“Patience is a virtue.” Or my favorite, “Patience, young Padawan.”

But what is patience? I thought I knew when I picked it.

Some number of years ago, let’s say 4, I decided to choose a word for each year (shoutout to Tanya Monsef—thank you for the inspo).

2026: Patience.

I chose this word because in 2024 and 2025 many things in my life sort of fell apart. A relationship ended, and I left London for Central America. Within a couple weeks of starting my new life in Mexico, my boss at the time told me that we wouldn’t be getting any new clients, and our rates were getting cut.

A couple months later, while in Guatemala, I sent my resignation letter into what appeared to be a failing company. It was a sad time. My income dropped from about 8,000 a month to about 750 a month. Hm.

Paradoxically, around the same time, I led my first international retreat, flying a private client down to Guatemala for a medicine journey. I was living at Fungi Academy, surrounded by soul fam, making a new home. But, despite it all, I was out of cash, and not sure what to do with myself.

So, like many mid-20s who find themselves in a pinch, I called my family and asked if I could move home. I’m a lucky one. I had family to call. And they said yes. So, almost exactly a year ago, I flew to Sarasota, watching the volcanoes of Central America float away in the window.

On the plane, I wrote: “What next? Maybe the answer is to not rush into anything... To just let myself land and be present, and let life unfold before me, rather than trying to control my future.”

What followed were a couple thousand words of me desperately trying control my future. Welp. I kind of got there.

Fast forward a bit. It’s fall. I’m applying for my first ever full-time job. My would-be boss essentially says to me, ‘I need to know you’ll be here for a while.’

My boss is a brilliant woman who has worked as a psychologist for a long time. I imagine she knew a few things about me that I didn’t know about myself.

When she said that, I felt afraid. She was asking me to stay put, to commit to myself, to her and her team, and to the work here in this role. For as long as I’d been in control of my life, when the going got tough, I got going. I didn’t always know I was doing it, but I was.

Looking back, it’s a natural part of growing up in two households—for me, there was always another home to go to, always an escape.

As an adult, it was the same thing. Travel, while full of beautiful adventures, was a way of maintaining my own ungroundedness. Why? Because once a person becomes still, everything they’ve been running from catches up.

Hm.

When my now boss invited me to commit to being still for at least a couple years, I was faced with all this internal resistance. Living in the Berkshires meant letting go of any fantasy of getting back with my ex, or moving back to London. It meant forgoing the trips and festivals I watched my friends doing through social media. And most deeply, it meant confronting myself and not running away from what I found inside.

I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it.

Honestly, sometimes I’m still not sure.

But this morning, in the midst of some inner emotional turmoil, I drove to a walk I often take with my dad near my apartment. I crossed the barrier of the forest, into groves of ancient trees, deep green ferns still pressed to the earth by newly melted snow, and out again onto still brown fields.

There, before me, was an oak tree, splayed across the horizon, branches reaching and trunk strong. The morning sun filtered above the canopy to touch the oak with a gentle orange glow.

The old oak drew me in, and I found myself nestled into its roots, leaning against its soft-hard body. In the near-silence of the morning, tears dripped down my face.

To be still.

The wind playfully blew brown leaves across the field. The cold air, fresh in my lungs.

I didn’t know where the tears came from.

Patience.

As I crossed the boundary from 2025 into 2026, I knew I would need to learn it. But I didn’t really know what it was. I knew I would need to slow down, to learn to be still with myself, to wait, to stop rushing around.

It’s been an initiation.

Today, while steeping in a David Whyte book, I wrote:

Patience

My word of the year.

I’m learning that it doesn’t mean waiting for the future thing I want to become real.

It means learning that the present moment is real. It means obtaining the humility to belong here.

There is no magical future that patience leads to.

There is no “perfect,” which patience makes.

Other than the perfection that is here
When I am not barreling toward
An unknowable and unmeetable
Future

This is it.
Now.

Patience is accepting that.

Patience is being here.

Patience does not mean “the future is better than now,” but rather is a way of being in the difficult present without fleeing from it into the future.

When I chose patience as my word, I imagined that it would be the vessel that would deliver me into the future I’ve so deeply fantasized about, that it would bring me my soulmate or give me an abundant career. I imagined that patience would give me those things, but I also associated patience with a never-coming future.

Last night, I wrote in my journal, “Patience. I could pick a new word—‘all I could ever dream of comes to me now.’” It occurred to me that I was foreclosing my full experience of the present as a gift by always thinking that the future would be better, and that I needed to wait for it to come.

But, really that’s not how it works.

I remember a poem I recorded while walking El Camino

Every passing car asks me
What is your pride worth to you? 
Why won't you ask for help? 
What are you trying to prove? 
What is the difference between insecurity and ambition? 
What does it mean to be competitive? 
Why are you doing this to yourself? 
What is this pain for? 
Where are you going? 
What does your heart want? 
Each passing car,
I think of these questions again,
And I don't have the answers. 
And so I walk, 
and I walk, 
and I walk, 
and I walk.

On that same day, I made this little video.

A lot of wisdom in there.

What if patience actually allows us to look around and see the world as it is, not as we wish it would be? What if in that, there’s an opportunity to actually receive the always-present and abundant beauty?

Patience is perfect. Because this moment, if allowed to be, is perfect. Because it’s all there is.

And could I, could we all, ‘have faith that we’ll get there when we’re meant to.”

I sit here now in my first solo-apartment filled with plants, partially completed paintings, and playfully burning candles. Piano music cascades over me. The wind crackles the walls. And, I am safe.

There will always be an infinite amount of fantasies that my mind can lock onto as superior to this finite moment, this ordinary now. There will always be ways to escape, whether into the outer world or the inner one. There will always be ways out.

But there is only one way in.

And I think, it’s patience.

The capacity to be here.

In the present.

As it is.

Humbly,
Faolan

There is a juxtaposition arising in my memories. I’m in Bordeaux sitting at a coffee shop terrace. There are people everywhere. They litter the streets like slow moving flowers in a winding river. They find eddies to sit in, roll through, and watch life pass by. There’s an ease, and a slowness here. While they sit at their coffee tables reading the paper or talking in melodic French to friends, life around them has no issue with their choice. And they’re not alone.

I feel alone here on this bench. For there is no one to share this lovely morning with. Here, people are always on the go, or already at work. Here, people drive from place to place instead of walking among the streets and enjoying the day. An occasional, purposeful dog walker passes. It’s too fast. Too driven.

The culture America is too fast for me. I feel out of place, judged in my choosing to slow down. I receive confused glances from driver who pass by, as I sit and savor the blessed return of the sun, and enjoy my tea in peace. I feel interrupted by the constant sound of motors humming by, instead of people’s voices. A truck nearby has stalled in an intersection, and the driver revs its motor over and over again.

So, while I am enjoying myself here in the sun, I’m also realizing why I love Europe so much, and why I want to move there. It’s about the shared culture of enjoyment, and the chosen pace of life. It’s about a communal decision to savor life, instead of trying to conquer it. Perhaps there’s something to be said for the economy here. Perhaps people feel their need to stay afloat. Perhaps this is why a croissant costs upward of six dollars. In France, they don’t cost six dollars. Is a privilege to stop and smell the roses, or is it a choice?

Overall, this is a good realization, because it helps me direct my life more. It helps me understand myself better, and what I love and need. And so, I’m grateful. But, there’s also a nostalgia, a melancholy, and a gentle grief that where I want to be is not where I am. And yet, where I am is still very beautiful. And I feel very lucky to be here. How can that be?

How to hold these taunting parallels, these tensely turning paradoxes? How to be fully here, and also to await a life I know I love? How to bring gratefulness while allowing desire still to live? How to feel whole and complete while still growing forth? I suppose all plants do this. They are complete and still they keep growing. Could there be a way forward without lack, while still clarifying my vision and working toward it?

That is the way I’d like to walk. So, until then, I will choose to slow down, to feel the sun on my face, to surround myself with people and projects that align with that life of enjoyment, of savoring, of chosen peace. And I will await the day I return to a style of being, a culture of care. And I will await it with love for this moment, for while dreams, memories, and fantasies have their uses, now is the life I’m living.

And, as I close this piece, and walk toward work, I feel a sense of peace instilled in my from my choice, from the love I gave myself this morning in allowing slowness and ease. There is nothing stopping me from choosing this always, in every day, whether I’m encouraged by culture or not. I have agency as to how I walk. As I learned on the Camino, “it’s not what, it’s how.”

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I sit here, listening to it all, squinting against the mostly shielded glare of the sun, and I think of myself, and my life, and wonder.

But I have not much to wonder at. My path is set, and unfolding before me. I am receiving, against my worse judgement, many blessings, and am practicing letting them into my heart, and holding them with gratitude. Perhaps there could be improvements, but hitherto, I would not know them if I stared them in the face, for I am content now, and can see truly what could bless me further, and what would be a travail into mere fantasy.

And a gift that is, to feel so blessed that there could not be a fake who turns up on my doorstep to sell me my life, for I am already the owner. To feel entirely shielded from the slippery slide into recalcitrance and reluctance I have so frigidly disavowed from myself. I am here. Author, and reader the same. My life, my own, and no longer clung to with such terrified ferocity. Lightly gripping the reins, with a firm self-assuredness.

And are there losses? Yes.

For certain. To start, I feel a loss of this misguided notion that I do not belong. And nay, afore you would affront my claim, I plead you open yourself to where there could be wisdom, for it is a loss. Were, if I to belong, I would suddenly lack this pressurized expulsion which has kept me with such fervor and obstinance, clinging to the untruth of my own lacking. And in the absence of this, I, in a way, no longer have access to the motivation which has steered me thus. And, in some way, I am no longer who I was. A loss.

To continue, there will be a loss of maybes, which in due course have filled my life to brim and bursting, and which must, like chaff from wheat now be culled into the wind, which takes it. And thus, the fullness of life becomes empty, open, and gaping. A hole, an absence, a vacuum. A loss.

And, to be sure there could be more, unseen and unknown.

The point to draw being that even in the acquisition of a once chimeric aspiration, which even when drawn beside the flights of Angels and draught of Ambrosia, a man could desire in his heart most of all, there will be crumblings of reality, of self, and of truth, which may and do reshape into brighter and more brilliant exposition, thus; that life is bountiful in each tenderly passing phrase, which is spoken toward our hearts from the mouth of God, and into which the care and pleasure of a million wonders is delivered; and even there, with all that treasure, there is a shattering of worlds, and a breaking of self. There, is the cost.

Wishing for the cost to err, is to keep the treasure in the hold of a ship in harbor, never reaching the terra firma of the soul. And there, surely is the truer loss. And so, without ado, beckon her home, and welcome this vessel into the shores of your greatest wishes, feeling her slip between the cradling wake of you, and into your very essence, like the fragrant scent of melancholy jasmine growing along ancient shore. And fear not for where she shall go, or howsoever you shall grow, for there is already a landing.

And within all of this, there is a choice you must make, and not only affirm but adhere to, a wish of your soul which is a promise to yourself; stray not from this wretched truth, or all is lost into the tumultuous seas of unabating desire; clear yourself of nefarious wounds and untruths so that you may finally see that there is only the opportunity to behold the unfolding reality as it is, here and without ultimate comprehension; there is no ringing of the bell to signal delightful homecoming, none more than the enrichment of your own soul into a relishing of final and truthful obsolescence, each moment dead upon its arrival; tranquil grief spreading its beloving talons through the heart to stimulate sterilizing and cleansing remorse; for how could there have been any other possibility than thus? To clearly see; to arrive in blessed clarity to the foundational staggerment; beholding her before you, thus. Claim her, and be yourself claimed. This is life unfolding.

The tide breaks. The breath refills. The sky clears. The wind blows. The moon beckons her slumber, and the rock upon which is home, continues her galactic course through the histories of time immemorial.

Tremulous is the fair grasp on truth.

Do not shy, or she shall slip once more into the eddies of herself, and there shall be again this muddied unclarity.

Transparent is her suit, and her wholeness exposing, yet blinded shall thee be, if daring, glance at her full on.

So, try only for the slightest hints of noticing, where her soul could be yours, and her wholeness could bless your mortal body with a moment of effusion; craft yourself in her image, and she shall meet you thence.

A traveling scholar alights on a path of surrender.

And all is quiet in the silence of the path.

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PS. It’s been a while since I’ve published. Know that I think often of this medium and of you who may be wondering where I have gone. Suffice to say, my words today can speak for me, and beyond, I wish to send more to you than I do. Perhaps I will.

Closing

If there is a person you love, think of them now. If they would love these words, please do share them:

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First of all, I want to own that I had a great thing going earlier this summer with posting on schedule, and have severely let that go for the last month or so.

Partially, I received some feedback letting me know that there was simply too much stuff to keep up with, so I wanted to step back and renegotiate with myself how much content to release, and of what styles.

The other half, is that I’ve just been really busy. Lots of life living for me in my world!

Also, I started my new job at Austen Riggs on Monday this week, and am loving it so far. For those who don’t know, Austen Riggs is a residential psychiatric treatment facility for people who are really suffering. It’s community focused and its mission is to restore and heal each patient’s self-authority in their lives.

Overall, I’m finding myself learning a lot, and excited to learn more! Still early days.

From this point forward, much of my time will be devoted to my first (I know, crazy) full-time job ever. As I learn the ropes of scheduling, hopefully move into my own apartment soon, and transition fully home here to this part of the world, I’ll be adjusting to a really new/and old life.

And, through that, there will be ample chances for me to release little blogs about life or podcasts or meditations. But, I feel my “why” shifting away from growing a brand or providing value, and toward simply letting you all know how my life is going, and perhaps sharing some things I’ve been learning or loving.

Without Instagram in my life, I also find myself largely without an outlet to share albums or artists I’m loving, or photos I’ve taken. So I’d like to start including more of that stuff here, as well.

With fall in the inklings of its nascent inception, I find myself delightfully tickled by the changing colors and smell in the air. I find it hard to believe, but it’s actually be four years since I’ve been here in the fall, for the whole fall. I’m really excited for it! For my whole life previous to living in California from 2016 to 2020, fall was my favorite. I feel that again. Here are some photos from the last few days!

Another exciting piece of news for me, is that I’ve begun a humble career as a part-time model (throw back to Flight of the Conchords). It’s a really interesting experience for me, given how insecure about myself and my appearance I was for so long in my life. Today, I feel a soft and firm pull toward inner-self-confidence, that appears to be lasting, rooted, and utterly mine. I really am loving this part of myself, and feel like I’ve earned it over the last many years of self-work.

I even decided to start a modeling agency (so far, just me) called Sovereign Models. The mission is to bring models with a sense of inner depth into their full outer shape, and visa versa. Depth and Shape are terms my friend Martin told me while I was in Paris visiting him years ago. His modeling agent taught them to him.

Essentially depth is who a person is on the inside, and how clearly they know themselves and are themselves. Shape is how a person presents themself to the external world—how they dress, walk, talk, etc.

For a long time, I was very functional in my attire, and looked down on people who “dressed to impress.” But I’ve learned that the more I can wear clothes that feel like me, the more at home in myself I feel. That matters.

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Overall, I’m feeling really lucky to be me. Not everything in my life is “perfect” per se, but everything in my life is mine, and that’s really all I can ask for. Or, really, I should say, that I am my own, and so my life becomes my own. And there is utter-self-responsibility and freedom in that.

Have a blessed day, week, and weekend.

Until next time,
Faolan Sugarman-Lash

I was planning to send it across the country yesterday but found myself waylaid with the infamous COVID plague. This turn of events left me restless, with my friends getting set for the most epic and ecstatic experience of their lifetimes. I was, and still am bummed.

However! In a world where there are constantly cool occurrences, I am practicing Anti-FOMO. As I’ve read, “what’s for you won’t miss you, and what missed you wasn’t for you.” And, whether it’s “true” or not, it’s a useful thing to believe, because it alleviates reality-resistance… Which, while ubiquitous, does not tend toward wellbeing.

The single quote that most revolutionized my life came from Anthony DeMello’s book, Awareness: Happiness comes from a “moment by moment contact with reality.” And the reality is, I’m sick. While I could force my body into a mask, onto a plane, through the transit of couch surfing, RV rides, and finally into a dust-ridden desert for 10 days of debauchery… Well, the body said “no.”

And despite my mind longing for the adventure, and seeking every kind of ecstasy to replace what it expected, I practice—as a form of self-honoring—listening to my body. So, I chose not to go. It’s not that I “can’t” go either. It’s that I’m not going. I won’t. Agency. Can’t is a will-less statement. Won’t is an honoring of the capacious choice, the human experience, the “Will.”

I believe that what makes a human a human is its capacity to choose, to decide, to move life through agentic and conscious action. We are constantly dancing with each other and life. And in dance, especially partner dance, there is a constant tension, a push and pull, a lead and a follow.

My camp at Burning Man is called Rhythm Wave. They are a conscious dance damp, and they lead daily dances, yoga, and guided relating experiences. That’s my shit. I’m sad not only to miss the ecstasy of some of the best DJs in the world, but also the community of people practicing conscious living through dance.

Over the last couple years, I have deeply immersed myself into ecstatic dance and contact improv.

Brief definitions:

• Ecstatic dance is a form of self-expression—it’s a freeform dance space with no talking, no phones, and mandatory consent for connection. It teaches radical safety to be and feel one’s self. I love it.

• Contact improv often happens at ecstatic dance, but is a different thing. It’s the relationship that occurs between two dancers who are both in flow. There is no one lead or follow. Both people are constantly listening to each other, and discerning who is leading and following in each moment. There is a push and a pull. It’s special.

Conscious dance has taught me more than anything else about communication and expression. The subtleties of dancing with another human—listening to the micro-movements, “hearing” where there is a gentle “no” in the resistance of a body or a “ugh, fuck, yes” in the melting of a body—light a fire in me. I love the energetic experiencing of discovering a person’s soul through dance.

And that goes for myself, as well. It’s actually much more difficult for me to “listen” to myself while dancing, to both lead and follow myself in solo dance. It requires a silence of the mind to surrender to the intuitive movement in the soul, and then allow the body to be led, guided, danced by the soul, and by extension, by God. It’s a way of meeting the moment with reverence, and surrendering to my essence.

So, yes, I’m bummed to miss these beautiful humans, and a week of dancing with them.

But I chose this path. Sure, my circumstances prompted me to choose it. But, still, it’s my choice. And it’s important for me to own my choice, the reality it creates, and the reasons for which I made it. That last part especially, though, can take a little work to discern.

Jerry Colonna speaks of Radical Self Inquiry. He defines it as “the deep, often difficult practice of turning inward and asking: What’s really going on with me? What am I feeling? What am I avoiding? What truth am I withholding? And perhaps most importantly: What is the cost of my silence?”

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As I sat with my decision to opt out of Burning Man, I wondered… “Did I do this because I was afraid to confront the difficulties of the Playa?” In essence, did I run away? It’s a question I’ve asked myself before—When I left my 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat early, when I quit jobs after only a couple months, when I left the US to travel the world.

I’m not unfamiliar with opting out of things. But, as my mom put it recently, “You’re not one to not go when you feel called to go.” And, she’s right. I’m also familiar with choosing, with opting in, with going. And so, I as I sit here, and I’m definitively not going, I wonder: Why? What does this mean about me? Am I changing?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. I am always changing. But, let’s go a little deeper.

In this moment of my life, I’m preparing myself to accept a job, which if I get it, asks me to commit to for a matter of years to staying in my hometown. I really want the job. But, after five years of jet-setting, adventure, and movement, stillness is new.

My interviewer for the job brought it up right away: “The person who referred you for this job said you’re a world traveler. At this job, we want people to stay for a while. We’re a team. We rely on each other.” And then she basically said, “Are you ready to do that?”

It shook me. Because, I don’t think I was.

But I took her question, and I did the radical self-inquiry. And I learned how to say yes to her when next she asks, and mean it. I decided that I will stay put—through winter, and through all the shit that might catch up to me. I realized I was telling myself a story: “If I’ve been running away from myself, from some feeling deep down, then everything I’ve been running from will, like rubber bands, whack me when I stop moving.”

But, perhaps I can tell a different story.

All we can control in this world is our perspective—How we see life, what meaning we make of things. And, as I wrote about in this previous article, that perspective then essentially makes our “choices” for us.

In essence, me choosing to not go to Burning Man is less a comment on the skillfulness of my choices and more a sign that my perspective has shifted from my mom’s “Faolan goes” to a a new way of being where “Faolan doesn’t go.”

And that’s a big shift.

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In Authentic Relating, (read here for a definition), there is a practice called “Own Your Experience,” which the org defines as:

Owning your experience is a transition from disempowerment to empowerment. The practice invites you to reclaim all the ways you assert your opinions, perspectives, and assumptions and project them onto the fabric of reality, all the ways you blame others and external circumstances for your own experience, and instead find the source of your experience within yourself.”

In my choice to not go to Burning Man, I am asserting to myself that my experience is one of discernment and care for my body. Maybe my new story can relate to that.

A value I have consciously chosen for myself this year is “What is most Nourishing for me?” (As an aside, I like defining values as questions because it’s more clear what the answer is than were I to write simply “self-nourishment.”)

When I sat with that question, despite the inertia of years of travel, the clear experience in my body told me to slow down, enjoy the last bits of summer, and really care for myself.

And so, here I am, in a coffee shop, writing this. I look out at the leaves blowing in the wind, and the komorebi effect. I see people living their ordinary lives. A man walks by cradling a bottle of red wine. A delivery man waves cars past his oversized truck. An older couple sits at the window-bar with me. People walk their dogs and drink their coffees.

Perhaps all that epicness and ecstasy is here already, in the meeting of life as it is, in witnessing and being part of it all. Perhaps I can feel the magic of Burning Man by simply turning on some trance-like EDM and sinking more deeply into this strange and beautiful thing called Life.

What if every moment is always waiting for us to see it, feel it, and return to it?

What if each and every second of your life were exactly written as it should be for your most powerful and authentic self-becoming?

If all one can choose is their perspective, would that not be the perspective that most deeply awakens the met-longing for a life well-lived?

So, whatever you’re doing today, whoever you’re with, and whatever you’re feeling. Meet it. Feel it. Be amongst it. This is your life. And it’s the only one you get.

There is no possible way for this moment to be different… Ever.

So, simply be. And let It settle all around you.

Like, Rob Bell wrote in Everything is Spiritual:

Burning Man, no Burning Man… The magic of life is always here…

When “you’re in it for the life of it.”

Closer and closer I get to locking down an ephemeral answer to the source of this blog’s existence: How does one make the most of life? In this post, I believe, I rhymed with an answer. My old self would claim that making the most of life is about “going”—Going to burning man, traveling, exploring, adventuring… I used to believe that “marrow” Thoreau talked about was ‘out there’ somewhere, but the more I explore ‘out there’ the more valuable I find ‘right here.’

Like all those wise Buddhists said “wherever you go, there you are” and “be here now” (Jon Kabat-Zinn and Ram Das, respectfully). Perhaps here is always the place to be, and perhaps there is no way to not be placed here, right where we are, as a “self.”

Dogen Zenji, a Japanese Zen master said:

To study Buddhism we study the self
To study the self is to forget the self
To forget the self is to become
Enlightened by all things

If there is “no self,” as it were, and the world were simply a spiraling vortex of being-ness… Could it be that there is only right now, only Indra’s Net, cradling each of us in its infinities?

Where would we go to experience “the most of life” if there is only the life we are living as it is now?

How would we live knowing that?

I for one, would, and just did, take a big and relieving exhale.

Blessings on your daily journey,
Faolan

Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization
  
  To explore more, visit www.faolan.com

I come back from a couple weeks hiatus from publishing here with delight and a rewed vigor. I am so grateful for you all, and for the opporutnity to publish my thoughts straight into the world.

I decided last week to take a long break from social media, and specifically Instagram. I felt that the content I was sharing there was too valuable and not well-enough received by the general populous, because of the culture of the app… So, I’m going to be re-directing my creation energy here, and into more long-form projects like books and other fun things.

With that out of the way, enjoy today’s episode. I felt myself get passionate on this one, and the words flowed. I’m SO curious to hear your thoughts, if you have any.

As a fun bonus, here is a photo of the cemetery I was in today.

May your breaths come easily and feel full in your body. May you treasure your life, knowing that it will surely end. And may you meet each moment with the reverence it deserves.

Blessings,
Faolan

If you know someone who might find value in these words, consider sending it their way—it means more than you know.

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Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization
  
  To explore more, visit www.faolan.com

Enjoy this episode of ETS. I hope that you learn something. And, if you do, please share with someone you love.

Blessings and joy in the great journey from death to death!
Faolan

But then we have all kinds of apps installed when we're young by our parents and schools and that cute girl, oh and that bully, and that time Ben stole my crayon.

What we're born into is, let's say, "who we are." This is the background onto which our personality is painted.

As we go through life, the background is ebbing and flowing. Year to year, decade to decade. We're being carried along by "who we are" that is fundamental to us (the operating system and base apps).

The "personality" though is the collecting of everything "else" on our phone. These are the apps that all those other people download onto us when we're young. And these are protective mechanisms and personality traits we learned as adaptive little kid sponges.

As an adult, this is where the work happens. We can work with apps. We get choice about apps.

It's all about going in, looking around at each app. Do we still need this old parking app from vacation a few years ago in France? Probably not, no. Let's get rid of that! How about our banking app? Yep, should keep that one!

So, we delete some and keep some. Some we update. Some we find new uses for. That's life, too.

We get to control the apps we run, the tools we use, the beliefs we carry, and the stories we see as real. We are each in control of our own perspective. That's all we can control, really.

You may be thinking that we also choose our actions or our choices. But I would disagree. Hear me out.

When we change our perspectives, the doorway we're looking out into the world with changes, and hopefully gets wider. That way, we can be seeing a "wider view" of life. That's helpful because it informs our learning perspectives as they're being uploaded with better data. The wider the door, the more information we evolve with.

So, the key to success in life—the key to making life the playground that it is—is to change your identity. If we can’t change the underlying hardware or presets, all we can change is our perspective.

So, change the lenses you're wearing on life. And then let THAT perspective carry you onward. Don’t worry about making the right choice. Become the person who makes the right choice, and the choice will be made for you.

And when it's not working, don’t just try to do something differently. 
You can only act based on the programming you currently have.
Unless the calculator app suddenly takes pictures, you need new apps.
And the only way to get new apps… is to CREATE your new identity.

Identity is the wholeness of the background—hardware, apple software—and the perspective—the apps, chosen and unchosen.

Now think—We get to choose who we become by choosing the apps we get rid of the and the new ones we get.

Cool, right?

When you choose who you are, you’re investing in who you believe yourself to be. And, when you literally believe in yourself, the actions aligned of that self will naturally be chosen, and you will become that self.

That means that the ability to evolve our identity is the single most important part of living a fulfilling and actualized life.

The task then is twofold:

1. Update and clear up old apps so they are functional for the current life situation (Trauma Healing: Self-Unbecoming)

2. Develop totally new apps that solve problems and enhance overall life (Agentic Growth: Self-Becoming)

As we lose ourselves and the trauma patterns we carried for our whole life, we create the space for new and self-chosen identities, beliefs, and patterns of being. Then we actually start to become. In the ebbs and flows of unlearning and relearning, we are in the ever-changing process of being ourselves.

As the tide comes in, so it must come out. Time and the clock of change don't stop just so we can figure ourselves out completely. We're always still becoming and unbecoming. The trick is to do it consciously and conscientiously. Take it slow. Enjoy the ride. Be kind to others.

And that's life, baby. It's simple. And it's complicated. And it’s ALWAYS changing.

But all we can do is choose to enjoy the one life we have. From the one view we have it from.

And that is always happening… Right Now.

Blessings,
Faolan

Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization

First of all, I’m sorry for being late. I explain a little more about why at the beginning of the episode. But, integrity is important for me, and I want to honor that I am, indeed, behind on this week’s content.

On that note, I’ve heard from a few people that there’s almost too much stuff coming your way. So, I wanted to check in with you:

And, if you have any more specific feedback like if you’d like less blogs or fewer podcasts, please let me know! Thank you :)

Anyway! On this episode, I talk about the transformational journey, and how difficult it can be to stay present while on it. Enjoy!

Blessings,
Faolan

Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Lif

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization

There are people in the world who will never know how positively they’ve affected my life. Some are too busy and some are already dead. Paolo Coelho. Thich Nhat Hanh. Elizabeth Gilbert. Khalil Gibran. Martha Beck. Rumi.

These humans all created such reverence in me for life. They instilled a value on living. They gave me answers when I was at my lowest points. They helped me become myself.

And so did some other people who I’ve told. My mom. My dad. My grandparents. My best friends. Their parents. My lovers. My clients. My coaches. My therapists. My mentors. There have been countless people who have left me with the opportunity to become a better person.

And each and every one of them gave me the chance to say, “I Will.”

They taught me that life is for being ALL of ourselves, for feeling ALL of what life has to offer.

Those were the lessons I gathered while writing my first book.

But today, I’m wondering, after years of studying not just the purpose, but the pain, what is the opposite of a society where hurt people are constantly hurting other people?

After years of trauma work with clients, I’ve seen just how nuanced being human is. There are so many people accidentally hurting the people around them. And it’s happening all the time, all around us.

It’s not guaranteed that one way of being a “good” person is better than another, so how do we know how to not hurt? How do we know how to actually help the world? How can we heal?

We live in a world too complicated to boil down to fundamental truths. The ten commandments tried pretty well, but even they can’t be fully understood or grasped, because they’re merely words, which can be misconstrued or misunderstood or miscommunicated.

Which, you may notice, leaves me as an author in a rather funny place. I’d like to acknowledge that I am writing this book to the very best of my abilities, but to convey the mystical in language is, at best, a poetic journey to the heart of the soul. I will endeavor, however, to bring you only the best writing.

Getting back to this point: How do we pass down the opposite of trauma? How do we leave people better off than we found them? How do we create a society that helps people feel safe internally? How do we heal, not just individually, but globally?

And what could that be called?

I don't believe it has a literal name in the world right now. But maybe it should.

let’s try. What is “this?”

The best I’ve got so far is:

“The collective and individual inheritance of healing and light; that sacred blessedness that we're all evolving, passing down, and shaping together; and which are allowing to grow. It is the collective Garden of Eden that we are cultivating for ourselves and for the people who will come after us. It is the utopia, which we all have a chance to contribute to.”

In a world where there is an antagonist, there must also be a protagonist. But what are those things?

For me so far, trauma has been everything that's wrong with the world—that experience of unconsciously acting from a hurt place. I believe that’s the root of all “evil.”

But what's RIGHT about the world? That's the question I've been trying to answer for a long time...

And it's actually really hard to put a finger on it, because people don't really talk about it beyond the "progress” we're having in "civilization"—metrics like economic wellbeing or life expectancy.

I'm talking about something else. I'm talking about the energetic upheaval of lifetimes upon lifetimes of hurt, pain, inherited grief, battles waged between the grandparents of our grandparents.

There's a regeneration afoot, and I feel like it's really important to let it be heard and felt all over the world. This movement is really here. It's happening already. There is healing here in the world. There is a next stage of humanity that has transcended all the hurts our ancestors passed along to us.

There's a world where all people are welcome, where we feel safe and heard in our communities, where we don't feel alone.

There is a world where we're all allowed to be ourselves—to contribute our greatest form of self-expression onto the dance floor of life. There is a world where all people dance; where all people sing. There is a world where a vegan and a hunter can hug. That is a world where people from all different kinds of backgrounds can come together and listen to each other, and dance together, and sing together. There is a world where love wins

That's the world I want to be part of building. That’s the world I want to help other people build.

And, the key thing is that that world is already here. Every moment, in the arrival of presence, that world appears before us. All the pain, loss, and hurt are washed away in the vastness of what is appealingly less painful, more loving, more real.

I’ve been obsessed with trauma for years. And, I think, for good reason. But what I’m realizing is at the bottom of a lifetime of trauma, and sorting through it all… it’s just life. Life is there at the bottom. Those little moments of connection with a stranger across the street, or the beautiful sunset at the celebration of a loved one’s birthday, or the laughter of a baby as they play with their aging grandparents on a playground in Milan. That’s life.

So, if the antagonist is dissociation, is the repression of reality because we’re limited in how much we feel ready to feel, to receive, to allow… Then life itself is the protagonist. Then presence is the protagonist.

What if the world we all long for is already here, and we just need to collectively pay attention to it?

Could we then let ourselves FEEL TRULY ALIVE? Could we EXPERIENCE ALL of what life has to offer? Could we receive ALL THE DIVINE BLESSINGS that are here?

…

And what would happen if we all lived like that?

Could we create a world where every person was like Paolo Coelho or Martha Beck? Where we all feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people who are grateful for our existence? Where we’ve contributed ourselves so authentically and courageously to the world that each and every one of us feels like part of a whole, like we each belong and are valued for exactly who we are?

Take a second. What if we all felt that?

Because that’s what it feels like to realize that we ARE all welcome, we ARE all here, completely and totally live, whilst spinning around in the vacuum of space. We’re ALREADY the luckiest people who’ve ever lived, just because we’re alive.

And that’s the lesson that comes from the trees, from the birds, from the whispers that Life speaks through the veil of mystical experience. We are already welcome here. The bears rumble that truth as they wobble through the warbling woods. The wind in the desert speaks of it.

When we realize it, we see that Life is constantly echoing that reality into our bones. As soon as we choose to hear it, it’s already there, accessible for all, beneath the patina of suffering, that veil of layered trauma and pain. Underneath that, it’s already here. The truth is already here.

And there’s a feeling for that that I believe is the answer for our world.

I call it: “Receival.”

"The state of embodied, sacred openness to life force—The inner posture of trustful receiving, where the nervous system, heart, and soul are in resonance with abundance, truth, and belonging."

That's the mission. That's the cultivation. That's the heroic journey of what I’m here to build. That's the storyline that my work will draw through the narrative of life. That's my next brush stroke onto the canvas of life. That's the feeling. That's real. That's it.

Receival.

The active noun for the state of being that allows for life to flow in, and to feel full of life. That utter and eternal completeness when we are finally whole with all of Life and Eternity again.

That's the feeling.

It’s a homecoming.

It’s a return.

It’s a remembrance.

We’re all welcome in the Kingdom of God, in the bountiful forest of our laboring elders. We’re all welcome in the land of Life.

Earth is home for us all.

Now, we must learn to get along. We must learn how to love one another. We must learn how to feel safe with each other, even when we disagree. We must learn to live in a global society, which holds many cultures and ways of being. We must learn how to help the hurt people who are unable to heal their pain, and in doing so, passing it on to everyone else. We must become A WE.

To recieve all of life. To experience RECIEVAL…

It requires opening our hearts. It requires healing the limits to how must presence, how much love, how much reality we can hold. It requires growing. It requires allowing the pain of our loved ones to wash through us and be cleansed from the lineage of our historical becoming. This process requires great tenacity and courage.

But it’s for all of us.

I promise.

So, let’s walk it together.

Let’s journey into a better world together.

What could that look like?

…

What if we really answered that question instead of letting it slide by?

What COULD that look like?

…

And how could we make it happen?

And there’s the collective path forward.

There it is.

Receival. Renewal. Regeneration. Remembrance. Reunion.

We’re already here.

Relax.

Blessings,
Faolan

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Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a free 1:1 coaching call, where we can see if it’s a good fit for you.

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

This week, I’m trying something a little different. I’m offering a quick 2 minute, POWERFUL drop in.

What are the things that will make you feel most alive?

These are the questions I want you to let yourselves take in, live, carry with you. Bring yourself into being through living into these questions I offer you here.

Listen to them. Let them penetrate deeply inside your subconscious. Rewire yourself for full capacity living.

Ready to listen?

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On today’s episode of Eat The Strawberry, I dive into the often tumultuous “No” word, and how to use it well. Saying no has never been easy for me. It often brings up this fear of what will happen to a relationship. Will I damage the relationship if I speak what’s real for me? Will I break it? Will I get hurt because I’m claiming what’s true?

These questions have been coming up a lot for me lately, as I focus more and more on what feels like it’s most important in my life. Focusing has required me to start saying no to more and more.

This episode is my exploration of that process.

Enjoy, and as always, blessings,

Faolan.

PS. If you got something good from this episode, pass it along to someone you love!

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Faolan is a globally recognized facilitator dedicated to creating more safety and vitality in the world. Through his coaching work, Faolan helps chronically “trauma-locked” seekers come alive and fully express themselves. His clients range from astronauts to world-class entrepreneurs, and from companies like Lululemon to top Universities. He is also the author of “Why Live?”

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization

What the hell am I really here to do?

I had gifts. I had drive. But I couldn’t find the thread that tied it all together.

Today, it clicked.

I’ve heard people say: “Help people do what you needed help with in your past.”

I cracked it:

I am here to help people live their soul paths. It’s what I’ve been doing all along. It’s what I did for myself.

In becoming myself, and learning to follow my path, I became more confident, grounded, gravitational, bountiful, beautiful, joyful, peaceful, and grateful. My life expanded drastically, and became an epic playground for living. And, as I’ve done more and more of the integration work, I’ve become more desired professionally and personally. My relationships have blossomed. My work became fun. And abundance is all around me.

I came home to myself. And now, I finally feel safe. I feel whole. I am me, and I love who I am. That’s the goal. That’s what I’m here to help people do.

It all comes down to living according to Your Path, your mystical knowing, your Truth.

You are captain. You are author. You are sovereign.

This recognition changed everything for me. And what I've discovered is that while everyone feels a different calling, and that every path a different shape, the architecture of the journey is the same for us all.

There's a journey that begins with a simple recognition: You are already all of who You are.

1. It starts with waking up to who you really are,

2. Moves through the sacred death of who you're not,

3. Demands the courage to leap into alignment with your truth,

4. Asks you to expand your capacity to hold your fullness, and

5. Culminates in building a life that finally reflects your soul.

This isn't about self-improvement—it's about self-remembering.

It's about having the audacity to stop running from yourself and start trusting what you've always known. The path home isn't about becoming someone new; it's about the radical act of being who you've always been, underneath all the conditioning and fear.

Can you feel it? That stirring recognition that you're already exactly who you came here to be? What if that were true?

These steps are part of a much more expansive arc of transformation that I developed for my private clients straight from my own journey.

Where are you on the path of transformation? Let me know!

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I started my journey at 19. And, it’s taken me a long time to realize the journey never ends. Right now, I’m deep in one of the later stages. Not for the first time, but on a deeper spiral of the same soul orbit. This is not a linear journey; it’s a cyclical one. It happens. Then it happens again. And again. And again.

Back at the beginning, I was constantly exhausted, running away from my life into addictions like alcohol and porn, seeking constant external validation for my worthiness and my choices, defaulting into the normal way of living life even though I knew I was being called for more, and putting up with the incessant brain fog and lethargy. I was dissociated, depressed, and living a lie. But, somewhere really deep inside, I knew. I felt myself living inside a cage in my heart. I literally felt like I was pressed against the inside of an eggshell, longing, striving with all my heart to get out.

But, the craziest thing was that I, yes me, was the one keeping me stuck.

There were three defining moments that changed my life, and cracked me open.

1. When I was 19, I had a panic attack and realized I didn’t know why I was alive. I decided to spend my life savings, leave the country, and solo backpack SE Asia.

2. Years later, after my soul had returned to my body, I saw my life for how painful it really was, and I wanted to end my own life. But I decided not to, and that made all the difference.

3. The final moment has been every moment since then. Every single moment that I have had the opportunity to choose myself, to choose my path, to choose life instead of death, courage instead of fear, and vindication instead of purgatory.

Since that day, I’ve been relentlessly committed to my path. No matter what sacrifice has been demanded, whether it be letting go of love, quitting a misaligned job, or leaving behind my family and friends, I’ve done it. I’ve had to.

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There’s a feeling of being “on path” that is subtle and slippery at first, but eventually, as steps become walked, and almost as the soul starts to trust the self, the feeling becomes more clear. Every time I act according to my path, the feeling gets stronger, the voice gets louder. Every time I avoid my path, it quiets, and gets more distant. The compass is tuned in each consistent act of affirmation toward the soul’s destiny.

Learning to trust this inner compass is perhaps the most important skill we can develop. It's also the hardest to learn alone. The conditioning runs deep, and the voice of authenticity can be whisper-quiet at first, easily drowned out by the noise of expectation and fear.

This is the journey I will help you build before you, and walk into.

My mission is to cultivate more inner safety and vitality for all people.

My vision is a world of healed, authentic, and aligned people living in harmony together on this earth.

I am the cartographer of the raw edge of your soul. I am the expert tuner of your compass. I am the guide who goes with you to your limits, and supports you as you surpass them. I am the old man in the stories who helps you be who you were always meant to be.

And the craziest part of all of this is that you are already all of who you are. You don’t need to go out there to find anything. You don’t need to achieve anything more than what you already have. You don’t need to feel small in the face of your destiny.

When Michelangelo carved David out of the stone, he was not building from scratch, but removing what didn’t belong. This journey is about releasing yourself from the layers and layers of stone around you.

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This is not about seeking something outside yourself. This is about being all of yourself. This is not about hearing that you are enough. This is about being the sovereign soul you are. This is not about restless ambition. This is about the total fruition of your raison d'être, your reason for being alive.

This is about your “Personal Legend.” It’s about fulfilling your destiny. It’s about breathing as deeply as you possibly can. It’s about “Yarp” screaming into the starless night under a pouring rain. It’s about dancing on rooftops. It’s about being Alive. It’s about being YOU.

I’ve done years of work, not only on myself, but with some of the most successful people on the planet. What I’ve learned is that traditional success isn’t the answer. Sheer achievement doesn’t mean jack. Those people are often going through the pits of despair in their personal lives, running from deep trauma, escaping into alcoholism and other addictions... hmm... Just like I was.

This journey is not for the faint of heart it requires a constant and deliberate sacrifice of what is comfortable and familiar for what is Right and True. It demands a full and total commitment. It demands utter Devotion, and it demands Faith. Faith that you matter. Faith that your life has meaning. Faith that if you were to truly give yourself over to God, you could feel more alive than ever.

After all my experience, I’ve concluded that this is the singular and only path to inner safety, full vitality, and total and complete fulfillment.

This is the only Path.

Now, who are you really? If you let yourself be all of who you are—if you stopped playing small, living for external validation, and holding yourself back—who would you be?

The soul thrives when it's given the space to follow what is real. Are you ready to step onto your path?

Here's what I know to be true: Not everyone is ready for this journey. It asks everything of you—your comfort, your familiar patterns, your old stories about who you are. Most people will read these words, feel the stirring, and then return to the safety of their cage.

But if you've read this far, if something in these words stirred recognition in you, if you felt that familiar longing against the eggshell of your heart, then perhaps you're among the few who are ready to stop running from themselves.

I work with a small number of people each year who are prepared to make this journey from cage to freedom. Not as a quick fix or another program to consume, but as a sacred commitment to becoming who they've always been.

This isn't therapy. It's not coaching as you know it. It's something deeper—a cartography of the soul's return to itself. Together, we map the territory of your authentic self, tune your inner compass, and walk the path that leads you home.

The work is intense. It's transformative. It's not for everyone.

But for those who are ready—truly ready—to stop performing their life and start living it, the invitation is here.

Every day you wait is another day you're choosing the cage over freedom. Your soul won't wait forever for you to remember who you are.

If you're ready to begin—if you can feel the truth of these words in your bones—send me a message with the word "path." I'll share what this journey looks like when you don't have to walk it alone.

But know this: I only work with people who are as committed to their transformation as I am to guiding them through it. This isn't for everyone.

Is this path for you?

The question isn't just whether you're ready to succeed. The question is whether you're ready to be who you've always been.

Your path is waiting.

Blessings,
Faolan

Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 🌍 Join an upcoming retreat (next one is Sept 2025 in Massachusetts)

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization

Happy Monday! I hope that you find yourself feeling more whole, more free, and more loved this week.

Here is a guided meditation for you :)

Thanks for being here! If you’d ever like to request a certain type of Monday Medicine, that would be helpful!

Blessings and love,
Faolan

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On this episode of ETS, I go deep into explaining how to regulate a nervous system, and why it’s important.

Enjoy!
Faolan

PS. If you found this episode helpful, please pass it along to a friend, lover, or family member who could really use it. We’re all struggling to learn how to feel safe in the world right now, and I’d love to help your loved ones feel and be more themselves.

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The program—Sacred Fire—was passed down to some uncles of mine from a Native American man named Paul. It’s a young men’s rite of passage, to help the boy crawl and climb into masculine embodiment.

Each year—of three years total—is a different journey. In year one, there is a 24-hour solo in the forest. In year two, peers tend a central fire and learn humility for four days. In year three, the group holds space for the first years and learns what it is to be a leader.

Finally, after graduating, we are welcome to return and offer our time and our hearts to the younger men, to help guide and initiate them.

I worked as the “Kitchunk,” or Kitchen-Uncle. It was a challenging role. I woke up at 5:45 to prep coffee for my fellow uncles and older men. I went to sleep at 11 after hours of cooking, cleaning, and organizing.

And through it all, there was an unrelenting force rising from within me, empowering me to serve. I discovered what is undeniably a bottomless well of energy within me that can always be tapped into, when it comes to serving the world, and living into my purpose.

As I sit with the experience in the snatches of time I get amongst the chaos of my life, I find myself most of all grateful for brotherhood—for the band of men I am lucky enough to have in my life—which is truly a foundation for all my security and stability. I know that at the end of my line, at rock bottom, no matter what happens, I’ll have men in my life who will stand by me, behind me, and for me. And the biggest gift is that the love is unconditional.

There is a capacity for masculine love which is unconditional, and yet bounded. There is codependent love, which is primarily an act of “if you’re okay, I’m okay,” and “you will save me/I will save you.” I’ve experienced both in my life. And these brothers don’t give that. There’s a primal separation of selves, because of what is an indivisible wholeness in each self that allows for Truth to live between men, and not be repelled by unconscious walls of self-preservation.

This is, certainly, what the world needs more of.

We need more unconditionally loving men whose capacity to hold themselves and others is vast, deep, and broad. We need men who can contain their energy and equally who can empower those around them to take ownership.

Our role as men is not to caretake for the world, but to pour our limitless love into ourselves and each other, so that we can empower the world to take care of itself. We are the stewards, not the healers. We are not here to fix anything, because fundamentally, nothing is broken. We are here to contain, and subsequently focus our ceaseless desire, and to honor the wellbeing which is primally apparent already.

The grief of a brother is the call to action.

The tears and wails of a brother in pain is the calling.

Our men are hurting. We are feeling the ache of generations of longing for wholeness, for self-honoring, for health and wellbeing in our relationships. We are needing a world where men are valued not for their capacity to win, but for their capacity to hold with love. There is honor in ourselves that we are not valuing. There is honor in the masculine, and in men that the patriarchy has killed.

We are human before we are man. And to be human is to be in relationship, to be a communal being. We are fundamentally wired for connection, for love, for mutuality and support, for reciprocity. We are ecological outpourings of the Divine web of life, which is unconditionally supportive to the fruitful continuation of existence. Does that mean we are always well? No. Does it mean that we will all survive? No. Does it mean that we should pour ourselves out until we are empty? No.

What it does mean is that in any moment, we are able to choose our own reality, to see ourselves in a caring world, in a world where we are held up not only by our own boot straps, but by the fundamental capacity of True and Unconditional Love.

And for the majority of the world, this is a scary proposal. For the many men who have never experienced the life I have, where I have been held in my deepest sobbing, heaving, heartbroken moments not only by mother/woman/lover, but by brother/father/uncle, this brings fear. But I say it anyways:

Let down your walls. Trust that there is love worth letting your guard down for. Trust that the world is not out to get you. Trust that there is life beyond the death of ego and self-separation. Trust that there is fundamental wholeness that requires literally no effort to sustain. Trust that in the deepest and most core parts of Reality, you/we/I are already safe.

There is nothing in the world that is broken. There is no rattling of curses or demons. There is no Evil. There are only those hurt little boys who are running away from the recieval of unconditional love, who are out to prove that they’re enough so that they can finally feel safe.

But it doesn’t work that way. Safety is not an end goal. It is an internal choice. It is the foundational groundwork for all else. If we want love, we must feel safe inside ourselves. If we want money, we must hold a space of love internally so that money has a place to land. Safety is an internal shift, more than an external reality change.

If there is one external thing that is necessary, though, for a man’s internal safety, that thing is Brotherhood.

We must cultivate and create the conditions in our world for men to feel safe to be held and loved by other men. We must build a world where men can feel open in their emotional expression, where we can love each other as our most real and honest expressions of self. Only then will the world be ready to welcome in a new generation of what Life could be life.

Only then will the world be truly safe; when Men hold each other, and when we feel safe in ourselves.

With love and blessings,
Faolan

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Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 🌍 Join an upcoming retreat (next one is Sept 2025 in Massachusetts)

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization
  
  To explore more, visit www.faolan.com

I’ve decided that instead of a meditation every Monday, which I think will get old and boring, I’m going to use every Monday to send you a little bit of medicine on your journey. This could include:

• Guided meditations

• Journaling prompts

• Audio workshops

• Actions to try

• Questions to sit with

… And perhaps more things I have yet to think of…

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On the call, we’ll do some impromptu coaching on whatever topics you bring, share the secrets to life, and give you answers to all the things you’ve ever wondered. Just kidding, but hopefully not far off!

For anyone new:

❤️‍🔥 I’m Faolan Sugarman-Lash—a trauma integration coach, writer, and facilitator devoted to guiding people back to full somatic ALIVEness.

🍓 EatTheStrawberry is my conduit for sharing work with the world.

🪷 To learn more or work with me, visit: Faolan.com

Okay, into the meat for today. Let’s talk love.

What is love? There are many ways to describe this ephemeral and yet universally known feeling.

First of all, I want to break this down into the capacity to feel love and the capacity TO love, as in the verb form. There’s the experience of love, as in the sensory or energetic presence with some form of “love.” Then there’s the agentic choice, or even commitment, to love. Both, to me, are important.

Further, love is such an amorphous word. It can mean many things to many people. Semantically, it’s difficult to really know what it is. The English dictionary definitions are so boring I won’t even merit sharing them. What I will share, though, are the Greek words.

The ancient Greeks identified several distinct types of love, each representing different aspects of human connection and affection. Here are the main categories:

• Eros - Passionate, romantic love that overwhelms reason.

  • She caught sight of him across the agora, and suddenly the world tilted. Her heart hammered against her ribs as if trying to escape. "This is madness," she whispered to herself, but her feet were already moving toward him, drawn by something beyond logic or control.

• Philia - Deep friendship between equals who share values and virtue.

  • "You see right through my pretenses," Marcus said, watching his friend's knowing smile. "Always have." They'd walked this path together for years, each challenging the other to be better, to think deeper. It was the kind of bond that made both men stronger, built on mutual respect and shared pursuit of wisdom.

• Storge - Natural family love, born of familiarity and belonging.

  • The old woman's hands moved automatically, braiding her daughter's hair just as she had every morning for twenty years. No words needed - this was love as natural as sunrise, woven into the fabric of daily life. They belonged to each other in ways that required no explanation.

• Agape - Universal, selfless love extending to all humanity.

  • Standing at the city gates, she watched the refugees stream past - strangers from distant lands, yet her heart opened to them as if they were her own children. "We are all connected," she murmured, pressing coins into weathered palms without expecting anything in return.

• Philautia - Healthy self-love and self-knowledge.

  • "I know my flaws," he said quietly, "but I also know my worth." He'd spent years learning to speak to himself with the same kindness he'd show a dear friend. This wasn't arrogance - it was the quiet confidence that came from truly knowing oneself.

• Xenia - Sacred hospitality love between host and guest.

  • The stranger's cloak dripped with rain, but she welcomed him as if he were family. "You are safe here," she said, offering bread and wine. In that moment, the ritual of hospitality transformed them both - strangers became sacred guests, bound by ancient obligations of care.

I really like the possibility that there are at least 12 ways of loving. Each of these can be an experience or an act.

I tell people that I love them all the time, and recently was challenged about that. Can I really love all those people?

For me, love is infinite. But time is finite. Energy is somewhere in the middle, depending on what one means by “energy.” So, there’s a balance required to love with all our hearts and souls.

I may need to balance Philautia with Eros when I feel an irresistible draw to a new lover but also recognize that to deeply love myself requires me to not stay up late. Or, I may feel the infinity of Agape when I look out at a radiant sunset while also recognizing a disconnection from my friend, who I love, but who doesn’t feel that same recognition. There, Philia might “require” of me to love my friend, but I might feel isolated in the separation of how we see life.

So, in short, it’s confusing. But I think exploring the meaning of love is important because otherwise we get lazy about how we’re loving, because we don’t actually know what it means.

Semantics are a HUGE part of my worldview. My idea of “semantics” is the fact that each person has a different subjective meaning associated with every word than every other person. Meaning that when we’re communicating, we might hear our friend say “I love you,” and think that they mean “I am romantically drawn to you,” when really they’re saying “I’m so grateful for your support.”

“I love you,” while a beautiful phrase, is also limited because it is such a vast expression. Language requires specificity to truly communicate its meaning… Unless, and this happens a lot too, “love” is used to represent the mystical, as in, ‘beyond words,’ meaning of love. The word love is poetry. It represents something that is beyond words.

So, even the breakdowns I’ve shared fall short of what is truly a thing that only poets and artists can harmonize with. We can’t ever truly know what love is, in the same way that many cultures have similar but different views on “God.”

I heard spirituality described as a disco ball once; we’re all looking at a lightly different refraction of light, but it’s all one ball. That’s kind of what life is. Each of us is our own unique part of a wholeness that transcends us and is us at the same time.

So, love then, maybe is the recognition of ourselves, others, God, lovers, and friends as that same wholeness. Maybe when we experience love, we’re experience a remembering of our unity. Maybe when we choose love, we’re choosing to re-unite ourselves as part of the same stardust and earth that is our universal ancestor. Maybe love is a recognition of belonging from soul to soul.

Maybe love is the answer. People have said it before. Maybe it just is.

Blessings and LOVE ;)
Faolan

PS. A couple blog posts ago, I wrote about my mom and my childhood. I just want to shout her out today and tell her that I LOVE HER and am incredibly grateful that she’s my mom. <3

Did something in this piece move you? I’d genuinely love to hear what landed. Feel free to share your reflections in the comments or reply directly.

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If you know someone who might find value in these words, consider sending it their way—it means more than you know.

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Here are a few ways you can support my work and stay connected:

• 🍓 Become a paid subscriber to get access to exclusive meditations and group calls.

• 🌀 Book a free 1:1 coaching discovery call

• 🌍 Check out my upcoming retreat (next one is Sept 5-7, 2025 in Massachusetts)

• 📚 Read my book Why Live? The Beautiful and Painful Mess of Learning to Love Life

• 💬 Invite me to speak or facilitate at your event or organization
  
  To explore more, visit www.faolan.com

It’s inspired me to offer you a few prompts to carry with you through your week, instead of a meditation today.

So, I want you to set aside some time to drop into:

• What does sacred mean to me? How can I tell that something is s…

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I flipped it over and it read:

When I read that, I was inspired to make what I thought would be a silly podcast about itching, but what became a rather inspired exploration of consciousness and morality.

I hope you enjoy the travails of my mind!

All my love and blessings,
Faolan