​We do this work of visioning and writing of the ideal life, the ideal romance, the ideal financial life, for a reason.
It can sound simplistic on the surface, almost like daydreaming on paper. But there is a deeper wisdom in it. When you sit down and write out what your life looks like when it feels whole, you are not just indulging in fantasy. You are giving shape to your inner life. You are saying to yourself, “This is who I am in the matter. This is the truth of me.

​The challenge is that life has a way of pulling us off course. Even though we are good at finding our way, part of us is always subject to circumstance. A bill arrives, someone speaks harshly, an opportunity is lost, or grief sneaks up on us. Something happens, and we react. We get triggered, and suddenly the outer life we are living no longer reflects the inner truth we want to bring into the world.

That is why the true work of a spiritual person is not to control circumstances, but to build integrity between the inner and the outer. To sit so grounded in our inner life that it naturally reflects outward, regardless of what life throws at us. When our inner truth shapes our outer actions, we move from reaction to creation. We move from survival to sovereignty.

Over the years, I have worked with both NER and Emotion Code practitioners, and that has helped me clear most of the emotional triggers that once pulled me off course. The truth is, circumstances will always happen, they are part of life. But what has changed for me is how I meet them. For the last six years I have been doing this work in earnest, and I have learned how to stay steady when challenges arise instead of being thrown off balance. The waves still come, but I am no longer swept away by them.

This is also the heart of the Neuro Emotional Release work I practice. Triggers are not destiny. Old emotions do not have to dictate who you are in the world. When those old charges are found and released, the grip of circumstance loosens. You begin to notice space where before there was only reaction. You return to a place of choice, a place of power.

Imagine for a moment what life feels like when the outer world and the inner world match. When the way you show up in relationships, in your finances, and in your daily rhythms reflects the person you know yourself to be on the inside. That is not just balance: it is integrity. And it is from that integrity that strength, peace, and real freedom flow.

That is the gift of doing the deep work. That is why we write, why we envision, and why we heal. It is not about escaping reality, but about shaping it so that the life we are living is a true reflection of who we are inside.
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When inner life meets outer life, we do not just survive circumstance—we become creators of a life that honours who we really are.

There are moments in grief that few of us ever name. They arrive not once, but again and again, each one carving a deeper hollow in the heart.

The first silence comes the day the person you love dies. It is immediate and absolute, the kind of silence that makes the air itself feel heavy. The world has changed, and yet everything around you looks the same. You walk through the house, or down the street, and wonder how it can be possible that the sun still rises, that cars still pass, that strangers still laugh when your world has stopped.
The second silence comes after the funeral, when the rituals are over and people begin to go home. The food is put away, the hugs are finished, and the phone grows quiet. You are left in a hollow space no one prepared you for. There are no more instructions, no set prayers or stories to carry you. Just an absence that follows you from room to room.

And then there is the third silence, the one that lingers long after. Everyone else has returned to their routines, but you remain with the ache of absence. It is the silence that rises without warning, in the middle of an ordinary day, pressing against your chest with a longing that cannot be named away. You might be standing in line at the grocery store or folding laundry, and suddenly it comes. A memory, a scent, a song, and grief floods in as if no time at all has passed.

The silence is not just quiet. It is the absence of a shared language, a rhythm, a love we were immersed in. Imperfect, yes, because all relationships are, but real enough to tether us to life in ways we barely noticed until it was gone. When that tether is cut, the silence is not empty, it is overwhelming.

That silence carries its own kind of weight. It is the place where grief has no witnesses, where it feels raw, uncontained, and endless. People know what to do at funerals. They cry, they hug, they tell stories, they pray. But few of us know what to do when the rituals end, and emptiness is our only companion.

I know these silences. My partner died by depression. My son died of cancer at twenty-eight, gone less than a year after his diagnosis. Those losses carved a well so deep in me that even now grief finds its way back. Not daily, not on a schedule, but in moments that take me by surprise with their overwhelming depth. One breath, and I am carried back into the longing for a voice I cannot hear again, a touch I will never feel again.

Grief does not move in straight lines. It circles and bends. It waits quietly, then surges without warning. Time dulls some edges, but it never erases the echo. To live with grief is to live with a rhythm of absence and presence, love remembered and love lost, silence that both isolates and binds us.

Grief also makes us solitary, even when we are surrounded. You can sit in a room full of friends or family and still feel the weight of being alone in what you carry. The one you long for is gone, and no amount of company can fill that hollow. Yet this is the strange paradox of grief: in the place where we feel most outside, we are actually joined to others.

None of us are truly alone in this silence. Your grief may not look like mine, but the ache is a language we share. It is the quiet understanding between strangers who have both lost someone they love. It is the recognition that in a world where loss is inevitable, love is what makes the silence bearable.

And even here, in the heart of loss, I believe something else is true. Every adversity comes with a gift in its hands. Every one of them. Sometimes the gift takes years to see, and sometimes it comes in a form we would never choose, but it is there. In grief, the gift may be tenderness, or depth, or a widening of the heart that lets us see one another more clearly. It does not erase the silence, but it changes how we live inside it.

We cannot fix these silences, but we can honour them. We can speak them aloud, not to make them disappear, but to remind ourselves that emptiness is not exile. In the telling, in the listening, in the gentle recognition of each other, we begin to discover that what once felt like exile is also the place where we meet.

If Not Me, Who? If Not Now, When?

This reflection is part of my Food for Thought series on Skool. These writings are meant to spark questions rather than give answers, inviting you to pause and consider how your inner life and outer actions align. It is an offering to stir reflection and encourage dialogue, both with yourself and with others who are also walking this path.
There are certain questions that demand our attention. They arrive and arrive again, pressing us to respond. For me, one of those questions has always been: If not me, who? If not now, when?

I return to it because I know that waiting for the perfect moment or for someone else to step forward only delays what is most needed. These words do not live only in history or in the voices of others. They live in me, shaping the way I work, create, and serve. They remind me that even when I feel uncertain, my presence and my voice matter.

John’s Question, My Question
I first heard the weight of this question in the life of my dear friend John Gates. John was an AIDS activist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a man who not only asked the question but lived it with fierce integrity. He moved from Vancouver to Ottawa in 1989 to awaken Canadian development agencies to the urgency of the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. Working with ICAD, Oxfam, and the Red Cross, he made an uncompromising demand: no treatment in the north unless treatment was equally available in the south.
For John, the question was never abstract. It was a call to action that cost him time, energy, and comfort, yet it was also what gave his life meaning. Watching him live this way forced me to ask: Who am I in the matter? Is there integrity between my inner self and my outer actions?

John clearly knew who he was in the matter because his inner life was fully present in his outer life. That integrity is what made his actions so powerful and enduring.
Where I StandThose questions did not leave me. They sit at the center of my choices, whether in the work I do with clients, in the ceremonies I design, or in the writing I share here. Every time I am tempted to wait until I feel more ready, those words rise again. They remind me that my own voice, imperfect as it may be, still carries weight.

I have seen the difference in my own life. When I ignored my inner world, my outer work felt thin, even strained. When I turned inward and did the healing, when I faced the shadows and allowed myself to grow into alignment, my outer work gained strength. People noticed. I noticed. There was a new clarity, a new confidence, a new sense of ease in how I spoke and acted.

Inner and Outer Integrity
This is why I believe inner and outer integrity cannot be separated. Our healing is not selfish work. It is the foundation of every meaningful act we take in the world. Inner and outer development are threads of the same fabric, each strengthening the other. One person’s healing can inspire another. One person’s willingness to act can open the way for many. That is how movements begin, and that is how lasting change takes root. 
When we open ourselves to growth, we come into deeper alignment with the purpose we have on earth. The key is to ask ourselves questions like these, alongside Who am I in the matter? They guide us toward integrity, clarity, and a sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves.

A Call to Action
These words, If not you, who? If not now, when? still live in me. They carried me through moments when I wanted to step back, and they return whenever I wonder whether I am enough. They remind me, and perhaps they can remind you, that our presence matters.
Ask yourself these questions not only about how you act in the world but also about how you care for your own development. Let them open the door between who you long to be and how you are willing to show up. 
Your healing is not separate from the world’s healing. Your growth is not separate from the world’s growth. The choices you make ripple outward, carrying the possibility of a different future. And then, in ways both small and large, choose to step through. The time for waiting has passed. The time to live in alignment, in integrity, and in connection with the greater whole is always now.