Follow what vibrates true.

When energy flows, truth is revealed. We don’t force alignment - we listen for it. This path teaches us to trust sensation over expectation and move with what feels coherent rather than what simply looks successful.

For much of my life I thought alignment meant effort.
If I worked hard enough... if I did the “right” things…
I would eventually arrive at the outcome I wanted.

So, I stepped into a world where the goal was clear:
produce, sell, earn.

I was gifted success in the prison system that I called school.
Learning was “easy.”
It came easy because I could recognize patterns.

Patterns in people.
In mathematics.
In language.
In behavior.

As the years rolled on, this started coming with expectations.
not of myself–
From the people that were in the role of showing me the way – my teachers.

They were quietly shaping me into what they thought I should be.
And I allowed it.
Little did any of us realize, this smoldered into a subtle rebellion.

But this war was not directed externally… yet. It was turned inward.

I could feel the heaviness, but didn’t understand it.
Heaviness turned to confusion.
Anxiety.
Depression.

I grasped for meaning, but could only find blame.

If it was someone else’s fault maybe I would feel better.
But I didn’t.

Carrying the heaviness was prying at my organs…
My skin felt like it was foreign.
My soul like it was dying of deception.

The resistance turned outward.
Classes that were easy no longer meant anything to me so I stopped trying.
I did what many kids searching for meaning through the weight of expectations did…

I acted out.

I faced those expectations with the only thing I knew – rejection.

Not because I wanted to be “bad.”
But because I was being funneled into feeling things that I didn’t like, even though I didn’t know why.
Poured into a mold that felt… empty.
I could see where the pattern led… and that is not where I wanted to go.

I didn’t have the words for it then.
But something in me knew.

Not loudly.
Not clearly.

Just quiet resistance…
to a path that didn’t feel like mine.

The outward projection of these feelings got stronger with each day.
Pressure kept building under the surface and it had nowhere to go.
It leaked out through the weakest cracks.
I was desperate to seal them.

Stop, TJ. Focus.
Be “good.”

There was so much pressure trying to mask what wanted to be heard
without language to vocalize it.

The cracks widened. More and more.
The struggle began eliciting responses like “you’re going to be a loser.”
First from authority figures.
Then from me.

The A student that I was quickly descended into a high school dropout.
Multiple tries – all ended the same.
I was trying to force an outcome based on expectation.
What success was supposed to look like.

I was walking someone else’s path, neglecting my own.
The mask was uncomfortable
and so was being without it.

Intense friction in my system kept me grasping at anything to feel whole again.
Or even just a moment of relief.

Substances.
Relationships.
Accomplishments.

Each one. Empty.

Each one added weight.
I was sinking.
Deeper and deeper.

Doubt.
Regret.
Failure.

Many years of many loops.
Different situations.
Different faces.

Same result.

One day I decided I was going to try something radically different.
Instead of framing my life on other’s expectations,
I was going to release them.
And my own.

Not fighting against them anymore, just setting them down beside me.
Just to rest.

So many years I’d carried it, but no longer.
It was like reaching a summit with a backpack full of gear.
The hike was long and it was hot.
Taking that weight off to set it down comes with a lightness – one you only feel after you’ve carried it.

The breeze now dries the sweat from your back.
Tense muscles begin to relax.
You look out over the incredible view and just take it in.

Not only visually.

Viscerally.

I opened that backpack of expectations. Not to throw them one-by-one off the edge.
To see them – fully.
Were they mine?
Were they meaningful?
Were they necessary?

The mind kept trying to figure it out.

I didn’t need to.

I just needed to feel it.

Beneath the noise.
Beneath the thoughts.

There was something simple.

Something quiet.
Steady.

And it didn’t need me to force anything.

Just feel.

No judgement. No analyzing.

Just pure honesty – with myself.

Now there was a base that I could return to…
and explore from.

It was time to provide space for what that boy was really feeling.

If you’ve been carrying something that doesn’t feel like yours…
you don’t have to throw it away.
You can just set it down… and look.

If you stay with it long enough…
it will transform.

Subscribe now