Guidance

You came here to help people escape suffering, but what if you are unconsciously addicted to the drama, the chaos, and the high-stakes alertness of the struggle itself? This is not a character failing, it is trauma mirroring. The Expert’s Need for Struggle Your own nervous system was conditioned by trauma to live in a state of high alert, so chaos feels familiar, peace feels threatening. The client walks in, bringing their trauma, their suffering, and their desperate seeking. This instantly re-activates the most familiar, intense state in your own body. You mistake this activation for purpose. You mistake the stress of managing their crisis for meaningful work. This dynamic is the addiction, you need their drama to feel alive, validated, and essential. The industry rewards this: The “severe cases” get the most funding, the most attention, and the most billable hours. Your professional success is often built on the severity of the suffering you manage. The Resistance to joy This is where the mask shatters. The Addiction to Suffering makes you actively resist the actual cure, simple, unconditional joy and free expression. If a client starts dancing around, or laughs spontaneously, or truly finds stillness and ease, your system often freezes. You become stiff, you might judge it – they’re avoiding the work, they’re manic, they’re not serious. That judgment is the mind’s defense upholding the body’s refusal to participate. Your system is saying, this joy is unpredictable, it’s not in the protocol and! it is not safe. You cannot facilitate the client’s full, vibrant expression of life if you are professionally addicted to the security of their struggle. You are addicted to the very thing they are trying to escape. The Protocol of Ease True healing requires you to be comfortable in a room where nothing is wrong. It requires you to set aside your need for drama and your need to be the hero who manages the crisis. The true protocol is to allow the stillness, the joy, the spontaneity, to emerge without diagnosis, without intervention, and without fear. The only way to break the cycle of suffering is to admit your own unconscious dependency on it. The hardest thing you will ever do is accept that the fix is already here. What is the one client story you tell the most that reinforces your own status as a necessary, crisis-managing expert?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

So you entered this field because you wanted to make a difference?? You wanted the suffering to stop You got the certifications You bought the books You learned the techniques…. But what truly changes the trajectory of a human life? What really makes the difference to someone in pain? It is the one thing you can’t get a PhD in! The Illusion of Progress My work – this message, is not about the next great modality, it is not addiction treatment, it is not therapy. Those things are all the language of the Ego. The ego is obsessed with – Progress – (Am I getting better?) Expertise – (Do I know more than them?) Knowledge – (What’s the right answer?) It keeps score, and It claims titles, it builds the expert mask out of evidence and complexity. It’s always trying to find the next best way to do healing. The entire apparatus of professional knowledge is just a means for the ego to feel safe. The Heart Just Is The real work, the simple, unbillable, uncontrollable work – is a return to the heart. The ego demands certainty where the heart offers presence. The ego claims progress where the heart just is. Healing happens when you drop the exhausting need to know, to fix, or to claim mastery. It happens when you surrender your relentless climb and realise you have already arrived home in the simple, ordinary truth of the present moment. The only expertise that matters is your own willingness to be utterly real, utterly vulnerable, and utterly present. The Final Surender The greatest difference you will ever make is not through a framework or a technique, but through the unconditional safety you create by putting down your mask. The client doesn’t need your knowledge, they need your relational honesty… This work is simple, spontaneous, and non-scalable. It is a return to the single truth, healing isn’t about fixing, it’s about allowing. So, the question is, are you ready to exchange your hard-earned knowledge for the soft, terrifying power of your own heart?That is where we are heading.   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

You are told to surrender, that you are powerless over your addiction. This is not a path to recovery, it is a psychological repeating of the deepest wound you carry. The very first demand of the most dominant recovery model is to force a human being to say the words that crushed them in the first place – The loss of all choice and power. So The Wound is the Lie Trauma was/is the moment in your life when something happened that you had no power to stop, your choice was taken, stolen. Your nervous system froze in a state of helplessness. Then, you enter the treatment system. And the system demands that you agree to that lack of power as the prerequisite for your healing. (IRP is a common sense approach – does the above even make common sense at this point?) We are confusing surrender to truth with surrender to helplessness. The system is asking you to abandon your innate agency – the one thing you desperately need to reclaim to experience wholeness. It teaches you to fear your own power and externalise your solution. The System’s Motive The industry – the treatment centres, the groups, the protocols – loves the First Step. Why? Because a powerless person is a compliant person. A compliant person is a dependent person. A person who believes they are fundamentally afflicted and can never heal on their own requires an external authority, an external group, or an external process to manage their life. The First Step is the most effective mechanism ever created for ensuring perpetual engagement with the system. It sells dependency disguised as spiritual truth. It keeps the revolving door of relapse spinning because it reinforces the core wound: You are not safe inside yourself. The True First Step is Power The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is safety and power. Your true First Step is the moment you decide to take back your own control. The moment you realise that your addiction was not a moral failing, but an intelligent, though chaotic, attempt to cope with an unbearable nervous system state. The work is not about finding an external power to save you. It is the terrifying, beautiful work of building trust with your own inner intelligence. It is the realisation that you have a choice right now. You are not powerless You are simply unpracticed in your own power. If you threw out the First Step today, what would the first act of your own true control be?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

Scroll through social media and you see it everywhere… The high vibration, the perfect morning routine, the claims of realisation and unshakeable peace. This culture of performative spirituality is the biggest illusion of our time. It is a subtle, elegant lie. It’s not genuine shedding, it’s just the Ego finding a new, more sophisticated costume. You exchanged one label for another… You shed the mask of the successful entrepreneur or the compliant patient. And you replaced it with the mask of the master of consciousness or the awakened soul. It serves the same function: it keeps you safe from the terrifying, messy truth of your unhealed humanity. The moment your journey becomes something you need to claim or flaunt on Facebook, you’ve fallen into a fundamental trap. You are using spiritual concepts to avoid the uncomfortable somatic reality. The Ego loves the idea of being ‘beyond it all.’ the illusion of transcendence.. It loves the belief that you have transcended your fear, your anger, or your vulnerability. using spiritual ideas (like love and light, or high vibration) to justify avoiding the difficult, messy, necessary work of meeting your actual trauma. You cannot skip the human experience to get to the spiritual one. When your post needs to be positive vibes only, you’ve simply swapped a drug addiction for a positivity addiction. Both are forms of running from the stillness. True Wholeness is Messy True awakening, the realisation of your inherent wholeness, is the humble shedding of all claims. It’s not an achievement you can post about. It is the willingness to be seen in your full, ordinary, imperfect truth, glorious and messy all at once. It is allowing the anger, the pain, and the unworthiness to simply be there, without needing to transcend or filter them for a public audience. The path is endless, the claim is the sign you have stopped walking. What is the one ‘spiritual’ concept you rely on the most to avoid sitting with a messy, uncomfortable emotion?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

We confuse the two all the time, and spend our lives running from loneliness. But the desperation to fill the emptiness, the craving for connection, for distraction, for something to stop the ache, that is just the shape of addiction without a substance. It’s the seeking a means to an end. The Truth of the Ache Loneliness is a trauma echo. It’s the internal voice screaming: I am fundamentally incomplete. There is a void that only an external fix can fill. This isn’t an emotion, it is a state of perceived deficit, a felt sense. And when you live in deficit, you will chase anything that promises temporary fullness, – a drug, a drink, or a person who you expect to make you whole. The high-functioning professional chases status, the person in recovery chases a community to belong to, the feeling is the same, I need something outside of me to be okay. The Safety of Aloneness Then there is Aloneness…. Aloneness is not the absence of people. It is the presence of self. It is the moment your nervous system finally allows the stillness, the quiet, the simple, ordinary truth of your inherent wholeness to emerge. There is no ache here… and no desperate reaching. Aloneness is not emptiness, it is fullness. It is the terrifying freedom of knowing you are enough, right here, right now, with nothing to prove or gain. This is why people flee it, they mistake the safety of aloneness for the old terror of loneliness. You cannot heal the addiction to seeking until you embrace the stillness that is your cure. You don’t need to chase connection. You need to realise the connection that has always resided within. The relentless pursuit of external belonging is just another form of escapism, another sophisticated way to avoid the profound, life-changing work of sitting with your own unconditional presence. The true transformation happens when you stop asking – Who will fill this void? And you start realising, The void was the lie. How would this transform your life? and your work with others if you truly knew?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

Somewhere along the line, “Professional” stopped meaning ethical, grounded, and steady. And started meaning emotionally unavailable. We were taught that to be “professional” is to never show too much emotion, to stay composed, to hold the line, to never let your voice shake. We were told that distance equals safety. That composure equals competence. That softness makes people uncomfortable. But here’s the truth: “You can’t heal what you refuse to feel.” Professionalism, as it’s often practised, rewards detachment and punishes softness. It trains practitioners to suppress their humanity to trade authenticity for authority. But healing isn’t born in hierarchy. It’s born in humanity. When we hide behind clinical language, rigid frameworks, and polished personas, we create safety for ourselves, not for the person sitting opposite us. We call it “holding space,” but often, it’s holding distance. A nervous system doesn’t feel safe because of our credentials. It feels safe because of our coherence, our warmth, our presence. You can be ethical and still be human. You can be boundaried and still be soft. You can be professional and still let your heart be seen. Because the most professional thing you can do is to stay real, regulated, and reachable. Where have you confused being professional with being disconnected?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

For a long time, I thought I was simply being honest when I noticed things in people. Their insecurities. Their emotional reactions. Their need for attention. Their avoidance of responsibility. It felt easy to see where they needed to heal. But one day, someone asked me, “Why does it bother you so much?” That question stopped me in my tracks. Because if I was honest, what I was really seeing wasn’t them, it was me. The truth is, the traits we judge most harshly in others often mirror the parts of ourselves we’re still learning to accept, forgive, or face. It’s uncomfortable to realise that your triggers are teachers. The irritation The judgement The frustration they all point towards something within you that still hurts, still needs attention, still needs compassion. Healing isn’t about fixing anyone else. It’s about recognising the reflection in front of you and asking, “What part of me feels this too?” The moment you stop judging someone else’s healing, you begin to soften towards your own. You start seeing that we’re all doing the best we can with the awareness we have at the time. Real growth doesn’t come from controlling others. It comes from meeting yourself with honesty, humility, and grace. Have you ever noticed that what frustrates you most in others often points to something unresolved within you?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

We have built an entire global industry on a single lie… You suffer from a lack of self-worth. This belief has fuelled therapy, coaching, supplements, and books, all promising to fill the void, to finally make you feel enough. So, is it a void? or is an illusion? What if the relentless pursuit of improving my self-worth is the thing that is actually keeping you broken? The Deficit a Trauma Response Let’s look at the mechanics, self-worth is not an objective, measurable metric. It is simply a series of thoughts about yourself, repeated over time. Where do those thoughts come from? They are an intellectual trauma response to a sensation in the body that felt unsafe or inadequate. Your system, unable to process the pain of that early experience, created a defensive thought-construct, the idea that something is wrong with me, and called a lack of worth. Then, the mind got busy trying to fix the construct, the result is a vicious cycle: The search to gain worth reinforces the belief that you lack it. You are using all your energy to build a case against a phantom deficit. The Illusion of the ‘I’ To chase self-worth, you must first believe in the fixed, broken entity that lacks it i.e. the ‘Self’ or the ‘I’. But upon deeper inquiry, that fixed entity begins to unravel. It is a construct, a character created by thought and perception. The real ‘you’ – the awareness, the consciousness, the pure presence that witnesses the thoughts, cannot possibly be lacking anything. It is whole, perfect, and beyond any concept of worth or worthlessness. The problem isn’t a lack of value, the problem is a lack of awareness of your inherent, unconditional value. The Only Way to ‘Arrive’ Healing isn’t about building worth, it’s about realising wholeness. It requires you to drop the tools of the self-help industry and confront the defensive thoughts. It means embracing every messy part of your history, not as a flaw to be fixed, but as a part of the whole that you already are. When you stop trying to climb the mountain to achieve worth, you realise you are standing on solid ground. – You are not broken – You don’t need to be fixed – You need to be allowed If you had to put down the one self-help tool or concept you rely on the most today, what would it be? p.s. We are starting a series of low cost workshops that will highlight this very misunderstanding, comment workshop if you would like to join.   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

If you asked someone in the 1800s how to improve transportation, they’d have said: “A faster horse” ….but then came the car. Not because people were wrong, but because they didn’t know what else was possible. Sometimes entire fields of practice get stuck in the same loop. We ask the same questions We tweak the same models We argue over data points inside a framework that might be… incomplete What if the addiction fields is still asking for a faster horse? I mean it can’t be so hard to consider this maybe true? And yet mostly people I have connected with have already checked out. We keep investing in the next neurochemical insight, the next behavioural protocol, the next evidence-based compliance model… But what if the real shift isn’t forward – it’s sideways? it’s not horizontal as I say, its vertical. A different lens entirely What if addiction isn’t pathology to fix… but intelligence misunderstood? What if healing isn’t compliance… but safety? What if we’ve missed something that could change everything? The biggest block to transformation isn’t lack of evidence. It’s the unwillingness to consider that what we ‘know’ might be part of the problem. There are so many bright, beautiful and amazing souls…with the capacity to change the world… So I’ll ask you this: Are you even willing to look? To hold space for the uncomfortable possibility that your framework, your training, or your model – might not be wrong, but might not be enough? Because real change starts not with answers… But with the humility to ask better questions. We are starting a series of workshops on this paradigm shift, would you like to be part of it? comment “workshop” below.   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302

You Need Rest For a long time, I believed the answer was always more motivation. More early mornings. More discipline. More “you’ve got this” pep talks. But I eventually realised I wasn’t unmotivated. I was exhausted. I didn’t need another routine or productivity hack. I needed to stop and rest. Burnout doesn’t always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it looks like sitting at your desk, doing everything “right”, and still feeling like you’re running in circles. We live in a culture that glorifies hustle, but rarely honours recovery. We reward those who keep going, not those who know when to pause. Rest isn’t a sign of weakness it’s a form of maintenance a way of returning to yourself before you completely lose direction. If you’ve been telling yourself you just need more motivation, perhaps what you really need is a breather. Close the laptop. Take a walk. Let your nervous system reset. Because sometimes, doing nothing for a moment is exactly what allows everything to start moving again. 💬 What helps you recognise when you’re tired not unmotivated?   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068323302