I don’t really know my expectations were for this process, but being called out after the LLM reviewed the transcripts was not something I planned on. I was pretty fragmented last week so I had to sort through many different themes, but this week was quite different. I guess that’s a positive sign - the learnings from last week carried over, which is really the point of all of this. But, it was a bit shocking to be called out so personally by what’s a simply a probability matrix.

My main goal for this week was to actively reduce fragmentation, and the key strategy was focusing on the next 30 min. While I normally feel the pressure to have my entire day or week planned out, I allowed myself to simply focus on the next 30 min. And choosing 1 sole “category” to put my attention and focus. Some of the most common choices were: work, barn chores, riding, yoga, and driving. I honestly really don’t do much else outside of that right now and that’s been a bit exhausting. The other side of this is it’s rewarding when I focus on how much energy I’m putting towards building the future of my desires.

Thanks for reading Etephra! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

There was a pretty core theme this week: learning that I don’t need to prove my value through exertion. Instead, I can focus on trusting the power of deliberately directing my energy. I used to look at intensity as proof that I was moving forward. This turned into a chase. The challenge with using something as proof is that it can transition to validation. Everything I did, I needed that “high,” or else I would crash due to a perspective of lack of progress. The energetic tax on this was very high, and I ran out of resources to pay it.

One of the best examples of this was when I was in Wellington with my sales horses. I ran myself into the ground. If things didn’t feel intense, I was convinced there was no progress. I would wake up early, take care of up to 9 horses, ride my two horses, drive to the show as needed to watch, then get back to my computer to grind out quant algorithms. While I was doing all of the other things, my “work” laptop - the company that fired me graciously allowed us to keep our laptops if we paid the taxes - was always open and running backtests. I think that thing ran for at least 5 months without ever being shut off. Anytime I was invited out, I declined due to the “need to work.” I missed out on so much to sit in front of my computer and run backtests, but I was chasing that potential profit. My mindset at the time was: once I had the money, then I could enjoy life. This is where I had really reached the definition of insanity. I convinced myself that even though I kept hitting dead ends, I just had to continue and eventually things would work themselves out. The only thing that changed was the level of intensity. The more energy I had, the more I tried to force outcomes. But besides that, I never thought to change my actions or my approach. I was so locked in on the expectation I had set and how things were supposed to work out.

I don’t know if I ever left that place until now. And I think it’s a great hint as to why I ended up feeling the way I have this year. My perspective has been that intensity is the only signal to progress. A few months ago, I asked ChatGPT what some characteristics of an addictive personality are. Turns out I checked every single box. I took this with a grain of salt, but it still left an impression. It was one of the first times I recognized that something deeper could be driving the behavior. Out of fear of AI psychosis, I didn’t want to dig too much into it - while I am crazy in some ways, saying “ChatGPT diagnosed me with addictive personality disorder” was not something I was willing to do. But I really don’t know how far I am from that now; here I am writing about the experience.

One of the key themes here seems to be me learning to trust myself so I no longer feel the need to over function. An old identity of mine feels the safest when I am: useful, productive, needed, impressive, certain, progressing quickly, or externally validated. Part of the reason this has stuck around for so long is that when I’m not in this identity, my subconscious signals danger. The shadow of laziness starts to follow me like a dark cloud. This is something I fear because it’s such a cause of missed potential, and there are very few things I look down upon more. I can’t imagine having all the opportunity and talent, yet still not finding success. I tend to interpret that outcome as meaning you simply weren’t good enough. Even with everything lined up for you, the mark was still missed. It’s embarrassing and shameful.

There’s something else worth unpacking here: my desire to be the best at everything I do. I’ve always looked at it as a superpower. While my ego hates to admit this, I viewed it as something that made me better than everyone else. And that’s something that will take a lot of time to dissolve, because in writing that sentence I thought to myself, “Well, I still do.” Getting curious about this and why I feel the need to be better than others, I think it’s because the best are the ones who seem to be rewarded. The best athletes go pro, the best traders take money from everyone else, and the best riders are the ones who win and get the opportunities. It feels like if you’re not the best, there really isn’t room for you in the arena. And I have spent so much of my life hoping for an opportunity to just get in, so obviously I need to be the best once that finally comes. A lot of this feels generational, like it was passed down from my lineage. Not necessarily the need to be the best, but the lack of opportunity. My grandparents all have immigrant roots; either they or their parents came to this country in search of a better life. They had to leave everything they knew behind, venture to a foreign country, which is crazy when you consider how little technology there was, and hope for a chance to chase those dreams. I know this story is one many American citizens share, and I’m curious how it has impacted us collectively.

I have found myself feeling pretty unsettled by this shift in perspective. It is extremely uncomfortable for me. My default setting is to move with speed and force, so I’ve been working towards changing that behavior and sitting in the discomfort. It’s been particularly hard because my environment also needs time to adjust as well. I’ve been needing to continuously anchor myself which feels completely against my nature. I wish I had better advice for how I’ve been navigating this, but it’s really come down to acknowledging the discomfort, knowing it’s part of the process, and telling myself to trust and release. There’s another element of this as well: removing the ammo. Normally I have a big vision I am striving towards, so it’s pretty easy for me to know what direction I want to go in. However, I have been working on releasing that use of my imagination due to the part it plays in my habits of escape. Part of this falls under changes I’ve been making this year following the business failure; I let go of any vision that made me feel a bit lost. I’ve been wandering through life not knowing what would come next or what direction I would be going, but that was a mindful choice. I decided I wasn’t responsible enough to hold a vision. I’m sure part of this has led to that energy fragmentation as well.

It’s a clear habit I have: swinging from one extreme to another. This is a great example. I had grandiose visions with strict expectations, then went the other direction to nothing at all. The answer was really just to settle in the middle. This lack of vision has persisted until yesterday, and it’s funny I didn’t even realize what I would be writing about when I made that decision. But I was feeling lost. I had assumed that once I had moved back home and settled, I would feel less lost. That hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been working on getting curious around this feeling instead of the normal habit of assigning meaning and panicking. In that curiosity, I realized that much of it was due to a lack of vision. And this is where I felt confused. Because, from my perspective, when I had a vision, I also ended up feeling lost. That’s another old pattern that has been pretty tricky for me to break through. Getting curious around these feelings, as opposed to the instant assignment of meaning. But I realized my desires in the past were too strict and inflexible. All of the manifestation content I was consuming told me I needed to be specific. So I was. I had the exact picture in my mind of what I was trying to achieve and experience.

Since Sundays are my Substack writing days, I figured I would map Saturday to be my manifestation day. I set up a small ritual where I tap into the reality I want to focus on for this week, with the understanding that things can change week over week. And I tried not to target the big life-changing dream of the future, but instead to consider what the next step is in my reality based on where I’m at. I’m not trying to manifest anything 1, 3, 5 years out as I had in the past. I’m just picking a vision that aligns with where I am at right now, getting clear on it, and holding that for the week. I find this helps with another thing I struggled with in the past, which was panicking when things had to change course. Once I locked on what success looked like for my business, anytime there was a slight deviation, I figured I had failed. There was no flexibility and no room for evolution. Starting this new ritual will help with that, I think, because it gives me something that lands in the middle. I no longer am aimlessly wandering through life waiting for things to happen to me, but I’m also not so stuck on a vision that I torpedo my life in an attempt to get there.

The biggest struggle I have had during all of this has been self trust and belief in my power. And now that I think about it, my doubts seem a little crazy, because when I tap in during meditation, I can feel how much I have access to. I guess part of that is fear. It feels unpredictable, but partially because I am. Something I have had to work through in my life is coming to the realization that I have some screws loose. I am definitely a bit crazy, if not completely insane. So if this power is sourced from me, how will that be any different? It won’t. Part of this also feels like the knowledge that I haven’t shown up for myself in all the ways I can. And that I have sacrificed myself and my needs at times for others. It’s tricky to trust someone when you know they’ll turn their back on you - even more tricky when that someone is yourself. Unfortunately, I think developing this self-trust is not going to be an easy task; it’ll probably be one of the most challenging things I have had to do so far.

But I guess I have my objective for this coming week! I honestly feel quite overwhelmed by all of this. Not only do I need to manage my time and be intentional about not fragmenting my energy - I also need to learn to trust myself! How am I going to manage? And that panic and overwhelm is exactly the signal that this is the right next step for me. This is a pretty heavy topic that will require me to start with simply defining trust. Then exploring what the energetics are that make up a trusting relationship; how is that cultivated? The thing coming up for me right now is knowing that I will show up for myself, but I look forward to continuing to explore this.

Thanks for reading Etephra! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.