Six Heretical Truths I Wish I'd Learned Earlier in Life
Or, the Joy and Discomfort of Questioning Inherited Wisdom
The other day I happened upon this quote attributed to Cheri Thomas that really struck a chord:
"You’re not healing to handle the trauma; you’re healing to handle the joy.”
It got me reflecting on the frameworks that shifted my understanding of how the world actually works. These aren't comfortable realizations — they're tough truths that force me to question my most basic assumptions. When we grasp the patterns beneath them, they become powerful tools for navigating both our external world and inner landscape.
1. The Inheritance Illusion: Our Beliefs Aren't Really Ours
Most of what we hold as personal truth is actually borrowed conviction. Our strongest principles often aren't derived from firsthand experience. They're absorbed from our information ecosystem, cultural waves, and tribal affiliations. The term I coined for this years back is “slipstream attuning” — where we habitually and often unconsciously entrain to the gravitational pull of external governing principles.
This extends beyond politics or religion. It shapes how we think about success, relationships, even nutrition. We adopt these perspectives wholesale. Then we defend them as if we discovered them ourselves.
The neurological efficiency of outsourcing belief systems helps us navigate complexity. But it creates the illusion of independent thought.
The most powerful question isn't "Is this true?" but "How did this belief arrive in my mind?"
We don't have beliefs. Our beliefs have us.
2. The Embodiment Reality: Your Energy System Isn't What You Think
I first learned about chakras and energy as a college kid in the late '90s. I had given up my flamingo pink long grunge hair for prayer beads and meditation. What I've discovered after two decades of somatic work is that our energy centers aren't mystical floating wheels of color. They're sophisticated neuroendocrine junctions — physical, responsive, fascia-embedded communication hubs.
Visualization alone doesn't move energy. What creates energetic shift is the interplay between fascial hydration, nervous system regulation, and the subtle body's capacity for expansion. This isn't spiritual woo. It's where ancient wisdom and modern neurobiology converge.
My most profound shifts came when I stopped treating my body as a metaphor and started engaging with it as an intelligent system that speaks in sensation.
Energy follows attention, but transforms through tissue.
3. The True Cost Equation: Life Currency and the Exchange Rate
I think about Thoreau's wisdom daily. Just kidding: but that hippie kid in me sure drank the Walden kool-aid, and he’s a part of me. One kernel of Thoreau’s wisdom that serves as beacon is about the true cost of a thing.
The actual price of anything isn't measured in dollars. It's calculated in life force. Every choice represents the exchange of a non-renewable resource: your time, attention, and vitality.
That promotion costs presence with your children. That larger house costs mobility and freedom. That social media scroll costs deep thinking. That avoidance of discomfort costs growth and connection.
When I remember to measure decisions against this life currency metric, my priorities undergo a seismic shift. The calculation becomes shockingly clear. Is this worth trading away irreplaceable hours of my finite existence?
Everything costs exactly your life.
4. The Discomfort Threshold: Consciousness Expansion Through Difficult Conversations
More on the “discomfort” note mentioned above. The most reliable gauge of personal evolution isn't knowledge accumulated. It's willingness to enter conversations that make you squirm. Our consciousness expands in direct proportion to our ability to stay present when everything in us wants to defend or deflect.
These conversations happen externally with others. The most important ones happen internally with ourselves. The parts we've kept in shadow. The emotions we've deemed unacceptable. The questions that threaten our identity.
My greatest breakthroughs come when I realize avoiding difficult conversations isn’t protecting relationships. It’s stunting them. And avoiding difficult internal dialogues isn’t preserving my self-image. It’s cementing my limitations.
Your growth is measured in uncomfortable conversations.
5. The Exaptation Principle: Evolution's Sideways Genius
Exaptation. It’s essentially extraordinary adaptation.
The most fascinating aspect of natural selection isn't how traits develop for specific purposes. It's how nature repurposes existing structures for entirely new functions. Feathers didn't evolve for flight. They emerged as insulation, later becoming the architecture of aviation.
This extends beyond biology into innovation and personal development. Our breakthroughs rarely come from direct, linear progress. They emerge when existing capacities combine in unexpected ways.
I've watched this repeatedly in my entrepreneurial journey. The meditation practice meant for “self-care” becomes the foundation for leadership presence. Writing skills honed for academic work became the cornerstone of business communication. Even a struggle with perfectionism transforms into a superpower for quality control when channeled productively. Nothing wasted; everything repurposed.
And I lean on this in my Integral coaching practice with every client. We go “integral” because the best solution for a challenge is likely hidden in another domain of our existence. The secret sauce is coding it for the broader purpose.
Your next breakthrough is hiding in what you already possess.
6. The Emotional Constriction: Men's Anger as the Only Acceptable Release Valve
We've created a culture where masculine emotional expression has been narrowed to a pinhole. Beneath most male anger lies a complex emotional ecosystem — grief, fear, shame, longing, tenderness. All denied legitimate expression channels. Anger becomes the only socially sanctioned release valve.
I see this playing out everywhere. In boardrooms. In family dynamics. In political discourse. It's not that men are inherently angry. We've constructed a masculinity framework where authentic emotional range collapses into a single acceptable output.
My most transformative work — as a parent, as a human — began when I recognized that reflexive anger wasn't the emotion. It was the messenger for emotions I hadn't learned to name or express. Expanding my emotional vocabulary has changed every relationship in my life. Especially the one with myself.
Men aren't angry. We're emotionally compressed.
These heretical truths aren't just intellectual curiosities. They're functional frameworks that fundamentally alter how I navigate both my internal landscape and external world. They apply everywhere. From leadership decisions to intimate relationships. From creative breakthroughs to personal healing.
In a culture obsessed with optimization and certainty, these principles invite us into the discomfort of questioning inherited wisdom. And it's precisely in that questioning where both growth and authentic joy become possible.