“Why do I have to be some…THING?”. I found myself in meditation this morning sitting with frustration, heaviness and general dis-ease. Beautiful, fertile soil - the manure of life. It’s shit, but necessary - “No mud no lotus” as Thich Nhat Hanh would say.

I was fueling these feelings through weaving stories in the mind around “making no progress in business”, “I haven’t done anything this week that feels of value”, “Am I using my life force correctly”, “Am I just wasting my time?”, “Can I really do this?”, “Do I even want to do this?”, “Do I want to be this person”…so on and so forth.

It’s rooted in fear, fear that I won’t be able to make this work, that I won’t find clients, that I don’t have enough professional experience, that I’ve been on eternal sabbatical, that I’ve over indexed on my spiritual and personal development and the business world doesn’t value this.

The main bit is that final fear. Is if the business & tech world are able to see value in what I have to bring, and if it doesn’t will I be able to make the value visible.

Why is our outward expression often different than our inward one? I am finding this for myself, particularly as I try to externally construct myself as an “initiative partner”, meanwhile inwardly I am not-constructing. It’s in this non construction of who I think I am that I find the most freedom, a relief in the building of tension, a sense of wholeness, of possibility - this is how I zoom out and see big picture, especially when I’m constricted, tight or rigid.

This is the part that I am actually most interested in, I am actively using myself as an experiment into what happens when outward expression and inward experience match.

And so here I am with that, I leave for Zen Mountain Monastery in 16 days for 2 months. I did exactly this last year after leaving Squarespace and I plan to do this annually for years to come. This will be my 3rd year in a row immersing myself in this sort of environment for multiple months.

The “work” done here is the most meaningful, transformational and life affirming thing that I have given to myself and I know that it radiates outwards and serves every facet of my life. I am threading this needle, no matter how long it takes for the external to be a genuine whole hearted expression of the internal.

If you made it to the bottom of this post…for starters - thank you and secondly you are a core component of this, the external includes you. Reach out, let’s chat.