Hey friend,

For years I treated my inner life like a renovation project. There was the then current me - anxious, scattered, not quite there yet and then there was the “future” me, the one who'd done enough “inner work”, productivity and morning routines to finally become whole. My job was to close the gap. Build the bridge. Arrive.

I read the books. Did the retreats. Stacked practices on top of practices like I was trying to reach something on a high shelf (my higher self maybe?). And every time I'd glimpse a moment of peace, I'd immediately start optimizing it. How do I get more of this? How do I make it stay?

That question, I eventually realized, was the problem. Not the answer to it, the question itself.

The Assumption Nobody Questions

Most personal development is built on a single premise: you are incomplete, but if you do this right, you'll eventually become whole. It sounds noble. Aspirational. But hidden inside it is a quiet lie - that peace, fulfillment, “enlightenment” is something you attain. That presence is a destination you arrive at after enough effort.

So you meditate harder. Affirm louder. Chase peak states and sign up for another certification. Meanwhile, the thing you're looking for is the thing doing the looking. You're searching for your glasses while wearing them.

The Filter Problem

There's a neurological dimension to this that's worth understanding. Your brain runs on predictive coding. In other words, it filters incoming information based on what it already believes to be true. If your operating belief is "I'm not there yet," then any perception of peace, presence, or wholeness gets quietly dismissed as unfamiliar. Untrustworthy. Not the real thing.

Your nervous system literally edits out the freedom that's already here because it doesn't match the model. This isn't a metaphor. It's how the prediction machine works. You're not failing to find fulfillement, you're filtering it out because it doesn't fit the story of someone still searching.

The Ladder That Goes Nowhere

Personal development loves vertical metaphors. Level up. Upgrade your mindset. Vibrate higher. Climb the pyramid. The whole framework assumes that growth means ascending: becoming more, adding more, reaching some elevated state where you finally get to rest.

But what if the direction is wrong? What if the point isn't to climb but to sink into what's already present? The problem isn't that happieness is missing. It's that identity is too loud to notice it. You're not lacking something, you're adding too much.

What's Actually Happening

In the traditions that take this seriously, awareness isn't something you develop. It's the ever-present backdrop behind every experience. It doesn't come and go. Only your attention does.

So the shift isn't about becoming more aware. It's about noticing you already are. Right now, before you finish this sentence, before any thought arises, is awareness here? That pause you just felt, that momentary gap before the mind rushed back in? That's not the absence of awareness. It's its purest form.

This isn't something you need to manufacture. You just need to stop overlooking it.

The Practice of Subtraction

The practical work here isn't about adding another technique to your stack. It's about naming what you're already chasing: the "better me" you're subconsciously striving toward and bringing it into the light where you can actually see it. Once you see the chase, you can drop the frame.

Ask yourself: what if nothing is missing right now? Sit in the discomfort of not striving. Watch what arises when you stop reaching. The mind will protest, it's used to having a project. Let it protest. You don't have to follow it.

Then shift your attention from thought to presence. Not to a particular thought, not to an emotion, but to whatever is noticing the thoughts. Stay there. No mantras. No achievements. No badges. Just being, without the performance of being.

The Reversal

You don't grow into awareness. You shrink out of noise. You don't discover a new self, you remember what was always undisturbed beneath the accumulation.

There is no final version of you waiting at the end of the process. There's just the gradual shedding of everything you're not. And what remains when that shedding is complete isn't a reward for spiritual performance. It's the recognition that nothing needed to be earned in the first place.

Your awareness didn't just arrive. You just stopped mistaking yourself for the static in front of it.

-Nic

PS. Want to be clear about who you really are? Join the Neuroscience of Change - an online program rewiring what’s really running you. Name your own price (Pay What You Can) to get your hands on this powerful program.

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