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You know, sometimes when we are, you know, practicing our awareness and we're looking deeper into ourselves, something that we should do often. It's a beautiful journey, you know, to be explorers of ourselves. That's what we are over here. In hindsight, it's a beautiful experience. We are all explorers of ourselves. You know, we like to learn, we like to transform, but we also like to be still. We like to enjoy. We don't just climb mountains. We climb mountains, and then we enjoy the view too. You understand? We are lovers alive. I remember one time I was documenting someone else's story. That's what I used to do. I used to document stories, tell stories, and visualize, you know, people's visions and their missions. And I was really good at it. You know, I was behind the camera, I wasn't on the microphone until I realized one day I also have a story to tell. The one I am living myself inside and out. I realize, oh, you know, we are the writers, we are the directors, we are the editors, the producer, the main character as well. The greatest story you will ever know is the one you are experiencing yourself, my friend, your story, it is everything, and it deserves to be lived in full experience and told. But on that day, I was just a supporting character, right? I was telling a story and playing a background role. Nothing wrong with being in someone else's frame. That's cool. Can't be the main character every single day. It's okay. But I remember he said to me, people don't just fear failure, they actually fear success a lot more. And my first reaction was, that's kind of silly. Why would we fear the things that are good for us? Success. It's good for us. Love, good for us, you know, change, good for us. Why would we fear the things that are good for us? That's kind of an odd fear, isn't it? But then I went deeper into it, into my own story and my own mind, and I realized a pattern of my own life. It's not always the climb that scared me. Actually, I enjoy the climb. It's the fall after. It's not the getting there. It's the pressure of staying there. I remember the day my YouTube channel blew up. And I say blew up because it felt like it happened overnight. I had like a few thousand subscribers after, like a few years. And then one night, boom. A hundred thousand people flocked in. 2000 tuned in. By the end of the month, I had 200, 000 new subscribers. And I think I made like $40,000 that month. Just from the views, it was. I was like, whoa. I didn't even know that was possible. But do you know what my first thought was? I hope I don't mess this up. That was it. I didn't celebrate first. You know, I don't even think I had deep gratitude first. Not even a deep breath. Just, I hope I don't mess this up because I've. I've been there before. I've climbed mountains, reached the top or what I thought to be the top, only to slide back down again, climbed again, fell again, climbed again, and then fell again. And when that happens enough times, you start to expect the fall in the worst ways. This can happen in many different domains in our life. It happens in relationships as well. You are so optimistic and, you know, you're so excited about love. But, you know, through failed relationship and failed relationship and meeting some people who are just wicked sometimes you expect a fall. You're not really worried about meeting people you're actually more worried about. Can it sustain? Will it work out? Will I be treated right? Can I trust them? And then it's like we lose the joy of what we have right in the moment. Because we know what goes up must come down. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. But that is just the law of rhythm. But, you know, I wasn't honoring that law. I was actually afraid of it because I wasn't fully enjoying the season that I was in. I was already thinking about how it might end. What an odd fear. You know, like I was in the future running simulations of failure, mentally preparing for the loss before I had fully accepted what I have just gained. And not because we didn't want it. Why? Because we didn't believe that it would last. What an odd fear. Isn't it weird that we fear the things that are good for us? Fear, love, fear success, fear change. Sometimes it's not a fear of failure, it's not a fear of danger, but the real fear of having something real and then losing it. Many of us are moving through life shaped by odd fears. We don't even notice. If we become successful, we will have to be more. Yeah, that's great. Why would we fear that? Again, many of us are moving through life shaped by odd fears. We don't even notice. And then they become the systems that we operate through, the walls and the limitations we lean onto. Again, you might avoid real love, real love and instead entertain someone you know you're not afraid to lose. Right? Some of us, we do that because I feel safer. Because if it ends at least it won't hurt as much. You have much less to lose. So you settle for what's manageable, predictable, emotionally convenient. Because you know, if you go all in, the truth is, if you really invest, if you really care, you also open the door up to loss, to being vulnerable. And that possibility, that is frightening, isn't it? But it's okay. It's okay. Some seasons we don't need to go deep, right? We don't. Sometimes we can chill on the shallow end, some seasons will be, we will be on standby or even on the defense. But remember, sometimes what once protect you can start to limit you. Sometimes we build armors, we harden our heart for good reasons, right? It's necessary to protect ourselves. But that same protection can start to limit ourselves. Everything has a time and a season. You know, in Japan I learned that they have like a deeply rooted work culture. You know, like long hours, same job, same company from like your youth until like retirement. Like, you know, it was back in the day, it was very known, like you stay at one job forever. To leave was seen as disgraceful. Like they would shame you, disloyal, you know, they would see it as weakness. But the younger generation found a workaround, right? They watched their parents go through that. So instead of committing themselves to one job, they got part time jobs, multiple of them, right? For the flexibility, for the freedom. Because if they never fully commit to that one company, they never have to carry the shame of leaving. So they don't get too attached, they don't feel too trapped. Smart. And that's something we emotionally do too, right? We emotionally do that. We spread ourselves thin, we stay half in, half available, half believing we have a dream. And we dip our toes in while still heavily investing into plan B and C. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case. But what do you care about? What do you truly want? And what would it look like to go all in? What don't you want? And maybe you should not be fully committing and do what the youth in Japan did. This is why we had to observe ourselves and explore and you know, develop the awareness of what is truly best for us. Are we operating from power and love or are we operating from fear and odd fear? Because the truth is, if we never go all in on anything, well, then I guess we never have to face the grief, right? The grief of what happens if it doesn't work out. But what happens if we keep living like that? I think sometimes in life we will be called to fully commit mind, body and spirit. It might Be a cause, a passion, a partner, a family, or even your healing. And the closer you get to anything that is real, the more afraid you'll be to lose it. That's just. That's natural. That's just being human. But like true, true, genuine love for something or someone, a true connection with something or someone is never meant to be possessed over. It's about the presence. It's about the experience. A love is never lost. The love was simply had it, lived it, breathed it, moved through you. Some of us had passions, like deep passions, and we fell out of love with it. The other day someone asked me on live stream. You know, I. I do live streams on YouTube and they're like longer formats of like these podcasts. So if you ever want to check them out, go to YouTube and, you know, just hit that notification bell or I'm gonna start putting them out in their full entirety soon as well on my YouTube channel. But the other day someone asked me on stream and they said that their boyfriend was moving to Taiwan, I believe for like six months, six to 10 months. And they're like, how do I cope with that? And I just asked them to flip it, flip the script. Put yourself in the same position, same dream. Or you're like a dream you would love, an opportunity, a life, calling, a once in a lifetime moment. How would you want the people you love to respond? Would you want them to guilt you, grip you, hold on to you tight, maybe even clip your wings so you cannot fly? Or what? You want them to support your becoming, to trust your process and love you even from afar, unconditionally? Because that's what love is. It's not a cage, it's not a contract, but it's a current. It moves, right? It shifts, it evolves. Something we give, it's something we receive. Not something we store in a jar labeled and dated, you know, put away on a shelf to be owned forever. Love asks for presence and experience, not possession. And when we confuse the two, we start holding people or things hostage to our fear of loss. And it's an odd fear, something we all experience, but it's still odd. But maybe that's the part we really need to look at. That fear that keeps us from experiencing the beauty of things in real time. The thing we are afraid to lose is already lost through our lack of presence. If you're afraid to lose someone and you're constantly thinking about it, you already lost them. Because your mind is not home. Your heart is not home. It's better to be present, to have gratitude and hope and belief. This is why I campaign for turning our focus inwards. Not because our external reality doesn't matter, but because it's never really about the outcome. It's not success that we're truly chasing. It's who we get to become on the way. We. We say we want the thing, the numbers, the stage, the love, the breakthrough, the house. But what we're really after is the feeling, the growth, the meaning, the connection, the journey, the exploration. Because I've experienced it myself. Even if success fades or changes, or even if it ends before we imagined it to, it was never about what was lost. It is always about what was experienced, what was felt, what was crafted within us. Because as the tide goes out and we fall back down, or as the momentum slows, we're actually given another kind of gift. We get to meet ourselves again. Every mountain that I climbed, like, and then I fell right back down, it happened often. I'm always handed a mirror and a telescope. A mirror to see myself in that moment, A telescope to look deeper within myself. And I always fall in love deeper with who I see and what I find, what I discover. And I guess that's the beauty and the opportunity. We often think it's at the top of the mountain, the opportunity, but it's all. It's also in the valley, the Valley of despair. Because as we journey through it, we learn to choose grace. We learn to choose gratitude. We learn to choose forgiveness. We craft resilience. We see ourselves for who we are, not just for the things, things that we do. We love to experience, to give and to receive, not just to get. We give. We're not grasping. And that is the true success. The whole journey is a gift in itself. It's never about the thing. Not the title, not the status, not the image. It's about how deeply you live, how honestly you move through it all, how gently you held yourself in that rise and how gracefully you carried yourself back in that return. It's about what you build on the inside. That no loss that nobody can take from you. Because your true credentials are in your spirit. The world where the real work is within. And the real reward is you. Do you realize that? The real reward in life is you discovering who you really are. And sometimes we'll have an odd fear or two. And those are opportunities. So cheers to the odd fears. They may have gotten in our way, even slowed us down, maybe even stopped us in our tracks at times. But what do we do? We giggle at our mistakes. We laugh at them. And then we learn through our lows and then we celebrate our wins Right when we're high up we are humble when we're low down we are hopeful so let's go deeper Deeper into life Deeper into ourselves Deeper into the opportunity we have to experience right now don't grasp, give don't possess, be present Love is never lost it was had it was experienced don't dread the season shifting don't shrink just because the applause does don't sit in the shallow end too long because you question if you still know how to swim Sometimes we gotta dive deep Sometimes we got to open our heart back up Sometimes we gotta fall in love with life all over again Sometimes we lose ourselves just to discover who we really are and then we realize we're not falling off, we are falling in. And what you find in there is actually something that lasts forever and you done know in hindsight everything is going to be more than all right.