The Shedding Continues
A clear no is not something to work through. It is information.
This applies to systems, timing, access, and your own capacity, because at its core, it is about taking action in response to what is real.
“Act as if” is about how you show up, not about how reality is required to respond.
In personal relationships, a clear no is already reality speaking. Sometimes it is stated directly. Sometimes it is demonstrated. Sometimes a harmful dynamic makes the answer clear without words. Fixation on what is unavailable is not a manifestation process; it is fantasy disguised as hope. Thought without reciprocal action does not move life forward, it traps the nervous system inside a closed loop. This is how people spiral around what is already obvious.
Over time, the body bonds with absence rather than connection, it bonds with what cannot meet it. Through attachment, the nervous system is trained for non-reciprocity. In the age of Instagram Stories, this pattern is increasingly normalized.
Presence means responding to reality and moving forward from it.
“Sweet, Sweet Fantasy, Baby”
While doodling my unicorn again, I found myself thinking about fantasy. Not as magic, a pause button. Comfortable. And, at times, dangerous.
Fantasy isn’t always harmless. It becomes a problem when it replaces action. Fantasy gives the mind what reality hasn’t yet delivered: clarity, certainty, perfect outcomes. It lets desire exist without risk. Wanting without moving. Imagining without building.
The longer someone stays inside fantasy, the easier it becomes to delay real decisions. Action introduces effort, failure, and uncertainty. Fantasy protects us from all three. This is why fantasy fades the moment a person starts to act. Not because the dream collapses, but because growth no longer needs it.
Fantasy is useful when life feels unreachable. But presence begins when the dream stops standing in for the work.
On Distance
I attended a sound bath at a yoga studio in Makati just before Christmas. It was my first time, interestingly, not on an island, not in Bali, not anywhere ocean-facing. You’d think that’s where it would have happened first. But when I’m near the sea, the ocean already does the work. It asks for nothing extra.
Back then, my relationship with movement, and with stillness, was different. Slower. Less negotiated.
So it made sense that I encountered a sound bath here instead, in the city. In the middle of a fast-paced environment. As part of my recalibration back into metropolitan life, where quiet has to be chosen deliberately.
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