I wake before the house does, into the quiet work of creating myself. The house isn’t mine. Neither is the car in the garage, or the dog curled at the foot of the bed. For three weeks I’ve been caretaking this place, one more chapter in my nomad, minimalist experiment.

A while ago I picked up a practice from Matthew Dicks and his wonderful book Storyworthy. Each night, I jot down a few words about the story I would tell from the day. What was its most story-worthy moment? It’s training. It teaches me to notice my life the way a storyteller does.

Lately, some nights, I come up empty. My days are quiet. I write. I meet with clients and business partners on a screen. Then I write some more.

This morning, something like loneliness sits beside me as I open my journal.

My life is so solo lately, I write. I don’t know what stories I would tell from the day.

I stay with that for a while. Then I turn to another practice I’m working with, from The Way of Mastery. It suggests living with one statement every day for a week and seeing what comes up. This week’s statement is waiting for me:

It is not possible for you to be without love.

I write with it and let it work on me. A few great insights come. The words stay close as I close the journal.

Then I pull a tarot card. The Eight of Cups, called Indolence in my deck. Stagnant water. Lotus flowers that aren’t getting fed.

I know that water. Some of what used to nourish me doesn’t anymore. Maybe it only ever felt like nourishment. I’m in a fallow season, creating a new tribe, learning new ways to be fed.

Something in my chest unclenches. Okay. I can be in this fallow season. That’s okay.

The peace of that carries me through the day.

The car is a hybrid, so efficient that in three weeks of driving somewhere every day, I’ve barely thought about gas. Two days ago, coming back from the mountain, the gauge dipped low. I noticed. Then I drove to morning yoga and home again, twice, and never once thought to stop.

In the evening, I load the dog into the car to go walk by the river. On the way, the car goes quiet and rolls to a stop on the side of the road.

I climb out, and the first words out of my mouth surprise me a little.

“Okay, this is awesome. This is happening for a reason.”

Then, more practically: “All right. I guess I’ll walk to the gas station.”

Underneath both, a feeling I can’t argue with. It’s totally good. This is perfect.

At the gas station I buy a cheap plastic can and fill it with a gallon. I carry it back and pour it in.

The car won’t start.

So I walk the dog toward the yoga center. A chiropractic office is still open, and the woman at the desk kindly lets me use their Wi-Fi. A little research tells me what I didn’t want to know. The car may need four or five gallons before it registers enough fuel to start.

One gallon at a time. On foot. With a dog.

A little while later, I stop and pray. I’ve been thinking of Yogananda and Autobiography of a Yogi lately, how he and his gurus are ever swimming in the oneness of divinity. I am remembering that in my life too.

Let’s ask God for assistance here. Let me know why this is happening, and what miracle it leads to.

I settle the dog back in the car and walk to the gas station again. The kid behind the counter takes my problem on as his own. He tries hard, offering one idea after another. I leave with a second gallon and a warm feeling about him.

Halfway back, it occurs to me that a ride would make this a lot faster. It’ll be dark out soon. I stick out my thumb as I walk.

An old VW bus pulls onto the shoulder ahead of me. A man is driving. A woman leans toward the open passenger window.

“Hey, you go to Groove Yoga, right?”

“Oh yeah. I have been.”

“I taught you a class the other day.”

She points across to the driver. “This is Bryce over here.”

I look past her, and there he is.

“Oh yeah, I know Bryce. I’ve seen him a hundred times.”

We’ve practiced side by side more than once. I noticed him the first time. Late fifties, shaved head, beard, a lot of tattoos. A focused, devoted energy, and yet humble and contained. You can see the effort he has poured into his practice. He’s often in the very front row. So am I. It helps me focus. Most people avoid the front row. Bryce and I keep ending up there, side by side, on purpose.

They drive me back to the car with my second gallon and wait while I pour it in.

It still won’t start.

Bryce holds out his hand. “Here. Give me the can.”

Off he drives. A little while later he’s back with two full cans. He filled mine, then bought another empty one and filled that too. He says he can use it on the ranch. He pours both in himself. He knows those funky spouts on the cheap cans far better than I do.

I turn the key again.

The dashboard lights up. The car is alive.

We stand there beside the road and talk. Bryce is caretaking a ranch. He was a hairdresser for twenty years. He found yoga eight years ago, and he’s loving this new work. I tell him I’m a nomad, caretaking a home. The car isn’t mine. The dog isn’t either. Two caretakers, meeting on the roadside.

As we get ready to go, I ask for his contact info.

“I might, when another way comes to mind, like to thank you.”

Somewhere in all of it, I learn the woman’s name. Allison.

Bryce shakes his head. “Yeah, it’s funny. We were going to leave earlier, yet we were delayed. That was the timing that allowed us to see you.”

“Well, what happened for me is that as soon as I got out of the car, I said, ‘Okay, this is awesome. This is happening for a reason.’”

I pause, then I tell him more.

“Full disclosure. I was praying for a beautiful solution, and I knew it was going to come in a miraculous, cool way.”

Maybe, I tell them, the divine saw fit to use them in my support.

Bryce smiles. “Well, we got just as much benefit. Just in a reciprocal way.”

That night, I sit down with my journal for the story practice.

I never made it to the river. I walked beside the road instead, and the dog didn’t seem to mind. I think of the woman at the chiropractic office and her Wi-Fi. The kid at the gas station, trying so hard. Allison, who recognized me before I recognized her. Bryce, pouring gas into a car that isn’t mine.

This morning I saw lotus flowers going hungry in still water. Tonight I count the people who fed me.

The page fills fast.

It is not possible for you to be without love.

What are you doing to make your life a masterpiece? What practices are changing who you’re being?

Leave a comment, or hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Blessings,
Daniel

I

I, Daniel Aaron, am…

I am Kintsugi, magnificently messy making masterpieces.

I break hearts open and fill the cracks with light, leaving people stronger and more beautiful at the site of their own breaks.

I am a black-belt in judo.

A lifelong pacifist, vegetarian for 39 years.

I’ve been wealthy enough to travel the world first class, stay in 5 star hotels, live in mansions with our own chef, nanny and driver.

I have been so broke that I could not afford food or gas, have lived in my car, lived in a tent.

Reverend. Ordained priest.

Not religious.

I traveled the Iberian peninsula working on psychic fairs with a band of chain-smoking witches.

I dived deeply into non-monogamy, been part of sex cults and participated in therapeutic pleasure sessions that were painful, scary, confronting and liberating.

I have had hundreds of coffee enemas, dozens of colonics and water-fasted for 21 days.

I have experienced many kundalini awakenings, starting from when I was an atheist.

I was once put into a straight jacket and involuntarily committed to a locked psych ward.

I’ve lived in ashrams, been with gurus and enlightened beings.

I have been jailed for drugs.

I was fat, shy, depressed and powerless.

I took Buddhist vows with Thich Nhat Hanh.
I became an Osho Sanyassin while living at Humaniversity in Holland.
I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I built a 10,000 square foot yoga and wellness center in Bali from the ground up.

I raised my daughter mostly on my own, liberating her mother from a sense of obligation and resentment.

I regularly immerse myself into the darkest dark.

I have plunged into many dark nights of the soul.

I survived multiple NDE’s such that I “should” have died.

I have lived many lives.
None are meant to impress.
Instead, to invite.
You.
To bring your darkest and your brightest.

I am a guide to greatness. Yours, mine and everyone’s.

I am YES. To living my potential, to what calls me to awaken, to realize the truth of who we are.

I am that there is nothing you have done or said, could do or say, that will keep me from loving you.

I am the deepest listening and keenest understanding you’ve ever known. Presence, incarnate.

I am that your dreams are sacred, your purpose powerful and your destiny within reach.

I am your greatest champion — willing to battle anything and anyone in the way of your potential, including your own stories of limitation.

I am the abundant all-sufficiency.

Free — I need nothing.

I have nothing to prove.

In my presence people’s lives become better and they love themselves more.

I’ve invested ¾ of a million dollars in my own awakening.

Many times I committed before I had the money.

By far the best investment I ever make is in me.

I am that you are infinite.

I am a holy disruptor.

I have been the golden child and the black sheep, the inner circle and the banned. Often in the same room, for the same reasons.

I am sword and scythe, so committed to your potential that I will say what might cause you to hate, fear or avoid me.

I am the guts to face up to the hardest truths,
the persistence to transform pain-producing patterns,
and the love to see you until you see yourself.

I am a prophet, called by God.

I am Infinite, Impactful Service.

Heart wide-open, unconditional love and prodigious patience.

Everyone is my family.

I grow through coaching you.

My business is ministry.

My wealth is service.

My presence is profit. I am the law of increase in flesh form.

I am that the Truth will make you free.

I will be and do whatever it takes.

I am with you. Always. No matter what you bring.

II

You are

Not your bio or beginnings,

not limited to your current imaginations.

You are that you know.

You know what mediocre monotony looks like and it pains you.

You know who you really are.
You’ve glimpsed it.
In quiet moments.

In conversations.

A dream. A vision.

You have felt the fear of speaking it.

Then you’d have to live it.

You’ve felt it receding.

No more.

You are called.
For a unique purpose.
To disturb the status quo.

To make your life a masterpiece.

You are not lazy. You’ve done a lot of work.

Books, courses, retreats.

Now, it’s not about information.

You must be a hero.

To children whom you haven’t met.

Must be your own hero.

You are willing:

To love more: yourself, the people close to you, me, and ultimately all beings.

To have the uncomfortable conversations.

To strip the armor.

Stop performing.

Start living.

To set your baseline to yes.

To fully live.

To ask: how good can it get?

You are the Universe.

A master magician,

always ready to draw new circles.

III

We Are

Partners.

Project: your life as a masterpiece.

Always learning from each other.

Never done awakening.

Always creating more for you — problems and possibilities.

We bring our deepest and scariest thoughts and feelings to our conversations.

We share our “failures”, fears, shame, shadow, history, contradictions.

We air the inherited narratives: money, men, women, sex and God.
Grist.
We are milling.

Making masterpieces.

We are aware that our work together goes beyond us.

I use you and you use me.

Coal. Compression. Diamond.

Our relationship is sacred ground.

How we meet here is how we meet the world.

It is light, and carries gravitas.

IV

Together We Create

From the outside it just looks like conversations.

We are creation constantly creating.

This is one of the most important relationships of our lives.

We are not playing and are ever so playful.

You speak - dreams, fears, fantasies. What you have never said before.

I listen, love, hear beyond the words.
Reflect you to you, a you you’ve known forever and are just meeting.

This is a laboratory for:

Radical experimentation,

audacious asks,

bold action without certainty,

falling flat,

changing course,

laughing at ourselves,

creating what is impossible.

A year, ten or a lifetime, deeper and deeper we go.

There is no bottom.
We keep asking: how good can it get?

Three years from now we walk on a beach together.

It’s early morning, quiet, a few gulls.

A reporter recognizes us. Asks you:

“Do you have a message for the world?”

You smile.

“My life is my message.”

We walk on. Pause. Face east.

I ask you:

“Who are you?”

You nod:

“I finally love myself.

I am the Universe.

I create what I desire.

All my desires are holy.

I am THAT.

My life is a masterpiece.”

The sun hangs just above the water.

We breathe.

Names and identifying details have been changed.

“Can I push?”

My gut clenched.
No question had ever scared me more.

We were alone in the house.

Anna’s face strained even as her laboring body sank into the overly soft mattress of the dark corner bedroom.

I wasn’t the midwife.
I prayed she’d arrive soon.

I was the father, not a husband.
We were no longer a couple.

The contractions were longer, closer together.

From obsessive reading, I knew—
when she felt the urge, it was time.

“Yes.”

I called the midwife.
Again, her answering service.

We’d arrived an hour before.
Upcountry Maui.
A house loaned for the birth.

I got her settled—comfortable, as if that were possible.

Then I filled the birthing pool on the lanai.

During the last fifteen minutes of the drive, as the Haleakala Highway steepened, all I saw were jacarandas.

The amethyst blooms—surreal surges of life force.

They blossomed up and out, rounding skeletal trees into bursts of blue-violet.

I held Anna’s hand
and breathed beside her, inside a violet trance.

For days afterward, every glimpse outside—
an oxytocin wash—
a world awash with purple pollen.

Nine months prior:

We met in Bali, where I lived and she was visiting.

I was in the role of yoga teacher. She had come as a student. I wouldn’t cross that line.

She was from Maui, a place where I’d nearly put down roots. Then I was sent elsewhere—Bali.

Both our mothers had recently died.

It felt like kismet.

Six weeks later I saw her at a cafe, just before she flew home. I decided not to let my teacher’s rules be a prison — something larger was at work.

One magical night.

A night when I watched my body choose something I never would have.

There were forces beyond us in motion.

My email the next day. Even as the sweetness lingered on our skin, part of me knew:

“Of course we were both responsible. Yet, if you’re pregnant, it affects you in ways that I can barely comprehend.”

Her response that same day.
“Of course I’m not pregnant.”

Three weeks later:
“I’m late. I’m freaking out.”

A pregnancy test. The confirmation.

Me: an unmistakable, unhesitant yes to this new life.

A hopeful glow that Anna and I might be a couple. I’d also lived enough to know how vision and chemistry can fade.

Her: wrestling with it all. A baby was not part of her plan.
Nor mine.
Not like this.

I tried to be clear.

I’m all in for parenting.
I’m all in for us finding out if we’re a couple.

How do I tell her the truth—without overly influencing her?

My mother’s voice. A national leader in the Women’s Liberation movement. A woman’s body. A woman’s choice.

Every day for months I gazed through the jungle toward the crevasse beyond the house.

Impassable.
The bottom lost in darkness.
So much of my own life now out of reach.

Yet I could hear the river below gurgling up from the darkness.

Through the dense canopy, I could just glimpse the rice field beyond.

A large dark bird swooped in daily, perching in the mango tree. As it looked at me, and I at it—

It felt like our child’s spirit watching me back.

Stay with me.

Every day the powerlessness pounded me.
Weak internet. Rare and spotty calls.
I felt cut off from my own growing heart

I stayed.
I prayed.
I sent love across the waters.

I’d sobbed the day Anna went for an abortion.

Yet, the image.
The sonographic blip of that miniature peanut.
That—plus her stepmother saying, “Anna, I know you. You would regret it.”

She’d aborted the abortion.

Then she was all in on the baby.
All in on us.

Back in Bali, back to my home, where it had all begun.
Playing house, getting to know each other amidst the strangest of circumstances.

At seven months, I knew.
I knew what I did not want to know.
Did not want to be.

Then I couldn’t unknow it.

But knowing didn’t tell me when to say it out loud.

During pregnancy?
That would be cruelty.

She had put her faith in me—traveled across the Pacific to create a family.

Hold back the truth for two more months? Two of the most important months of our lives. Live falsely?

And worse: let her keep believing in a future that I knew would not be?

An impossible choice: tell her now—or lie by silence.

Cruel either way.

For weeks I turned it over like fire, only to at last admit, I didn’t know which was worse.

So I admitted it. To myself. Then to her.

We’re not a fit as a couple.

Certainly some part of her must have known too.

Yet…

Pregnancy hormones.
Youth.
The fairytales we’d all been fed.
Whatever greatness she projected onto me then.

A month prior I’d bought us a mosaic-framed mirror.

She threw it from the house.

Her scream.
The crash of glass on the stone path below.

I leaned over the rail to see the walkway strewn with glass and tile, splintered reflections flashing back up at us.

She was — understandably — enraged.

My fault.

As much as I wanted to whip myself,
to sink into shame
to acknowledge to my dead mother that I had become yet another man who hurt a woman—

Time was ticking.

Despite flights, fights, oceans and islands, we held together—
a raft between islands.

We were now locked into at least one trajectory.

Birth.

The midwife arrived just moments before our daughter emerged.
We never got to the pool.

Pushing became peace.
The veil was parted and my breath was gone—
the greatest portal into the sublime I had ever known.

I left three days later, returning to Bali to lead a training scheduled a year before.
Fifty people were waiting. A commitment I had made before any of this existed.

Leaving Anna was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Leaving our daughter—harder.

With the two of them on Maui, every mile I flew stretched something in me that was never meant to stretch.

The birth was no ending—though it brought relief from our first-time fears.

Success. Natural. Healthy.

The storm had broken.
Now came the drift.
Rafts don’t have rudders.

In Bali, I spoke to the trainees as if my life were whole.
Part of it was across the Pacific.
I had to—to lead well.

Anna wanted a Z name.
She proposed “Zaida.”
Arabic.

I loved it.

Abundant, overflowing, flourishing.

When the training was nearly complete, I said it out loud:
My heart is on Maui.

After the birth. After the training. New questions.

Custody?
Location?
Would Anna’s disappointment and anger dissipate?

Not yet. Understandable.

For a time, I thought I was supposed to let go — Anna, Zaida, being a father.

What did it mean—Maui, Bali, all of it?

A scripture I’d read—misread—
leave your father, your mother, your brother, your sister…

I believed it.
Or tried to.

When I got back to Maui, every cell of my being knew:

I had to be in her life.

Whatever the cost.
Even if it meant moving there.
Even if it meant leaving the life I had built in Bali.

In time, Anna saw it too:
The life she’d have if she didn’t accept my invitation.
A single mother. No skills or money. Maui cost of living.

She didn’t want to come back. For her, Bali had become a place of heartbreak.

Yet in Bali I had built a beautiful life.
On Maui, it would have been a struggle—for all three of us.

For Anna to land on Bali again, now as sanctuary, was its own work.

The three of us flew together.
I paid for her food and shelter. We had a nanny.

Still, it was so hard for her.

Despite community living. New friends. Other mothers.

None of that was sufficient.

I’d seen the signs, but wouldn’t admit it to myself.

Motherhood, Bali. She tried.
But she did not want that life.

Still, we did okay. Our baby went back and forth between us.
Pumped milk. Bottles. A rhythm.

As much as I loved my daughter, I didn’t love being alone with infants.
Not for long periods anyway.
Their neediness I could handle.
The guessing exhausted me.

I knew the benefits of cosleeping. Some say fathers shouldn’t sleep with babies—they might roll over and suffocate them.

I had no fear of that, but I was scared she’d roll out and hit her head on the teak floor.

So I had someone build rails around the king size bed.
The biggest crib I’ve ever seen.

When she cried, I held her and paced a U-shape in that tropical cupola—singing Jai Ganesha, inserting her name. Zaida Shazandra… Gopala.

A phone call that changed everything.

Anna, across town in Ubud.
Crying.

“She was just playing. You know the chili plant on the lanai...”

I nod, forgetting that she can’t see me.

I know the plant.
Where is this going?

My pulse already pumping.

Kadek’s voice in the background, soothing Zaida—still gasping.

“She must have gotten it on her fingers, then her eyes. They are so red.”

Breathe, I tell myself. Don’t react.

Cinta, our dog, stares at me—alert, unmoving.

“I couldn’t get her to stop crying. I didn’t know what to do.”

Now sobs from Anna. I wait. My leg twitches. I want to get up, run. Electricity floods me.

“I shook her.”

My breath catches.

“I didn’t mean to. I just… I’m losing it.”

Now I know. We hit bottom.
And then, strangely, I’m calm.

My breath slows on its own.
As does time.

The panic in me pauses.
A strange serenity takes its place.

One slow step at a time.

“Don’t worry.”

I sink my fingers into the rolls at the rottweiler’s neck, pull her into my leg.

“I’m coming over.”

A devastating admission.
The world I’d been living in collapsed.

She admitted it to me — that in itself was a miracle.

Despite the resentment, the anger—she was honest.

Maybe she didn’t even know how bad it was, how serious.

Whatever the case, I’m grateful.

My eyes opened.
At last, I saw what I’d refused to see.

Anna didn’t want to be a mother.
Not now.
Not like this.

The shaking. That woke me up.

I wouldn’t call that abuse.
Not to her then.
Not now.

What would that say about my willful blindness?

My self-blame rose again and again.
Still, I fought to focus on the future.

It’s not the same as hitting.
And it didn’t matter what I called it.

Or—and this question tore at my belly for days—
what if the shaking wasn’t that big a deal?
How normal is it?

And what parent doesn’t have moments of longing for the freedom they once had?

Part of me wanted to believe all that. Going back to the way it’d been looked so much easier.

There was no certainty.

Yet, what my gut finally settled into: I had to do something.

I didn’t know what or how—only this:

I won’t let that happen again.

An angel.

Rachel—my employee, my friend, also Anna’s friend. She had a mother’s heart—even then, before her own children.

She confirmed—a line had been crossed.
Shaking a child.
Something had to be done.

She counseled me.

Don’t say that.
Go slow.
Be artful.

She helped me move past the primal protection instinct.
To find compassion for Anna.
I did love her.

Her life had been interrupted. Whatever her part in that, the question now was how best to love this child.

Beyond labels—abuse, neglect, shaking—

I knew the real damage was resentment.

As much as my own mother loved me—her fifth child, eight years after the others—I was an anchor, holding her in a life she was trying to leave.

I knew parental resentment—
the feeling of being a weight on someone else’s life.
I could not bear that for Zaida.

Nobody wants to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with them.

Except maybe a baby.
With their mother.

Rachel helped me find the phrasing—the truth:

Anna, you don’t have to.
I will be one hundred percent responsible for her.
You can be with her only when you want to.
If you want to.

Zaida would ask me: “Where’s my mother? Why isn’t she here?”

I had vowed not to do what my parents did.
I would never speak about Anna in a way that hurt Zaida’s love for her.

All I knew to say to three-, four-, five-year-old Zaida: “Your mother loves you.”

It was true.

All mothers are part angel. Anna, especially.

She may not remember that I offered her the freedom to leave our daughter.

Or that it was prompted by the shaking.

A young mother’s resentment thudded up against the limits of what she could offer our child then.

Infants are hard.
Parenting is provocative.

But shaking one—that was too much.
I could not let it happen again.

For more than a decade I wanted to be understood. If not thanked, at least not vilified.

Invisibly, in my own mind, a toddler’s tantrum.
Flailing, screaming, protesting.

I don’t ask how she recalls it. It’s not my business.

Eventually I stopped wanting to correct the stories.

Her perspective was:

His baby.
I was just the means to that end.

In the mind of our daughter:

He kept me from my mother.

I was not willing for Anna to appear as the villain in other people’s minds.
Not that I could stop it.

But when she told me what other mothers said to her—

How could you leave your child?
I could never do that.

I wanted to protect Anna—to shake those women awake.

The courage she summoned to make such an agonizing decision.

The honesty to listen so deeply to her own heart—beneath the very real maternal instincts alive in her then—
to face the judgment of those women,
to trust her deepest desires:

freedom, distance from Bali, the knowing that her time for mothering had not yet come.

It was a miracle that she trusted me enough to admit to the shaking.

Another—that she trusted me when I released her from obligation.

Relief was one stream coursing through me.
We’d found a way through for us all.

Another current: fear.

Our daughter not yet turned two, and I, an orphan, with no ties to past or family, now fully responsible.

For the next eight years, the three of us formed and reformed—a family no one had taught us how to make.

Yet rivers run unstoppably—and our daughter blossomed.

Now. 2026.

Zaida and I sit in a park a couple miles from where she was born. In front of us the West Maui Mountains are greener than I’ve ever seen them.

We moved here from Bali when she was ten. Her mother’s time had come.

It’s two weeks until Zaida’s nineteenth birthday. She asked for new sneakers—the indigo Nike Swoosh.

“What was the thing you used to say to me at bedtime when I was young?”

With most anyone else, I’d say, “You’re still young.”

I smile.

She let me read to her in bed until she was thirteen. Then I would close the book, turn out the light and speak the words:

“Que sueñes con los angelitos.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I remembered it right.”

We both turn at the sound of her little brother’s voice—her mother’s second child, with the man she’s still happily partnered with.

Five now, and he’s learned that if he sits at the center, he can spin himself on the carousel.

Behind us, three huge jacarandas claim the sky. They’re not full, yet their authority is already resplendent.

I add the Indigo Swoosh to the mountain’s magic purple.

I am forever wedded to May on Maui.

Jacaranda—
always blossoming in my heart.

I cannot — will not — be late.

Not after all that’s gone down.

People stream in behind me—faster now, pressing past me toward their seats.
Still, I don’t move.

Everyone’s bought in. Be on time. Be your word.

My body twitches—seat, door, seat again.

Maybe I shouldn’t have told him.

Or maybe it was going to come out anyway.

Just as I step toward my seat, the staff room door opens.
Penny strides toward the stage.
Michael heads straight for me.

His face is tight. The ease has vanished.

A breath in—lips pressed thin.

I glance at my phone. Two minutes ’til start time.
Day three. Final session.

My breath shortens.

He speaks first.

“I’m sorry.”

Head tipping, his eyes drop into mine.
“You’re going to have to leave now. We’ll be refunding you.”

I blink.

“What? Really?”

I almost laugh.

It would be funny—should be—if he weren’t so serious.

“Yes. I’m…”

His firmness lands between us.
I have no response.

He nods toward the doors.

“Let’s go over here.”
To the last table—maybe the same one where I registered.

I sign what he asks.
Pen pressed hard. Hand quivering.

My legal name.

My mind whirs.
I don’t see a way to reverse this.

I saw the intention of the policy from the start—even if it shouldn’t have applied to me.

This decision, though—it’s ridiculous.
I’ve proven that.
Anyone can see it.

Suddenly I’m outside. The sun glares off the concrete. I squint.
Just stand there.

Heat rises off the ground.

I sit in my car, door open, one foot on the pavement.
Out of sight, traffic buzzes on The 5.

Moments ago, I was a star participant.
Now I’m not allowed in the room.

And my honesty—about the lie—caused that.

I close the door.
Start the drive home.

Five days earlier, Elias was driving us to LA for business.

Without looking, he reached across from the driver’s seat to the box in my lap. He squeezed a green fig, then brought it to his mouth.

He paused before taking a bite, gaze fixed ahead, hand hovering.

“You know, there’s a Landmark Forum coming up this weekend in San Diego.”

His voice was thin—cautious and constrained. It wasn’t the casual tone he wanted.

He bit all but the stem.

“Okay.”

I let the second syllable lift, lingering in the cool air.

I’d already told him a couple months ago I’d join the seminar. At some point.

He dropped the stem into the plastic pint container and reached for another fig.

“You could go.”

I inhaled sharply, my eyes widening.

“Okay. Thanks.”

He wanted me to say more.

The silence turned edgy. I let it hang.
He’d created it; I’d let him sit in it.

The AC fan whirred, dissonant against the engine’s whine.
Cool air blew against my face.

In May, on The 5 heading north toward L.A., the engine and AC both strained in the heat.

“You could call now and register.”

My eyebrows rose above the rim of my sunglasses.

It was unusual for him to suggest what I should do. His persistence caught me off guard.

I was impressed.
And annoyed.

We were both living in Spain when we met. I was in my “everyone should be doing yoga” phase. The first time he joined me, he got angry.

“I only did it so you’d shut up about it.”

That had stung.

We passed the Carlsbad exit toward the coast.

I was out of town when he participated in the Landmark seminar.

When I got back, he was different. The way he walked carried a new boldness. He started making more money on our book-buying days.

He’d been low-key about his experience. He had suggested I do the seminar—yet cautiously.

My response was immediate: no. It’s too mainstream.

I’d been with gurus, at ashrams. Had done screaming sessions, hitting pillows—radical therapies.

Between my stints at Esalen and Humaniversity, I saw myself as evolved.

Yet his sincerity tipped me to yes.

“I know you. You love to grow.”

There was real love in it. I felt it land.

By then, he was into yoga. Really into it.
He’d come with me to Humaniversity that first time.
When I went back to Omega Institute, he came too.

Back in the car, I ate another fig, smiling—we’d just spent $50 on figs for the drive.

We were living life on our own terms.
`At least I thought so.

I couldn’t argue. He was right. I did love to grow.

“Okay.”

This time it meant that I would call.

He pushed us toward our first stop at UC Irvine, listening to my side of the conversation with Landmark.

Past the perfunctory questions, they asked why I wanted to join. I answered easily—instantly—about my commitment to growth.

The next question hit like a dodgeball to the face—sharp, sudden.

“Have you ever been hospitalized for any mental, emotional or psychiatric condition?”

I blinked at the heat shimmering off the asphalt. Something flared in my chest.

“Well, yes.”

There was a pause. He hadn’t expected that.

“Will you tell me about it?”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t like the question. But I wasn’t going to be pushed off what had happened. No hiding.

Noticing the change in my voice, Elias turned toward me. Our eyes met. His brows twitched. We both faced forward again.

“Okay. I was once in a psych ward for a few days. I guess you could say — from that perspective — that I had a manic episode.”

I could feel the defensiveness in my voice. My lips pressed tight. I’d hoped I was beyond that.

“Do you take medication? Do you have a diagnosis?”

His voice didn’t change. He sounded like he was reading from a script.

My eyes narrowed, shifting from the cars ahead to the clock on Elias’s dash.
10:48. 10:48. 10:49.

My jaw tightened. I could feel him drawing a frame around me. And just as fast, me erasing it, refusing to be boxed in.

“I don’t take medication, and they said I have bipolar disorder.”

He explained their policy.

Since I’d been hospitalized, it was still possible for me to join the seminar—if I had a letter from a psychotherapist.

Permission.
Ongoing treatment.
In case of emergency.

My old judgment flared. Too mainstream. My exhale came out as a snort.

Nothing annoyed me like blanket rules—policies that ignore individual circumstances.
Especially when they applied to me.

Elias drove on, quietly attentive—as if eavesdropping.
I could feel him trying to understand.

I shrugged it off.
My shoulders dropped.
I went flat.

“Okay. I understand.”

A sigh.
“I’m open to all of that, but certainly it’s not going to happen in the next three days.”

Silence.

In the car.

On the phone.

“Maybe you could join the Forum another time then.”

Really? I thought.
That’s the best you can do?

After the call, I explained it to Elias.

He was silent.
No commiseration.
No confirmation of my indignation.

Then he threw me a curve ball.

“If you really want to go, you still could.”

I’d done what Elias wanted. I tried to register.

And the Universe had spoken.

I was off the hook. Relief loosened my chest.
I was also blocked. That fired me up.

After I’d been locked up, I dove into therapy—traditional, group, shamanic.

I was not going to take medication. And I was not going to get locked up again.

That’s when I moved to Omega.
I immersed myself in Transformational Breath, meditation, and yoga.

I was going to attend a ten-day silent meditation retreat.

The retreat center had refused me the same way.

Policy.

Blanket rules.

I looked at Elias, his face as steely as his driving.

I did still want to join the Forum.

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“You could call back. Give a different name and just say no to that question.”

“Elias—”

I gasped—mock shock, real awe.

Turning toward him, my back pressed against the door.

“You are suggesting that I lie?”

In our friendship, I was the one who beat rules—who assumed they didn’t apply to me.

That sometimes drew Elias’s judgment,
sometimes his respect.
Seldom his participation.

“You know why they are asking that question — the policy. And you know you’re not actually a danger in the way they’re worried.”

He was right.

I called again, and luckily got a different person.

“Hi. I’d like to register for the Forum this weekend.”

Elias took the last fig.

“Yes, of course. My name is Anand Siskin.”

The words came out easily.

Up ahead, traffic snarled. Elias merged from the left lane toward our exit.

Friday morning, I stepped up to the registration table—on top of my game.

“Welcome to the Landmark Forum.”

Short hair, middle-aged, huge smile. Efflorescent enthusiasm—over the top and completely genuine.

“Thank you.”

“What’s your name?”

“Anand Siskin.”

At that point in my life, everyone called me Shekhar.
Hearing “Anand” come out of my mouth felt off.

“Okay, Anand.”

She beamed, checked her list.

“Are you ready to have the most transformative experience of your life?”

“Absolutely.”

I matched her—even as something in me winced.
She believed all of it.
Fully.

Part of me admired that.
Part of me thought she was ridiculous.

She looked down, found my name, then back up—over pink-framed glasses.

Glitter around her eyes.
Gold. Silver.
Actual glitter.

“I see a note that you’ll be sitting on the floor. Is that right?”

“Yes, please.”

A small pause—just long enough for her eyes to flick over me. Then the smile returned, unwavering.

“Perfect.”

I grinned to myself. Elias had been right.

He’d been driving us back from L.A.

“Can I give you some tips about the weekend?”

I didn’t need tips.

“Okay.”

“I know you like to do things your own way.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’ll work better with Landmark if you ask permission first.”

My legs quivered—energy with nowhere to go. I was itching to get home, to get out of the car. I didn’t like being a passenger.

“Like what?”

“Like sitting on the floor. You and I both like that better than stupid chairs.”

“Okay.”

“But you’re going to be in a big group. They’ll already have it set up with chairs.”

“Yeah?”

“So if you ask ahead—give them a reason, like your back—they’ll probably be fine with it.”

“Ah huh.”

They’ll be fine with it?
Like I’m going to ask permission to sit.

Just the idea of it irritated me.

We passed the exit for Legoland, traffic backed up onto The 5.

“It’s no big deal, man. They just have their ways.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I called the next day.

“I’d like to sit on the floor. My back will be in pain if I sit in a chair for three days.”

That was true.

I’d found the phrasing that worked.

I thanked the bubbly registration lady and took the lanyard with the name.

“Your seat’s all the way in the front.”

She winked.
I had no idea why.

Beyond the row of registration tables, we funneled in through a bank of glass doors.

Inside, my eyes adjusted.
A huge, windowless room.
So many people.

The size of it hit me. My cockiness deflated.

A small army of volunteers, carrying that same over-the-top energy.

My body wanted to bolt. Still, I moved deeper in.
Part of me recognized the danger. Another part overrode it.

They’d put me in the first row, on the end.

A great semicircle.
Each chair precisely placed.
Barely enough space.

All aimed at the stage — with a tall chair, a side table and a lectern like a music stand.

By the time I reached my spot, my bravado had drained. Where I’d been righteous—even rebellious—I now felt self-conscious. The familiar shyness.

Trying not to show it, I folded into lotus—as if it were effortless.

I hoped—no, knew—some would be impressed.

I kept my face neutral. Underneath, disdain—for the masses, the people whose legs dangle.

Three hundred chairs.
One young man on the floor.
Fluorescent lights.
White paneled ceiling.

How ironic that I—a full two feet lower than everyone else—could still look down on them.

I judged the chair-sitters.
I’d outsmarted the system—or so I told myself.
My chest swelled.

I got what I wanted.
Sat how I wanted.
Even a front row bonus.

A woman with chocolate-toned skin stepped onto the dais. Overweight, yet she moved like an athlete—a purposeful, light stride to center stage.

Perched on the stool, her feet just touched the ground.
She looked out over the participants—way above me—toward the back of the room.

Chin lifted, brows raised—she caught the signal.

A smile. A sweep of the room—and it stilled.

“Welcome to the Landmark Forum.”

Her voice filled the space—steady, warm, in control. The rest of the chatter ceased.

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

Long pause.
She slowly scanned the audience while we all looked back expectantly.

Silently, she stood and stepped to the side of the lectern.

Nothing between her and us.

“I am going to show up and deliver for you completely. And if you show up fully, participate fully, your life will improve in countless ways.”

Total stillness.

“Are you willing to show up and participate fully in this program?”
A scatter of “yeses” and “absolutelys.”

“If anyone is unwilling, that’s okay. Maybe someone coerced you to be here. Maybe you were appeasing someone.”

She paused again. Returned to her stool.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. If you don’t really want to be here, we’re going to let you off the hook. We won’t waste your time. We’ll give you a full refund.

If that’s you, now’s the time. Stand up, bring your belongings and head over to our team by the door.

I don’t want anyone to be here because they think they have to.”

She waited.
We all waited.
No one moved.

“If you choose to stay, then you are agreeing to participate fully.”

No one moved.

“Good.” She smiled. “Then let’s get to work.”

I sat straighter. Watching her, some part of me already knew — no matter her weight or dress, she was not to be messed with.

She had an authority that inspired desire for her approval—and fear of not getting it.

“Let’s go over some basics, that will help you get what you came for.”

“I invite you to go all in. The way you show up here is how you show up in your life.”

She let that hang in the air. I was with it. I often said “the way you do one thing is the way you do everything.”

That’s how I lived. Or so I believed.

“Blindspots. We all have them. You know how most driving accidents happen because of the blindspots?”

Nods.

“Same thing here. But blindspots are also where transformation happens. They are where insight comes from.”

She was good. Clear. Strong.

She drew a perfect circle on the board.

The more we know, the more we see how much we don’t.

I was in.

If I’d known where it was going, I would have been afraid of the collision that was coming.

I don’t remember the woman, or her story. Only fragments—a pink scarf, and the way Penny held her there, standing in place as we all watched.

Relentless questions. An unshakeable gaze.

No sweetness. No coddling.

Every time the woman veered into blame, Penny cut her off—sharp, immediate.

Three hundred people sat silent.

I felt it—what it would be like for Penny’s attention to land on me.

I wanted that. I thought I had nothing to hide.
I mistook my confidence for evidence.

She paused the dialogue more than once. The woman stood there while Penny worked the room—her spotlight widening, encompassing everyone.

I was very still. Attentive.

“Are you seeing it? Do you see how you do that in your life?”

I watched the woman. Then Penny—
hoping she would see that I got it.

In the end, the woman folded forward, covering her face.

Penny said nothing.
The woman blew her nose, looked up. Eyes wet.

With her arms at her sides, it was as if something heavy had dropped off—something long dead.

Her face was puffy—yet lighter.

Penny let the silence stretch.

“Do you see what we do?”

I was sure I did—blind to the fact that the lesson was already aimed at me.

The sound of sniffles didn’t break the spell.

My list came quickly.
Names. More names. Too many.
With each, my gut clenched.
I sensed where this was going.

Relationships where there had been love—now broken.

Then the assignment: phone calls.

I did not want to. Not at all.
Just follow the instructions, I told myself.

The parking lot filled with people pacing—heads down, voices low, intense.

After lunch, the tone changed.

A man and two women slipped into their seats, late.

Penny didn’t stop, didn’t flinch.

“Do you want to know why you’re here? Why your life doesn’t work?”

She drew a wagon wheel on the board.

“What happens if a spoke breaks?”

“Does it keep rolling?”
Nods. Uh-huhs.

“Get this—”

She set down the marker and sliced the air with both hands.

“Integrity is not good or bad. This is about what works and what doesn’t.”

“The way you show up here is the way you show up in your life.”

Penny stepped back onto the stage and sat.

It clicked. Clean. Self-evident.
So simple. I liked it—
mostly.

“Who is ready to clean up? To restore integrity?”

The room went quiet.

Then her voice intensified.

“What are you here for? This is your life.”

The man raised his hand.

“You’re trying to shame people. I don’t like it.”

“I’m not shaming anyone. I’m telling the truth.”

My pulse kicked up.

Penny didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate.

“Are you feeling shame?”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t try to make this about me. I’m not going to let you make me feel bad for being late.”

She didn’t answer right away. Just stood there, eyes fixed on him.

“Were you here when we broke for lunch?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me say 1:35?”

“Yes.”

“What time did you get back?”

He hesitated. She waited. Then he brought the mic back up.

“It’s not a big deal. Things happen.”

Was it a big deal? To her, it was.

She paused. Softer now.

“Yes, things happen. The world happens. What I’m interested in is you—what you choose, what you do.”

He lowered the microphone again, chest rising and falling.

“I’m not telling you what to do. It’s your life.”

For all her toughness, there was compassion there.

“You wouldn’t be here if your life was working. Without your word, it never will.”

My shoulders tightened. A bit extreme.
Still—I couldn’t argue it.
Nor could I pretend how easily his defense could have been mine.

He stood there. Silent. His breath the only thing moving.

My knee bounced. Something in me bristled.
I reached for my water bottle. Took a sip.

“Let me ask you something.”

He nodded.

“What did you come here for?”

I flashed on Elias’s persistence.
What was I here for?

The man answered. Slowly at first. Then it came.

By the time he sat down, people were passing tissues.

At the end of Friday, I’d called twenty-two people. Spoken with nine—mostly ex-girlfriends.

The apologies were real—even when they stuck in my throat.

Not easy. Not clean. Still real.

Even if I hadn’t meant to, I had hurt people.

Taking responsibility for the rifts was harder. My stomach tightened every time.

The blame I’d put on them—I took it back, piece by piece.

With one, something opened. She told me how much I’d hurt her, and I felt the old reflex rise—to defend, to explain.

I held it back.

I asked questions, listened.
We both cried.

Another told me she wasn’t interested—neither in what I’d learned nor in hearing from me at all.

That landed harder than I thought it could.

I dialed the next number.

Before each call, my finger hovered over the green button.
My face flushed.
I hesitated.

And with each attempt, regardless of the outcome, something in me grew. My chest felt fuller. Softer.

I could feel something shifting—
more than I knew.

Walking in on Saturday morning, the room had changed—louder, looser. Even before Penny took the stage, the volume of the voices had tripled. Everyone talked at once.

By now every time Penny asked for volunteers, dozens of hands went up.

When she chose me, I was surprised.
And—of course she did.

I don’t remember what I said. Or what she said.

We stood just a few feet apart.
With my back to the room, I felt eyes on me.

I kept switching the microphone from hand to hand, aware of my sweat slicking it.

She called me Anand, which felt off in my body.

Still, what I was sharing was real.

I wanted her acknowledgement, a nod to all the work I’d done.
Instead, she kept asking questions. Hard ones.
Steering it away from where I wanted to go.

I wanted a breakthrough without breakage—

to be seen without exposure.

My breath caught. I wanted to disappear.
Three hundred people watching.
Me at the center of it. Nowhere to go.

I shook out my hands. My shoulders dropped.

When what she said landed, my exhale was enormous. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been holding.

Her acknowledgement didn’t matter anymore.
She’d gotten me to see something I hadn’t seen.

I didn’t need to prove anything.
My belly relaxed.

After, people came up to me.
Their thanks didn’t make sense—until they told me what had shifted for them.

I called Elias, grateful.

He was right.
Mostly.

He’d seen Landmark. Seen me—
and still missed something.

“Breakthroughs are like popcorn.”

Sunday. Day three.

Penny stood facing the group, gesturing to the man who’d just sat down after his breakthrough.

How did she do that every time?

“At first as the heat comes up, there’s a pop here. Then a pop there.”

She walked to the other side of the stage, heels clacking on the black-painted wood.

“Then it becomes pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop.”

“It’s contagious. And if you’ve not popped yet, today’s your day.”

People were shifting. During every break, contact info changed hands.

“Let’s get together. Let’s stay in touch.”
Hugs. High-fives.

I found myself talking with staff and volunteers—asking what they’d gotten from Landmark, why they kept coming back.

Michael said he’d been moved by my conversation with Penny. He had an alcoholic father too.

He said Landmark had saved his life.

Brought his family back together.

This was his twelfth time volunteering.

I liked him. It felt like we might become friends.

The second time he called me Anand, I winced. A flicker of unease.
The name pressed on something. Its meaning—bliss—began to grate.

I told myself I was restoring integrity.
That was true—just not all of it.

Would I have been willing to confess to Penny?

I spoke without thinking.

A deep dissonance had worked its way to the surface—bigger than the seminar. Darker.

“You know, Michael, I realize I haven’t been in full integrity here.”

His face tightened—quizzical, then concerned.

Something in me dropped. I let go.

“What do you mean?”

Does the name really matter?
It’s just a label.

I’d outed myself—and was still trying to hide.

My jaw set.

By then, it was too late.

“Yeah, Anand is not my real name.”

The words landed between us.

He said nothing. Just looked at me.

As I told him what I’d done, I searched his face for a smile.

I wanted his grin, the confirmation of my cleverness, the brilliance that paved the path for how powerfully I’d shown up over the last three days.

He nodded. His face stayed blank.

A micromoment of panic.
My world cracked.
He wasn’t getting it—wasn’t getting me.

Deep in my bones, a calcium quake.

I couldn’t see that then. Couldn’t have.

After the last three days, he had to see that it worked.
How could he not?

He just looked at me—gentle green eyes tightening, concern settling into his face.

If anything, they should be praising me.

Or so it seemed then. Superiority slid in to prevent collapse.

When I finished, all he said was that he’d be back in a moment.

The moment kept stretching.

For the first time in three days, the current flowed around me as if I’d snagged on a rock in the river.

Years ago, one of my yoga teachers said to me:

“Shekhar, I’m putting you on a diet.”

That was weird. I was already eating only raw vegan. What was left?

“No more handstands until we fix the fundamentals.”

I had wanted the handstand badly enough to force it.
It worked.
And it was wonky.

Over months, he took me back to basics.

Alignment.
Core.
Stability.

When I got upside down again, I couldn’t balance. It was shaky.

For years I thought I’d won with Landmark.

I got in. Participated fully. Had the conversation with Penny.

I felt no humiliation in getting kicked out.

It wasn’t me. It was their stupid policy.

I was king of rationalizations.

They weren’t denying me. Just delaying me—for everyone’s safety.

I got what I wanted. And more.

That was enough. Or so I thought.

I wasn’t wrong.
I won the only game I could see.

It was a small game.

I got myself in the room.
Even under a false name, I was myself.
I learned something essential—integrity.

I lied to get it.
I told the truth and got removed.

At the time, it made no sense.

I wasn’t unstable. I wasn’t a risk. I’d proven it.

What I couldn’t see was that it wasn’t about me.

Had they let me stay, they would have been out of integrity.

We were all being as honest as we knew how.

Elias. Me. Even them.

It worked. Up to a point.
Then it didn’t.

Balancing in a handstand isn’t holding.
It’s constant correction—too far one way, then back.

It’s not about right or wrong.
It’s about what can stand.

Before my teacher took me back to basics, I could balance in a handstand.
For a while.

It took effort. A lot of it.
It passed for mastery.

After, it felt different in my body.

Less force.
More awareness.
More subtlety.

Not holding.

Adjusting.

Tiny tremors through my hands.

Too far one way.
So move in the opposite.

Every day the oscillations become finer.

Invisible from the outside.
Essential.

👉 What did this bring up for you?