0 – the ‘part’ of us that is whole, complete, and unshaken by external circumstances. The truth is the real version of you, the one you were before shame and fear took hold and asked you to walk a path of puppetry instead of presence.

The process of cutting the strings of shame starts with Awareness:

We need to become aware of the patterns that have been pulling our strings, the ways in which we react to life instead of responding to it, and to recognise the compulsive behaviours and thought patterns that keep us stuck in the cycle of shame.

Once we become aware of these patterns and Accept them, we can begin to take Action to change them.

(Awareness, Acceptance and, Action work every time – this is why I always walk my coaching clients through this transformational process).

The first step is almost always learning to respond to life, instead of simply reacting to it – this is where practices like meditation, yoga, and mindfulness come into play: by being present in the moment and cultivating stillness and flow instead of running around and forcing everything (through the mind which is controlled by the puppet strings), we can start to break free from the autopilot mode and make conscious choices.

Practical Steps to Cutting the Strings of Shame

  1. Get Clear on Your Values
    To start cutting the strings of shame, it’s crucial to get clear on your values. What truly matters to you? Is it creativity? Freedom? Health? Humour? Happiness? These values are the compass that will guide you back to your REALNESS. When you know what you stand for, you can begin to build a vision for your life based on those values and to make conscious CHOICES in the moment.
  2. Create a Vision for Your Life
    Once you’ve identified your values, it’s time to create a vision for your life. This vision should align with your REAL self, not the version of you that’s driven by shame or external validation. Ask yourself: who do you want to become? What kind of life do you want to live? How does this vision align with your core values?
  3. Set Goals and Break Them Down into Habits
    Now that you have a vision, it’s time to break it down into actionable goals. But don’t stop there – create daily habits that support those goals and dedicate yourself to them (almost) daily. Small, consistent actions will help you stay on track and reinforce your commitment to your real self and make a big difference over time (the example I always use is writing: if you write just 100 words a day, that’s 700 in a week, and you could write a whole book in a year – just by taking a small step each day and engaging in the process of your real life).
  4. Shift from Reacting to Responding
    The key to breaking free from shame is learning to respond to life, rather than react to it. When you feel the pull of shame or compulsion, pause and ask yourself: What is the real, authentic response here? This takes practice, but over time, you’ll train yourself to respond consciously, rather than acting on autopilot. Check out the free Thought Log on this website which is designed to help you do this (and which works – I’ve seen it with loads of clients now and also use it every day in my Flow Builder Journal).
  5. Embrace the Growth Process
    Moving from the ‘shame puppet’ version of yourself to the ‘real you’ is a journey. You’re going to encounter challenges, and old patterns may surface but this is all part of the growth process. Be patient with yourself, and remember that every step forward, no matter how small, is a victory. If you fall down, get up again. As long as you keep your vision in mind and take real action, you’ll get where you need to be.
  6. Take Responsibility for Your Choices
    Responsibility is about making conscious choices that align with your vision for your life – every time you’re tempted to fall back into old habits, remind yourself of who you’re becoming. You have the power to CHOOSE your response, and each choice brings you closer to your REAL self.
YouTube player
This article is based on this video on my YouTube channel.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Your Freedom

Ultimately, breaking free from the strings of shame is about returning to the truth of who you are – it’s about letting go of the false beliefs that keep you trapped in compulsive, reactive behaviour and embracing the freedom that comes from living in a REAL way.

As you move through this process, remember: the journey isn’t always easy (as you fight old social conditioning and even biological impulses), but it’s worth it.

By reconnecting with your values, creating a vision for your life, and learning to respond rather than react, you can start cutting the strings that have been holding you back.

The real version of you is waiting to emerge, and when you allow that to happen, you’ll find a freedom that you never thought possible:

You’ll find your REALNESS!


If you’re ready to stop being a Shame Puppet and start living the life you were meant to live, get in touch. I work with clients to help them reconnect with their real selves, create a vision for their life, and take the necessary steps to bring it to life. Together, we’ll break the strings and unleash your REALNESS.

Stay real out there,

Facing the Worst-Case Scenario: Trust Yourself and Trust Life

/////

Do Your Best, Accept the Rest, and Face the Worst-Case Scenario to Deal with ANYTHING

Life is full of uncertainty – whether it’s the unpredictability of being self-employed, the ups and downs of health, or simply the fact that nothing ever stays the same, uncertainty is a constant.

For many, this unpredictability fuels fear – fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of losing control…but here’s the truth: most of these fears are only as big as the space we allow them to occupy in our minds and a lot of fear is just F.E.A.R (“False evidence appearing real”) anyway.

Over the years, I’ve can truly say that I’ve trained myself to accept what I genuinely cannot change and to maintain serenity as my baseline. That doesn’t mean F.E.A.R never shows up – just that I know how to kick myself into shape when it does and shift my focus back to being REAL.

Like everybody (humans gonna human), every so often, I get one of those familiar ‘niggles’ -a mental itch that calls me into the ego and unreality.

When this happens my imagination kicks in, conjuring up the worst-case scenario:

You know the drill – it’s all the usual ‘stuff’: running out of money, dropping dead, disappointing someone that we love or care about…very human fears that keep us all awake at night every once in a while.

Luckily, I learned a ‘hack’ that’s helped me with this:

When you face the worst-case scenario, even embrace it, you realise it’s never as terrifying as your imagination makes it seem.

The bottom-line is that F.E.A.R thrives on avoidance and denial but when you look at it squarely and ask, “Now then, what’s the worst that could actually happen here?” you strip it of its power because you remember your own REALNESS.

You discover that even if the “worst” does happen, it’s not the end of the world – it’s just another part of the journey.

Fear: The Great Exaggerator

Fear is a master manipulator, and its favourite tool is exaggeration – it takes a small possibility or HYPOTHETICAL “WHAT IF?”, blows it out of proportion, and plays it on repeat in your mind like a bad soap opera. What’s worse, the more you avoid confronting it, the more vivid and persistent it becomes.

Let’s take death, for example – the ultimate “worst-case scenario” for most people. But when you really think about it, being dead probably isn’t that bad.

You’ll either:

  1. Be blissfully unaware (because you’re dead).
  2. Be ‘chilling’ in some afterlife.
  3. Be burning and losing your wits for all eternity (okay, this one’s less appealing, but you get the point).

The fear of death is really about the idea of death and whatever our imagination (in the service of the ego) manages to concoct, not the reality of it.

Similarly, running out of money feels catastrophic in theory, but in practice, there’s almost always a way forward. You tighten your belt, get creative, and figure things out. Life goes on.

Even the fear of disappointing someone – a client, a boss, a partner – is rarely as dire as it feels before it actually happens (if it even does)…if you approach the situation with honesty and a genuine willingness to make things right, most problems can be resolved.

The common thread here is this: the “worst-case scenario” only seems bad because we imagine it in isolation, as though it’s the end of the story.

But life doesn’t stop at the worst-case scenario. It keeps moving, and so do you.

Facing the Worst-Case Scenario

When fear strikes, the instinctive reaction is often to avoid it:

We distract ourselves, overthink, or try to control every variable in an effort to make the fear go away but avoidance only feeds the fear.

The real antidote is to confront it head-on and to remember that REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

Here’s how:

  1. Name the Fear
    Start by asking yourself: What am I actually afraid of? Be specific. The more clearly you can define the fear, the easier it is to deal with. Even this simple step might help you to realise that your fears are irrational or unfounded and something that you can even laugh at.
  2. Visualise the Worst-Case Scenario
    Imagine it happening. Not in a panicked, spiralling way, but calmly and rationally from a place of SAFETY (i.e. allow your nervous system to stay relaxed and in the parasympathetic state – keep your breathing slow for example and remind yourself that emotional discomfort and physical danger are totally different things). What would it look like? What would it feel like?
  3. Ask Yourself: Can I Handle This?
    In most cases, the answer is yes. You may not want to deal with the worst-case scenario, but you’re probably capable of doing so if you TRUST YOURSELF and remember that you’ve already ‘handled’ every other thing that life has thrown at you so far. And when you accept that, the fear loses its grip, because you realise that you’re no longer totally powerless and at the effect of whatever happens.
  4. Make a Plan
    If the worst-case scenario were to happen, what would you do? Having a plan – even a loose one -gives you a sense of control and reduces the fear of the unknown. Really, this all comes down to knowing that whatever happnes – even if you ‘lose’ everything (even though you can’t lose anything real) – you’ll still have your capacity to ACT, find solutions, and be a cause of your life instead of just an effect.
  5. Let It Go
    Once you’ve faced the F.E.A.R, accepted the possibility of the worst, and made a plan, let it go. Shift your focus to the present moment and the actions you can take right now – by staying in the PROCESS of whatever is actually happening instead of the matrix your mind projects out into the world then you can keep learning and evolving and will realise that there is no worst-case scenario because things keep changing.

The Freedom of Acceptance

Acceptance is freedom:

When you accept the worst-case scenario – not as a some great unknown, but as a possibility – you free yourself from the stranglehold of fear, stop wasting energy on what if, and start focusing on what now.

Acceptance isn’t about giving up or resigning yourself to fate (though accepting what you can’t change (fate) will allow you to make choices about your destiny) – it’s about acknowledging reality as it is, without ego resistance, distortion, or denial.

It’s standing on the abyss and screaming out to the Void, “Sh*t happens and I’ll deal with it”.

This mindset is incredibly freeing because it shifts your focus from outcomes (which you can’t always control) to actions (which you can); it allows you to approach life with a sense of calm confidence, knowing that – no matter what happens – you’ll find a way through.

Do Your Best, Accept the Rest

At the heart of this philosophy is a simple yet profound idea: do your best (TRUST YOURSELF) and accept the rest (TRUST LIFE).

Do your best in the moment. Show up, put in the effort, and act with integrity. Then, let go of the outcome – trust that life has a way of working itself out, even if it doesn’t unfold exactly as you planned.

This isn’t about being passive or apathetic but about recognising that you can’t control everything, and that trying to do so is a recipe for stress and dissatisfaction. Instead, a more REAL approach is to focus on what’s within your power – your actions, your mindset, your response to challenges – and trust life to handle the rest.

Practical Steps to Trust Yourself and Life

  1. Face the Fear
    Don’t run from your fears – turn towards them.

    Ask yourself:
    • What’s the worst that could actually happen?How likely is it?If it did happen, what would I do?

    By facing the fear head-on, you rob it of its power and see it for what it really is – an exaggerated story in your mind that’s usually a projection of underlying shame, guilt, and/or trauma.
  2. Focus on What You Can Control
    Life is full of uncertainties, but there’s always something you can control – your actions, your attitude, your effort. When you focus on these, you shift from a place of helplessness to a place of empowerment and remind yourself that you’re REAL.
  3. Take Action
    F.E.A.R thrives in inaction and the longer you sit with it, the bigger and more unmanageable it seems to grow. The solution? Do something. Even a small step forward can break the cycle of rumination and remind you of your own agency.
  4. Reframe the Worst-Case Scenario
    Instead of seeing the worst-case scenario as a dead end, see it as a challenge. What could you learn from it? How could it help you grow more real? What strengths or qualities is it calling out of your Shadow Self so you can become whole again?
  5. Trust the Process
    As the old saying goes, “Life is a journey, not a destination” – trust that every twist and turn is part of your growth and evolution into more REALNESS. Even the setbacks have something to teach you – if you’re willing to learn and keep moving no matter what ‘happens’ to you.

Life Is Always Moving

The truth is, life never stops. Even in the face of the worst-case scenario, life keeps flowing, and so can you.

The challenges you F.E.A.R today may feel overwhelming, but in time, they’ll become just another chapter in your story – one that helped you grow, adapt, and become stronger as you learned to discern what was real about yourself, the world, and reality itself from what’s unreal.

Next time fear tries to hijack your mind, remind yourself:

  • The worst-case scenario is rarely as bad as it seems.
  • Even if it happens, you can handle it.
  • Life is always moving and so are you if you LET GO and TRUST.

Do your best. Accept the rest:

Trust yourself, trust life, and embrace the adventure of it all. You’re stronger than your F.E.A.R makes you believe – and whatever comes your way, you’ll find your way through. It has to be this way because you already made it this far.

Just keep moving forward.

Stay real out there,

‘Divine’ Masculine and Feminine: Embracing Your REAL Nature?

/////

Finding a REAL Balance of Your Natural Energy

For the last couple of years (at least), the concepts of the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine have been gaining traction in ‘spiritual’ and self-development circles, often accompanied by a sense of urgency – or even frantic, ego-driven obsession.

How come? What’s behind this cultural fascination with these archetypes?

A potentially bold take is this: most people start diving into the world of the Divine Masculine and Feminine not because they feel connected to their nature, but because they don’t and feel that they’re deeply LACKING in some way.

This is because our society as a whole has been too focused on assuming that everybody is ‘equal’ (which they can be in many ways) but making the mistake of assuming that ‘equal’ means ‘the same’.

This has confused the natural boundaries between the two sexes and this has left many people confused and sent them into hiding (in other words, the dominant sexual polarity of many people has gone into the SHADOW TERRITORY).

This has led to a situation where men and women are often trying to compensate for a perceived lack of masculinity or femininity in themselves, often driven by shame, insecurity, or social conditioning.

Before we get too lost in the abstract, let’s explore what these terms – ‘Divine Masculine’ and ‘Divine Feminine’ – actually mean, why they’re so misunderstood, and how to embrace them in a way that’s authentic, liberating, and aligned with your REALNESS.

What Are the Divine Masculine and Feminine?

The Divine Masculine and Feminine represent complementary energies present in all things – they’re not strictly about gender or biology but about archetypal qualities that exist within everyone (though, biological men usually have more ‘masculine’ and biological women have more ‘feminine’).

  • Divine Masculine: Think of structure, action, logic, direction, and the ability to protect and provide. The masculine is like the steady riverbank that gives the rushing water its shape.
  • Divine Feminine: This is flow, intuition, creativity, nurturing, and receptivity. The feminine is like the water itself – dynamic, free, and life-giving.

These two forces are often compared to yin and yang in Taoist philosophy: opposing yet interconnected, dependent on one another for balance and harmony. Similarly, in Hindu mythology, they’re represented by Shiva (the masculine principle of stillness and consciousness) and Shakti (the feminine principle of energy and creation).

This all seems pretty simple but – in a world obsessed with homogenising people and erasing differences for F.E.A.R of not being ‘virtuous’ enough – many of us have lost with these energies within ourselves (this shows up in all kinds of ways including mummy and daddy issues).

When that happens, the result is confusion, shame, and a desperate attempt to ‘fix’ what feels broken but which is (actually) just hidden from view.

SHAME: The Fear of Not ‘Enough’?

A lot of people become obsessed with the Divine Masculine and Feminine because they feel disconnected from these energies. This often stems from:

  1. Social Conditioning
    Modern culture tends to downplay differences between masculine and feminine energies, focusing instead on making everyone “equal” in a way that often translates to “the same”.

    While equality is important (when possible), this homogenisation can create confusion about how to express our unique qualities. Masculinity and femininity become caricatures in this context – superficial traits like “being tough” or “being nurturing” instead of deeper, natural energies.
  2. Shame
    Many people carry shame about not being “masculine enough” or “feminine enough”. Men might fear they’re too sensitive, while women might fear they’re too assertive. This shame drives them to overcompensate, often leading to inauthentic expressions of these energies.
  3. Mental Blocks and Shadow Work
    As Carl Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”. When we fear our own REAL nature – whether it’s our masculine drive or feminine intuition – it’s usually because of unresolved shadow work. The Ego resists what it doesn’t understand, creating mental blocks that keep us from embracing our full selves and keeping the REAL version of who we are hidden in the Shadow Territory of our unconscious mind.

When Obsession Replaces Authenticity

Here’s the funny thing about the modern obsessoin with ‘Divine’ Masculine and Femine:

Istead of reconnecting with their natural energy, many people turn the volume all the way up, trying to embody the most exaggerated version of what they think they’re missing. This is purely because they’re SELF-INFLATING because of the SHAME they feel about how the perceive their embodiment of these energies:

  • A man who fears he’s not “masculine enough” might throw himself into hyper-masculine behaviours- bulking up at the gym, being overly stoic, or aggressively pursuing success.
  • A woman who fears she’s not “feminine enough” might overemphasise her appearance, avoid assertiveness, or force herself into traditional caregiving roles.

This is what happens when we try to filter our natural energy through concepts rather than letting it flow freely. The result is a performance rather than authenticity – a mask rather than realness. Ego over the TRUTH.

The Role of Age and Conditioning

This struggle often becomes more pronounced with age. As people grow older, they notice that others don’t treat them the way they used to – men may feel they’re no longer seen as powerful or desirable; women may feel they’re no longer admired or appreciated, for example.

What’s really happening, though, isn’t about the world “treating” you differently – it’s about you being different. The conditioning and expectations you’ve absorbed over time may have distanced you from your natural energy. And when you’re disconnected from yourself, others will mirror that disconnection.

The good news? You can change this by reconnecting with your true nature and GROWING REAL.

The Path Back to Balance: Yin, Yang, Shiva, and Shakti

To reconnect with your Divine Masculine and Feminine, it’s helpful to look at the wisdom of Yin and Yang or Shiva and Shakti.

These principles show us that balance is key – and balance doesn’t mean sameness. It means embracing the interplay of opposites which are in ALL of us:

  1. Yin and Yang
    • Yin (feminine energy): darkness, receptivity, intuition, and flow.

    • Yang (masculine energy): light, action, direction, and structure.

    Yin and Yang are not rivals – they are partners that COMPLEMENT each other. Too much Yang without Yin leads to burnout and rigidity; too much Yin without Yang leads to stagnation and chaos. True harmony comes from their dance, where each supports and enhances the other.
  2. Shiva and Shakti
    • Shiva represents stillness, awareness, and the unchanging essence of consciousness.Shakti represents movement, creativity, and the dynamic energy of life.

    In Hindu philosophy, Shakti brings Shiva’s potential into form, while Shiva provides the container for Shakti’s energy. One cannot exist without the other – they are two sides of the same coin that COMPLEMENT each other (again).

This balance is a reflection of what we should strive for within ourselves and in our (romantic) relationships: a harmonious relationship between our masculine and feminine energies.

Practical Steps to Reconnect with Your REAL Nature

If you feel disconnected from your Divine Masculine or Feminine, don’t overthink it (because it has nothing to do with thinking and concepts but with actual BEING and EXPERIENCE) – the solution isn’t to become a caricature of these energies but to reconnect with what’s already inside you.

  1. Embrace Your Differences
    Stop trying to be the same as everyone else – whether you naturally lean more masculine, more feminine, or a mix of both, honour your unique expression. Remember, the miracle of divinity lies in being REAL and this means embracing your differences and respecting the similiarities.
  2. Let Go of Shame
    Shame around your masculinity or femininity isn’t yours to carry – it’s a product of conditioning, not truth. Acknowledge it, but don’t let it define you. The bottom line is that the world NEEDS masuline men and feminine women.
  3. Tune into Your Natural Rhythms
    Pay attention to your body, emotions, and instincts. Masculine energy thrives in discipline and action; feminine energy thrives in rest and flow. Both are essential – find the balance that works for you. Even a masuline guy who is in YANG energy all the time will occasionally need some YIN energy to bring himself back to centre (I do this with my workouts, for example – I always go pretty YANG with my weights but then follow with some YIN yoga to bring myself into being ROOTED).
  4. Shadow Work
    Explore the fears and insecurities that block you from embracing your true nature. What parts of yourself have you rejected or suppressed? Bring them into the light with compassion and allow them to be RECLAIMED as part of who you are. So many men I’ve worked with have initially been suppressing their MASCULINITY, for example – when you get it out of the SHADOW TERRITORY, real life can start taking place.
  5. Express Freely
    Drop the concepts and masks. Stop trying to ‘act’ masculine or feminine because of some spiritual bullsh*ttery you saw on social media and simply be yourself. Your authenticity is what makes you divine (REAL) so start by becoming AWARE of where you are, ACCEPT it and then take ACTION from that place instead of some concept you picked up somewhere (Awareness, Acceptance, and Action work every time – book a call and I’ll walk you through it).

Divine Masculine and Feminine in Real Life

To ground this in reality, consider these examples:

  • A man embracing his Divine Masculine might set boundaries with kindness, protect those he loves, and take decisive action towards his goals. He isn’t afraid of vulnerability because he knows it strengthens his ability to lead. He doesn’t need to ‘explain’ himself or justify himself for thinking what he’s thinking, feeling what he’s feeling, and doing what he’s doing. He just IS – rooted in his being.
  • A woman embracing her Divine Feminine might trust her intuition, create beauty in her environment, and nurture relationships with empathy. She isn’t afraid of assertiveness because she knows it strengthens her capacity to care and she knows that there’s a lot of STRENGTH that comes from being REAL.

Both are powerful, and neither is limited by rigid roles or stereotypes – they are simply expressions of nature itself, flowing freely without fear or shame.

(There is NO SHAME in nature – look at the animals).

The Bottom Line: Accept, Express, and TAKE REAL ACTION

The Divine Masculine and Feminine aren’t abstract ideals to strive for – they’re energies already within you, waiting to be embraced (because what’s real is always real). The more you accept yourself without fear or masks, the more naturally these energies will flow without you having to ‘think’ about it or create some FILTER of what it means to try and live through (that’s ego).

Basically: Stop filtering your nature through concepts and conditioning. Instead, let the dance of Yin and Yang, Shiva and Shakti, guide you back to the balance of being REAL.

Accept who you are, express what you find, and let your realness be what it is.

Stay real out there,

Building Flow: Finding Realness in Wholeness

//////

All Paths Lead to the Same Place: THE FLOW of WHOLENESS

Everybody is in their own flow, but it’s all flowing toward the same truth: wholeness.

This is a deceptively simple idea that captures the essence of what all effective helping and healing professions ultimately aim to achieve:

Whether through therapy, coaching, ‘spiritual’ guidance, or whatever else, the journey always leads back to a state of flow – a natural alignment with reality, where wholeness becomes both the destination and the path.

What is Flow?

Flow is often described as a state of effortless action – think of an artist immersed in their craft or an athlete performing at their peak; these are moments where action feels seamless, intuitive, and deeply satisfying.

But REAL flow is more than a temporary state of heightened productivity – it’s the process of aligning with reality. It’s a way of moving with life rather than against it, surrendering to what is rather than resisting or forcing what isn’t.

In my life and coaching philosophy of Realness, flow represents a state of living in truth; realness is about stripping away the layers of distortion and resitsance – false beliefs, learned patterns, and ego-driven narratives – that keep us in a shame-fuelled state of fragmentation and a false need to FORCE life (so we can keep hiding from ourselves and avoid the Shadow Self).

When we let go of these barriers, we reconnect with a deeper sense of self – our REALNESS – that is whole and unified. This process of uncovering and integrating our truth is what it means to build flow.

Building Flow: A Universal Path

Flow isn’t something that just happens to us; it’s something we build by learning to overcome the patterns and habitual ways of thinking, being, and doing that keep us from it… At frist this takes a little effort but – as we integrate and LET GO – it becomes effortless and REAL.

Ultimately, building flow requires Awareness, Acceptance, and Action—the three pillars of Realness and the main stages of transformation that I walk my coaching clients through (though it’s not a linear process – more of a spiral that we can go deeper and deeper into).

These stages guide us from a place of fragmentation to a state of wholeness:

  1. Awareness: Recognising the obstacles to flow within ourselves. These can be emotional blockages, mental distortions, physical resistance, or anything else UNREAL that we need to let go of.
  2. Acceptance: Embracing what we find without judgment. Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means acknowledging reality as it is so we can work with it rather than against it. Only then can we BUILD in an effective way.
  3. Action: Taking intentional steps to align with reality. This might involve healing practices, lifestyle changes, or simply letting go of control and trusting the process as we move towards our VISION.

As we build flow, we begin to experience life differently:

Challenges feel less like insurmountable obstacles and more like opportunities for growth, relationships become more authentic as we drop our projections and meet others in their own flow; most importantly, we start to feel a deeper connection to ourselves, others, and the world around us as we get into reality and out of our heads.

Guiding Others Into Flow

One of the most beautiful aspects of being in flow is that it naturally inspires others to find their own flow too:

When we’re aligned with reality, we stop forcing and start flowing and this shift in energy has a profound effect on the people around us. Instead of projecting our fears, insecurities, or expectations onto others, we create space for them to explore their own truth.

In my coaching practice, I’ve seen this time and again:

Clients who initially struggle with resistance – whether it’s resistance to their emotions, their circumstances, or themselves – begin to become more open as they build flow. This is never something I can force upon them; all I can do is guide them toward the conditions that allow flow to emerge (by asking the ‘right’ questions or helping them to accept things that are emerging from the Shadow Territory etc.).

Whe this happens, it’s kinda like watching a river break free from a dam. Their momentum builds, and suddenly they’re not just surviving – they’re thriving. They’re no longer UNREAL (stuck in ego) but REAL (taking action and flowing as their authentic selves).

What I love about this process (from a totally selfish point of view) is that it continually reinforces my own flow. Witnessing others reconnect with their wholeness reminds me of the interconnected nature of life. It’s a humbling and deeply fulfilling experience that underscores a simple truth that I try to live by these days:

I’m in wholeness, and wholeness is in me.

The Science of Flow and Wholeness

Flow isn’t just an airy-fairy ‘philosophical’ concept; it’s backed by science.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term “flow state,” found that people in flow experience heightened focus, creativity, and satisfaction. Neurologically, flow is associated with a state of transient hypofrontality, where the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for self-criticism and overthinking and many other fragmented ‘ego’ type ways of engaging with life) quiets down.

This allows us to get out of our own way and to actually experience the reality of PRESENCE.

Similarly, the concept of wholeness aligns with what researchers in psychology and neuroscience describe as integration:

When different parts of the brain and body are working harmoniously, we experience greater well-being and resilience. Practices like mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and somatic exercises are all ways to foster this integration and build flow because they ensure that our conscious and unconscious mind are pointing in the same direction instead of tearing us apart into deeper fragmentation and the Void.

Lessons From Nature

Nature offers countless examples of flow in action and shows us just how REAL it is:

Rivers don’t force their way to the ocean; they follow the path of least resistance. Trees grow in harmony with their environment, adapting to sunlight, water, and soil conditions. Even animals instinctively move in flow with the rhythms of nature, responding to seasonal changes and ecological dynamics.

As humans, we often lose this connection to natural flow – our minds get caught up in shoulds and shouldn’ts, fears and fantasies. But the more we align with reality – the way things truly are – and accept that IT IS WHAT IT IS the more we reconnect with the flow that underpins all of life.

Practical Steps to Build Flow

So that all sounds very nice but how do we make it practical?

Well, if you’re feeling ‘stuck’ or like you’re ready for your next level, then here are a few tangible ways to start building flow in your life:

  1. Slow Down: Take time to pause and notice what’s happening within and around you. Stillness creates space for awareness and slows down your mind and nervous system. This allows you to actually be present instead of just reacting to your own physiology etc.
  2. Let Go of Control: Practice surrendering to situations instead of forcing outcomes. Trust that life will unfold as it needs to. Most of life is beyond our control and so most attempts to control the uncontrollable are just the EGO trying to keep it’s hold over us (which is the main problem as it causes fragmentation and keeps us from wholeness…where the flow is).
  3. Tune Into Your Body: Use breathwork, yoga, or other somatic practices to release physical tension and reconnect with your body’s natural rhythms. If you’re new to this kind of thing then I really recommend YIN YOGA – this is a very slow and meditative form of yoga that’s designed to help your body release and integrate whatever it needs to work on.
  4. Embrace Discomfort: Growth often requires stepping outside your comfort zone. Learn to view challenges as opportunities to deepen your flow. Look for ways to STRETCH yourself daily – whether it’s more intensity with your workouts, a slightly bigger goal for yourself, or doing something new that will encourage you to let go of old patterns and develop new ones.
  5. Surround Yourself With Realness: Seek out people, environments, and practices that support your alignment with truth. A famous mantra that I often use for myself (from my book Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World) is “Gimme something REAL or GTFO” – learn to discern the real from unreal and to continuously shift into making choices for wholeness (REAL) over fragmentation (unreal).

Flow as a Collective Journey

Ultimately, everyone is in their own flow, but all flows lead to the same truth: wholeness.

This is what unites us, even in our differences – by building flow within ourselves, we contribute to a larger collective flow – a movement toward greater REALNESS, connection, and harmony.

Keep doing two things and you’ll probably be all right:

  1. Uncover the truth
  2. Live the truth

Keep building your flow, and remember: “I’m in wholeness, and wholeness is in me” – it’s not just a mantra; it’s a way of living that transforms not only your life but the lives of everyone you flow with.

Stay real out there,

Your Primal Self: Human Order and Universal Order

///

Learning to balance the real and unreal to find your primal self.

Human existence is a peculiar balancing act.

We live at the intersection of two overlapping realities: the Human Order, a world constructed of symbolism, culture, and social agreements, and the Universal Order, the raw, chaotic, and necessary laws of nature that underpin existence itself.

For most of us, navigating this gap between these two worlds is an unconscious struggle:

We wake up, scroll through our phones, go to work, pay our bills, interact with others, and move through life adhering to a complex web of cultural norms. Yet beneath the surface, our animal nature – the drives and instincts shaped by millions of years of evolution – is never far away.

This tension, the pull between NECESSITY and SYMBOLISM, is not just external. It lives within each of us. It shapes our thoughts, our behaviours, and the very fabric of our daily lives. To truly live authentically, we must understand and embrace this duality instead of suppressing it – only then can we TRANSCEND it and become REAL by embracing the PRIMAL SELF.

The Gap Between Two Orders and the Primal Self

The Human Order is a symbolic construct defined by our collective EGOS. It’s made up of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, how we should behave, and what is valuable. These stories create culture, economics, politics, and all the systems we rely on to live in large, organised groups. While this order provides stability, structure, and opportunity, it often comes at the cost of disconnection – from nature, from others, and from ourselves.

The Universal Order, by contrast, is the domain of nature’s immutable laws. It is chaotic, unsympathetic, and untamed, operating without concern for human sentiment. It’s the raw world of survival, competition, and biological necessity, where creatures fight for resources and where the laws of nature reign supreme.

Our lives, therefore, are caught in the crossfire. We’re animals living in a human-made cage of symbols. And while this cage has allowed us to build skyscrapers, create art, and explore the stars, it can also alienate us from the deeper, primal truths of who we are.

The Inner Struggle: Necessity vs Symbolism

To complicate matters further, this conflict isn’t just societal – it’s deeply personal.

Within each of us, there’s an ongoing war between our natural impulses and the social contracts we’ve internalised.

Our bodies are still wired for survival in a primal world; we crave connection, food, sex, and movement; we’re built to respond to danger, to seek shelter, to protect our loved ones. But these instincts are constantly being shaped and suppressed by the Human Order: the expectations to sit still, behave politely, perform roles, and live within the confines of socially acceptable behaviour.

It’s no wonder, then, that so many people feel disconnected or in conflict with themselves. Our natural impulses are often at odds with the symbolic dictates of modern life and – when we suppress these impulses too rigidly or for too long – the result can be anxiety, depression, and a pervasive sense of being out-of-sync with reality.

Finding Happiness in the Tension

The key to navigating this tension lies not in choosing one order over the other, but in seeing ourselves as the bridge between the two. Happiness, or at least a deeper sense of fulfilment, begins when we stop fighting this duality and start integrating it.

It’s about embracing both the symbolic and the necessary parts of life. It’s about recognising that while we are cultural beings, we are also animals with biological needs and instincts. Finding this balance requires both awareness and acceptance so we can take REAL ACTION without being held back by obsolete biological wiring or social programming that has nothing to do with reality.

Accepting Your Inner Animal and Finding the Primal Self

A large part of this journey involves reconnecting with your primal self. This doesn’t mean abandoning modern life or reverting to some romanticised “noble savage” ideal. It means acknowledging your instincts, emotions, and desires as natural and valid parts of who you are.

For example:

  • If you feel anger or sadness, don’t suppress it because society tells you these emotions are “unattractive.” Instead, explore what these feelings are telling you and let them flow in a healthy, constructive way by channeling them into your REAL VISION.
  • If you feel the urge to move, to run, to shout, or even to howl at the moon if you’re feeling fancy (and it won’t harm anyone), why not? Allow yourself to feel alive.
  • If your body craves rest or nourishment, listen to it instead of overriding it with cultural ideals about productivity or diet fads.

By honouring your animal instincts, you reconnect with the Universal Order and create space for REALNESS to emerge.

Understanding the Symbolic Cage

At the same time, we must also understand and respect the Human Order. Culture, after all, is what allows us to coexist in communities. It’s what enables us to build relationships, share knowledge, and create meaning. The symbolic world is not inherently ‘bad’ – it’s just incomplete when taken alone or it effaces our realness.

The trick is to remain aware of the ways in which cultural norms and expectations influence your behaviour. Are you suppressing your true self because you’re afraid of what others might think? Are you conforming to societal standards at the expense of your own well-being?

Freedom lies in the ability to consciously navigate the symbolic world while staying true to your natural instincts. It’s about being aware of the stories you’re living by and choosing which ones to keep and which to let go.

If the stories are REAL, then your life will become real; if they’re unreal, your life will become unreal.

(This is why I always like to say “Gimme something real or GTFO”).

Freedom in the Gap

Real freedom exists in the gap between mastery of your biology and understanding your cultural programming. It’s not about swinging wildly from one extreme to the other, but about finding harmony between the two.

This doesn’t mean you should reject all social norms or abandon politeness – it simply means being honest with yourself about what you need to feel alive and fulfilled.

For instance:

  • You don’t have to stop using a knife and fork, but you can allow yourself to enjoy food with the enthusiasm of someone who truly savours it.
  • You don’t have to yell or cry in every moment of frustration, but you can give yourself permission to express your emotions honestly and without shame.

A large part of finding realness is about rejecting the hyper-neuroticism of modern life – the endless striving for perfection, control, and validation – and reconnecting with the truth of who you are: a human being who bleeds, breathes, loves, and sometimes breaks things.

Choosing Realness Over Fabrication

The ultimate goal is to live authentically, to integrate both the Human Order and the Universal Order into a cohesive whole. This means recognising the fabricated nature of many cultural constructs while still finding value in them. It also means embracing the messy, animalistic side of life without fear or shame.

This isn’t an easy path. It requires a willingness to look at yourself honestly and to question the stories you’ve been living by but the reward is a life that feels real – one where you’re not constantly at war with yourself or the world around you because you’ve overcome the ego and the world by extension.

Escape from Modern Neuroticism

Much of the anxiety and disconnection that characterises modern life stems from our failure to navigate this duality. We’ve become so enmeshed in the symbolic world that we’ve lost touch with the universal one. We prioritise productivity over presence, appearance over authenticity, and convenience over connection.

The way out is knowing that by recognising the tension between the Human Order and the Universal Order, and by consciously working to bridge that gap, we can free ourselves from the neurotic patterns that hold us back.

Conclusion: Embrace the Whole

There’s no shame in being connected to the animal world – we are creatures of the earth, shaped by millions of years of evolution.

But we are also beings of culture, capable of creating meaning and beauty…to deny either side of this duality is to live a fragmented life.

The way forward is to embrace both the necessary and the symbolic, the universal and the human. By doing so, we can find a sense of balance, authenticity, and freedom that transcends the limits of either order alone.

So, howl if you need to. Dance like no one’s watching. Live with your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds. And, most importantly, refuse to be afraid of who you are.

Realness lies in the integration of all that you are – not just the parts you’ve been told to show.

Stay real out there,

*Based on ‘Revolution’ number fourteen in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness

1 2 3 4
Chat Now
a REAL conversation can change your life
olianderson.co.uk
Oh, hi there.

How can I help you grow real today?

(This opens an actual WhatsApp chat - it's not a bot!)