You know what you should be doing. You know the steps you should be taking, the little actions that will pave the way forward. You know you’re perfectly capable of taking those steps, that there’s no good reason to delay any longer, and yet… 🌞 a weekly newsletter for conscious self-creation 🪴 join 600+ subscribers: Subscribe What do you do instead? You scroll Twitter. You stare at the ceiling. You clean your apartment (again). You dilly dally. You do a bunch of things that you don’t even really like doing, and then you feel even worse.

The result is a vicious spiral downwards, where we keep doing things that drain us of energy, and then we don’t have the energy to do the things we actually want to do, and so we do more of the things which are depleting, and… well, so on, so on. Where we actually want to create is the opposite: a virtuous spiral upwards, where we focus on things which inspire us, giving us energy to take on bigger and bigger challenges, unlocking even more energy

The first thing to notice is that the things that deplete us have gravity. We don’t choose them freely. They pull us into old patterns, often without us noticing. That gravity is a product of fear. Your nervous system has one primary goal: keep you alive. It has one primary method of doing so: keep doing the things that kept you alive before. Our biology has an incredible bias towards the familiar, because familiar = safe. When our body is experiencing fear, that means our nervous system thinks we’re in danger. The fear says “get somewhere safe, now.” That translates to “get back to the familiar.”

Which means… if we’re able to be present and curious with the tension in our body, without trying to fight it or “fix” it or “solve” it, our experience transforms. Suddenly, the tension becomes almost pleasurable, as an opportunity to “be with” ourselves. This process does take a bit of practice, but once you’ve found it, you’ll know. It’s the deeply satisfying sense of “I am stepping into fear, but I am not alone—I have my own back.” 🌞 a weekly newsletter for conscious self-creation 🪴 join 600+ subscribers: Subscribe Once we’ve unlocked that feeling, then it becomes easier and easier to break out of these draining patterns. Attunement-to-self is an energizing process, so the moment we begin noticing what we’re feeling, we’re stepping away from depletion. We’ve instantly liberated ourselves from stuckness.

Where does the line fall between the parental responsibility for loving and caring for a child that you've forced into existence, and your own personal responsibility for growing as a person? I wish I knew.