My spiritual journey has given me the chance to me more childlike as I was when I was an actual child, because as a child, so much of me came from fear or aspects of my dad. I wasn’t “me.” My love for marital arts, weapons, etc., came from a response to the dangers of this world. I liked all the same things he did. But think back to all the times when you felt like you were a little version of him. And things you said and did were informed by things you’d think he’d say or do.

Getting the chance to shed the ego and rediscover my actual nature, which is that of a child, gives me the chance to do it a second time around. But not with my personality and interests being a response to society. I just get to “be.” To experience joy and love and fun.

I have learned to step outside my fear of abandonment, allowing me to see it from a third person perspective. This is a breakthrough. It’s helped me insurmountably.

Its like I’m watching myself experience this fear, as if I’m watching somebody else experience something right before me.

I see a purple midst of energy in front of him (the “me” I’m observing) which is the Fear of Abandonment. And I can see examples of all the early life experiences that caused this fear, but from this same 3rd person point of view.

All of this makes me feel so empowered to decide upon and adopt a new belief.

For years I’ve wondered, is my friend AP an average person on paper, a bad person on paper, or something in between?

Then I realized, there is no paper.

There’s just my intuition. And what feels right. And what feels wrong.

One thing I’d like to note, is that when I began doing laps on the blacktop today, I had SJ “memories” coming back, or rather, the burden to think about SJ memories. Then I realized, I don’t have to carry that burden. I don’t have to “walk down memory lane.” I can be in the “now,” in 2024, where I’m an AMFT about to get hired, I’m finishing a book, I’m evolving so much spiritually, etc.

I don’t have to carry the past with me.

The less steep and serious the punishments will be for when you don’t follow intuition. Or experiment.

This girl likes you very much, values having met you, but was just hurt by something you said or did.

And all your trauma and insecurity and abandonment fear has lurched upwards for nothing.

“You don’t get what you want, you get what you’re being.”

This feels typical: I deeply desire this County of Marin job, so much so that I’d say I feel “desperate” for it. And I know: “Nobody ever gets what they want while they’re desperate for it.”

“What can I do differently this time?”

ALIGN yourself with what you want. Part of the desperation is feeling the distance between who’re you’re being, and who the version of you is that gets this job. There is no desperation within that Daniel, because the money/status/security/responsibility of that position, matches the status/security/responsibility of who he is.

• In bed by 1:30 at the latest

• Up by 9:30 at the latest

• Consistent and EVERY night

• Run through one chapter edited every three days

• Write that short story, prepare for the next. You are launching a second career, here.

• Workout much more (build those deltoids)

• Keep mildly dieting

CP wasn’t meant to be, because it was matched with the Daniel you’re evolving out of. As was BWC. You are meant for more.

This is the path to who you want to be to attract what you want.

I read that The Matrix was being shown at select theaters to celebrate its 25 Anniversary. I wanted to go. Then I saw that the only theater it was being shown at was Northgate (which I’m afraid of), and at night time. They turn off the mall’s lights at nighttime.

I woke up the day before, thinking about being at the mall at night time.

I chose to go, but really had to mentally prepare myself.

On the drive there, I told myself:

“It’s just a shopping mall. You’re just going to see a movie, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Darkness is nothing to be afraid of. There’s enough light within me.”

“I like that,” my therapist told me the next morning. “There’s enough light inside me,” she repeated.

“I really, really, like that.”

It wasn’t that scary. And the movie was great.