THE MIND
EMOTIONAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
Growing up I was told by Mr. Rogers (more on him later) how important feelings were. He told us that emotions mattered, and that it was okay to talk about them, but somewhere along the way I forgot his message.
I’m 54 now, and only recently have I begun to embrace the importance of emotional and psychological health. For most of my life I’ve struggled with big, difficult emotions like anger and fear. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I buried them or numbed out, especially with alcohol. And while those strategies might have offered temporary relief, they never brought lasting peace. I think society told me a big lie that there is something wrong with expressing emotions or holding space for others when they are struggling, but I don’t believe that anymore.
I’ve come to realize that emotions aren’t the enemy. They show up to tell us something important about our inner world and unmet needs. When we ignore or suppress them, we miss the message and often suffer more because of it.
In this section you will find reflections and resources on topics like:
Understanding and working with anxiety and how to Let Go.
Living with more authenticity and less fear of what others think about us
How to find your purpose
A series on freedom and the gift to be found in our struggles. “The Obstacle is the Way”
Overcoming addiction
As of early 2026 I have only written about anxiety and the importance of authenticity but more is on the way.
Content Menu
Anxiety
In late 2023 I hit a wall. We were transitioning from full-time living in Colorado back to Texas, and I was overwhelmed with too many responsibilities and many moving parts. And while I was doing a good job staying physically fit and eating well, I wasn’t sleeping well, and for the first time in a long time, I was miserable. But what really shook me was how the anxiety showed up. It wasn’t just racing thoughts, my anxiety presented as a visceral, body-based fear. My mind could be relatively quiet, but my chest would tighten or my stomach would knot up, and I had never experienced that before.
This was jarring because the months prior had been among the most spiritually rich of my life. I had felt connected, inspired, and elevated. Then in January 2024, I got hit with the flu and was flat on my back for days. It felt like a forced surrender.
During that low point, I had a thought I’ve come to recognize as significant: Maybe this misery is the gift. It reminded me of when I quit drinking. Sometimes it takes being brought to our knees to gain the motivation to change course, and the obstacle becomes the way.
So I got serious. I reached out to friends who had navigated anxiety. I found a somatic therapist. I became willing to try anything, and that’s when I discovered Wim Hof breathing, and it immediately made a difference. As I shared in the Breath Work section, it was a game changer. It gave me a sense of control over my physiology and a direct path to calming my system. I soon layered in meditation, creating a daily combo of breathwork followed by stillness. Cold showers followed, then full-on cold plunges.
But the real breakthrough came through synchronicity. Within a few days, two different friends gave me the exact same advice: When fear arises, don’t resist it. Let it move through you. It echoed the central practice in David Hawkins' Letting Go, a book I had read years before, which is to stop resisting and simply allow the feelings to be there without judgment and without trying to fix it.
I soon had a chance to try it out. I was at my daughter’s choir recital, and out of nowhere, that familiar fear began creeping in. Instead of panicking or distracting myself, I mentally leaned in. I said, “Come on, you mother effer. Fill my body. I welcome you.” And something awesome happened. The fear came in and then it passed without resistance.
Hawkins writes that when we allow a feeling to fully rise without resisting or suppressing it, the energy behind it naturally dissipates. That was my experience. Since then, fear still visits, but not like before. That level of anxiety hasn’t returned in over two years. I also went a long time without being sick, which makes me wonder what anxiety does to one’s immune system.
So if you're reading this and feeling anxious, here’s what worked for me:
Wim Hof breathwork: This got me out of my head and into my body.
Meditation reconnected me with a quieter, steadier self. It was especially effective after the breathwork.
Cold therapy helped train my nervous system to stay calm in stress and flooded my body with mood boosting chemicals like dopamine.
Letting go: Accept the feeling of fear and anxiety instead of resisting it.
Letting Go is one of my favorite personal growth books, by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. He’s best known for Power vs. Force, but Letting Go goes deeper into emotional surrender. If you’re curious, I’ve included a summary based from my notes on the book. It’s had a lasting impact on how I process emotions.
Letting Go: A Practice and a Philosophy
This book doesn’t offer a quick fix. It’s a profound shift in how we relate to emotions, especially the ones we’re conditioned to avoid like fear, guilt, anger, or grief.
The core idea is simple but radical: most of us are constantly resisting our feelings. We suppress them, express them in distorted ways, or escape them altogether. Hawkins teaches that instead of fighting emotions, we can allow them to rise, feel them fully, and let them pass through us.
He writes, “Letting go is like the sudden cessation of an inner pressure or the dropping of a weight. It is accompanied by a sudden feeling of relief and lightness.” That’s exactly what I felt that day in the choir recital. It was like I was releasing pressure I didn’t even know I was holding.
Some other takeaways that really landed for me:
Feelings drive thoughts: A single suppressed emotion can generate thousands of thoughts over time. By releasing the emotion, the obsessive thinking often dissolves too.
Resistance is the glue: What keeps emotions stuck isn’t the feeling itself, but our resistance to them. The moment we allow the emotions to flow without judgment, they begin to lose their charge.
You are not your feelings: The real you is the witness of your thoughts and feelings (think about that profound statement for a minute as you can’t be what you observe. You are the observer). Hawkins reminds us that our true nature isn’t fear or anger, it’s the awareness behind those emotions.
Fear is healed by love: Hawkins writes that love is a higher vibrational energy that can dissolve fear. He’s not talking about romantic love, but unconditional, non-attached presence. I refer to this as unconditional divine love. I plan to write about this at length in the spirit section.
Negative emotions are survival programs: These are outdated scripts we picked up to stay safe in a chaotic world. Our brain is designed to predict and protect, which can be really helpful if we are being chased by a Sabertooth Tiger, but can often lead us astray in modern times. Letting go helps update those scripts and opens us up to more joy and higher consciousness.
One of the most helpful parts of the book is his Map of Consciousness, which charts emotions on a scale of vibrational energy. He makes the case that everything in the universe has a frequency, and that our emotional states either contract or expand our energy field accordingly:
At the low end of the scale are (and these are in order from lowest to highest):
Shame – the lowest frequency, close to death
Guilt – self-hatred, masochism, and illness
Fear – anxiety, control, possessiveness
Grief and Apathy – hopelessness and despair
Anger and Desire – I would have thought this would be lower, but it’s not because while it’s still draining, there is some energetic momentum
Courage — This is the first step into empowerment and forward momentum. I was moving into this vibration when I told myself I was willing to try anything to improve my anxiety.
From there, energy rises into:
Willingness – openness and service
Acceptance – peace with what is
Love – unconditional, non-attached, heart-centered
Joy – bliss, compassion, patience
Peace – radiant presence
The energetic vibration of GratiJoy is not on this list, but it must be way the hell up there! This scale reframes emotional work as energetic hygiene. We aren’t just getting through hard feelings, we are liberating trapped energy and expanding our capacity to love and feel joy. Hawkins discusses how all of these energies must be felt. When I started releasing fear instead of resisting it, I could literally feel my body relax and open. I was stepping out of a fear-based survival mode and into trust.
If this speaks to you, I highly recommend the book. It’s a manual for emotional wellbeing and the beginning of spiritual awakening.
I don’t know if this anxiety protocol I stumbled upon helps with depression, but given how intertwined anxiety and depression can be, it might be worth a try. Even if it doesn’t resolve everything, it could be a starting point toward relief and maybe even growth.
Lastly, one of my favorite beginning sentences from any book comes from The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, when he writes “Life is difficult.” That opening sentence is so simple and so true. Suffering comes for all of us, but we do have a choice: we can suffer passively, or we can suffer with purpose by using it to grow. To capture that spirit of moving from hardship into hope, I created a playlist called “Out of the Dark.” I hope you enjoy.
Authenticity
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure... As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
— Marianne Williamson
In the introduction I shared that much of the content on this site reflects lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life. One of the biggest was the importance of authenticity. The idea of being my authentic self didn’t register until I was in my early 50s. Ironically, Mr. Rogers was talking about this when I was a child, gently reminding us that we are lovable just the way we are. I spent most of my life focused on performance and productivity. I didn’t spend time pausing to ask the deeper questions: “Who am I? and Why am I here?” because I was too busy subconsciously wanting societal approval. So many of us, myself included, are bombarded with messages (these are really lies) telling us we need to be a certain way to be accepted and loved.
So how do we begin the journey back to our true selves?
One of the most insightful and entertaining starting points I’ve found on this topic is this blog post by Tim Urban:
Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think
This piece is long, hilarious, and transformational. I read it at least once a year. Urban breaks down why we’re so obsessed with other people’s opinions and how to break free.
Here are a few key takeaways:
The Mammoth Metaphor: Urban introduces the idea of the Social Survival Mammoth, which is our prehistoric ego that evolved to be hyper-attuned to the judgments of others. It craves approval and fears rejection, often hijacking our decisions to keep us “safe” in the eyes of the tribe.
The Puppet Masters: These are the people whose opinions run our lives. They may be your parents, your partner, your boss, or the high-status people in your social circle. We give them unconscious power over our choices.
Your Authentic Voice (AV): This is the wiser, truer part of you, some might call it the soul or higher self. Your AV knows what you value and what brings you joy. It doesn’t have all the answers, but it usually knows the next right step. “Your AV knows how you feel deep down... It knows which kinds of people, topics of interest, and types of activities you truly enjoy—and which you don’t.”
Taming the Mammoth: The process of reclaiming your authenticity involves deep reflection. Urban poses powerful questions:
Who in your life actually energizes you?
Do you spend money or time on things that don’t feel right?
What parts of your life carry a quiet shame or dread?
What would you do, say, or pursue if you weren’t afraid of being judged?
This is the hard and sacred work of becoming yourself. As Urban writes: “You’ve got to figure out what actually matters to you and start being proud of whoever your Authentic Voice is.”
Learning to listen to that voice has been one of the most important shifts in my life. It has meant letting go of outdated expectations and the constant need for approval. It’s an ongoing practice, but one that has lead to a true awareness of who I really am. “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” Carl Jung.