Have you ever caught yourself doing this? You say you want intimacy, yet the moment someone gets close enough to truly see you—to witness your fears, your wounds, your unpolished edges—you find ways to push them away. You become critical. You get “busy.” You convince yourself they’re not quite right. Or maybe you simply shut down, your body going cold even as your heart aches for connection. If you recognize this pattern, I need you to hear something: you’re not broken. You’re not incapable...
5 days ago • 11 min read
Dear Reader, Earlier this week, my brother sent me an old photograph. A family portrait during a cruise in the Caribbean when I was about nine. We're all smiling at the camera. I'm the little guy in the back, just my head visible, hiding behind everyone else. Back then, that feeling of loneliness and being invisible, even when surrounded by family, felt like a punishment. A curse. Something broken that desperately needed to be fixed. So I tried to fill that void with achievements, endless...
9 days ago • 2 min read
Have you ever felt utterly alone in a room full of people? I remember sitting at a family gathering years ago, surrounded by laughter and conversation, yet feeling as if I were watching everyone through soundproof glass. “Does anyone actually see me?” I wondered. “Or just the version I’ve learned to show?” You know this feeling. That subtle, persistent ache of separateness that follows you like a shadow—even when you’re connecting, achieving, surrounded by others. Carl Jung described our...
12 days ago • 11 min read
Dear Reader, This week, I’ve been reflecting on the theme of surrender, and I suspect you might be wrestling with something that needs surrendering too. A memory from my second Camino surfaced. I had meticulously planned every detail, but on day four of the Portuguese Way, I was struck down with a fever and debilitating illness. Confined to a small hostel in Viana do Castelo for three long days, I helplessly watched pilgrims come and go as my carefully crafted journey crumbled. In the depths...
16 days ago • 2 min read
It’s 2 AM and you’re lying awake, again. Your body is tight, your mind is racing, and that problem—the client conflict, the money worry, the relationship tension—is replaying on a loop. You feel the crushing weight of the conviction that it’s all on you to figure this out, to fix this, to single-handedly prevent everything from spiraling. You might even notice a subtle, desperate quality to your thinking. You are not just thinking; you are struggling. You are trying to mentally wrestle a...
19 days ago • 11 min read
Dear Reader, This week, I received a very meaningful gift from Mary Flynn in our Heart Mastery community in Ireland: two books by the Irish poet-philosopher John O’Donohue. As I held them, a familiar warmth stirred within me, like remembering a long-forgotten friend. For those unfamiliar, O’Donohue’s work explores friendship, beauty, and belonging. He writes beautifully of the anam cara—the “soul friend.” This is the person before whom your mask drops, and you are met exactly as you are. In...
23 days ago • 2 min read
This week, I found myself scrolling through old photos—a digital archaeology of friendships past. There I was at university, arms draped around people whose names I’ve forgotten. Wedding photos with couples I haven’t spoken to in years. Group shots from film sets in LA, beach gatherings in South Africa, dinner parties in Caracas—a trail of connections that once felt essential, now dissolved into polite social media likes. The ache surprised me. Not grief, but a quieter wondering about why...
26 days ago • 11 min read
Dear Reader, The Camino has a way of telling the truth without words. Step after step, it has shown me the difference between the pain life brings and the suffering I was adding on top—most of it woven from my own regret. I learned this the hard way after my sister died. The pain asked for presence. The suffering asked for release. On the trail, with long hours to listen, I began to put down what wasn’t mine to carry. By the time I reached Finisterre, the true end of the Camino, I felt light...
30 days ago • 2 min read
During a recent Heart Mastery Circle session, I posed a provocative question to my students: “All suffering is self-created—true or false?” The room went quiet. Then came the responses. Half said true. Half said false. So I asked a second question: “For those of you who said true—or even partially true—what percentage of your suffering do you think you actually create?” “Thirty percent,” one participant offered. ”Forty percent,” said another. ”Eighty percent.” Each number was right. And each...
about 1 month ago • 10 min read