What If Your Transformation Isn’t About Becoming?

I was gifted a rare opportunity—something most of us don’t get the chance to do:

Take a break from the world.

Over the course of six months, a group of us—many who had never met before—gathered on Zoom to explore a topic I’d never given as much attention to as I thought. A concept I, like many men, rarely name. And if we do, we tend to associate it with something extreme and label it as feminism or women’s liberation, or politically charged ideology.

We tell ourselves it doesn’t apply to us.

But I’ve come to understand that it does, and always has. In fact we're a primary element of this system. Patriarchy isn’t some abstract social idea—it’s one of the most pervasive systems shaping our lives. A disease that quietly and consistently conditions how we show up in the world.

For the first time, I could see how it’s not just women who suffer under its weight.

It’s all of us.

It’s been oppressing and molding us—from the inside out—for as long as we’ve been alive. But it's so subtle, we don't realize it's there.

This journey was part of a container called Querencia Libertad—a place to explore what liberation and belonging really mean. And before we could define what freedom looked like, we had to first understand the systems we were trying to get free from.

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed how the dominant systems—government, religion, even the family unit—tend to prioritize control and performance over the nurturing of the human being.

As a creative professional, I’ve experienced firsthand how these forces stifle originality and disconnect us from who we truly are.

And I’ve rarely spoken up about it.

Growing up, questioning the status quo was seen as rebellious or inappropriate—so I learned to keep my doubts to myself, or within a very tight circle of trust. And even those circles were a bit of a gamble. But the older I’ve gotten, the more clearly I see how deep the roots of this system run, and how much harm it causes. It’s everywhere.

For some, its impact shows up as limitation. For others, as violence and trauma.

As I reflect on who I am, where I live, and the privilege I carry, I see this one simple truth:

The system doesn’t work.

And none of us are immune to its control. It just shows up differently depending on who you are. We’re all on a journey—trying to become the people we aspire to be. But to get there, we have to reclaim our sovereignty.

Our time. Our energy. Our focus.

We have to reconnect with what really matters. But none of that’s possible unless we learn to be honest.

With ourselves and with each other. We have to be willing to go deeper than the masks we wear.

To feel fully. Mourn deeply. Rejoice wildly.

And experience the delight that’s already all around us.

Reflecting on my Role within Systemic Control Structures

I arrived at the retreat carrying quiet skepticism—creating expectations of yet another over-hyped, commercialized version of radical transformation, like the ones so often sold by healers and gurus promising fundamental change.

What I got instead was something entirely different: communal, emotionally intense, and transformative—but in ways I never saw coming.

I was faced with managing those expectations and the inner resistance that subtly reinforced a sense of "not doing it right".

Before we were to commune in Bolinas, each of us was encouraged to do something just for us. To take a break from the Patriarchy. I couldn't do what I wanted to, and even though I did what I could to honor that intention, a part of me felt like I was missing out because It wasn't the solitary creative sabbatical I envisioned in my mind.

I wrestled with my inner critic (one of my 4 characters who I named Grimwald), from the start. His voice was on repeat in my head...

"You're not doing it the way you're supposed to. It's not going to work."

This whole experience was bringing so many unconscious tensions to the surface, and I had no where to go and no where to be.

Which forced me to examine these systems that I hadn't had the time to question before. As a middle-aged, straight white man, it was my first time seriously reflecting on my role within systemic control structures and really hearing just how interwoven it is in everyone's journey. The book readings and conversations moved from a gendered critique and polarizing opinion that pits all of us against each other, into something more human, ancestral and deeply personal.

The experience was like swimming in calm, but unfamiliar waters that felt like they would turn violent at any moment. The story was that I did not feel ready. I did not feel worthy and I did not feel welcomed.

But from a different vantage point, I was all of those things. And what I was feeling? That was MY trauma rising to the surface, the little boy from my past asking to be seen.

Pulling on the Thread of Worthiness

Let me fast forward to a week after I got back from California.

I was having a conversation with a good friend about the retreat, and this familiar thread came up again—worthiness, identity, expression.

This isn’t new territory for me.

Hiding out has long been my survival mechanism, especially when things feel like they’re slipping out of my control or not going the way I imagined. As someone who chose the path of a professional creative, I’ve wrestled with my relationship to value. The work I do is often dismissed, seen as frivolous, unserious, something more appropriate for a child or a hobbyist.

Not “real” work.

Not something worthy of a full-time pursuit.

The story goes: It’s been proven, again and again; that I don’t have what it takes to be successful.

And that’s when the spiral starts.

That’s when I begin to believe that what I have to say, what I bring into the world, holds no real value for myself or for others.

And that I am not enough to keep going.

Because if it was truly valuable—if it mattered—

Wouldn’t it have worked by now?

Wouldn’t it have paid off in some recognizable way?

That voice isn’t truth.

It’s trauma.

It’s patriarchy.

It’s the system’s dogma; quietly shaping my behavior, my identity, my worth; without my awareness or consent for my entire life.

This is Grimwald, my inner critic, echoing the voice of patriarchy, capitalism, and all the systems that equate value with output, worth with wealth and belonging with conformity.

It reawakens old hiding strategies:

Stay quiet.

Question your instincts.

Don’t share that idea.

Accept that you don’t belong.

Convince yourself you’re not like everyone else and never will be.

But that little boy in me still wants to be part of something. He’s still aching to be welcomed in and he's terrified to say yes to the invitation. Because deep down, he doesn’t trust it’ll last. And he can’t bear to be left out again.

A Simple Truth

If someone who really knows me had been in Bolinas, they would’ve picked up on something strange:

I wasn’t acting like myself.

I’m not someone who hides out. I’m usually the first to speak, to engage, to spark something in the room. But at the retreat, I found myself swinging wildly—between chasing some idealized version of “transformational breakthrough,” and judging myself harshly for not doing it right.

It was disorienting.

Then, a conversation with Efrain and Wendy; one of the facilitators and a fellow participant—helped ground me in a simple truth:

The only expectation was to take a break from expectations.

To stop performing.

To stop striving.

To stop carrying the burden of becoming something more.

The invitation was simply to be.

To be free.

To be connected.

And somehow, that was harder—and more radical—than anything else I’d come looking for.

Two Paths Lay in Front of You

We often find ourselves standing at quiet turning points. This was one of them. A moment of disarmament. A reckoning with the tension between how I usually show up—outspoken, engaged, ready to lead and how I arrived at the retreat—quiet, withdrawn, swinging between grandiosity and self-doubt.

The retreat wasn’t about becoming someone new. It was about letting go of the need to become anything at all. What’s unfolding for me is less like a lightning bolt and more like glacial movement. Slow, steady, relentless. When I look back over the last 25 years, and honestly, my whole life—I can see the shift.

From chasing external validation to trusting internal alignment.

We’re sold the illusion that transformation happens in dramatic, cinematic moments.

But in reality, it’s a marathon.

A long, often unseen commitment to staying with yourself.

Again and again.

This reveals something uncomfortable:

The story we’ve all adopted, that we have time, is a lie.

You don’t have time. Not the kind you think.

So the question becomes:

Will you take an honest look at where your time goes?

And ask:

Is it honored by others?

But more importantly, is it honored by you?

Work. Our jobs, careers, professions, is where patriarchy hides in plain sight.

And it’s not accidental. It’s by design.

At the retreat, we all agreed:

It felt almost impossible to take a break.

There was no room for anything outside our responsibilities.

If I didn’t deliberately design space for myself, it simply wouldn’t have happened. And even then, I barely spoke about it. It felt… off-limits. Like I was crossing some unspoken line. The moment the word patriarchy or liberation entered the conversation, people’s defenses went up and their own inner critics were at high alert.

Ideas, opinions, and preconceptions hardened around them like armor. It became nearly impossible to pierce through to the truth. And I didn't believe it was my place or that I even could.

This isn’t fringe. This isn’t political correctness.

We are all living under it.

Each of us; men, women, everyone; are subjects and slaves to a system we didn’t ask for but continue to uphold.

A Creative Liberation

As part of my liberation from the patriarchy, I wrote. (I know—surprise, surprise.)

I can't tell you how many times Grimwald tried to convince me not to share it with the group.

Convenient distractions and inner resistance, all of it gave me plenty of reasons to hold back until the very last day. But a few people gently reminded me they hadn’t forgotten. They were waiting. They wanted to hear it.

And though the little boy in me was scared and a little skeptical myself; Even though I’ve performed in front of hundreds before, this time felt different.

More vulnerable.

More at stake.

What I shared was less of a poem, more of a manifesto.

A sacred war cry for the creator who refuses to quit. Even when they're battle-worn and doubting. It was a confession and a declaration. An anthem about what it means to stay in your arena and keep fighting. It spoke to the tension between obsession and misunderstanding.

It exposed the brutality of creative doubt and the unshakable call to make, even in the face of indifference. It warned against the trap of chasing commercial success at the cost of personal truth.

And called for the necessity of returning, again and again, to your own voice. I’m so grateful I read it.

It gave me closure to the retreat. It revealed me—fully—to everyone there.

And now, it stands as a cornerstone in my creative philosophy.

That life is about contrast. About exploring the unseen forces that shape us. Revealing the tension between doubt and clarity, thought and action, fear and possibility. It’s about doing the work we avoid. The deeper work of understanding who we are and what we’re here to create.

It’s about navigating the space between—That moment before the breakthrough. The pull that holds us back and the force that moves us forward. And honoring both our strength and our introspection as we stand—fully—for our own self-liberation.