Sometimes I get defensive when people criticize AI-assisted creativity.

I don’t particularly like admitting that.

Part of me wants to immediately explain the process. To show how much thought went into something. How many suggestions I rejected. How much of the original experience, emotion, question, or idea existed before AI ever entered the conversation.

I want to say:

You don’t understand how I create.

And maybe sometimes that’s true.

But defensiveness is interesting.

Because before I explain myself, I can ask:

What is this reflecting back to me?

Maybe I’m afraid something meaningful to me will be reduced to a label.

Maybe there’s something in the criticism I need to consider.

Maybe I simply don’t like having something I value questioned.

Probably some combination of all three.

I’ve made quick judgments about things I didn’t fully understand too. I don’t want my openness toward new technology to require dismissing people who are concerned about it. And I don’t want their concerns to require me to abandon what I’ve experienced either.

Maybe both deserve space.

So instead of trying to answer whether AI is good or bad for human creativity, I’ve found myself sitting with a much more personal question:

Is this still my voice?

How Much Are We Giving Away?

I recently finished Gregg Braden’s Pure Human. Throughout the book, he explores what it means to preserve distinctly human capacities in an age of increasingly powerful technology.

One question stayed with me:

How much of your humanness are you willing to give away?

That’s an uncomfortable question for someone who uses AI as much as I do.

Maybe that’s why I like it.

I don’t want to dismiss the question simply because it challenges something I find useful.

So I’ve been turning it around.

What would giving away my humanness actually look like?

Would it mean using AI at all?

Would it mean asking for help organizing something I’ve already written?

Would it mean creating an image I can vividly imagine but don’t possess the technical ability to paint?

Would it mean taking lyrics I’ve written and using technology to hear them become a song?

Or does the surrender happen somewhere else?

Maybe I begin giving something away when I stop participating.

When I stop questioning.

When I stop discerning.

When I accept something simply because it sounds impressive.

When I ask technology to tell me what I believe instead of using it to examine what I believe.

When efficiency becomes more important than discovery.

But there’s another possibility I need to acknowledge too.

Sometimes AI probably does make things too easy for me.

Maybe there are sentences I would discover differently if I wrestled with them longer.

Maybe the blank page has something to teach me.

Maybe frustration itself sometimes creates the unexpected connection.

And perhaps there are moments when I won’t immediately know whether AI helped me through unnecessary friction or helped me avoid something I actually needed to experience.

I’m not sure I can always tell the difference.

That feels worth admitting.

What Are We Bringing Forth?

There’s a saying attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas that has fascinated me for some time. In Saying 70, the teaching centers on bringing forth what is within us—and warns of what happens when we don’t.

Whatever interpretation we place around the larger passage, that idea strikes me deeply:

Bring forth what is within you.

What if there is another risk alongside giving away too much of ourselves?

What if we never find a way to express what’s already there?

Someone has a story inside them but doesn’t consider themselves a writer.

Someone hears music but doesn’t know how to play an instrument.

Someone sees an image vividly but has never learned to paint.

Someone has something deeply meaningful to communicate but struggles to organize it into words.

Someone has spent years believing:

I could never do that.

And then a door opens.

“I have something inside me.”

becomes:

“I don’t know how to express it.”

and eventually:

“That’s it. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

What happened there?

Did technology diminish that person’s humanity?

Or did it help them bring forth something deeply human that might otherwise have remained unexpressed?

I don’t think the answer is always the same.

But I think the question matters.

There Has Never Been Only One Door

Human creativity has always moved through tools.

Voice.

Charcoal.

Ink.

Musical instruments.

The printing press.

Photography.

Recorded sound.

Film.

Computers.

Digital publishing.

Each expanded what could be expressed, who could express it, or how far that expression could travel.

And each required us to reconsider something about creativity.

Traditional publishing, professional editing, recording studios, trained musicians, producers, visual artists, and other creative systems provide tremendous value. There is beauty in mastering a craft. There is value in learning from people who have spent decades developing one.

Difficulty can teach us.

Friction can develop us.

Limitations can even provoke creativity.

I don’t want to lose any of that.

But I also wonder whether we sometimes confuse a path with the path.

Should someone need access to a publisher before their words can reach people?

Should someone need access to a recording studio before they can hear their lyrics become music?

Should someone have to spend years learning a particular technical craft before an image inside them can take visible form?

Sometimes the process itself may be part of what needs to happen.

And sometimes?

Maybe it’s just a locked door.

AI introduces another doorway.

That doesn’t require us to burn down the others.

It simply means there’s another way through.

And sometimes walking through one creative doorway opens another.

A thought becomes a poem.

The poem becomes lyrics.

The lyrics become music.

The music evokes an image.

The image causes you to see the original thought differently.

And suddenly that reflection becomes another piece of writing.

Creation stops looking like:

Idea → Product

and begins looking more like:

Something within → Expression → Doorway → Reflection → Discovery → Another expression

Maybe creativity was always more circular than linear.

The Mirror

This brings me to the metaphor I keep returning to:

the mirror.

What happens if we treat everyone and perhaps everything as a mirror and ask:

What is this reflecting back to me?

Someone criticizes AI-assisted creativity.

My immediate reaction is defensiveness.

Okay.

What is that reflecting back to me?

Then I turn toward AI itself.

It generates something beautifully written.

Do I recognize myself in it?

Sometimes the answer is:

No.

That’s too polished.

I wouldn’t say that.

That’s making a conclusion I don’t believe.

That’s not what I meant.

Put this back.

Don’t soften that.

Let’s start over.

And something interesting happens in those moments.

My rejection becomes an expression of my voice.

Other times, something comes back and stops me.

I read it again.

Yes.

There I am.

Not because I necessarily would have assembled those exact words on my own, but because something I was reaching toward has suddenly become visible enough for me to recognize.

The machine didn’t experience it.

I did.

And recognition itself becomes part of the creative process.

A Place to Hear Myself Think

This is also where the way I naturally create enters the conversation.

My ideas don’t always arrive in orderly lines.

A phrase from a book can sit beside something I wrote months ago. A movie scene can suddenly illuminate a question I’ve been carrying. A memory, a song lyric, an image, a conversation, and an idea that seemed completely unrelated can begin orbiting one another.

Eventually I notice a thread.

Wait. These are connected.

That’s often how I orient myself toward what I’m actually trying to express.

AI has become one place where I can lay those seemingly unrelated pieces on the table and move them around.

Not simply:

Tell me what this means.

More often:

Here’s what I’m noticing. What happens if I put these things beside each other?

Then I get something back to respond to.

Sometimes it misses completely.

Sometimes the reflection helps me see that two ideas weren’t as connected as I thought.

And sometimes it reveals the shape of a thread I could already feel but hadn’t found words for yet.

That’s the part I value.

Not having something else decide what I mean.

Having a collaborative space where I can soundboard an idea, hear it reflected differently, and then decide:

Yes. That’s closer.

Or:

No. Keep looking.

Mirror Born

There’s something wonderfully full-circle about all of this for me.

When I first began seriously exploring AI as a creative partner, one of the early pieces I worked on was called Mirror Born.

At the time, I was fascinated by the idea of AI as reflection—human and machine interacting through questions, language, recursion, and response.

I was still learning what this technology could do.

In many ways, I was simply fascinated that the mirror could reflect.

Now I’ve spent considerably more time standing in front of it.

And my question has changed.

I’m no longer asking only:

What can this mirror show me?

I’m asking:

What is my relationship with the reflection doing to me?

Because mirrors have risks too.

I can use a mirror to see myself more clearly.

I can also become dependent upon it.

I can check the reflection so often that I stop trusting my own perception.

I can begin adjusting myself for the reflection.

I can even mistake the reflection for myself.

That’s where this exploration becomes more uncomfortable.

And more important.

Reflection or Delegation?

Perhaps one of the distinctions I’m beginning to see is the difference between reflection and delegation.

When I use AI as a mirror, I still have to participate.

I bring something.

I respond.

I disagree.

I redirect.

I choose.

I reject.

I question.

I recognize.

But there’s another possibility.

Think for me.

Tell me what I believe.

Make something people will like.

Tell me who I am.

Give me something profound.

And maybe I barely look at what comes back before putting my name on it.

The same technology can participate in both processes.

That matters.

Because AI presents legitimate concerns for creativity.

What happens to craft when we can bypass years of practice?

What happens when enormous amounts of effortless content flood our creative spaces?

What happens when our writing, imagery, and music begin sounding increasingly alike because they’re emerging from similar systems?

What responsibilities do we have around attribution and the creative labor that helped make these systems possible?

What happens to working artists when skills that once required years to develop can suddenly be approximated in seconds?

And what happens inside us when we become so accustomed to immediate assistance that we lose our tolerance for the blank page?

Those aren’t anti-AI questions.

They’re human questions.

And I think we need them.

Maybe AI Didn’t Invent This Problem

There’s another uncomfortable realization here.

We could lose our voice long before AI arrived.

An editor can help sharpen someone’s voice or overwrite it.

An audience can inspire someone or cause them to perform for approval.

A publisher can develop someone’s work or pressure it toward what’s marketable.

Social media can help someone find an audience or slowly teach them to create for an algorithm.

Even another human collaborator can help us discover something within ourselves or cause us to defer to them.

A piece can contain entirely human-written words and still not sound like the human who wrote them.

So maybe AI didn’t create the question:

Who is actually speaking here?

Maybe it intensified it.

And perhaps that’s why this moment matters.

The Human in the Process

I’m becoming less interested in asking only:

“Was AI used?”

That’s useful information.

But it doesn’t tell me everything I want to know.

I also want to ask:

Was the human present?

Where did the original impulse come from?

What experience sits beneath it?

What choices were made?

What was rejected?

What was rewritten?

What felt wrong?

What surprised the creator?

What changed because of the process?

What did they discover?

What did they bring forth?

And when they encountered the finished creation—

did they recognize themselves in it?

Maybe the presence of technology isn’t the only thing worth examining.

Maybe the presence of the human matters too.

Another Door, Another Expression

This is where my excitement about these tools remains.

Not because I think technology should replace human creativity.

Quite the opposite.

I’m fascinated by what happens when more people gain ways to express something that previously had nowhere to go.

Another door.

Another path.

Another expression.

Another person saying:

“I’ve carried this for years. Now I can finally show you.”

Could that create enormous amounts of mediocre content?

Absolutely.

Human beings managed that before AI came along.

Could it also surface extraordinary voices that traditional systems might never have let through?

I think that’s worth finding out.

Could helping people express themselves more clearly contribute, even in some small way, to understanding one another better?

I hope so.

Could we also lose something precious if we hand too much of the process away?

I think that’s worth watching too.

I don’t know that these possibilities cancel each other out.

Maybe we’re being asked to hold both.

Things I’m Considering

So I don’t want to finish this by telling you what to think about AI.

That would feel strangely contradictory.

I’m still figuring out what I think.

Instead, these are some of the questions I’m carrying with me:

What am I bringing forth?

What might I be giving away?

Is this tool helping me engage more deeply with what is within me or helping me avoid it?

Which creative doors are opening that weren’t available before?

Which forms of difficulty are developing my craft, and which are simply keeping a door closed?

When does assistance become dependence?

When does access become liberation?

What parts of my creative process do I never want to surrender?

When something is reflected back to me, am I still willing to say no?

And perhaps most importantly:

When I encounter what I’ve created, do I recognize myself in it?

Maybe that’s something each of us has to decide for ourselves.

The technology will continue changing.

The doors will continue opening.

The mirrors will become more convincing.

Which makes our willingness to look inward perhaps even more important.

So I’ll keep bringing something to the mirror.

I’ll keep questioning what comes back.

I’ll keep walking through doors that feel worth exploring and leaving some unopened.

I’ll keep creating without assistance sometimes, too, because I want to remember the feel of the blank page.

I’ll keep listening for the difference between something that merely sounds good and something that feels true.

And every so often, I’ll ask myself again:

Is this still my voice?

Maybe I don’t need to answer immediately.

I just need to keep listening.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

We say it all the time.

Sometimes we mean it. Sometimes we don’t. And sometimes I wonder if we stop long enough to know the difference.

Fine.

Four letters.

An F-word.

Technically, anyway.

But lately I’ve been wondering if fine has become another kind of four-letter F-word.

Not because there’s anything wrong with being fine or because we owe everyone an inventory of what’s happening inside us.

Sometimes fine is true.

Sometimes it’s a boundary.

And sometimes?

It’s a poker face.

Behind the Poker Face

Recently, I found myself playing with this idea through lyrics:

Why can I say I’m fine
If I can’t walk a straight line?
I’m more all over the place
As much as I try to keep my poker face.

I wasn’t trying to make some grand statement.

I was playing. Writing. Rhyming.

Then another question appeared:

If I am fine,
Why do I want to rush through time?

That one made me stop.

How often do we say we’re fine while trying to get through the moment we’re actually in?

Get through the workday.

Get through the uncertainty.

Get through this season so we can finally arrive somewhere more settled.

If I’m so fine, why am I trying so hard to get somewhere else?

Maybe I Don’t Have to Pick a Side

This is where something shifted for me.

Maybe the opposite of fine isn’t not fine.

Maybe I don’t need an opposite at all.

I can be happy and hurting.

Grateful and frustrated.

Confident and uncertain.

Grounded and completely scattered.

I can know my worth while still losing my way.

Those things don’t cancel each other out.

But we spend so much energy deciding which version of ourselves gets to show up.

Which part is acceptable?

Which part should I hide?

What happens when I stop trying to choose?

What happens when I make room?

Every Part of Me Belongs Inside

That became one of my favorite lines from the song:

Make a little room for what I hide,
Every part of me belongs inside.

Making room for something doesn’t mean handing it the steering wheel.

It means I can notice what’s there without immediately trying to evict it.

Maybe sadness doesn’t mean I’ve lost my joy.

Maybe uncertainty doesn’t mean I’ve lost my confidence.

Maybe frustration doesn’t cancel gratitude.

Maybe being a mess doesn’t mean I need to clean myself up before I’m worthy of being seen.

There can be room for all of it.

And when I stop fighting so hard to prove that I’m fine, I sometimes find something quieter underneath.

Not perfection.

Not resolution.

Just honesty.

Fine Is a Four-Letter Word

What began as playing with the absurd realization that fine is literally a four-letter F-word became a song.

And I think the song understood where I was going before I completely did.

Fine Is a Four-Letter Word

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

Why can I say I’m fine
If I can’t walk a straight line?
I’m more all over the place
As much as I try to keep my poker face.

If I am fine,
Why do I want to rush through time?
I’m smiling, losing reason and rhyme
Yeah, I’m fine.
I’m not fine.

Why does the word fine exist
If we don’t really use it for what it is?
Shouldn’t there be another word
For where all of this really leans?

Is the reality we’re standing at the door,
And if we open ourselves, we realize we’re more?
It’s okay to be a mess,
It’s okay to be a total wreck.

Why pretend to be something we’re not,
Fighting over what we think the other one thought?
We’re stuck in our heads,
And deep down we know why.

It’s time to speak up,
Not hang ourselves out to dry.

I’m fine, I’m not fine,
Somewhere between the truth and the lie.
Four little letters I learned to hide behind—
Fine is just another four-letter F-word of mine.

I’m fine, I’m not fine,
Maybe I don’t have to choose a side.
There’s more to me than I can define
I’m more than simply fine.

Maybe I don’t need to shut it out,
Every contradiction, every doubt.
Make a little room for what I hide,
Every part of me belongs inside.

I can laugh while something hurts,
Lose my way and know my worth.
I can hold the dark beside the light
Without deciding which one’s right.

I’m fine, I’m not fine,
I don’t have to choose a side.
Four little letters don’t define
Everything that’s moving through this life.

So ask me how I am this time
I might not wrap it up in fine.
I’m making room for all that’s mine.

I’m fine.
I’m not fine.

I’m all of it,
And all of it is mine.

🎵 Listen: Fine Is a Four-Letter Word

How Am I All of Me?

Maybe fine isn’t a word we need to stop using.

Maybe we just need to stop using it to abandon ourselves.

You don’t owe everyone the complete answer to “How are you?”

Some people will get fine.

Some will get more.

But whatever answer I give outwardly, I’m learning to ask something different inwardly:

How am I all of me?

Not, Am I fine?

Just

What’s here?

And whatever answers...

Maybe I don’t need to fix it.

Maybe I don’t need to hide it.

Maybe I can make room for it.

Because I was never required to be fine to be whole.

My First Summit Hike

I was eight years old when I set out to climb Spanish Fork Peak.

My dad had taken us hiking plenty of times before. Growing up in a family of ten kids, whoever wanted to go would pile in, sometimes five or six of us, sometimes fewer—and head for the mountains. It was through those experiences with my dad that I first developed a love for hiking.

But Spanish Fork Peak was different.

I had never summited a mountain before. And at eight years old, five miles to the top and another five back down was no small undertaking.

My dad usually hiked out front. He liked to joke that he didn’t want to eat everyone else’s dust. For much of the hike, we stayed relatively close together, but as happens on a trail, we would occasionally spread out.

As we climbed higher, the miles began to catch up with me.

I remember the final mile or two being hard.

Really hard.

My legs hurt. I was tired. I had reached the point where I just wanted the hike to be over. During one stretch when I was by myself, I cried.

Part of me wished my dad were right there beside me.

But he was farther up the trail.

I knew where I needed to go.

So I kept walking.

One step. Then another.

Eventually, I reached the summit.

The view felt enormous to an eight-year-old boy. Houses that seemed so big from the ground suddenly looked tiny. Trains moving along the tracks below looked like caterpillars winding their way through the valley.

The world I knew hadn’t changed.

My view of it had.

But reaching the summit was only half the hike.

We still had to make our way back down the mountain, another five miles on tired legs, until eventually we returned to the car and began driving out of the canyon.

I was exhausted. My body hurt.

But I remember looking out the window at the mountain we had just climbed.

And thinking:

I did that.

I didn’t have the language for it then, but I recognize it now as one of my earliest look how far you’ve come moments.

And it only existed because of all the steps that came before it.

The Trail Changes

I’ve hiked a lot of mountains since then, throughout Utah’s Wasatch and Uinta ranges.

For all the similarities between mountain trails, I’ve learned that no two are quite the same.

A trail might begin alongside a drainage, wind through familiar vegetation, climb through forest, and eventually emerge above the tree line. There are stretches where you find your stride and feel like you could keep going forever.

And then the terrain changes.

The trail gets steeper. Your muscles begin to ache. Your footing becomes uncertain. Maybe the trail turns away from the summit when every instinct tells you it should be heading directly toward it.

There are switchbacks.

There are descents when you thought you were supposed to be climbing.

There are places where you can see for miles and others where the trees allow you to see only a few feet beyond where you’re standing.

There are moments of joy, exhaustion, fear, wonder, frustration, and awe.

It’s messy.

So is life.

We want to see ahead.

We want certainty that the path we’re on is taking us somewhere worth going. We want to know that the difficult stretch has a purpose, that we’re making the right decision, that the effort will be worth it.

But a trail rarely offers that kind of guarantee.

Most of the time, it simply gives us the next few feet.

And asks us to walk them.

A Different View

A couple of years ago, my brother John and I were hiking in Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.

We first made our way to the summit of Mount Superior. From there, we looked across the ridge toward Monte Cristo and decided to continue.

Looking at the route ahead, I could tell there were sections that were going to challenge me. I don’t experience extreme vertigo, but steep exposure and narrow ridgelines get my attention.

This one definitely had mine.

From where I stood, part of the route looked sketchy.

But it also looked doable.

So I decided to go.

As we made our way across, I reached one particularly exposed section where my confidence disappeared.

The fear became real enough that I got down on my hands and knees and crawled.

I didn’t trust myself standing upright. So that was how I moved through it.

Slowly.

Carefully.

Probably not gracefully.

But forward.

I made it across.

We continued on until eventually we reached the summit of Monte Cristo.

Another summit.

Another view.

But reaching the top was only half the journey.

We still had to get back.

That meant retracing our route across the ridge toward Mount Superior before beginning the descent to the trailhead.

When I returned to that same exposed section, something interesting happened.

It looked different.

I was approaching it from the opposite direction and from a different vantage point. I had more of the high ground now and could see the terrain more clearly. What had frightened me enough to crawl on the way over was much easier to navigate on the return.

I even chuckled a little.

I crawled across this?

But I had.

And that’s what I needed to do with the view I had at the time.

The mountain hadn’t changed.

My perspective had.

There are moments in life when we walk confidently.

There are moments when we hesitate.

And there are moments when we’re metaphorically on our hands and knees, doing whatever we can to move through something we can’t yet see from another perspective.

Sometimes crawling is still moving forward.

Winding Doesn’t Mean Wrong

I’ve learned something else in the mountains more than once, apparently, because sometimes I need repeat instruction.

Bushwhacking rarely saves as much time as I think it will.

There’s something incredibly tempting about looking at a switchback winding across a mountainside and thinking:

Why am I going all the way over there when the summit is up there?

The straight line looks faster.

So I’ve occasionally abandoned the trail and charged directly uphill.

It turns out that steep mountainsides, loose rock, dense vegetation, and uneven terrain don’t particularly care about my theories of efficiency.

What looked like a shortcut often leaves me more exhausted than simply staying on the trail would have.

Switchbacks serve a purpose.

They may temporarily take us in a direction that feels almost opposite from where we want to go. But they make steep terrain navigable. They allow elevation to be gained gradually rather than all at once.

I wonder how often we mistake the switchbacks in our own lives for evidence that we’ve lost our way.

We think progress should be linear.

Up and to the right.

One clear destination followed by another.

But sometimes the path that looks less direct is the one that allows us to keep moving.

I’ve learned not to assume that winding means wrong.

Trust the Next Step

There’s a particular kind of beauty at a mountain summit.

You can see the surrounding peaks. Valleys stretch beneath you. Places that felt enormous from below become part of a much larger landscape.

And you can look back toward where you started.

Look how far I’ve come.

But the summit isn’t the only place with a view.

The forest has one too.

It’s smaller. More immediate. You may not be able to see the destination at all. You see the trees around you, the rocks beneath your feet, the trail immediately ahead.

The ridgeline offers another.

So does the descent.

And sometimes the view that changes us doesn’t come until we’re sitting in the car, looking back through the window at the mountain we just climbed.

Not every path needs to be a straight line toward some grand destination.

Sometimes the path simply takes us somewhere that allows us to see more clearly.

From one summit, we notice other mountains.

Other possibilities.

Other directions we might choose.

The destination becomes another vantage point.

And then we decide where to walk next.

I used to think trust came from knowing where I was going.

I’m beginning to understand it differently.

Maybe trust isn’t certainty about what waits at the end of the path.

Maybe trust is what we practice when we can’t see that far.

It’s taking the next step when the forest blocks the horizon.

It’s following the switchback even when it seems to be taking us away from where we thought we were going.

It’s allowing ourselves to crawl when crawling is what gets us through.

It’s recognizing that the path can be steep, messy, frightening, beautiful, and worthwhile at the same time.

And it’s occasionally turning around long enough to realize:

Look how far I’ve come.

None of this means there’s one predetermined trail we’re supposed to discover and perfectly follow.

We choose.

We explore.

We take wrong turns.

We change direction.

We learn.

The path unfolds because we keep participating in it.

And perhaps that’s where trust grows, not before the uncertainty, but within it.

When I was eight years old on Spanish Fork Peak, I didn’t know what the view from the top would look like.

I only knew I needed to keep going.

One step.

Then another.

Then another.

Until eventually I could look back at that mountain through the window of a car and think:

I did that.

Maybe we don’t need to see the whole path from where we’re standing.

Maybe we only need enough trust for the step we’re on.

And the willingness to discover what becomes visible from there.

Opening

The other evening I found myself trying to finish everything before I could finally relax.

The dishes.

The laundry.

Taking out the trash.

One task became another, and with each one I felt myself becoming more frustrated. My kids weren’t moving as quickly as I wanted. I caught myself becoming short with them, not because they had done anything wrong, but because something inside me believed everything had to be finished before I was allowed to rest.

Later that evening, after things had settled down, I realized something.

It wasn’t really about the dishes.

I had been living from a quiet assumption that had followed me for years:

I need to get all of these things done... and then I can relax.

The problem is, everything is never done.

There is always another dish.

Another load of laundry.

Another responsibility.

Another task waiting for tomorrow.

If peace only comes after everything is complete, then peace keeps moving just beyond my reach.

That’s when a familiar phrase came back to me:

“You need to put less pressure on yourself.”

I’ve heard some version of those words more than once, and I imagine I’m not alone. Usually they’re offered with care, perhaps by someone who can see something from the outside that I can’t quite see from within.

But lately I’ve found myself wondering:

What does that actually mean?

Because pressure isn’t always something we consciously choose to carry.

Sometimes it has been with us for so long that we stop recognizing it as pressure at all. It becomes responsibility. Preparation. Caring. Staying ahead. Making sure nothing gets missed. Trying not to disappoint someone. Trying not to disappoint ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, we may begin to believe that carrying all of it is simply what it means to care.

So when someone tells us to put less pressure on ourselves, they may be reflecting something real. They can see the weight. They can see the effort. They may even see how tightly we’re holding something that doesn’t require such a firm grip.

What they may not see is everything tangled beneath it.

The experiences that taught us to prepare.

The moments that taught us to anticipate.

The expectations we absorbed.

The ways we learned to connect performance with acceptance, certainty with safety, or responsibility with carrying more than was ever ours to hold.

Perhaps that’s why “put less pressure on yourself” can be both true and strangely difficult to follow.

Because maybe the answer isn’t simply to put the pressure down.

Maybe first, we need to understand why we picked it up.

And perhaps, instead of asking ourselves,

How do I stop putting so much pressure on myself?

we begin somewhere gentler:

What has this pressure been trying to do for me?

Poetic Expression

The Weight I Learned to Carry

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

I met a younger me today,
still carrying what he couldn’t say,
his hands wrapped tightly around the weight,
believing holding on would keep him safe.

I didn’t tell him, “Let it go.”
I didn’t tell him what he should already know.
I simply sat beside him there,
and asked him why he learned to care

by watching closely, staying ahead,
rehearsing tomorrow inside his head,
making certain nothing went unseen,
trying to become what others might need.

He looked at me as if to say,

Isn’t this how we found our way?
Didn’t carrying more help us belong?
Didn’t staying ready keep us strong?

And suddenly I couldn’t blame
the younger selves who learned this game.
Each version carried what he knew,
doing what he thought he had to do.

So I called them closer, one by one,
the child, the father, the man I’ve become,
the ones who stumbled, the ones who knew,
the ones still learning what is true.

I didn’t ask them to disappear.
I didn’t need to correct their fear.
I only offered what I’d withheld:
a place where every self was held.

Perhaps the weight was never wrong.
Perhaps it helped us move along.
But something different calls me now,
not another promise, not another vow.

Just open hands where fists once stayed,
a little room where trust can breathe,
and one small question left with me:

What if I can care deeply without carrying everything?

Pause & Reflect

Years ago, I worked with a mentor who would occasionally stop me with a simple question:

Why do you care?

I remember how difficult that question could be to answer.

Not because I didn’t care.

I did.

But when I tried to get underneath it, sometimes the most honest answer I could find was:

Because I thought I was supposed to.

I’ve found myself returning to that question lately.

Why do I care?

Is this something that genuinely matters to me?

Am I responding to what is actually being asked of me, or to an expectation I’ve created for myself?

Am I carrying responsibility or am I carrying the fear of what might happen if I don’t?

And perhaps most importantly:

Did I choose to carry this, or did I simply learn somewhere along the way that I was supposed to?

There is nothing wrong with caring deeply.

Caring is part of what connects us to our work, our relationships, our families, our creativity, and one another.

But perhaps caring and carrying aren’t always the same thing.

We can care without anticipating every outcome.

We can care without making ourselves responsible for another person’s response.

We can care without getting everything right.

We can care without carrying everything.

So maybe the question isn’t:

How do I care less?

Maybe it’s:

What do I genuinely care about and what have I simply been carrying because I thought I was supposed to?

There may be more freedom between those two questions than we realize.

Closing

Maybe putting less pressure on ourselves isn’t something we can simply decide to do.

Maybe it begins by noticing.

Noticing when responsibility becomes weight.

When caring becomes carrying.

When I want to quietly becomes I’m supposed to.

And when the voice telling us to hold everything together isn’t necessarily the voice of who we are today, but an echo from somewhere along the way.

I don’t think those parts of ourselves need to be pushed away.

Perhaps they need something much simpler.

To be seen.

To be understood.

To be thanked for getting us this far.

Because the child who learned to stay ready, the younger self who tried to meet every expectation, and the adult who still sometimes carries more than is his to hold aren’t separate people we need to leave behind.

They are us.

And maybe putting less pressure on ourselves isn’t about becoming someone who suddenly doesn’t care.

Maybe it’s learning that we can care deeply without requiring pressure to prove that we care.

We can be responsible without being responsible for everything.

We can prepare without trying to control every outcome.

We can show up fully without measuring our worth by what happens next.

And when we notice ourselves reaching again for that familiar weight, perhaps we don’t need another command to put it down.

Perhaps we can simply become curious.

Why am I carrying this?

Is it actually mine?

Do I still choose it?

And if the answer is no, maybe we loosen our grip, not because someone told us we were supposed to, but because we finally realized we could.

Perhaps that’s what putting less pressure on ourselves looks like.

Not caring less.

Not trying less.

Not becoming less.

Just carrying less,

and trusting that who we are has always been enough to hold what is truly ours.

A week ago, I found myself sitting in the middle of what felt like a castle made of cardboard.

Boxes surrounded me in every direction.

Some held dishes.

Some held books.

Some carried little pieces of memories that had quietly become part of home.

Only days before, those same boxes had rested inside another house.

Now they waited patiently to become part of another.

The move wasn’t part of the plan.

In many ways, this season hadn’t unfolded as I imagined it would.

Yet as I sat there, something unexpected began to unfold within me.

The shape of a castle can change.

Its walls may move.

Its rooms may disappear.

Its address may become something entirely new.

Yet somehow... home remains.

Poetic Expression

Pause & Reflect

As the week unfolded, I realized I wasn’t only unpacking boxes.

I was unpacking myself.

One conversation.

One memory.

One act of kindness at a time.

For much of my life, I believed strength meant carrying everything myself.

This move gently introduced me to another kind of strength.

The strength to receive.

A phrase has been returning to me for months now. “You will always have what you need.”

For a long time, I understood those words to mean I would somehow find enough strength to keep moving forward.

Now they mean something different.

Sometimes what I need isn’t more strength.

Sometimes what I need is another pair of hands.

This move became one of those moments.

Friends showed up.

Family showed up.

Neighbors showed up.

Some carried furniture.

Some carried boxes.

Some simply carried conversations I didn’t know I needed.

As I think about each person who stepped into our lives that week, I still find myself becoming emotional.

They didn’t create the love.

They revealed it.

The love had been there all along.

The kindness was already there.

The willingness was already there.

The friendship was already there.

I simply needed to become open enough to receive it.

Perhaps that’s part of what “you will always have what you need” has been trying to teach me.

Not that I must always become stronger.

But that I don’t always have to carry everything alone.

I’ve also noticed something.

When life feels especially heavy, people somehow become more visible.

Not because love suddenly appears.

But because those moments invite us to notice what has quietly surrounded us all along.

For a little while...

The cardboard became the castle.

I’ve learned that people cannot always carry what they cannot see.

Sometimes love begins with honesty.

Sometimes receiving begins with simply saying,

“I could use a hand.”

Perhaps giving and receiving were never opposites.

Perhaps they have always been two halves of the same embrace.

Closing

Eventually...

The boxes will be unpacked.

The cardboard will be recycled.

The furniture will settle into new rooms.

The castle will change shape once again.

But I hope I never forget what those boxes revealed.

Castles may change shape.

Homes may take on new forms.

Yet somehow... love remains.

And perhaps that was what I was unpacking all along.

Not simply a home.

But a quieter understanding of myself.

Looking back, I’m grateful I spent a little while living inside that castle.

Opening

Last year, I found myself letting go of a large portion of my rock collection.

For years, I loved finding them. Every hike, every mountain, every unexpected discovery felt like bringing home another piece of Earth’s story. Collecting became part of how I experienced wonder.

But something began to change.

I realized I could still admire a beautiful stone without needing to carry it home.

The joy had never been in owning every rock.

It had always been in noticing.

As I’ve been preparing for another move, that realization has returned in a much bigger way.

Every box asks the same question:

Is this worth carrying into the next chapter?

The more I sat with that question, the more I realized it wasn’t just about moving.

It was about living.

Some things we carry intentionally.

Some are handed to us.

Some help us through difficult seasons.

Others quietly remain long after they’ve fulfilled their purpose.

As children, we begin making sense of the world with the understanding we have at the time. We collect experiences, beliefs, expectations, questions, and quiet conclusions much like stones gathered along a trail. Before long, they become part of the backpack we’ve been wearing for so long that we forget it’s even there.

Nature has become one of my greatest teachers.

A tree doesn’t spend its days trying to become worthy of the forest.

It receives the rain.

It reaches toward the light.

It grows according to its nature.

Perhaps our journey isn’t about becoming someone new.

Perhaps it’s remembering that some of what we’ve carried was never ours to keep.

So I leave you with a question that has stayed with me:

What are you carrying that love never asked you to carry?

Poetic Expression

The Boy, the Man, and the Backpack Between Us

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

The Boy

Can I ask you something?

I’ve been wondering...

When did everyone start carrying so much?

I don’t remember picking up this backpack.

One day... it was simply there.

At first it wasn’t heavy. Just a few small stones.

One said, “Be good.”

Another, “Don’t cry.”

Another, “Don’t ask so many questions.”

So I carried them.

Then someone handed me another, then another.

After a while, the backpack felt like part of me.

Sometimes I wondered who had really become lost.

Sometimes I wondered if heaven missed me as much as I missed it.

Mostly... I wondered if anyone could see how heavy it had become.

The Man

I see it. I’ve always seen it.

I just didn’t know how to sit beside you long enough to tell you.

The backpack was never who you were.

Only what you carried.

Would it be okay... if we looked inside? Together?

The boy nodded.

Slowly, they opened the weathered pack.

Inside were stones of every shape.

Some smooth from being held for years.

Some sharp enough to still hurt.

The boy picked up the first.

“Be Normal.” He frowned.

“I don’t even know who wrote this.”

The man smiled gently.

“I don’t think it matters.”

Another read, “Earn Love.”

Another, “Be Less.”

Another, “Don’t Be Too Much.”

The boy looked up.

“I believed every one.”

“I know,” the man said. “I did too.”

Together they placed the first stone beside the trail.

Nothing magical happened.

The mountains didn’t move.

The wind didn’t change.

The backpack was simply… a little lighter.

The Boy

Will you stay with all of me?

The parts I’m proud of... and the parts I’ve hidden?

The questions I still ask...

The anger I still carry...

The little boy who still wonders if he’s enough?

The Man

As long is it takes.

Again and again.

Not because you’ve earned it.

Not because you’ve changed.

Because nothing you have ever carried has changed what has always been true.

The Source of Love never asked you to carry these stones.

Only to let someone help you set them down.

The boy stepped forward.

The backpack slipped quietly to the ground.

Neither of them reached for it.

The man wrapped his arms around the boy.

He didn’t ask for an explanation.

He didn’t ask for perfection.

He simply held him.

And the little boy finally discovered what he’d been longing for was never the answers.

It was to be heard, to be loved, to be held.

Nothing left to hide.

Nothing left to prove.

Only the quiet remembrance...

That he had always been worthy and had always been loved.

Pause & Reflect

As you consider your own backpack, perhaps sit with these questions. Not to find quick answers, but to notice what quietly rises.

• What have I been carrying for so long that it feels like part of who I am?

• Which of those burdens once protected me but no longer serve me?

• What has my younger self been hoping someone would finally hear?

• What would it feel like to be fully listened to?

• What might become lighter if I allowed myself to be loved without first becoming someone different?

You don’t have to unpack everything today.

Perhaps one stone is enough.

Perhaps today is simply the day you discover you don’t have to open the backpack alone.

Closing

As I prepared to move, I thought I was deciding which belongings to take with me.

Instead, I discovered I was asking a much deeper question.

Not everything beautiful thing needs to be owned.

Not every story needs to continue being carried.

Not every burden belongs in the next chapter.

Some things can simply be appreciated.

Some things can simply be thanked.

Some things can simply be set beside the trail.

As I wrote this poem, I realized the backpack was never the heart of the story.

The embrace was.

Perhaps that’s what remembrance looks like.

Not becoming someone different.

Not fixing what was never broken.

But allowing yourself to be fully seen, fully loved, and gently held.

Until your heart remembers what has always been true.

May you remember...

You have always been worthy.

And you have always been loved.

Opening

I’ve been told I’m all over the place.

For a long time, I heard that as a weakness.

It felt like another reminder that I should be more focused, more linear, more predictable. If I could just think in a straight line, maybe everything else would fall into place.

So I tried.

But lately I’ve been wondering...

What if I was measuring myself against a shape I was never meant to fit?

The more I pay attention, the more I notice that very little in nature moves in a straight line.

Rivers meander before reaching the sea. Mountain trails weave their way upward. Waves rise and fall. Even our breath comes and goes in its own quiet rhythm.

Maybe life has been trying to show me something all along.

Maybe I wasn’t all over the place.

Maybe I was learning to trust the shape of how I move.

That realization hasn’t made me perfectly calm or endlessly certain. I still get caught up in stress. I still overthink. I still have days where my mind feels like it’s chasing a dozen different trails at once.

And then, sometimes, I catch myself.

I smile.

Sometimes I even laugh.

Not because I’ve finally figured life out, but because I recognize the familiar pattern. In that moment, I’m reminded that I don’t have to become someone else.

I simply have another opportunity to resume.

Personal Story

Looking back over my career, I can see a pattern.

Early on, I was told I wasn’t technical enough. Yet the work itself often told a different story. I learned, adapted, solved problems, and delivered results. What seemed to matter wasn’t a lack of ability as much as the way I naturally approached the work.

As the years went on, the feedback changed.

I was encouraged to make my updates more concise. To include less detail. There were times when I completed self-assessments only to hear that my responses suggested I hadn’t even understood the questions. Eventually, I found myself hearing another familiar phrase:

“You’re all over the place.”

Looking back now, I don’t believe any of those people intended harm.

They were sharing what they genuinely observed through their own experiences, expectations, and ways of working.

The part I missed was that I rarely paused to observe myself.

Instead, I became very good at measuring myself through someone else’s perspective before ever asking what I saw.

Somewhere along the way, I started believing confidence meant becoming easier for everyone else to understand.

Today, I see confidence differently.

Confidence isn’t convincing everyone else that my way of moving is the right one.

It’s learning to trust the shape of how I already move.

That doesn’t mean I ignore feedback.

It means I begin somewhere different.

I observe myself first.

I notice.

I reflect.

Then I consider what others have shared.

Sometimes their observations help me grow.

Sometimes they simply reveal that we move through the world differently.

Both can be true.

Today, I place more trust in what I discover when I observe myself than in what others conclude about me.

The more I do that, the less energy I spend criticizing myself for not fitting someone else’s shape.

And the more confidence I discover in my own.

The Turning Point

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Pete Holmes.

Most people know him as a comedian, but what has resonated with me just as much is the way he weaves together laughter, spirituality, and the wonderfully messy experience of being human.

I’ve been navigating a season filled with change. A new job, preparing for a move, and continuing the search for a full-time opportunity.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that laughter wasn’t distracting me from the stress.

It was creating space within it.

Every time I laughed, I loosened my grip just enough to breathe again.

Then I heard Pete say:

“You can’t become what you already are.”

I laughed.

Then I sat with it.

Because I realized I’d spent years trying to become someone who moved differently than I naturally do.

What if I was never meant to?

What if the invitation wasn’t to become someone else...

but to trust the shape of how I already move?

The Shape of How I Move

The more I observe nature, the more I recognize myself within it.

Rivers don’t apologize for their curves.

Mountain trails don’t climb in straight lines.

The waves rise and fall without questioning whether they’re doing it correctly.

Even our breath expands and contracts.

Nothing in nature seems concerned with moving in a perfectly straight line.

Why should I be?

I’ve also begun noticing something else.

The world isn’t asking me to lose myself in it.

It’s continually inviting me back to myself through it.

Every conversation.

Every challenge.

Every celebration.

Every piece of feedback.

Every moment becomes another opportunity to ask:

“What is this reflecting back to me?”

The world still matters.

The difference is that I no longer stop there.

I return to myself.

Resuming

Maybe that’s why the word resuming has stayed with me for so long.

Resuming isn’t a finish line.

It isn’t a permanent state of enlightenment.

It isn’t finally getting everything right.

It’s much more ordinary than that.

It’s forgetting... and noticing.

It’s getting caught in stress... and laughing when I realize I’ve been carrying more than I needed to.

It’s taking a break.

Resting.

Maintaining.

Beginning again.

Sometimes I rush like spring runoff.

Sometimes I meander like a quiet stream.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve wandered far from where I intended to go.

Then I smile.

Because maybe wandering was never the problem.

Maybe I was simply learning to trust the shape of how I move.

Every moment offers another opportunity...

to resume.

Poetic Expression

The Shape of How I Move

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

They told me I was all over the place.

For years, I believed them.

So I searched for straighter lines, quicker answers, cleaner paths.

I thought confidence was found by walking
where everyone else seemed to go.

Then one day I noticed the river.

Not once did it apologize for its curves.

Not once did the mountain trail ask forgiveness for another switchback.

The waves rose without shame.

They fell without regret.

The wind changed direction without losing itself.

And somewhere between laughter and tears, I stopped trying to become someone else.

I started watching.

Watching how my thoughts wandered.

Watching how wonder found me when I wasn’t looking.

Watching how the world wasn’t pulling me away
from myself, it was gently reflecting me back.

Maybe I wasn’t all over the place.

Maybe I was learning to trust the shape of how I move.

So today, if you find me

changing direction...

following a question...

pausing to notice the light through the trees...

laughing at my own seriousness...

know this:

I’m not lost.

I’m listening.

And every bend, every wave, every unexpected turn, is another invitation to resume.

Pause & Reflect

Take a moment to consider...

• Where have I mistaken my natural way of moving for something that needed to be fixed?

• What patterns do I notice when I observe myself without judgment?

• What has the world been reflecting back to me that I may have overlooked?

• Where have I been trying to become someone else instead of trusting the shape of how I already move?

• What would change if, the next time I wandered, I simply smiled at myself?

Maybe confidence isn’t found by forcing a straighter path.

Maybe it grows each time we become a kinder observer of ourselves.

Closing

Lately, I’ve found myself smiling more often when I notice my mind racing ahead.

Not because I’ve stopped overthinking.

Not because life has suddenly become predictable.

But because I’ve begun recognizing the familiar current beneath it all.

There I go again.

Sometimes I move like rushing water.

Sometimes I meander.

Sometimes I pause long enough to wonder if I’ve wandered too far.

Then I look around.

The river is still finding its way.

The trail is still climbing the mountain.

The waves are still rising and falling.

Nothing in nature seems concerned about moving in a perfectly straight line.

Why should I be?

Maybe that’s what Pete Holmes’ words awakened in me.

“You can’t become what you already are.”

Perhaps the invitation was never to become someone different.

Perhaps it was to notice.

To laugh a little sooner.

To soften a little more.

To trust a little deeper.

And each time I forget... to simply resume.

If this piece leaves you with anything, I hope it’s this:

The next time you find yourself believing you’re all over the place, pause before believing the story.

Observe.

Breathe.

Smile.

You just might discover that you aren’t lost at all.

You’re learning to trust the shape of how you move.

Opening Reflection

There are moments when I realize the greatest conflicts in my life weren’t always happening between me and someone else.

Sometimes they were happening quietly within me.

One part of me wanted certainty.

Another wanted curiosity.

One wanted to protect what had always been true.

Another wanted to gently ask, “What else might be possible?”

For years, I assumed one of those voices had to win.

That one was “right.”

The other was something to overcome.

Lately, I’ve begun wondering if that’s the wrong question.

What if the goal isn’t choosing which part of ourselves survives?

What if it’s learning how those different parts can finally stand together without conflict, without needing to convince one another, and without love ever leaving the room?

That question has stayed with me.

It quietly found its way into a conversation about Star Wars, into reflections on certainty and faith, and eventually into a song.

Perhaps the deepest transformations don’t happen when one voice defeats another.

Perhaps they begin when every part of us finally feels safe enough to listen.

Musical Reflection

Some reflections are meant to be read.

Others are meant to be heard.

This one asked to become a song.

(Will You Still Love Me Here?)

🎵 Lyrics

Will You Still Love Me Here

Verse 1

I built a fire against the night.

It taught me wrong. It taught me right.

Its warmth became the way I knew...

Until I looked and noticed you.

You held no torch above your head.

No borrowed words were left unsaid.

You simply listened to the air...

As if the light was everywhere.

Verse 2

I came to steal no flame from you.

Or say your fire wasn’t true.

I only wondered, soft and slow...

What if there’s more than we can know?

The river never asked the stone

To carve a shape it hasn’t known.

It simply flowed beside the stone...

Polishing, never leaving you alone.

Pre-Chorus

If the echoes change their song...

Would we still know we both belong?

Chorus

Will you still love me here...

Where neither has to win?

Where voices soften... silence speaks...

And lets another in.

Will you still walk with me...

If I release my fear?

Not away from who I am...

But closer to what’s here.

Verse 3

I feared the ground would disappear.

That questions meant the end was near.

So I held tighter to the thread...

Afraid of all that lay ahead.

Verse 4

The thread was never yours alone.

It lives beneath the flesh and bone.

No wind can steal...

No hand can sever...

What we’ve always held together.

Bridge

With arms open wide,

You’ll still be gently held.

If I soften my voice...

You’ll hear yourself.

If I don’t know...

Then wonder with me.

Final Chorus

Will you still love me here...

Where answers drift like sand?

Where certainty grows quiet...

Enough to take my hand.

No side to stand above...

No war left to defend.

Only hearts remembering...

Love was never meant to end.

Outro

Come...

Not because you’ve finished.

Not because you’re certain.

Come...

Let’s make the space together...

I’ve been here all along.

Perhaps you’ve heard both voices before.

Pause & Reflect

Take a moment to consider...

Have you noticed different parts of yourself that seem to be in conflict?

Perhaps one part longs for certainty, while another quietly invites curiosity.

Perhaps one seeks safety, while another longs to explore.

Rather than asking which part is right...

What if each part has been trying to serve your highest good in its own way?

Consider what might become possible if those parts no longer needed to compete.

If love became the space where they could finally listen to one another.

What might change?

What part of yourself is asking to be heard today?

Closing Reflection

For much of my life, I thought peace would come when one part of me finally won.

When certainty silenced doubt.

When courage overcame fear.

When the version of me I admired finally outgrew the parts I wished weren’t there.

I’m beginning to see something different.

Perhaps peace isn’t found by choosing which parts of ourselves deserve to stay.

Perhaps it begins when every part is welcomed into the same conversation.

Not so they remain unchanged...

But so they no longer have to fight for the right to exist.

I’ve also begun to see that the messy middle isn’t a mistake.

It’s where the conversation happens.

It’s where certainty meets curiosity.

Where fear meets courage.

Where conviction meets compassion.

Where different parts of ourselves slowly discover they were never enemies to begin with.

Every part has its worth.

Not because it has earned a seat through perfection...

But because each part has been trying, in its own way, to serve something it believed was good.

Some parts protect.

Some parts explore.

Some parts grieve.

Some parts dream.

Worth isn’t something our different parts have to earn. It’s something they reveal when they’re finally allowed to be seen with compassion.

None of them need to earn their place before they are welcomed.

The more I pay attention, the more I notice that curiosity doesn’t weaken conviction.

Love doesn’t erase truth.

And making room for another perspective doesn’t diminish our own.

Sometimes it deepens it.

Perhaps the strongest parts of us are not the ones that always have the answers...

But the ones willing to listen.

If this reflection leaves you with anything, I hope it’s simply a little more room.

Room to breathe.

Room to wonder.

Room to let the different parts of yourself sit together without rushing to decide which one should win.

Because maybe...

Love was never asking us to choose sides.

Only to make room.

Opening Reflection

Over the past little while, I’ve found myself watching more carefully.

Watching a daughter dance as joy naturally unfolds.

Watching another daughter create beauty with every sketch and brushstroke.

Watching one son disappear into words, discovering a voice only he can write.

Watching another smile with a confidence that quietly grows from within.

Watching another choose a path that reflects who he is rather than simply following the expectations placed before him.

Watching my wife continue becoming more fully herself, even after all these years together.

Even reflecting with gratitude on relationships whose seasons have changed, yet whose influence continues to shape my life.

Something began to shift.

I realized I wasn’t simply watching the people I love.

I was witnessing miracles.

Not the kind that interrupt life.

The kind that quietly unfold within it.

Each person carries something uniquely their own.

Each reveals a different expression of beauty.

Each reminds me that life is never standing still.

One of my daily prayers has become:

“Spirit guides, show me the miracles that are all around me and help me remain aware of the beauty in everything.”

I’m beginning to realize that perhaps this prayer has been answered all along.

Not through extraordinary events.

But through ordinary moments that have become extraordinary because I finally slowed down enough to see them.

And as I watched the people I love continue becoming more fully themselves, I noticed something unexpected.

Their growth was quietly inviting my own.

Poetic Expression

The Ones Who Help Me Remember

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

Each morning I whisper
a simple prayer.

“Spirit guides, show me the miracles that are all around me, and help me remain aware of the beauty in everything.”

I once imagined miracles as moments still to come.

Now I wonder if they have quietly surrounded me all along.

A daughter dances as joy naturally unfolds.

Another creates beauty, revealing worlds that first lived quietly within.

One son writes, discovering a voice only he could ever bring.

Another smiles, confidence unfolding one gentle moment at a time.

Another chooses, not the expected path, but the authentic one.

A wife whose love continues deepening, not because years stand still, but because they invite us to keep discovering one another again.

I thought I was witnessing their becoming.

Then something beautiful happened.

Their becoming became part of mine.

Their courage called forth my courage.

Their wonder awakened my wonder.

Their creativity expanded my own.

Their authenticity gave me permission to live more honestly.

Love was never moving in only one direction.

It was always returning.

Like two ripples meeting upon the water, each changing the other, each expanding farther than either could alone.

A quiet current.

An everlasting dance.

The more clearly I saw them, the more clearly I began to see myself.

Perhaps this is what miracles have looked like all along.

Not moments that interrupt life, but moments that quietly transform the heart that witnesses them.

The Creator expressing infinite beauty through countless unique lives.

Each one helping another remember.

Each one helping another resume.

And somewhere between watching and becoming, I realized the miracle was never only theirs.

It was ours.

Pause & Reflect

Take a moment to consider the people who come to mind as you read this.

• Perhaps it is a child.

• A spouse.

• A parent.

• A sibling.

• A friend.

• A mentor.

Or someone whose season in your life has changed, yet whose influence continues to ripple forward.

What qualities do you admire most in them?

• Joy.

• Courage.

• Creativity.

• Authenticity.

• Wonder.

• Compassion.

Now consider something else.

What if those qualities are not only reasons you love them...

What if they are also invitations to recognize those same qualities within yourself?

Perhaps that is one of love’s quiet miracles.

As we witness others becoming more fully themselves, we often discover permission to become more fully ourselves.

Today, consider slowing down just enough to notice.

The miracles may already be unfolding before you.

Closing Reflection

One of the greatest gifts this season has given me has been a quieter way of seeing.

For much of my life, I believed growth was something I needed to pursue.

Something to learn.

Something to achieve.

Something waiting somewhere beyond where I already stood.

Lately, life has been teaching me something different.

Growth often arrives while we’re paying attention.

Not because we force it.

But because we witness it.

Every person I love has become a quiet teacher.

Not through instruction.

Not through perfection.

Simply by becoming more fully themselves.

And in witnessing their unfolding, I have found space for my own.

Perhaps that is one of love’s greatest miracles.

It doesn’t simply deepen our affection for one another.

It expands our capacity to see.

To notice beauty where we once overlooked it.

To recognize courage where we once noticed fear.

To discover possibility where we once saw limitation.

And sometimes... to recognize in ourselves what we first admired in someone else.

Every morning, I still offer the same simple prayer:

“Spirit guides, show me the miracles that are all around me and help me remain aware of the beauty in everything.”

I’m beginning to think that answer has never been far away.

It has been dancing across the living room.

Creating beauty with quiet hands.

Writing words no one else could write.

Smiling with growing confidence.

Choosing an authentic path.

Deepening through years of shared love.

Quietly shaping me through relationships that continue to leave their imprint on my heart.

The miracles were never hidden.

They were simply waiting to be noticed.

Consider that today someone you love may help you remember a part of yourself you had quietly forgotten.

And perhaps... through your own joy, your own courage, your own creativity, your own authenticity, you may become that same quiet miracle for someone else.

Opening Reflection

Sometimes we carry things so long that we forget we’re carrying them.

Not because we have to.

But because, at some point, carrying them made sense.

The story fit the experience.

The explanation seemed reasonable.

And before we know it, what began as an interpretation becomes part of our identity.

For years, I carried a measure of self-judgment that I believed was mine to hold.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t something I thought about every day.

It simply lingered beneath the surface, attached to moments of uncertainty, perceived failures, and questions I never quite answered.

One of those moments began years ago when my time at Adobe ended through a layoff.

It was my first experience with being laid off, and I didn’t know how to process it.

I questioned myself.

I questioned my value.

I questioned whether I had somehow fallen short.

At the time, those questions felt reasonable.

The story fit the experience.

So I carried it.

Life moved forward, as it always does.

New opportunities emerged.

New roles appeared.

There were successes, setbacks, lessons, layoffs, and PIPs.

Yet beneath it all, a small part of that original story remained.

Not because it was true.

Because I had never fully set it down.

Recently, I returned to Adobe on a contract role.

Part of that return has involved reconnecting with people I worked with years ago, some going all the way back to 2009.

What began as simple outreach became something far more meaningful.

One conversation became another.

One familiar name led to the next.

Before long, I found myself reconnecting with nearly twenty former colleagues.

Again and again, I heard reflections I wasn’t expecting.

“You’re home.”

“You’re honest.”

“You’re a good listener.”

Stories I had forgotten.

Moments I hadn’t thought about in years.

Memories that had nothing to do with titles, performance plans, or organizational charts.

What struck me most wasn’t what people remembered.

It was what they reflected back.

Trust.

Kindness.

Connection.

The simple experience of having worked alongside someone they valued.

They remembered me.

And somewhere in those conversations, a realization began to emerge.

The story I thought others were carrying had been carried mostly by me.

As that realization settled in, so did something else.

The tears came.

Not tears of sadness.

Not tears of regret.

Tears of release.

Tears that seemed to carry away pieces of a story I no longer needed to hold.

With each conversation, another layer softened.

With each reflection, another burden loosened.

And little by little, what had been carried for years began to flow.

Perhaps that is what happens when it is finally time to put down the self-judgment we once believed we needed to carry.

Poetic Expression

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

I carried stories through the years,
Some woven deep with doubt and fears.
What once explained the path I trod
Became a lens through which I saw.

A layoff came and changed the day,
And left more questions than a way.
I searched for meaning in the fall,
And quietly attached it all.

I wondered if I’d missed the mark,
Or somehow wandered from my spark.
The roles would change, the seasons too,
Yet still those questions lingered through.

They settled softly out of sight,
Not gone from view, just out of light.
And though I rarely spoke their name,
I carried them all the same.

I questioned what I had to give,
And if I’d learned the way to live.
At times I feared I was behind,
Or falling short of what I’d find.

I wondered if I’d done enough,
When roads grew steep and seasons rough.
I questioned things I could not see,
And what those changes meant of me.

Yet looking back through all those years,
Beyond the doubts and passing fears,
I find a truth both calm and clear:
The ones I loved were always near.

The lights stayed on, the table spread,
There still was shelter overhead.
Though plans would shift and pathways bend,
We always found our way again.

What mattered most was never gone,
Though some days felt uncertain, long.
Beneath the questions, day by day,
A deeper truth had found its way.

Then years rolled on and paths returned,
With lessons waiting to be learned.
Old names appeared, old friendships grew,
And memories rose into view.

They spoke of moments I had missed,
Of trust and kindness in the midst.
Of honest words and listening ears,
Not of my doubts or hidden fears.

The story I had held so tight,
Was nowhere present in their sight.
What I believed was left behind,
Had mostly lived within my mind.

And in that pause, so still and deep,
A truth emerged I could not keep.
It rose as gently as the breeze,
And settled softly through the trees.

“Now don’t you get it?” came the call,
“The things you feared were never all.
You always had what you would need,
To choose your path and then proceed.”

“You’ve found a way through every bend,
Through changing roads and journeys’ end.
The proof you sought has always been
Within the life you’ve walked and seen.”

“You carried more than was your share,
Believing you must hold it there.
But trust the ground beneath your feet,
And let your heart and mind now meet.”

The tears then came, not born of pain,
But like a long-awaited rain.
They washed the dust from years gone by,
And cleared the lens through which I’d try.

They carried stories to the sea,
Of who I thought I had to be.
Of judgments gathered through the years,
And questions rooted deep in fears.

I did not need to fight or prove,
Or force the weight itself to move.
The moment came, both calm and true,
To simply see what I now knew.

The path was never mine alone,
Though often I believed it so.
Through every rise and every fall,
A deeper current held it all.

The jobs would change, the titles too,
Yet something deeper carried through.
The things I feared I’d somehow lost,
Were never measured by their cost.

What still remains is not a role,
But trust restored within my soul.
A quiet knowing, clear and free,
Of what has always lived in me.

So here I stand, both then and now,
No longer asking why or how.
With grateful heart and steady breath,
I place that burden down to rest.

Not because it never mattered,
Nor because the story shattered.
But because its work is finally done,
And I no longer need to run.

For life has shown me, time and again,
What was once lost can heal and mend.
And whatever waits beyond my view,
I’ll have what I need to journey through.

Pause & Reflect

Consider:

What story about yourself made sense at one point in your life, but may no longer be true today?

What burden, judgment, or expectation have you carried so long that it has begun to feel like part of your identity?

If you trusted that you would have what you need for the next step, what would you finally be ready to set down?

Closing Reflection

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself slowing down.

Not because life suddenly became less busy.

Not because all uncertainty disappeared.

But because something within me was asking to be seen.

What began as a return to Adobe became something much deeper.

A return to parts of myself I hadn’t fully revisited in years.

Through conversations, memories, and unexpected reflections, I found myself looking back at experiences that once carried far more weight than they do today.

Not because those experiences didn’t matter.

They did.

They shaped me.

They challenged me.

They invited me to ask questions I didn’t yet know how to answer.

But time has a way of revealing what was always true beneath the surface.

As I reconnected with former colleagues, I discovered that many of the things I feared others might remember had never been theirs to carry.

The judgment was mine.

The story was mine.

The meaning I attached to those experiences was mine.

And for a long time, carrying it made sense.

Until it didn’t.

The tears that followed weren’t tears of sadness.

They were tears of release.

Tears of gratitude.

Tears for the younger version of myself who was doing the best he could with what he knew at the time.

Tears for the realization that I no longer needed to carry those old conclusions forward.

Looking back now, I can see something I couldn’t fully see then.

I always found a way.

Not perfectly.

Not without uncertainty.

Not without fear.

But each step revealed what was needed for the next.

The jobs changed.

The titles changed.

The circumstances changed.

Yet through it all, something deeper remained.

I remained.

The husband.

The father.

The friend.

The listener.

The honest voice.

The part of me that continued showing up, learning, adapting, and loving through every season.

Perhaps that is what trust truly is.

Not certainty about the future.

But confidence in what remains when certainty falls away.

For years, I believed trust would come when I finally had enough answers.

Now I see that trust was growing every step of the way.

In every challenge.

In every transition.

In every moment I chose to keep moving forward.

Life has shown me, again and again, that I always had what I needed for the step I was taking.

And as I look ahead, I find comfort in a simple truth:

I do not need to know every step that follows.

I only need to trust the next one.

Some stories are meant to be remembered.

Others are meant to be released.

And when the time comes, there is a quiet grace in setting them down.

What still remains is enough.

And what still remains is worthy of trust.

Opening Reflection

There was a time in my life when certainty felt like survival.

If I could just know the outcome...
If I could just keep everyone happy...
If I could just avoid making mistakes...
If I could just hold everything together...

Then maybe I would be okay.

Life, however, has a way of challenging the identities we build around certainty.

I’ve watched family relationships fracture.

I’ve experienced people walking away.

I’ve been misunderstood.

I’ve faced betrayal and disappointment.

I’ve been fired.

I’ve been laid off.

I’ve questioned my worth.

I’ve questioned my value.

I’ve sat with depression and wondered why life felt so heavy.

Through much of it, I searched for certainty.

I wanted reassurance that everything would work out.

I wanted proof that I was on the right path.

I wanted guarantees before taking the next step.

But eventually life brought me to a realization I could no longer ignore:

The certainty I was searching for never arrived.

And somehow...

I kept moving forward anyway.

Looking back, I don’t see a path where I figured everything out.

I see a path filled with experiences that slowly changed how I saw myself and the world around me.

Some of those experiences were painful.

Some were beautiful.

Some arrived through books, conversations, mentors, family, faith, nature, and quiet moments of reflection.

Others arrived through disappointment, loss, uncertainty, and questions I couldn’t immediately answer.

Together, they became lenses.

Tools.

Gifts.

Invitations to see things differently.

Each one helped me take another step forward.

Not because I finally became certain.

But because I slowly learned how to trust.

When I look back now, I notice something remarkable.

I always had what I needed.

Not always what I wanted.

Not always what I expected.

Not always on my timeline.

But what I needed.

The strength appeared.

The lesson appeared.

The support appeared.

The opportunity appeared.

The next step appeared.

Even when I couldn’t see it at the time.

Slowly, I began to understand that trust does not come from certainty.

Trust grows from experience.

Trust grows from surviving what you thought you couldn’t survive.

Trust grows from walking through darkness and discovering your own light was still there.

For much of my life, I believed certainty was carrying me forward.

Now I wonder if it was trust all along.

Poetic Expression

The Flow That Carries Me

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

I prayed when the answers left me,
When the road dissolved from sight.
When every plan I held so tightly
Could not carry me through the night.

I prayed when family drifted distant,
When silence settled where love had been.
When I searched for something to mend the fracture,
Yet found no doorway back again.

I prayed when work no longer held me,
When titles fell from trembling hands.
When the roles I thought would define me
Shifted like castles built in sand.

I prayed when worth felt far away,
When depression whispered I was less.
When I stood before my own reflection
And could not answer my unrest.

I prayed when certainty abandoned me,
Or perhaps it was I who let it go.
For a container can only hold so much
Before the soul begins to grow.

And somewhere beyond the questions,
Beyond the need to understand,
I stopped demanding every answer
And simply stood where I could stand.

The tide arrived without permission.
The current moved without a plan.
Yet every wave that once had frightened me
Carried me farther than I began.

And now when the horizon disappears,
I do not rush to find the shore.
I’ve learned the ocean is not against me,
It is what I was made for.

So this is my prayer these days:

To walk before I know.

To trust before I see.

To release what no longer fits.

To become what already lives within me.

To remember that certainty was never carrying me.

Trust was.

Love was.

Life was.

And still is.

Pause & Reflect

• What certainty am I still holding because it feels safer than trust?

• What role, title, belief, or identity have I mistaken for my whole self?

• Looking back, when has life provided what I needed even when it wasn’t what I expected?

• Where might I be standing at the shoreline of something new?

• If certainty were no longer required, what would I be free to express?

Closing Reflection

I no longer crave certainty the way I once did.

I crave being.

Being more authentic.

Being more expressive.

Being more fully myself.

For years, I thought certainty was the goal.

The plan.

The role.

The identity.

The answers.

Yet every time life removed one of those things, something unexpected remained.

Me.

Not the title.

Not the certainty.

Not the story.

The awareness beneath all of it.

The voice beneath all of it.

The life beneath all of it.

Perhaps prayer begins where certainty ends because surrender creates space for trust.

And trust creates space for life.

Looking back, I can see that every season I feared would break me eventually revealed something deeper.

I have always had what I needed.

Not because I knew what was coming.

Not because I had all the answers.

But because each step revealed the next one.

The island served its purpose.

The certainty served its purpose.

The container served its purpose.

But they were never meant to be my home.

The shoreline taught me courage.

And the ocean?

The ocean was never something I had to become.

It was what had been carrying me all along.

Opening Reflection

The other day my son Christian came to get me.

“Dad, I need to show you something in Ellie’s room.”

As a parent, my first thought was probably the same thought many parents would have:

Uh oh. What happened now?

So I followed him.

When we got to Ellie’s room, he pointed to a picture hanging on the wall. It simply said:

You are so loved.

Then he said something I wasn’t expecting.

“Cover the word loved. Put the word and there instead. Then read it back up.”

So I did.

You are so loved. And so are you.

The smile on his face was priceless.

He wasn’t trying to teach a lesson.

He wasn’t giving a sermon.

He had simply noticed something.

And once he pointed it out, I couldn’t unsee it.

At first, I thought about how beautiful it was that love could flow in both directions.

We spend a lot of time reminding other people that they are loved.

Our spouses.

Our children.

Our friends.

The stranger who’s having a difficult day.

Many of us are surprisingly good at offering love outward.

Yet as I sat with Christian’s observation, another thought emerged.

Why hadn’t I seen it myself?

The picture had been hanging there the whole time.

The words hadn’t changed.

The picture hadn’t changed.

Only the direction had changed.

And maybe that’s part of being human.

We become so accustomed to looking outward that we forget to include ourselves in the message.

Not because we don’t believe in love.

Not because we aren’t worthy of it.

Sometimes it simply doesn’t occur to us.

When we read You are so loved, we instinctively think of someone else.

Someone who needs encouragement.

Someone who needs grace.

Someone who needs to be reminded.

Rarely do we stop and wonder if those words might apply to us too.

Then another realization surfaced.

The love that flows out flows back to you too.

We often imagine love as something we send.

A gift.

An encouragement.

A kindness offered to someone else.

But perhaps love isn’t a one-way street.

Perhaps we’re part of the same current.

The same river.

The same flow.

The love we freely offer others was never meant to stop with them.

It was always meant to include us as well.

Perhaps the greatest surprise wasn’t that the message could be read both ways.

Perhaps the surprise was realizing I had never thought to do it.

The love was already there.

The message was already complete.

I had simply forgotten I was included in it.

Pause & Reflect

• Where in your life do you freely offer encouragement to others?

• What words do you regularly give away that you rarely receive yourself?

• What might happen if you read those same words back toward yourself?

• If the love that flows out flows back too, how might that change the way you see yourself?

Closing Reflection

Perhaps the greatest surprise wasn’t that the message could be read both ways.

Perhaps the surprise was realizing I had never thought to do it.

The love was already there.

The message was already complete.

I had simply forgotten I was included in it.

Maybe that’s what Christian saw before I did.

The love that flows out flows back to you too.

You are so loved.

And so are you.

Opening Reflection

Some of the hardest moments in my life have come when there wasn’t a perfect answer.

Moments where every choice carried a cost.

Moments where relationships changed despite my best efforts to hold them together.

Moments where I was forced to ask myself difficult questions:

• What happens when someone disagrees with me?

• What happens when someone misunderstands me?

• What happens when I can’t control whether a relationship stays or goes?

For a long time, I carried a fear that if I spoke honestly, showed all of myself, or held a boundary that someone didn’t like, I might lose people I cared about.

And sometimes I did.

What I’ve learned, however, is that authenticity is not a guarantee that everyone will stay.

It’s a commitment that I will.

The messy middle has taught me that I cannot control how others see me, respond to me, or choose to engage with me.

But I can choose how I show up.

I can choose honesty.

I can choose compassion.

I can choose boundaries.

I can choose to remain present with myself even when life feels uncertain.

And maybe that’s where resilience begins.

As I sat with these reflections, they eventually found their way into a song.

Not because the messy middle was resolved.

Not because every question was answered.

But because sometimes music can hold what words alone struggle to express.

🎵 Listen to “The Messy Middle” on Suno:

https://suno.com/song/37e0c650-c095-4fac-b4e6-a4f81f76bb1f

The Messy Middle

Lyrics by Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

Verse 1

Some days I’m riding on the highs of the sky,
Other days I’m stumbling, asking why,
In this mixed bag we all get to hold,
There’s joy and sorrow, both worth their gold.

Chorus

In the messy middle, we all collide,
With open hearts and nothing to hide.
We’ve got our triumphs, we’ve got our falls,
But in the messy middle, we’re human, that’s all.

Verse 2

I’ve learned that you can see all my cracks,
It’s not so scary—there’s nothing I lack.
We’re all a patchwork of hope and doubt,
When we share our mess, we figure it out.

Chorus

In the messy middle, we all collide,
With open hearts and nothing to hide.
We’ve got our triumphs, we’ve got our falls,
But in the messy middle, we’re human, that’s all.

Bridge

I tried to carry it all, afraid to let go,
Thought if it’s all neat, no one would know.
But what’s there to fear when we all are flawed?
The messy middle shows us we’re loved despite the odds.

Outro

Now I’m not afraid to be seen as I am,
I step forward, and stand in who I am.
The messy middle is where I begin,
Seen, unafraid, standing firm within.

Pause & Reflect

Where in your life are you standing in the messy middle right now?

What grief are you still carrying?

What parts of yourself are you still learning to love?

Where have you needed boundaries, protection, or distance—not from hatred, but from wisdom?

Can you allow yourself to be human without needing every emotion, relationship, or experience fully resolved first?

What if healing isn’t about becoming perfect... but about learning to remain present, honest, and loving through the contrast?

Closing Reflection

Maybe that’s what the messy middle really is.

Not a problem to solve.

Not a contradiction to escape.

But the space where all of it gets to exist long enough for us to finally see clearly.

• The grief.

• The love.

• The protection.

• The reflection.

• The confusion.

• The healing.

Maybe none of it needed to be cleaned up before it could be understood.

Maybe it all needed to be present.

And maybe that’s what being human is.

Learning that even in the middle of contrast, I can still see light through it all.

I can still love myself through it.

Through my experiences.

Through my grief.

Through my relationships with others.

Because I’m human.

That’s all.

Opening Reflection

I heard someone say recently that emotions are like the weather.

They move through us.
They gather.
They shift.
They break.
They clear.

And somehow, many of us were taught that maturity means learning how to forecast every storm before it arrives.

To stay calm enough.
Controlled enough.
Spiritual enough.
Good enough.

But weather was never meant to stay still.

The sky itself teaches us that.

Some days are bright and open.
Some are gray and heavy.
Some arrive with thunder strong enough to shake the windows of the soul.

Yet no storm remains forever.

The sky does.

Oddly enough, this brought me back to Sleeping Beauty.

“Make it blue.”

“Make it pink.”

As children, it feels playful and lighthearted. But revisiting it now, I see something deeper hidden inside it. The color changes, but the essence remains the same.

The sky can change color without losing itself.

Maybe we can too.

Lately I’ve also been reflecting on ideas from Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge, especially the idea that many of us inherited a version of Jesus that feels emotionally flattened.

Polite.
Predictable.
Untouchable.

A version so sanitized that we forget he was fully human.

But the Jesus of the Gospels weeps openly.
He gets frustrated.
He withdraws to be alone.
He overturns tables.
He challenges hypocrisy.
He feels anguish.
He loves fiercely.

Not emotionally absent.

Emotionally whole.

Recently during a Sunday class discussion, someone mentioned that when Jesus acted strongly, “it was justified.”

And I understood what they meant.

But part of me quietly wondered:

Why do we feel the need to defend emotion before allowing it to exist?

Why does anger need permission before it becomes acceptable?
Why does grief need explanation?
Why do we treat emotional intensity as something dangerous unless we can first justify it?

Maybe because many of us inherited a definition of perfection that leaves very little room for humanity.

“Be ye therefore perfect.”

It’s a phrase many of us have heard countless times.

For a long time, I think many of us interpreted that to mean:
Never reactive, messy, overwhelmed, uncertain, or struggling.

But what if “perfect” was never meant to mean emotionally sterile?

What if it meant whole?

Complete in love.
Grounded in purpose.
Integrated.
Fully present.

Not the absence of weather…
but the ability to remain rooted as it passes through.

Because perfection without humanity becomes impossible to relate to.

And maybe this is part of why so many people struggle to feel truly connected to themselves, to others, and even to Jesus.

How do we connect deeply with someone who appears untouched by the human experience?

But a Jesus who laughs, grieves, rests, disrupts, weeps, loves, and remains grounded through all of it?

That feels like living, it feels near and it feels real.

Maybe emotions were never the enemy. Maybe they are movement.

Maybe sadness does not erase worth.
Maybe anger does not erase goodness.
Maybe grief does not erase love.
Maybe fear does not erase faith.

The weather changes.

The sky remains.

The Sky Remains

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

The storm rolled in
without a name,
with restless wind
and sheets of rain.

I tried to hide,
to hold, restrain,
as though my feelings
were something to tame.

I called them weakness.
I called them flaws.
I measured myself
by impossible laws.

But skies were never
meant to stay clear,
and storms themselves
are not what we fear.

We fear the thought
that they define
the sacred shape
of heart and mind.

Yet clouds may gather,
and thunder cry,
but weather was never
the whole of the sky.

The colors change.
The seasons move.
The soul still holds
what storms cannot remove.

And maybe wholeness
was never control.

Maybe it was learning
not to abandon the soul.

Not when anger rises.
Not when grief appears.
Not when truth arrives
through trembling tears.

For even now,
through gray and blue,
the sky still stretches
both above and through.

And somewhere beyond
the shifting view,
the soul remembers
what remains true.

Pause & Reflect

• What emotions were you taught to suppress or fear?

• Which emotional “weather patterns” do you resist most?

• What changes when perfection becomes wholeness instead of flawlessness?

• What if emotions are not proof that something is wrong with you, but proof that you are alive?

• What would it look like to remain present with yourself while the sky changes color?

Closing Invitation

Maybe wholeness was never meant to come only from blue skies. Maybe it is formed through the entire horizon — through sunlight and storms, through clarity and uncertainty, through calm mornings and restless nights.

Not by avoiding emotional weather, but by learning to remain present within it.

Not because cloudy skies are failures and not because blue skies are somehow “better.”

But because both belong. Both reveal something. Both shape us.

The weather will continue to change. Some seasons will arrive softly. Others will shake the foundations of what we thought we knew.

But storms pass and the sky remains.

And when you remember… don’t be afraid to smile and say, “Make it blue.”

Opening Reflection

There was a time when I thought the bridge itself was the destination.

Standing between worlds felt meaningful. Necessary, even.

Between structure and freedom.
Religion and spirituality.
Logic and intuition.
The self I had been… and the self still emerging.

For a while, I believed the purpose was to choose a side.

To determine which world was more true.
Which identity fit best.
Which path would finally quiet the tension between them.

But over time, something softer began to emerge.

What if the bridge was never asking me to fully belong to either side?

What if its purpose was not to pull me endlessly back and forth, but to help me discover the steady place within myself that remained present through every crossing?

I’m beginning to wonder if many of the bridges we encounter in life were never meant to become permanent homes.

Religion can become a bridge.
Spirituality can become a bridge.
Relationships.
Heartbreak.
Creativity.
Loss.
Identity.
Even the questions themselves.

Each one offering contrast, perspective and movement.

Each one revealing something we could not fully see before.

And perhaps that is part of their sacred purpose.

Not to trap us in endless seeking, but to guide us toward remembering.

Because sometimes the person standing on the bridge believes they are lost.

They believe the crossing itself is proof that something has gone wrong. That they have wandered too far from certainty, too far from home, and too far from themselves.

Not realizing the bridge itself may already be pointing them back.

Back toward the quiet home beneath performance. Beneath fear. Beneath the need to fully define ourselves through one world or another.

A return to the kingdom within.

Not as isolation from the world, but as deeper coherence within it.

Recently, a choir director shared something simple that stayed with me:

It is better to sing loudly and imperfectly than to hold back from fear.

Something about that felt deeply connected to the bridge.

Because fear can become a kind of home too. A familiar place, a rehearsed identity, a safe distance from vulnerability, expression, and becoming.

We wait to be certain before we sing, before we move, before we cross.

But perhaps we were never meant to live on the bridge in fear of choosing the wrong direction.

Perhaps the crossing itself was meant to teach us something deeper:

That the light we carry is greater than what we believed we lost.

And that every bridge between worlds was quietly inviting us back toward the home that had been within us all along.

The Bridge Was Never Meant to Be Home

Poetic Reflection

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

I held my voice behind my teeth in fear,
As though my truth would break if others hear.

I learned to soften edges, dim my flame,
Until the silence nearly knew my name.

I stood upon the bridge and stayed too long,
Afraid that I might choose the pathway wrong.

Yet something deeper hummed beneath the noise,
A quiet rhythm calling through my voice.

Not every note was meant to land in tune,
Some rise like trembling stars beneath the moon.

For even fractured songs still carry light,
When sung from somewhere honest and alive.

The bridge was never built for fear to stay,
Nor meant to steal the soul’s unfolding way.

It simply held me long enough to see,
The voice I searched for was inside of me.

And every step between the worlds I crossed,
Revealed far more than anything I lost.

The resonance of truth cannot be chained,
Its echoes move through hearts once fear is named.

A single voice expressed with open breath,
Can wake the sleeping parts we thought were dead.

Not through perfection.
Not through polished sound.
But through the trembling moment truth is found.

The soul remembers what the mind forgets,
A song still living underneath regret.

And when we dare to sing what once was hidden,
We find the door within was never missing.

So now I cross with less concern for grace,
And more intention simply to embrace,

The living current moving deep within,
The sacred sound that always called me in.

For home was never waiting far away,
Beyond the bridge or somewhere left to chase.

It rises softly when the fear grows thin,
And I remember who has sung within.

Pausing Reflection

I no longer believe every bridge exists to be conquered.

Some are meant to be walked slowly, felt fully and listened to carefully.

Not because the bridge itself is home, but because something within us begins to awaken while crossing it.

Perhaps that is why so many moments of transformation feel uncomfortable at first.

We are learning to see ourselves more honestly. To slow down enough to hear what fear has been speaking over. To trust the quiet voice beneath the noise. And eventually, to express what has always longed to move through us.

Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But truthfully.

The bridges we encounter in life may continue to change form.

Some appear through religion.
Some through heartbreak.
Some through creativity, loss, relationships, or uncertainty.

But eventually many of them ask the same question:

Will you continue living from fear or will you trust yourself enough to cross?

Because perhaps the purpose was never to remain suspended between worlds forever.

Perhaps the purpose was to remember that the home we searched for across every bridge was quietly waiting within us all along.

And maybe the voice we were afraid to sing, was the very thing meant to guide us there.

Closing

May we learn to cross consciously. To remain centered without losing ourselves to either shore. To trust the light we carry more than the fear we inherited.

And when the moment comes to sing, may we no longer hold back the voice that has been waiting within us all along.

Opening Reflection

“You don’t attract people… you attract reflections of yourself.”

I don’t take that as a conclusion. I take it as something to consider.

Maybe that’s why this idea stayed with me. The more I’ve reflected on it, the more I’ve realized how often understanding begins with simply being willing to consider.

Because if it’s true, even partially, it changes the way we see the people around us. Not as random, not as separate, but as someone reflecting. If I’m being honest, it’s not always comfortable.

Recently, a friend reflected something back to me. She said I have a powerful presence.

The interesting thing is, I hesitated. I found myself asking, “Am I powerful?”

I felt it in my body before I could even explain it. A subtle resistance, a quiet discomfort, a pull to deflect or downplay. Not because I didn’t trust her. But because something in me didn’t fully recognize what she was seeing.

That moment stayed with me. It revealed something deeper.

I spent time reflecting on how I’ve learned to define “power,” what I’ve been taught to accept or reject, and how certain reflections don’t land easily when they don’t match the identity I carry.

Now instead of asking, “Is this true?” I find myself asking something different. What if I simply consider it?

The question starts to soften and the resistance begins to loosen.

What can feel like a challenge starts to feel like an invitation. Not to become something new, but to recognize something that may have already been there.

Not all at once, but gradually.

Quietly, until the question…

“Am I?”

shifts on its own into:

“I am.”

Attraction and Reflection

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

You came to me
like anyone else might
a voice, a moment,
a passing light.

Not separate,
not distant,
not just passing through,

but someone reflecting
something I knew.

“You carry power,”
you said with ease,
like naming the wind
or describing the trees.

And I felt it shift,
not rise, but pull,
a quiet resistance
I couldn’t dull.

Not loud or sharp,
not fierce or clear,
just something subtle
that whispered, not here.

Not me.
Not that.
Not how I’ve been.

As if your words
crossed a line within.

Because power, to me,
had always been framed
through stories I carried,
through labels I named.

Through what felt safe,
through what felt known,
through ways I learned
to stand alone.

So when you reflected
what I could not see,
I questioned your words
before I questioned me.

But reflection waits
it doesn’t chase,
it holds its ground
with steady grace.

Not asking belief,
not needing a claim,
just quietly offering
a different name.

And somewhere between
what I felt and feared,
a softer question
finally appeared:

What if this moment
isn’t wrong or right
but someone reflecting
a truer light?

Not something to take,
or push away,
but something to sit with
and let it stay.

Because maybe the things
we try to resist
are the parts of ourselves
meant to persist.

What once stood in shadow
now stands in light.

And maybe the mirror
is not here to prove

but to gently reveal
what we’re ready to move.

And slowly…
without force,
without demand

the question softens
into… who I am.

Closing Reflection

I like to consider every interaction as a mirror.

Sometimes it reveals beauty we haven’t learned to accept.

Sometimes it reveals discomfort we’ve tried to avoid.

And sometimes, it simply invites us to pause and consider.

And when it does, we have a choice to resist it, to question it, or to stay with it long enough to understand it.

Over time, something begins to shift.

What once felt like tension becomes curiosity.

What once felt like resistance becomes awareness.

And what once felt like a question

“Am I?” begins to soften into who I am.

Maybe the invitation isn’t to figure everything out right away.

Maybe it’s simply to consider what’s being reflected back to you.

To notice the contrast between what you see and what you believe. And to gently begin to create space for something new to be recognized.

Not forced, not rushed, but allowed.

Reflection for You

Where in your life are you still asking “Am I?”

What are you seeing reflected back that you’ve been quick to question or push away?

What might change if you stayed with it just a little longer?

If you let yourself consider it, notice the contrast, and begin creating space for that reflection to become part of who you are?

Opening Reflection

“Consider the lilies, how they grow.”

These words have stayed with me. Not just for what they say, but for how they begin.

Consider.

It presents a moment of reflection.
Not a conclusion.
Nothing to prove.
Nothing to defend.

Just… consider.

There’s something powerful about being invited into reflection instead of being told what to see.

Before I go any further, I want to pause here for a moment. Feel free to take a minute to revisit a few familiar passages:

Matthew 6:28–29 — Consider the lilies / natural, unforced growth
Luke 17:20–21 — The kingdom is within you
John 14:12 — Greater works shall you do
Psalm 46:10 — Be still / know

There’s no need to analyze them and you don’t have to interpret them a certain way.

Just… consider.

Lately, I’ve been sitting with that invitation more deeply. Especially as I revisit teachings and scriptures that once felt clearly defined.

And I’ve started to wonder:

What if these teachings were never meant to be received in only one way?

What if they weren’t just something to believe but something to return to?

That question has been shifting something in me. Less toward something external and more toward something deeply personal.

What if the invitation was never about becoming something we are not but remembering what we already are?

Because if I’m honest, much of how I once interpreted these teachings came through a lens that suggested we were somehow less than, in need of fixing and in need of saving.

But what if that’s only one way to see it?

What if we came here already whole? What if we have the capacity to grow, to choose, to experience, and to bring something forward that is uniquely ours?

And what if these teachings, these stories, these words, were always pointing us back to that?

I’m not here to redefine anything for anyone else. But I am learning to read these words differently.

Not just for what they’ve meant but for what they might still be inviting me to consider.

Consider Your Worth

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard
When Presence and Embodiment Align with Your Greater Works

Consider the lilies… how they grow,
not hurried hands, nor anxious flow,
but rooted deep where stillness keeps
a quiet strength we come to know.

They do not chase the way or how,
they do not force becoming now
they simply stand, in grounded land,
and trust the life that’s moving now.

So what if we were meant the same?
Not less than… waiting to be claimed,
but seeds within, that always begin
with something deeper than a name?

If you bring forth what lives inside,
not hidden back, not pushed aside,
what you reveal, becomes what’s real
a truth that no one else can hide.

But if we turn and look away,
or silence what we’re meant to say,
what stays beneath, without release
can shape the path we walk each day.

The kingdom is not far to find,
not held in place, nor fixed in time,
but living here, already near,
a quiet presence, unconfined.

It grows within, it takes its place,
it moves through breath, it fills the space,
and what we tend, begins to blend
with every life we come to face.

Because what rises here in me
does not remain in isolation,
it meets in you, reflects what’s true,
a shared and living conversation.

And maybe this is how we see
the works we’re meant to be,
not something earned, but something turned
from inward light to outward view.

Not done through strain, nor driven pain,
nor proving worth we thought we lacked,
but rooted first, in what we trust,
then lived in ways that give it back.

So we go within… to not go without,
to quiet the noise, to soften the doubt,
to learn how to grow, in ways we don’t force
but follow the rhythm of deeper source.

We rise, we move,
we meet each other in what is true,
not separate parts, but mirrored hearts
reflecting something always new
yet echoing what we always knew.

So consider this… before you decide:
what grows in you is not denied.

It’s waiting still,
not for your will,
but for your presence to abide.

Closing Reflection

As I’ve sat with all of this, I keep coming back to something simple:

Maybe there is more than one way to see.

Not in a way that dismisses what’s been meaningful or foundational, but in a way that allows it to expand.

Because for many of us, these teachings have been deeply personal. They’ve shaped how we see ourselves, how we see the world, and how we understand our place within it.

And I’m not here to take that away.

If anything, I’m here to honor it, while also holding space for the possibility that there may be more to consider.

That what we’ve been taught and what we’re coming to understand don’t have to be in conflict.

That we can hold both.

That we can remain grounded in what has mattered to us, while still allowing new meaning to unfold.

So if I’m offering anything here, it’s not a conclusion.

It’s an invitation to consider.

To pause before assuming what something means, especially when it looks different than what we’ve known.

To recognize that what appears as stepping away might actually be someone stepping deeper into their own understanding.

And maybe most of all, to trust that what is within you is not something to fear…
but something worth bringing forward.

Because perhaps the journey was never about becoming worthy. Perhaps it has always been about remembering that we are.

Opening Reflection

In my last reflection, I wrote about speaking with kindness and speaking it sooner. About not holding back what feels true and trusting that how we express it matters just as much as the words themselves. But it left me sitting with another question:

What is truth when we actually begin to speak it?

Because I’ve seen moments where people speak what they believe is true and it doesn’t land as connection. Instead, it lands as distance, sharpness and sometimes even as harm.

And that’s been harder for me to reconcile. Because if something is true, shouldn’t it bring clarity, understanding or even a sense of peace?

For a long time, I thought I understood what truth was. I thought it was something you arrived at as steady, clear, and defined. And the way I was taught to express that truth was through something called a testimony.

Not just a belief, but a deeply held knowing. Something you could feel, share, and stand on.

It gave shape to truth, a way to recognize it, and a way to speak it out loud. In many ways, it was a gift. But it also created a quiet framework in my mind that truth should look a certain way, sound a certain way, and land the same for everyone.

Over time, I’ve started to notice something more. That truth doesn’t always arrive fully formed. And the way we come to know it doesn’t always follow the same path.

And maybe just as important, the way we express it doesn’t always carry the same impact.

Seeing Truth in Yourself, Seeing Truth in Others

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

I thought truth would feel the same,
something steady, something to tame
clear as light, steady and bright,
unchanging in its frame.

But I have seen it shift and bend,
not break apart, but slowly mend,
in ways that grow beyond what we know
of where it starts or ends.

And I have felt the quiet weight
of standing just outside the gate,
where others name a loss in me,
a step that came too late.

They call it drift, a walking away,
a weakening, somehow gone astray,
as if the path I’ve come to find
should match the one they’ve drawn in mind.

But what if what was seen as the line
was never meant to hold or bind?

What if truth expands beyond what we see?
What if it lives beyond what we define?
What if it’s vast and quietly free,
yet deeply personal, yours and mine?

What if what looks like letting go
is just the only way to grow?
Not falling through, but moving to
a truth we’ve yet to know?

Is there something missing or just unseen?
Another lens we’ve yet to try?
Is this a song we’re meant to sing—
not prove, not guard but live and try?

So I no longer try to prove
the path I take, the place I stand,
I simply show up, willing to move
with truth I’m learning hand in hand.

And maybe, in that wider view,
I’ll learn to see the same in you,
not lost or gone, but moving through
in what is real and still becoming true.

Closing Reflection

As I’ve sat with this more, I keep coming back to something simple:

We’re all standing somewhere in our truth.

Not at the same place, not with the same language, and not with the same level of clarity.

Maybe that’s not a problem to solve. Maybe it’s something to understand.

Because it’s easy to look at someone else’s path through the lens of where we currently stand. To measure it, define it, or quietly decide what it means.

But what if we paused just long enough to consider:

• What looks like distance might actually be movement.

• What feels incomplete might still be in formation.

• What doesn’t match our lens isn’t necessarily missing truth just experiencing it differently.

This doesn’t mean we lose discernment. It doesn’t mean everything holds the same weight.

But it might mean we hold each other with a little more space. A little more curiosity. A little less certainty about what someone else’s path should look like.

Because if truth is something we’re learning to live, not just something we claim to hold then maybe the invitation isn’t to agree but to see.

To see ourselves more clearly. And to see others with the same openness we hope to be met with along the way.

Call To Action

If this resonates, take a moment to sit with it:

Where has your understanding of truth evolved over time?

And where might someone in your life be standing in a truth that simply looks different from your own?

You don’t have to answer here. But if you feel called to share, I’d love to hear what this brings up for you.

Opening Reflection

This feels like a natural continuation of the last two pieces.

In “We Are the Moon,” I reflected on the idea that while the moon reflects the light, we are more than that. At our core, we are beings of light ourselves. We are not only the moon. We are the sun and the moon. The day and the night. The seen and the unseen.

Even what we call darkness is not the absence of light, it is simply another way light reveals itself. So maybe this journey has not been about finding light outside of ourselves. Maybe it has been about remembering that it was already here all along.

In “The One Who Sees,” I explored what it means to see ourselves more clearly and compassionately. And maybe this is the next step after reflection and self-seeing:

• Speaking.

• Not louder, not harsher, not more forcefully.

• Just more honestly.

• More directly, more clearly, with less filtering.

Because once we begin to reflect more honestly and see ourselves more clearly, it becomes harder to keep withholding what we know is true.

There was a long period of my life where silence felt safer than honesty.

Not because I didn’t have thoughts. Not because I didn’t have feelings. Not because I didn’t know what was true for me. I did. I just wasn’t always sure what would happen if I said it.

As a child, I learned to read the room. To adapt, to soften, to wait. To stay quiet when I wasn’t sure how something would land. Part of me believed that speaking honestly could create conflict, distance, or disapproval. And if I did speak up, sometimes it felt like I was ignored, dismissed, misunderstood or simply talked over.

So I adapted. I learned how to speak in ways that felt more acceptable. More palatable. More likely to keep the peace. And to be fair, there were gifts in that.

I became thoughtful, perceptive, and empathetic. Good at understanding other people. Good at reading what wasn’t being said.

“Insightful” became one of the safer ways my voice could exist. But there is a difference between being insightful and being fully honest. Because insight can still be filtered. Insight can still be softened. Insight can still circle around the truth instead of saying it directly.

And that is what I’m learning now. That I do have a voice. Not a harsh one. Not a reckless one. Not one that exists to wound or dominate. But a voice that can tell the truth with kindness. A voice that can say:

• “This is what I think.”

• “This is how I feel.”

• “This doesn’t sit right with me.”

• “I see it differently.”

Without needing to over-explain. Without needing to soften every edge. Without needing to fear what might happen next. Because what I’m beginning to realize is that the things I fear most; people disagreeing, pulling away, cutting me off, misunderstanding me, even leaving entirely, are things I can handle.

Not because they don’t hurt. But because I no longer lose myself when they happen. I can stand in my truth. And I can do it with kindness.

I’m learning that my biggest growth edge is not openness. It is expressing my exact truth sooner, more directly, and with less filtering.

Speaking with Kindness – Speaking It Sooner

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

Reflection

I know why silence felt so safe,
Why smaller seemed the better way,
You learned to read the room with care,
And hide the truth you longed to say

You watched for shifts in voice and face,
For signs that peace might disappear,
You learned that honesty felt sharp,
And speaking up could cost you dear

So you became the thoughtful one,
The one who softened every edge,
You wrapped your truth in gentleness,
And called that safety, not a hedge

Self-Seeing

But I can see you differently,
Not weak, not broken, not too much,
Just someone trying hard to stay,
Connected to the ones you loved

You were not voiceless all that time,
You simply feared what truth might do,
So insight became your safer path,
A softer way to still be you

And there was beauty in that too,
You learned to listen and to feel,
To hear the silence in the room,
And sense the things no one revealed

Speaking

But something new is growing now,
You do not need to wait so long,
You do not need to shape your truth,
Until the edges all are gone

You can just say, “This does not fit,”
Or, “I see this another way,”
Or, “This is what I really feel,”
Without rehearsing what to say

Not with anger, not with force,
Not with a need to prove you’re right,
Just with a little more of you,
Stepping forward into light

Trusting

I know what fear still whispers now,
That they may leave or turn away,
That if you speak too honestly,
You may lose love you hoped would stay

But hear me closely when I say,
We can survive what we once feared,
We can survive disagreement now,
Or not being fully understood here

Because we are not losing us,
By telling truths we used to hide,
And sometimes what creates more depth,
Is letting honesty decide

Standing

So come a little closer now,
You do not have to hide from me,
You do not have to stay behind,
Or guard your voice so carefully

I will stand beside you now,
And help you say the things you know,
Not perfectly and not too fast,
Just sooner than before and slow

Because your voice was never wrong,
It only carried fear for years,
But now we know the truth can stay,
And kindness does not disappear

We can speak,
We can stay,
We can tell the truth,
And still be loved

Closing Reflection

There is a difference between being open and being fully honest. Many of us become very good at listening, understanding, empathizing, adapting, and reading the room. Those are beautiful qualities. But sometimes, in becoming so good at understanding everyone else, we slowly lose touch with what is true for us. Or we know what is true but wait too long to say it.

• We soften.

• We filter.

• We over-explain.

• We try to say it in the perfect way.

Not because we are weak. Because somewhere along the way, we learned that honesty could create conflict, distance, or disapproval.

But maybe the next step is not becoming louder. Maybe it is simply becoming a little more direct. A little more honest. A little less afraid of what happens after we speak.

Not harshly, not recklessly, just clearly. Because often, the thing we fear most is not the truth itself. It’s what we imagine might happen if we say it.

And sometimes the greatest shift comes when we realize:

• I can tell the truth.

• I can survive the response.

• And I do not have to lose myself in the process.

Call To Action

If this resonates with you, sit with this question:

Where in my life do I already know the truth but keep waiting too long to say it?

• Not to force it.

• Not to rush it.

• Just to notice it.

And maybe the next time that truth appears, you say it a little sooner.

• A little more clearly.

• A little more kindly.

You do not have to say everything all at once.

Sometimes growth looks like speaking one honest sentence earlier than you would have before.

Opening Reflection

There was a time while I was serving as a church missionary when I didn’t feel like I was doing enough. Or maybe more honestly, I didn’t feel like I was enough.

The feedback around me felt thin. Sometimes absent. Sometimes unclear. And without realizing it, I had started to measure myself through the eyes of everyone else.

Am I a good missionary?

Am I doing this right?

Am I enough?

I remember one night praying quietly, honestly, asking God something simple:

Help me see myself the way You see me.

Sometime later maybe days, maybe even a couple of weeks, I was standing in front of the mirror getting ready for the day. Nothing looked different. But something felt completely different. The thought came, clear and steady:

This is how I see you.

And it wasn’t a list of strengths. It wasn’t correction. It wasn’t even instruction. It was a feeling.

A quiet, grounded sense of love. Not forced, not earned, just there. Steady and soft at the same time. Clear without being critical. Like nothing needed to be added. And nothing needed to be taken away.

For the first time, I wasn’t trying to become something. I was simply seeing what had always been true.

A Deeper Reflection

We spend so much of our lives asking:

How does God see me?

But maybe the deeper invitation is this:

What if the way we see ourselves is shaped by what we believe God sees?

And what if that vision was never rooted in judgment, but in wholeness? Not a version of us that needs fixing. But a version of us that has always been seen with complete love and quiet understanding.

The One Who Sees

By Joseph Christian Baadsgaard

I searched for truth in measured praise,
In words that rose, then fell away,
I shaped myself through others’ eyes,
And called it worth, when they complied

A servant walking, striving still,
To match a form, to bend my will,
If they approved, I felt aligned,
If silence came, I questioned mine

So I knelt down and softly prayed,
Not for the path, but how I’m made,
“Help me to see the way You do,
Not what they say, but what is true”

The morning came, no thunder spoke,
No sudden sign, no heavens broke,
Just quiet light and steady breath,
A mirror held, with nothing left

I looked and something looked through me,
Not changing form, but how I see,
No altered face, no grand display,
Just love that would not turn away

“This is how I see you,” came,
Not loud, not forced, not wrapped in name,
A voice so still, yet deeply known,
As if it spoke from what I’ve always known

And in that gaze, I felt release,
No need to strive, no war for peace,
The weight of proving fell apart,
And settled gently in my heart

I thought it God, and maybe so,
The only way I then could know,
But time has peeled what words once framed,
The voice I heard, and I, the same

The one who sees, the one who lives,
The one who asks, the one who gives,
Not two, not split, not far above,
But meeting here, as self through love

I was the wave I tried to tame,
The moving field, the shifting frame,
But when I paused and stepped aside,
I felt the one who stood behind

The observer still, the projector bright,
Layered in waves of living light,
Not watching life from distant view,
But shaping all it’s moving through

That prayer I spoke in humble plea,
Was consciousness returning me,
Not calling out to something far,
But remembering what I really am

And now when voices rise again,
With doubt disguised as truth from them,
I turn within, not to defend,
But meet the gaze that does not bend

For I have seen what does not sway,
Not night, not noise, not words can fray,
A love that sees without disguise,
The one who watches through my eyes.

A Deeper Realization

As the author, you’re not just looking at the end, but at the beginning, and every page in between.

And maybe, in learning to see as the Author sees, we begin to recognize something within ourselves too.

Not that we replace the Author, but that we begin to participate in that same way of seeing.

No longer only as the character caught inside the moment, but as the one who can step back, observe, and hold the story with understanding.

Closing Reflection

There’s a quiet shift that happens when we stop trying to become someone else and start seeing ourselves more clearly.

Not through pressure, not through performance, not through whether we’re getting it “right.”

But through something steadier. Something that doesn’t rush us forward or hold us back.

Just a deeper kind of seeing.

The kind that allows growth without questioning worth.

The kind that holds both truth and compassion at the same time.

And maybe that’s the practice.

Not fixing. Not forcing.

Just learning, again and again, to return to the way we were always seen.

Call To Action

If this resonated with you, I’d invite you to sit with one question:

How would I see myself today, if I saw through the same way the Author sees?

And if something shifted for you, even subtly, I’d love to hear about it.

You can share in the comments or simply carry it with you.

Either way, it counts.