On the journey towards becoming a more complete and grounded human, or shall I say, becoming an aligned human, we often need mantras and quick phrases we can return to when the ground beneath our feet feels shaky, which it does, frequently.

Perhaps you're already on the path to self-discovery, or maybe you are just beginning to realize the wealth of untapped potential beneath the surface-level conditioned responses accumulated over a lifetime of reacting to the world using the tools provided in childhood.

Either way, the tools of inquiry and grounding are the same. Self-work is hard shit. You will be tired, over it, and ready to return to the so-called "normal" from whence you came. You can't do that, and trust me, the pain of your unevaluated life was crushing your soul. Being out of alignment with your inner world is not only a painful reality but also a life wasted.

Our brains are prediction machines, optimized for survival, not transformation. When you reach for change, your nervous system tells you if the change feels friendly or hostile.

How our nervous system feels about the world is the shadow of our unresolved trauma, be that trauma from childhood or adulthood. Trauma lives in the body until our mind can process the parts that are, as of yet, too painful to touch.

Although our rational mind prefers to live in a pragmatic world, the reality is that our body stores the memory. Our brains extend beyond the rational; our nervous system is an extension of the brain, with neurons located throughout the body.

Our nervous system is our operating system.

The childhood tools we inherited as adults are remnants from a different operating system, the one we used to survive whatever our childhood threw our way.

Body Scan: Tension throughout your body, shallow breathing, achy shoulders, and neck are asking you to listen to what you are holding onto too tightly.

Infinite Repeat: Notice when you're having the same conversation, same conflict, same disappointment; this is a scenario you need to resolve, you are creating the conditions for your experience. There is choice in each act of our entire existence.

The Story Loop: Listen to how you explain your life to others. You have a personal narrative that you don't own until you become aware of the stories you tell yourself and others. Our stories are not TRUTH; they are the interpretation of our memory through the present lens. Each time we pull a memory forward, our current perspective shapes that memory; likewise, when we change our narrative, we change our experience.

Your patterns will scream. Your body will revolt. Everyone who benefits from your masks will sense you are different.

This is not failure.

Your future self already knows what you're just beginning to suspect: The void isn't empty. It's full of everything you've been too afraid to want.

You are strong enough to be real.

The weight of your overloaded self will be displaced with the energy you create by listening to yourself and treating yourself as a human being, not a vessel with a brain in it.

With ease, we can learn to trust a safe world.

As someone who punishes yourself for any setback, you know that setting rules that omit all of your coping mechanisms will immediately or soon thereafter backfire.

Start with loving kindness.

Do one small loving action, out loud or in the physical world, directed at you, the human.

Your nervous system needs to learn that the world won't end if you treat yourself like you matter.

Eventually, the path becomes the way life just is.

This work never ends, no ceremony for being human, no certificate or guarantee that it will work out.

What changes is your relationship to the work. Instead of working to one day retire, the work you do becomes how you live, who you are, and why you sustain lifelong passion.

This is not for everyone, but it might be for you if...

You find yourself bored by what once challenged you, and you repeat the pattern of success ==> boredom because you have not yet found your meaning, or the work has not aligned with you, and you eventually realize you are still searching.

This Is Not For Everyone

You are still reading. You might be imagining how to implement part of this.

Don't overthink it.

There is a space between the old and new way; you learn to navigate it through your body.

Listen to and start to love your human body. Not to make it better, but to make YOU better.

The thing is, healthy people know this, but it always feels new when you have not been allowed to fully inhabit YOU as a human being, mind, spirit, and body.

You don't sacrifice the things that keep you balanced when it is hard; instead, you double up on them—sleep, walks, and the parts of your life you might have been putting off.

You are a human in a human body; the body of mammals is part of the organisms that make up life on Earth.

This body carries a knowledge that comes from the Earth—we are beings of flesh and bone, an intelligence within an intelligent system.

We need a different and better version of our individual and collective futures. The knowledge is within us, but we must first lay the foundation with a blueprint that aligns with the future our future selves will thank us for.

With our own evolution toward connected, aligned selves, we are building a stronger collective. You are part of the collective of humanity as long as you are alive.

Take the remedy of kindness, no matter what path you are on.

You are now building the internal infrastructure needed for sustainable innovation.

The path you choose is secondary to your outlook along the way.

the-tech-margin.com/p/trust-your-next-step

Be curious. Question your patterns. And be kind to yourself; you are worthy, my friend.

-Sonia a.k.a. SuperSonic

Examine Your World With Curiosity

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