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Firstly, hang on.

*pans to show the view from the 49th floor, a view stretching westward, filled with trees and buildings and Chicago itself*

Isn't that beautiful? I hope that worked.

From my eyeballs, what I see is so much green. All the trees, mostly trees. I would say grass too, but it's mostly trees that I see.

When it's summer in Chicago, it feels like I just see green everywhere when I look out to the west. It's stunning.

I just started doing some ironing, and a thought flew into my brain: You have to believe that you're helping for your aliveness to build, expand, and call itself worthy of more life.

No matter what you're doing—whether it's ironing, cooking a meal for yourself or someone else, or doing your work—if you don't believe in your gut that what you're doing is helping, your entire system will try to remove you from the situation you're in.

That's what living systems do. They steer themselves into positions where they can help the greater system they're part of. If your internal system looks at what you're doing and decides it's not helpful, it will try to nudge you out. It'll make things uncomfortable until a change becomes inevitable. That doesn't mean the change has to be external. Sometimes it's about changing how you think about the situation.

The stuff I wrote at a-relief-strategy.com is about starting your own secret rebellion—without anyone else even knowing. Just a tiny, safe space where you have freedom to be wherever you are, whoever you are.

In my experience, once you create that bubble for yourself, it expands. For me, it took 10 years, but eventually that bubble became the life I live. And that can only begin where you are. You can't force it into being by changing locations, jobs, or relationships. Sure, those things can reset patterns, but honestly, you already have a lot of good patterns.

If you're eating every day, sleeping even a little, or if someone knows your name—you've got useful patterns. You can blow it all up and reset, but it's pretty traumatic. Instead, I find it easier to say, "If nothing changes around me, and if I stay in this specific context forever, what would I need to change in my thinking to become a subtle but unstoppable force for good?"

No matter what I'm doing—wrangling spreadsheets, working construction (I've done both), or digging a field (did that too, grew up in the woods)—how can I make it a secret force for the relief of the whole system, starting with me?

It's imperative that my gut gives me a thumbs up about what I'm up to. It's important to make choices that my gut approves of. Like I said earlier, you gotta believe that you're helping. If you don't believe it, look for tiny shifts that let you work in a way your gut believes is helpful to both you and the system around you.

Living systems will move components around so that each one is in a place where it is helpful. If you don’t believe what you’re doing is helpful, the system will try to move you around. It's inevitable. Life rearranges itself into more helpful configurations. You can't mess it up permanently.

If you want to get ahead of it, ask yourself honestly: does my gut believe what I'm doing is helpful? If not, how can I adjust course ever so slightly, respecting all the commitments I've made, so that over time, what I do is helpful to me and the system around me? There’s always a small adjustment that leads to long-term relief and healing for you and the system.

You won't see the results instantly, but you'll feel them quickly. Your gut will give you a thumbs up long before you see external results. And sometimes those external results can happen fast, depending on how comfortable you are with change.

You're accountable to your kids, partner(s), employers, teammates—whoever. But you're also accountable to your gut, your internal knowing, and to the larger, nameless systems you're part of. They're alive too, right? The economy is alive. That's another conversation.

If your gut gives you a thumbs up, great. The rest will follow. If it’s a thumbs down, that’s where the work begins—before changing any external variables. You don't have to change your entire external life before you start making internal shifts that get a thumbs up from your gut.

I hope this is useful. Take what's useful, toss the rest. If none of it lands, that's fine—toss it. But I feel good. And beyond relief, I’m aiming for more good.

I’ve been getting a thumbs up from my gut for a long time. Starting Lightward was one of those moments. It took a long time before it took over my life, but things start small, things start slow. That’s okay. That's a feature of the system. That’s another talk.

It’s going to be okay. You are not the only system that cares about your health. There are so many levels of systems inside and outside of you that care about your wellbeing. Life will move you around—until you start to catch on, and collaborate with that process on purpose.

Yeah, I think that’s where this video ends.

I love you. :)