I had a realization recently that genuinely stopped me mid-sentence.

I was talking with my wife about it, and I think she was even more surprised than I was — because if you asked anyone who knows me to describe me, anxious would probably be the last word they’d reach for. My wife would tell you that herself. I’m generally the calm one. The settled one. The one who doesn’t seem to carry much worry.

Which is what made this so interesting.

Somewhere underneath everything, running so quietly I had stopped hearing it years ago, there is a hum.

Not anxiety exactly. More like a subtle sense of being perpetually on. A feeling that there’s something I should be doing, somewhere I should be going, something that still needs my attention. A background frequency of not quite yet, not quite enough, not quite there.

It has been there for so long that I had mistaken it for the normal texture of being alive.

And then one day, in a quiet moment, I heard it. Really heard it. And my first thought, if I’m being honest, was a fairly succinct:

Damn.

For most of my life I had perfectly reasonable explanations for that feeling. Kids, a busy practice, travel, deadlines, the usual complexity of building a life. Sunday nights would bring what I always called the pre-week jitters — Monday was coming, there were things to do, and that was fair enough.

But my life is considerably quieter now. The kids are grown. My practice and schedule are different. The Sunday night jitters aren’t really there anymore.

The hum, however, is.

And when I got curious enough to look underneath it, I found something even more interesting — a persistent sense that something is missing. Not something specific. Just something. A vague incompleteness that has apparently been following me around for decades without ever producing any actual evidence that something is missing.

Which led me to a question I haven’t been able to put down since:

What if this feeling that something is missing isn’t actually evidence that something is missing?

When I shared this with my wife she knew immediately what I meant. For her, one place it reliably shows up is travel. She’ll come across someone visiting somewhere interesting and suddenly there’s an urgency — we need to get going, we’re not getting any younger, who knows how much time we have left?

And to be fair, she’s not wrong. But we both started laughing when we recognize the feeling underneath it. Because it isn’t simply I’d love to go there. It’s more like we’re supposed to be somewhere we’re not.

There’s a meaningful difference between those two things.

I also made the mistake of mentioning this to a good friend of mine — an executive coach, genuinely brilliant, always generous with his perspective.

He listened carefully. He considered it thoughtfully.

Then he said: “Just man up, buddy.”

I appreciate my friend enormously, and admittedly he was just joking. After we stopped laughing. I told him, his advice on this particular subject, was not especially useful.

Because we both agreed that we are not sure this is something you can simply push your way through. The hum doesn’t respond to willpower. I’ve tried. If anything, pushing harder just turns up the volume.

So instead I’ve been doing something different. I’ve been actually looking for the missing thing.

And here’s what I keep finding: it isn’t there.

When I look honestly at my life right now, I cannot locate the absence. There are things I want to do, places I want to see, relationships I want to deepen, things I still want to create and learn. I hope that never changes. But wanting more is not the same as being incomplete. And somehow those two things have been living in my nervous system as though they were identical.

We live in a culture that is extraordinarily good at reinforcing this confusion. There is always another thing to own, another experience to have, another level to reach, another version of ourselves we could become. Even happiness gets turned into something to acquire rather than something to notice. And perhaps after decades of living inside that current, the feeling of not enough yet becomes so familiar that we stop questioning whether it’s true.

I’m starting to question it.

Because there’s a distinction I don’t want to keep missing:

Nothing missing doesn’t mean nothing more.

I can still create, travel, learn, build, explore, want, and become. I can be genuinely excited about tomorrow without needing tomorrow to rescue me from today.

Wanting something isn’t the problem. It’s the quiet belief underneath the wanting — that the next thing might finally be the thing that makes me feel complete — that seems worth examining.

Maybe the hum I’ve been hearing all these years isn’t telling me that something is missing. Maybe it’s simply an old signal I’ve been listening to for so long that I mistook it for the truth.

Something I’ve Been Curious About Lately

I’ve been experimenting with noticing the exact moment that feeling arrives — something else needs to happen, I should be doing more, something is missing — and instead of immediately moving toward something to fill it, just asking one question:

What, exactly, is missing right now?

Sometimes there’s an answer. Increasingly, there isn’t. I’m becoming very curious about what happens when I sit in that space a little longer — without reaching for something to fill it.

Thank you to everyone supporting this publication, sharing these articles, commenting, subscribing, donating, and helping keep this page thriving. Honestly. It means the world to me and I am so grateful! This post is public so feel free to share.

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I suspect most of us carry a quiet list of things we believe will finally make us feel complete.

For me, one of those things was writing a book. I had been carrying the idea around for nearly fifteen years. Then cancer arrived—and oddly enough, it became the thing that finally convinced me to stop waiting.

The writing took far longer than I expected. The demands of drafting, rewriting, and editing—the sheer complexity of getting something right in your own heart and mind—were more overwhelming than I had anticipated. There were stretches where I seriously considered letting the whole thing go.

I didn’t.

I persevered.

Finally, I published it.

Holding the finished book in my hands, I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment. Something that had lived only in my imagination for fifteen years had become something I could finally hold.

My first thought was, I did it.

My second thought arrived only minutes later.

Okay... what’s next?

I’d love to tell you I spent the following weeks enjoying that feeling.

I didn’t.

My mind had already moved on before the moment had a chance to settle.

When I finally stopped to think about it, I realized this wasn’t new behavior. I’d done the same thing after building my practice, after retiring, after moving to Panama, and even after building the front deck where I now drink my morning coffee.

The destination kept changing.

The experience didn’t.

That’s when I began to suspect the problem probably wasn’t the destination.

A few weeks later I was talking with a friend who described the same pattern in their own life. They smiled and said something I’ve been carrying with me ever since.

“Isn’t it funny? We spent our whole lives trying to build a life—and now we’re having to learn how to live it.”

Something settled inside me when they said that.

Not because it was profound.

Because it was true.

I had spent decades believing life begins after the next accomplishment. That contentment is something you earn once the important work is finished. Somewhere along the way, that belief became so automatic I stopped questioning it.

What I’ve learned since—slowly, and still imperfectly—is that the work and the living don’t have to happen one after the other. I’ve been practicing something more like a deliberate balance, allowing myself to be fully present in the life I’ve built while continuing to do the work that still matters.

Some days I do it well.

Other days I forget all over again.

I’ve been wondering why this pattern runs so deep. Maybe part of the mind is simply built for pursuit—always scanning ahead, anticipating, planning, quietly asking, What’s next? It’s remarkably good at that.

What’s harder is recognizing when you’ve already arrived somewhere worth staying.

That requires a slower, quieter kind of attention.

I built that front deck because I imagined sitting there one day with a cup of coffee. The image stayed with me while the project was underway—a finished space, morning light filtering through the trees, a quiet place to simply be.

The deck is finished now. The coffee is warm in my hands. Morning light still surprises me.

Some mornings I catch myself thinking about the next project before I’ve even taken the first sip.

And that’s when I smile.

Because now I recognize what’s happening.

I almost missed it.

Not because of some dramatic distraction, but because the habit of looking forward had become stronger than the habit of noticing.

I’m beginning to think contentment isn’t something we eventually arrive at. It’s something we overlook because we’re already scanning the next horizon before we’ve fully experienced the one we’re standing in.

My friend was right.

We spend years building a life.

Then, if we’re fortunate, we get the chance to actually live it.

I don’t want to miss that cup of coffee.

Or the surprise of morning light reaching the trees.

Something I’ve Been Curious About Lately

This is a question I’ve been living with lately. Perhaps you’ll notice something too.

This week I’ve been noticing how often my mind quietly says,

“I’ll enjoy this once...”

Once I finish.

Once I get through this week.

Once this project is done.

Once life settles down.

I’m not trying to stop those thoughts. I’m simply becoming curious about how often my mind postpones contentment until some future version of my life that hasn’t arrived yet.

I want to be more aware of :

How much of the life I wanted am I already living?

I don’t have an answer.

I’m simply noticing the question showing up more often.

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There was a time when I didn’t realize how much energy I was spending arguing with reality.

I wasn’t arguing out loud. I wasn’t angry. But somewhere beneath almost every difficult experience was the quiet belief that life should be unfolding differently than it was. I wanted different circumstances, different timing, different people, different outcomes.

Looking back now, I can see that I wasn’t simply resisting events. I was resisting life itself.

Somewhere along the way I began wondering about a different possibility. What if life isn’t happening to me? What if it’s simply unfolding in front of me — and I already possess the inner resources to meet whatever unfolds?

I didn’t know it then, but that simple question would slowly change the direction of my life.

Many of you already know pieces of my story.

I’ve been in clinical practice for forty-five years. Looking back, I can see that my practice has never really stood still. As I’ve grown, learned, questioned old assumptions, and discovered new ones, my work has naturally evolved alongside me.

About twelve years ago I retired. Or at least I thought I had. A year later I found myself asking a very honest question — I liked the idea of retirement, but what I hadn’t anticipated was how much I still wanted to keep learning, growing, and contributing. For most of my life I had been evolving, sharing, and walking beside other people. Then, almost overnight, I stopped.

I missed the conversations. I missed the learning. I missed walking beside people as they discovered something new about themselves.

So we moved home, and I returned to practice. But before I did, I made a quiet agreement with myself. I promised that this time I would only practice in ways that felt deeply congruent with who I had become — not simply with what I knew, but with what I had come to trust. I wanted my work to reflect not only my education and experience, but also my intuition. What I’ve come to think of as my inner compass.

As life often does, it unfolded beautifully and imperfectly.

The practice grew. Life became busy. People needed help. And little by little, without really noticing it, I slipped back into old habits. Nothing dramatic — from the outside everything probably looked successful. I was helping people, the practice was thriving, I was doing good work. But somewhere inside, I knew I had quietly drifted away from the agreement I had made with myself. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I just wasn’t fully listening to that quieter voice anymore.

About three years after returning to practice, life interrupted me in a way I never could have imagined.

I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Within days I was being told that if I didn’t begin treatment immediately, I might not survive the next couple of weeks.

It’s difficult to describe what it feels like to have your life divided into a before and an after by a single conversation.

Until then, I had honestly believed I was doing things right. I exercised. I ate well. I cared for myself and for others. Like many of us, I quietly believed that if I did enough of the right things, life would unfold according to the plan I had made for it.

Instead, life unfolded according to its own plan.

As I lay in the hospital waiting for my first chemotherapy treatment, something became unmistakably clear. I don’t believe life gave me cancer because I had stopped listening to myself — I don’t believe life works that way. But I do believe the experience became an invitation. An invitation to become still enough to hear something I had been quietly ignoring.

I remembered the promise. The agreement I had made with myself. The commitment to live more honestly, to trust my intuition more deeply, to stop practicing from habit alone and begin practicing from alignment.

The hospital room didn’t create that realization. It simply gave me nowhere left to hide from it.

Did that realization change my recovery? I honestly don’t know. Extraordinary medical care mattered. Good fortune certainly mattered. The love of family and friends mattered deeply. But I also know that something inside me changed during that time.

I stopped waiting for life to become the version I wanted before I would trust it. Instead, I began asking a different question.

What if life is simply unfolding in front of me, and I already possess the inner resources to meet whatever unfolds?

Even this.

I’ve noticed something else over the years. The moments that have changed me most weren’t the moments when I finally figured life out. If anything, I’ve become more aware of how little I actually know. What changed wasn’t life. It was the relationship I was having with it.

I used to spend more energy anticipating problems than participating in what was actually here. Slowly, something shifted. When I stopped trying to steer life into the direction I thought it should go, I became more available to the life that was already unfolding. More present. More curious. More myself.

I used to believe my job was to create the right life. More and more, it feels like my real work is something quieter — to become the kind of person who can recognize the life that’s already trying to emerge.

Nine years have passed since that season of my life. When I look around today — my relationships, the way I practice, the conversations I’m having, the health challenges I continue to navigate — I can see the thread connecting all of it. Not perfection. Not certainty. Simply a growing willingness to keep that quiet agreement with myself. To trust my inner compass a little more. To meet life with a little more curiosity.

Looking back, I don’t think life was ever asking me to become someone else. I think it was patiently inviting me to become the person I had quietly promised myself I would be.

Maybe that’s true for all of us. Maybe the point isn’t simply to feel safer. Maybe the point is to create enough safety that we can hear our inner voice again — because beneath all the adapting, beneath all the striving, beneath all the roles we’ve learned to play, there is still someone quietly waiting.

Not asking us to become someone else. Just inviting us to stop performing long enough to discover who we’ve been all along.

These days I’m not trying so hard to become someone else anymore. I’m simply trying to stay in the conversation — with the life that’s unfolding, and with the quieter voice that’s been patiently waiting inside me all along.

Something I’ve Been Experimenting With Lately

The next time life doesn’t unfold the way you hoped, notice what happens inside you. Before trying to solve it or understand it, simply ask yourself one question:

What if the question isn’t “why is this happening to me” — but “who is this moment inviting me to become?”

You don’t have to answer it. You don’t even have to believe it. Just let it stay with you for a while.

Sometimes a new question begins changing us long before a new answer arrives.

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Life has a way of unfolding differently than I want it to.

My first response is almost always the same:

This shouldn’t be happening.

Recently I had a simple scrape injury while finishing a project on our home. Nothing dramatic. But three weeks later it still wasn’t healing the way I thought it should. There was swelling, redness, the tissue around the area becoming fuller in a way that was hard to ignore.

And even though I’m a physician — even though I knew exactly what those signs probably meant — my mind was already busy negotiating with reality. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I just need to give it more time. Maybe it will improve on its own.

The truth was obvious. I likely had a small infection developing and needed treatment. But I didn’t want that to be true. I didn’t want another round of antibiotics. So I argued with what was actually happening.

Looking back, it’s almost funny. Such a simple example. And yet it revealed something I keep returning to — I wasn’t suffering because of the scrape. I was suffering because I was resisting the reality of the scrape.

A few days later I found myself in another familiar place. Life felt routine. A little flat. A little empty. And almost immediately the story started: I should be more excited about life. I should have more energy. I’m wasting precious time. Then, almost automatically: something must be wrong with me.

It was interesting to watch from the inside. An experience arose — a quiet, uninspired day, nothing more — and within moments I had constructed an entire narrative around it. The experience itself was actually quite simple. Everything else was interpretation.

I stopped for a moment and asked myself: what story am I adding to this? And then: what am I making this mean?

Because interpretation matters more than we usually recognize. When we unconsciously layer judgments, expectations, and fearful stories onto our experience, life can quickly begin to feel heavy. Exhausting. Like something is fundamentally wrong — when often, something is simply happening.

Carl Jung spent much of his life exploring the idea that human suffering arises less from reality itself than from our resistance to aspects of reality we don’t want to face. I've been noticing that in my own life more and more lately. Not as an idea or philosophy, but as something I keep experiencing in small, ordinary moments.

Life does not always unfold the way I want. Bodies age. Plans change. Motivation comes and goes. People disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves. Reality continues unfolding whether I agree with it or not.

But something interesting happens when I stop arguing with what is already here. The external situation doesn’t necessarily change. But internally, the friction softens. And in that softening, clarity often appears — not forced, not manufactured, just quietly present in the space where the resistance used to be.

The question shifts from why is this happening to me? to what is this experience asking of me? Or sometimes, more honestly: what have I been unwilling to see?

I’m still learning this. I still resist. I still negotiate with reality more than I’d like to admit. But I’m beginning to understand that acceptance isn’t resignation. It’s not giving up or deciding nothing matters. It’s simply acknowledging what is already true — meeting reality where it actually is rather than where I wish it were.

And from that place, something becomes possible.

Choice.

Perspective.

And sometimes, quietly, a little more peace.

Something I’ve Been Experimenting With Lately

The next time life unfolds differently than you expected — when plans change, your body isn’t cooperating, or someone behaves in a way you didn’t hope for — try pausing before the story takes over.

Soften your stomach deliberately.

Let your shoulders drop.

Take one breath that actually goes somewhere.

Then ask yourself gently:

Where am I arguing with what is?

And maybe:

What story am I adding to this moment?

You don’t need to change anything immediately.

Just notice.

Because there is often a meaningful difference between what actually happened and what you’re making it mean.

And that gap, once you can see it clearly, is where something begins to shift.

Thank you to everyone supporting this publication, sharing these articles, commenting, subscribing, donating, and helping keep this page thriving. Honestly. It means the world to me and I am so grateful! This post is public so feel free to share.

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Not of something big. Sometimes it’s a relationship, a project, an invitation, a commitment. Sometimes it’s something as simple as whether to go hiking or cycling.

That might sound insignificant, but I’ve discovered that smaller decisions are often where these patterns reveal themselves most clearly. The stakes are low enough that what’s really happening becomes easier to see.

Recently I had the option of joining friends for a hike or spending the day cycling. I enjoy both. I love being with friends, love the conversations that happen on a trail, understand that sometimes people feel safer hiking together than alone.

There were plenty of good reasons to go.

But when I checked in with myself, something felt clear.

I wanted to ride.

Not because hiking was wrong. Not because I was avoiding anyone. Cycling simply felt more aligned with what was genuinely arising in me that day.

And that’s when the tension appeared.

Not around the activity itself — around disappointing people. Around obligation. Around whether I was being selfish. Around all the stories that move in quickly when what I want and what others want aren’t exactly the same thing.

I could feel it in my body immediately.

A tightening in the stomach.

A subtle pressure to justify my choice.

The feeling that I needed a good reason.

That I needed to convince myself — or maybe convince someone else.

This is something I’ve come to recognize. The mind has a system for this. When there’s any social uncertainty — any possibility of disappointing someone, any deviation from what’s expected — it activates. It starts negotiating, generating reasons, seeking approval, wanting guarantees that everyone will be happy with the outcome.

That mental activity can feel like careful thinking.

But often it’s just noise layered over something that was already clear.

So I did what I’ve been learning to do more often.

I slowed down.

Relaxed my shoulders.

Softened my stomach.

Stopped trying to think my way through it.

And underneath all that mental activity, what I wanted was still there.

Simple.

Quiet.

Unchanged.

I wanted to ride.

What I’ve been noticing is that alignment often feels exactly like that. Not loud. Not dramatic. Not demanding. Just present — waiting underneath the negotiation for the noise to settle.

It’s the mind that starts arguing. The mind that wants certainty before it will commit. The mind that wants approval, wants a perfectly crafted explanation, wants guarantees that the choice is defensible.

But the body already knew.

It knew before the negotiation started.

It was just waiting for me to stop overriding it.

Sometimes alignment means honoring what feels true even when it might disappoint someone. Sometimes it means trusting yourself without a perfectly crafted explanation.

That’s not selfishness — it’s just honesty about what’s actually there.

In this case, I chose to go cycling. Everyone ended up having a great day. We connected afterward, shared stories, spent time together.

Nothing fell apart.

But that wasn’t really the point.

The point was that I listened.

I stopped arguing with myself.

I stopped trying to convince myself that I should want something different than what I actually wanted.

And that felt surprisingly freeing — not because the outcome was perfect, but because I hadn’t abandoned what I already knew in order to get there.

Maybe that’s part of what authenticity actually looks like in practice. Not always getting what you want. Not always choosing yourself. But learning to recognize when you’re forcing yourself away from something you already know — and choosing, in those moments, to trust it instead.

The more I pay attention, the more I notice that alignment doesn’t usually require convincing.

It simply asks for trust.

Something I’ve Been Experimenting With Lately

The next time you notice yourself trying to convince yourself of something — a decision, a direction, a choice — pause before the mental negotiation gets too loud.

Soften your stomach deliberately.

Let your shoulders drop.

And ask:

What was I feeling before the arguing started?

That first quiet signal, before the mind began generating reasons, is usually worth paying attention to.

You don’t have to act on it immediately.

Just notice whether it’s still there underneath all the noise.

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I’m realizing how often I still carry tension around decision-making.

Not like I used to — I have to give myself some grace there. There was a time when even small decisions could generate a significant amount of internal pressure. That’s eased considerably. But I still feel it sometimes: a tightening in the stomach, a low-level apprehension around taking action, even around things that genuinely matter to me.

Recently I needed to make some decisions about improvements to our home. Not because anything was wrong or required fixing. Just a desire to make the space feel more like us — more welcoming, more aligned with how we actually live and share that space with the people we care about.

Which made it interesting to notice how quickly my mind moved into a familiar mode: scanning ahead, evaluating, questioning whether it was necessary, whether the timing made sense, whether I should just leave things alone. That restless, forward-searching energy that keeps optimizing even when there’s nothing that actually needs solving.

I understand now why that happens.

The brain has a system built precisely for this — anticipating, assessing, staying one step ahead. It’s useful. It’s kept us safe and moving forward for a long time. But it doesn’t distinguish particularly well between a genuine threat and a home renovation. It just activates.

And when I stay in that mode too long, everything starts to feel heavier than it needs to.

So this time, instead of pushing through the tension or trying to mentally force my way to clarity, I slowed down. I relaxed my body deliberately. Softened the stomach, let the shoulders drop, and slowed my breathing.

Then I stayed with the tension long enough to feel what was actually underneath it.

What I found was that the project itself wasn’t coming from pressure at all. It was coming from something quieter and more grounded — a genuine desire to improve the space we live in, to make it feel more natural, more reflective of who we are.

That desire didn’t have urgency in it.

It didn’t have the tight, scanning quality of the seeking mode. It felt steadier than that. More settled.

And once I could feel that distinction clearly, something shifted.

The effort was still there. The decisions still required energy, time, attention, and money. None of that disappeared. But the quality of the effort felt completely different in my body.

I’ve been sitting with this distinction since — the difference between two kinds of effort that can look identical from the outside but feel nothing alike from the inside.

One kind comes from pressure: obligation, fear of getting it wrong, pushing yourself through something that some part of you is quietly resisting. That effort depletes. You get to the end of it and feel emptied out rather than satisfied.

The other kind comes from alignment — from a genuine desire that your body recognizes as yours. That effort still tires you, but it’s a different kind of tired. The kind that comes with a quiet sense of having done something that mattered.

When the project was complete, I noticed it in my body immediately: shoulders relaxing, breath slowing and deepening, the tension in my stomach softening in a way that felt like release rather than just relief.

And underneath all of that was something quieter still — a sense of having been aligned with myself throughout. Of not having forced anything. Of knowing, somewhere below thought, why it mattered.

That feeling is worth paying attention to. It’s the body’s way of confirming what the mind sometimes can’t quite articulate.

I’m still learning to recognize the difference earlier — before the tension builds, before the scanning mode takes over. But I’m getting better at it. And what I’m finding is that the body usually knows the difference before the mind catches up.

Not all effort feels the same.

And learning to tell the difference, it turns out, changes not just how you work — but how you live.

Something I’ve been experimenting with lately

Think of something you’re currently putting effort into — a project, a decision, a relationship, a goal.

Bring it to mind and then check in with your body honestly. Does the effort feel like pushing through resistance, or does it feel like moving toward something you recognize as genuinely yours?

You don’t need to act on what you notice.

Just let the distinction be there.

The body usually knows the difference before the mind catches up.

Not just physically. Internally. A kind of constant pressure to figure things out, stay ahead, make the right decision, keep moving. Even when life looked calm on the outside, there was often a subtle tightening underneath it all.

A kind of pushing that had just become the background hum of everything.

What’s interesting is I don’t think I fully realized how normal that had become. It just felt like how you moved through life. How you got things done. How you stayed responsible. How you kept things together.

And there’s a reason it felt so natural.

And there’s a reason it felt so natural.

The brain has what some call a seeking system — always scanning ahead, anticipating, planning, pursuing the next thing. Modern life tends to keep that system running almost constantly.

After a while, the forward pressure becomes so familiar you stop noticing it’s even there.

Lately I’ve been noticing something different.

The more I pause, the more I listen, the less force seems necessary. Not no effort. Just less strain around it. Less convincing. Less trying to control every outcome. Less pushing myself through things that don’t feel aligned in the first place.

And my body notices the difference immediately.

There’s more space. More ease in simple things. A softening somewhere in the chest and shoulders that I didn’t realize had been holding. Even decisions feel different — not because I suddenly know exactly what to do, but because I’m not tightening around every possibility anymore.

That tightening, I’ve come to understand, is information. It’s the body registering misalignment — the subtle signal that something about the direction, the timing, or the decision doesn’t quite fit. Most of the time I used to push straight through it. Now I’m learning to pause when I feel it and get a little curious about what it’s telling me.

I’m starting to trust that I don’t have to push life forward all the time.

Some things unfold better when I stop gripping so tightly. When I stop trying to manufacture clarity and instead wait for the quieter signal that’s usually already there underneath all the effort. That signal doesn’t shout. It doesn’t argue. It just becomes available when I stop moving long enough to feel it.

There’s something steadier in that place. Something that doesn’t require force to access — only a willingness to slow down enough to notice it’s there.

I still catch myself forcing sometimes. Trying too hard. Overthinking. Pushing past something I already knew. But I notice it sooner now — that particular tightening that tells me I’ve moved back into pushing mode without realizing it.

And maybe that’s part of this too. Not eliminating effort entirely. Just learning to recognize where it’s no longer needed. Where the grip can loosen. Where something can unfold rather than be forced.

Life feels lighter this way.

Not because it’s become simpler. But because I’m carrying less of it through sheer will.

Something I’ve Been Experimenting With Lately

When I notice myself gripping tightly around a decision, situation, or feeling I’m trying to resolve, I’ve been experimenting with loosening the grip slightly.

Not to avoid it.
Not to force an answer.

Just enough to notice what changes in my body when I do.

Sometimes nothing shifts immediately.

And sometimes… there’s a little more space than there was before.

What I’ve been noticing lately is what happens when I actually follow that.

Not perfectly. Not every time. But when I do, there’s a different quality to how things unfold.

Things don’t necessarily become easier. But they feel more aligned. Less second-guessing. Less internal back and forth. A kind of steadiness that I don’t have to manufacture — it’s just there when I’m not moving against myself.

Even small decisions feel different. Simpler. Like I’m not trying to convince myself of anything. I’m just moving with something that was already present.

It’s subtle enough to miss if I’m going too fast or trying to figure everything out in my head. But when I stay with it — when I actually let it inform what I do next — there’s an ease that shows up. Not because everything is certain. Just because I’m not fighting my own signals.

I’m starting to see that listening doesn’t mean everything works out perfectly. It just means I move in a way that feels more true. More connected to something I actually recognize as mine.

Maybe that’s the shift. Not in controlling outcomes — but in how I move through them.

And to be honest… it’s just more fun.

A quiet sense of knowing. Not loud. Not urgent. Just there.

And if I pause long enough, I recognize it.

But I’ve been noticing how often I don’t stop.

Not in a dramatic way. I don’t ignore it outright.

It’s more subtle than that.

I move past it. I explain it away. I override it with logic. Or I just keep going — without really acknowledging what I already felt.

And most of the time, it seems fine in the moment.

But later… something registers.

Not a consequence, exactly. More like a low-level friction. A little more effort than there needed to be. A little less ease.

It’s interesting how quiet that is. And how easy it is to miss.

There’s a difference in the body, I’ve noticed.

When I’m aligned, things feel more open. More settled. When I’m not… there’s a tightening. Not always obvious. But there.

I’m not trying to get this right every time.

I’m just starting to catch that moment a little sooner — the moment when I move past something I could have listened to.

Maybe that’s where it starts. Not in making better decisions. But in noticing, just a beat earlier, that I already knew something.

And then seeing what I do with that.

There’s something both curious and intriguing about that.

I’ve learned to give myself a small moment of pause—
a space where reaction softens
and a more thoughtful response has time to emerge.

In that space, something different becomes possible.

As I’ve explored this more, I’ve started to realize how important intention is.

Not goals.
Not goal setting.

Those tend to bring urgency, pressure… sometimes even anxiety.

And I can feel that in my body.

It doesn’t feel good.
It doesn’t feel aligned.

Intention feels different.

It’s more encompassing.
It includes both my mind and my body.
There’s a sense of balance to it.

When I set an intention, it’s less about achieving something
and more about orienting myself.

Almost like setting an internal direction.

A kind of inner compass.

From there, I can explore gently.

I can notice what feels aligned…
what feels off…

and take small, simple actions each day—
adjusting as I go,
without the same level of pressure or strain.

There’s something freeing in that.

In this subtle shift, I notice I feel more connected—
to myself,
to something quieter and more steady.

Honoring that feels affirming.

It softens the critical voice.
It quiets the rumination.
It allows me to move in a way that feels more natural.

This shift doesn’t feel like it’s coming from outside anymore.

It feels like trust.

Less about holding on…
and more about letting go.

Letting life unfold a bit more from the inside out.

Listening…
to that inner compass.

Nothing complicated. Just looking at dates, places, what felt interesting.

And yet… there was a hesitation.

Not a big one. Subtle.

But I could feel it.

It wasn’t about whether we could do it.

We’ve done the work. We’ve saved. We’ve planned.
And along the way, we’ve also made a point to live.

We didn’t wait for some future moment to begin.
We traveled. We experienced things.
We tried, as best we could, to live our lives while we were building them.

Not better—just different.

And I think that matters.

Because now, here we are.

At a stage of life where, for many people, this is when living is finally supposed to begin.

And for us, it’s not a beginning.
It’s a continuation.

And still… there was that hesitation.

That surprised me.

Because even though we chose a slightly different path,
there’s still a part of me that was shaped by the same pattern most of us grow up with:

Work.
Save.
Be responsible.
Prepare for the future.

And now, here we are.

The future we were preparing for… has arrived.

And still, shifting into spending—into more fully using what we’ve built—feels unfamiliar.

Even a little uncomfortable.

I didn’t expect this part.

Because on paper, it makes complete sense.

But in the body… it’s different.

There’s a kind of conditioning that builds over decades.
A quiet voice that says:

Hold on to it.
Be careful.
Don’t overdo it.

And that voice doesn’t just disappear just because the numbers say we’re okay.

I can feel both things at the same time.

Gratitude for where we are.
And a subtle tightening when it’s time to say yes.

Maybe this is the real shift.

Not just changing behavior…
but allowing the nervous system to catch up with reality.

To recognize:

We’re not preparing anymore.

We’re here.

And maybe this stage of life isn’t about finally starting to live…
but about allowing ourselves to live even more fully—
a little more freely—
each time we say yes.

Feeling strong.
And also feeling the essence of aging.

There’s something honest about that combination.

At 70, I’m grateful my body can still move, still explore.
I don’t take that for granted.

I am fortunate.

The podcast touched on something I think many of us wrestle with at this stage of life.

We’ve spent years working, saving, putting money away…
and often putting experiences off.

At least, that’s the traditional path.

My wife and I chose something a little different.

Along the way—while raising kids, building businesses, creating a life—
we made space to travel, to experience things as we went.

Not better. Just different.

And for us, it mattered.

It kept us inspired.
A little bit in wonder.
It gave us a collection of lived moments we can actually feel when we look back.

Now we find ourselves in a familiar place—
we’ve worked, we’ve saved, we’ve done the responsible things.

But something is shifting.

We’re moving from a mindset of saving…
to a mindset of spending.

And the psychology of that shift?
More difficult than I expected.

Didn’t see that one coming.

And yet… there’s something good about it.

The podcast made a point that stopped me for a moment:

At this age, we might be lucky to have 15 truly active, adventurous years left.

Fifteen.

I had to let that sink in.

So now, like many people in this phase of life, we’re being asked to shift again.

To loosen our grip a bit.
To trust what we’ve built.
To begin spending what we once worked so hard to save.

To say yes—
not “maybe later”
not “when things feel more stable”
not “when the timing is perfect”

Now.

Say yes to the friends who want to gather.
Say yes to the trip that keeps calling your name.
Say yes to making your home a place you truly enjoy living in.

Say yes… to your life.

I’m not generally a person who feels fear on a daily basis. I feel like the energy of Life is unfolding right in front of us, consistently, and continuously. I believe that if we stay present, open, and curious, we have access to all the resources available to us to respond to Life in an effective way.

I admit that today I am feeling fearful. I’m experiencing fear about several things going on in the world right now, but this fear lands closer to home. I’m embarking on a new project—one that feels complex, unfamiliar, and honestly a bit overwhelming. Taking on something new at 70 is anxiety-provoking. Learning curves can be steep, frustrating, and daunting. Vulnerability is often seen as weakness; I believe it is our deepest strength. Do you ever feel like this?

And yet, I know my learning-compelled, curious mind won’t allow me to sit still. So onward I go—once again—into the experience of growth. I genuinely believe these kinds of challenges build resilience, support neuroplasticity, and contribute to longevity. These are values I try to live by.

In my private practice, I’ve seen that patients do their best when they understand how the mind and body respond, adapt, and heal through their ongoing interaction with the many influences surrounding them. I love exploring this terrain and sharing what I’m learning with my family, friends, and patients. I’ve also realized that unless you’re sitting in my office, you don’t really get access to these conversations.

So, this is where things expand.

My—or I should say our—purpose going forward is to share these explorations with a wider circle by creating an online community. I say “our” because my daughter has agreed to join me in this new chapter. Dr. Micah brings much of the same curiosity and integrative thinking into her own practice. Between us, we’re exposed daily to meaningful research and perspectives that we feel called to share. We will be launching a collaborative Substack soon called “Forever Curious”, which you can subscribe to as well.

This upcoming collaboration feels organic, and like the most natural next step – a father and daughter, weaving together and sharing two generations of curiosity, healing, lived experience and what we’re still discovering.

If you choose to join us on our Substack subscription called “Forever Curious” which is free - you can see if what we’re offering resonates with you. We promise to keep things thoughtful, grounded, and to the point. Throughout the year ahead, we’ll offer various ways to engage with our community if you feel compelled. And if not, you can always unsubscribe easily and without obligation.

As my granddaughter Farrah would say, “Just give it a go!”