A Personal Note and Important Disclaimer
I want to be clear: I’m not a psychotherapist, nor do I have formal training in psychology. My education ended at the high school level, and I didn’t do particularly well there either. What I offer in these books comes from personal experience, years of self-inquiry, and thousands of hours spent listening, watching, reflecting, and practicing.
That said, some of the most powerful healing I’ve witnessed, both in my own life and in others, comes from something rarely spoken about: the way parents unconsciously re-create their own childhoods through their relationships with their children. It’s a dynamic that often goes unnoticed, yet it’s a doorway to deep healing. In romantic partnership, the first crack in our emotional armor often appears through intimacy. But if children are involved, the second, often deeper layer is revealed: the parent-child bond. Here, we often become both the victim and the victimizer, repeating patterns we don’t even realize we’re carrying.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s not academic. It’s primal. It’s biological. It’s happening at such a subconscious level that even the most self-aware person might miss it without guidance, or without paying very close attention.
And this is where real healing begins.
Not in abstract insight or intellectual understanding, but in the real-life emotional battlefield of relationships. It’s here, when old pain gets triggered by present-day intimacy, that we have a rare chance to change the script. If we’re not in relationship, romantic or parental, we may not have access to the same mirror that exposes these wounds.
This work is messy. It’s unpredictable. There is no perfect method or universal expert. Psychotherapy is a vast and varied field, and no one person can master it all, just like no doctor can specialize in every branch of medicine. But we are all contributors to the evolving science of the mind. Anyone with experience, honesty, and attention can offer insight.
I often reflect on my interactions with my children and feel a deep discomfort. It’s difficult to fully grasp how much of my engagement with them reflects how I was engaged with as a child. Yes, I’ve done years of work to heal and rewire my subconscious. But still, there are blind spots.
The human mind needs a catalyst to access the hidden realm of the subconscious. We can enter it through meditation, writing, breathwork, and even through the emotional intensity of everyday life. But it takes time, discipline, and daily care. Meditation, in particular, is essential, it’s how we prevent collapse under the weight of stress, emotion, and overstimulation.
When the pressure becomes too great, take a step back. Watch a comedy. Learn something new. Do something to shift the energy and rebuild your self-esteem. Keep your mind open. Explore things you’ve never had interest in before. Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from unexpected places. Discovery is often hiding in the unfamiliar.
As for suffering, even the Buddha’s teachings were shaped by the time he lived in. While ancient wisdom holds incredible value, it didn’t include the modern understanding of the nervous system, trauma, and biochemistry. Today, we have access to both ancient insight and modern science, and the combination of the two is more powerful than either one alone.
So I’ll repeat this simple truth: healing begins when we walk directly into our pain, when we face our reactivity, and when we stop running from the anxiety we don’t yet understand.
Write. Breathe. Every day.
It’s no wonder we struggle when we’re not doing the basics. If we don’t know how to write, we can learn. The wisdom of elders points us to journaling as a foundational tool for self-discovery. My books center around writing because it has been one of the most effective paths I’ve found for understanding and repairing the mind.
This chapter of your life is about healing. Whether you feel ready or not, whether you feel resistant or numb, you are hearing the call. Keep breathing. Keep writing. Put breathwork and daily reflection at the center of your life. Everything else will begin to align around those practices.