From System Crash to Solid Ground
The Seeker & The Crash
My story isn't a tidy hero's journey. It's the map of a territory I learned by getting lost in it. From a young age, I was a seeker, but my first real test was a crushing depression at sixteen. I patched the system with CBT and willpower, building a functional life on a fragile foundation.
My search for "more" led to a full-scale system overload: a spiritual emergency so powerful it left me completely destabilized. The hardware of my nervous system couldn't handle the voltage. It became clear that chasing profound experiences without an equally profound foundation of ground and stability is a dangerous game.
The Search for Ground
Seeking a safety valve, I swung to the other extreme: hard rationalism. I trained as a psychologist, mastering the logical blueprints of the mind. I thought if I could just understand the machine, I could fix it. And it was useful; it provided a detailed map of my cognitive distortions.
But it was like having a perfect schematic for a life I wasn't actually living. It described the cage beautifully but offered no real key to the door. It was missing a soul.
The Integration
The real shift started when I found Zen. It wasn't another belief system; it was the direct practice of seeing the cartographer. Zen introduced the direct experience of non-duality: the simple seeing that you are not your thoughts, but the silent, aware space in which they appear.
But a beautiful view from a mountaintop doesn't help you navigate the tangled forest below. For years, I still struggled. The recognition of this Aware space was there, but my human conditioning—addiction, anxiety, self-doubt—was deeply grooved. My nervous system was still running old, fearful programs. This is where my personal journey became the framework I now offer.