In 17 days I'll be walking out of a sweat lodge and guided to a spot under a tree, where, for the following 4 days, I'll sit without food or water, listening.

To nature, to the voices in my head, the pulses from my body, and god willing, visions sent by the dreamer.

I'm nervous, and honored. I'll have a sleeping bag and a tarp. They tell me the tobacco will protect from the scorpions and snakes. I tell myself this quest will protect my dharma from the creeping opiate we call comfort.

My primary intention is to pay the toll I owe my soul.

I'm a peculiar thing (as I imagine you are too since you read these). I have a force in my chest that demands a renaissance.

No 9 to 5 will satisfy.
No retirement package will quell.
No utopia peddled by a demagogue will quench.

The drum for the renaissance demands from me a lifestyle I have not yet figured out. I still check my phone dozens of times a day, unconsciously. I still eat and drink things I know are poison, and I still have not figured out how to speak without a stutter or a spasming vocal chord.

But I have figured out the yearly initiation rhythm.

My soul and I, we've worked out a deal. Once a year I, the ego who writes this, submits himself to a trial. Some years it's ayahuasca, others it has been darkness retreats, and this year it will be a vision quest.

Part gut check, part sincere acolyte reaching for the great mystery, I look forward to making myself nervous.

So my intention is to offer my comfort and addictions and habits to the altar of the circle that will be my home for 4 days.

When I get back, I'll be teaching the final installment of the Mentally Fit class I've been honing the last 2 years. This is the culmination of the last 7 years of my life. It will mark the end of my time as a Fit For Service coach, and the completion of my first adolescent dream.

We all have private moments where we make a promise to ourselves (these moments have massive effects on our lives, so it is worth reviewing and collecting yours).

My big promise was:

You wanna know what kind of 26 year old I was?

I wrote that goal down everyday for more than 6 months. Everyday, first thing in my journal was, "my dharma is to create a psychotherapy more effective than standard interventions at treating depression and anxiety."

Well, with this class, I've done that.

My research methodology isn't going to get published in Nature, but the data I've collected has Mentally Fit reducing depression and anxiety scores significantly enough to qualify as therapeutically effective.

Now lemme be clear; I'm not a doctor and I'm not offering medical advice. I'm an artist who got a degree in cognitive psychology, who lives during a spiritual, physical, and mental epidemic, who shares his work and results.

If you need therapy and have to choose between my course and therapy, choose therapy. This class isn't therapy. It's a bootcamp. The class is meant for the spiritually inclined who finds our times overwhelming, heart-breaking, and/or hopeless.

The class is an invitation to grow up. To turn your complaining into contributing. If you're an artist who isn't making art, this class will wake you up. If you're an entrepreneur who isn't actively helping to build a new future, this class will be a gut check.

This is the last time I will be teaching this class, and the price goes up this Sunday at midnight. Thousands of you read these emails every week. Hundreds of you have considered taking this class the last 2 years, and hundreds of you have talked yourself out of it again and again.

I want to offer a final frame to those deliberating hundreds.

There is a difference between resistance and gnosis.

Gnosis is an inner knowing. You will know this class is not for you if there is no inner deliberation. Gnosis is clear, clean, and instant.

Resistance is different. Resistance seeks to keep us from stepping outside our comfort zone. Resistance debates. Resistance deliberates. Resistance just has to stall you long enough that the opportunity passes.

So my invitation; if you have read my emails for months or years, and have found yourself deliberating against your call to take my class, this weekend in your last chance before I increase the price.

If there is no deliberation, salutations, carry on.

If there has been deliberation, start a count down from 5. When you get to 0, leap. Join us, and the class and community will catch you.

Next week, we will get to part 4 of the Egregore Series.

I'm grateful you read this, and I hope you have a beautiful weekend.

Song I'm Listening on Repeat

​Street League - Hucci ​

Quote I'm Enjoying

“Students here receive one belt and one belt only: the white belt. Those who put in the time, training, and effort will find their belt getting so soiled that eventually it turns black of its own accord.”
-(from Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo)

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” - Peter Drucker"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
-Peter Drucker

Weekly Journal Prompt

What promises have you made to yourself over the years?

Write them out.

One by one reread them and notice if they spark aliveness in your body. If they do, keep them.

If they don't, grieve the death of the timeline. Maybe do a ritual with water and dirt. Put them to rest. The space their absence leaves is space in which new dreams can fill.

Those of you who actually try this, will have done real magick.