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Following my last piece,  What You Never Finished Feeling I touched on something essential:

If the nervous system doesn’t settle, nothing really changes. 


An unsettled nervous system is what holds the old patterns in place.  


Here’s how to begin releasing it in a way that actually shifts something.


1. Most important: Learn to relax.

Really relax, until your body softens and your attention settles in this moment.

There are many depths to this.

Keep going.

You’ll know when you get there.

Use all the practices I’ve given you — meditation, breathwork, movement, catharsis.


2. Get familiar with the old pattern so you can recognize it the moment it starts pulling at you.


3. In those moments, remind yourself: “This is something in me being touched. This is just moving through me. Not who I am. Just something I’m aware of.”

That shift matters.  

Before, you used to collapse into it.

Become it.

Stayed inside it.

Now you can see it.

And in that moment, you’re no longer bound by it.


4. Have a clear sense of how you want to show up in the world.

Not as a new identity, but in small, real ways - how you speak, how you respond, how you move through ordinary moments.

Now keep your attention oriented forward.

Not toward what you’re leaving, but toward who you’re becoming. 


This takes time. 


You’re unwinding a lifetime of habit and the identity that’s been holding it in place. 


At first it can feel slow and clunky, like you’re not moving. 


That’s the mind pulling you back to what’s familiar. 


But each time you stay, something softens.


When anxiety or an intrusive thought spikes, that’s the old layer surfacing so it can unwind. 


That’s when you do the work.



When you’re in it, reduce it to this:


1. Name it

Gently name what you’re feeling - and where you feel it in your body.

Say “I feel ___, and I’m okay to feel this. This feeling is welcome.”


2. See it clearly

 Remind yourself: “This is an old pattern surfacing.  It’s not me.” 

You must shift identity from “being it” → “seeing it”


3. Stay with it

Don’t try to change it.

Soften.

Let the feeling move.

Sometimes it passes quietly. Sometimes there’s a release.

What you’re doing is allowing your nervous system to settle.  


And when it settles, the habits lose their grip.


Change doesn’t feel like change while it’s happening. 


It feels like repetition. 


Your mind will try to return to its old ways. 


Stay the course.


What you want is not out of reach. 


You’ve just been living inside a pattern - and patterns can only lead you back to where they’ve always led you.  


Lift your gaze. 


Keep your attention forward.  


It will shift, often right when it feels like nothing is working. 


This is the work


Stay with it.


Paul


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P.P.S.

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