Anima et Ignis

15/02/2026

What happens in a therapy session?

I read a post from one of the leading male influencers.
He said that only weak people go to therapy to cry about their childhood.

I thought; what a foolishly dangerous thing to say.

There was one part I half agreed with though;
therapy is wasted on people who want to remain innocent.

Some people go to therapy to get better.
Self development.

Others go to therapy to get better at what they already do; manipulation, control, self deception.

Therapy does not make you virtuous.
It makes you accurate.

It is not about crying or softness.
It is about facing what actually runs you; unconscious reactions, conditioned responses, habits mistaken for character.

For some, anger is not an emotion.
It is an identity.
Defence is not a response; it is a lifestyle.

Therapy threatens that structure.

Do people cry in therapy; sometimes.
Tears are released energy; a legitimate form of catharsis.

Reducing therapy to crying is like saying a car moves because the wheels spin.
Technically true. Entirely missing the point.

As for therapy itself.

Can you start therapy for one issue while avoiding a bigger one you know is there; yes, to a degree.

Therapy is not an all or nothing excavation.
Subjects overlap; depth is adjustable.

You can work on anxiety around an interview without dismantling your entire childhood.
You can improve sleep, focus, or confidence without opening every sealed box at once.

Avoidance, however, has a cost.

What matters is intention and guidance.

If I want to get somewhere, I choose someone who knows the terrain.
If not, someone I trust to read it accurately.

Different destinations require different guides.

A good therapist does not carry your weight.
They help you identify it; especially the parts you avoid out of fear, pride, or inconvenience.
They push you out of comfort; and keep you far enough from the edge so you do not fall.

Will therapy fix everything; no.
It is not a genie in a bottle.

What it does is sharpen your responses.
It clarifies what is in your control and what never was.

Many problems used to be solutions.
They simply outlived their usefulness.

Therapy is maintenance.
You do not wait for your car to break down before servicing it.

It updates the toolkit.
It does not erase the past or declare war on the self.

Will therapy remove toxic people from your life; not directly.

What changes first is your relationship to yourself; your self worth; your tolerance for what you allow near you.

From that comes space.
Not isolation; boundaries.

You may not control who is around you.
You do gain control over what has access to you.

That is where real change happens.

How do you know a session worked;

Sometimes relief comes quickly.
Sometimes nothing feels different at all.

The real shift happens later.
In how you respond.
In what no longer hooks you.
In the pause that appears where reaction used to live.

There is no timetable for this.
Just as there is no timetable for grief.

The pace does not matter.
The direction does.

11/02/2026

07/02/2026

Talking to Yourself?
You Might Be Highly Intelligent.

Did you know that talking to yourself is an actual sign of intelligence?
Yes; I was telling that to myself earlier. We both laughed.

Jokes aside, while self talk does not equal higher IQ, there is a very close correlation between self talk and higher intelligence.

Not because it sounds clever. It rarely does.

Self talk tends to appear when the mind slows itself down; when options are weighed, impulses paused, reactions delayed. It shows up when thinking chooses restraint over speed.

Children do this out loud when tasks get tricky. Adults still do it; they just keep it quieter and deny it publicly. Same mechanism. Better camouflage.

And there is another aspect people rarely mention. When you speak to yourself, you are not just thinking in words; you are also hearing them. That routes the information through auditory processing networks as well, engaging different parts of the brain. Same thought; more circuitry involved. Efficiency by redundancy. Or redundancy by intelligence. Choose your own adventure.

Interestingly, whispering works too.
Which is comforting.
Immensely comforting.

This is not rumination. It is regulation. Language used inwardly to organise behaviour, hold a direction, or stop the loudest thought from passing as the right one.

People who dismiss self talk often confuse speed with clarity. Or silence with depth. Or certainty with intelligence.

And you?
Do you talk to yourself; or do you avoid it knowing how stubborn you can be?

Life is better, connected
⸻

Selected research references

Vygotsky, L. S. (1934). Thought and Language.
Alderson-Day, B., and Fernyhough, C. (2015). Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology. Psychological Bulletin.
Alderson-Day, B., and Fernyhough, C. (2016). The psychology of inner speech. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Kim, J. et al. (2021). Self-talk and neural mechanisms of cognitive control. Frontiers in Psychology.
Hatzigeorgiadis, A. et al. (2011). Self-talk and sports performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

01/02/2026

We live in a time where everything is explained, advised, optimised, and sold.
And yet almost nothing is actually understood.

Everyone seems eager to change us.
To reframe us.
To offer the missing piece that stands between us and success.

One more book.
One more course.
One more insight and we’ll finally be fixed.

It’s solid marketing.
Like all good marketing, it knows where we’re vulnerable.
It speaks directly to our desire to be one step away from relief.

What it quietly forgets to mention is this;
the next step is rarely another technique.
The next step is almost always observation.

Pause.
Silence.
The space where something real can actually appear.

Ancient systems understood this well.
Before any transformation, there was confrontation with the self.
Hermetic initiations began with a mirror;
not to improve, but to see.
Light on one side. Shadow on the other.
Reviewed regularly. No shortcuts.

Today we skip that step.
We go straight to solutions.
And then we’re surprised when nothing changes.

You can buy the course.
You might even enjoy it.
But without space, without stillness, without honest self seeing,
it usually passes through without landing.

What does land is quieter.
Watching the gap between thoughts.
Sitting without an agenda.
Walking, moving, breathing with intention.
Noticing what is already here.

Gratitude helps.
Not as a slogan, but as orientation.
There is always something to be grateful for,
and nothing easier right now than forgetting that.

If you want more, that’s human.
Just make the more calmer.
Softer.
Closer to who you actually are.

The unglamorous truth is this;
what you’re looking for is not ahead of you.

It’s already here,
waiting for you to stop long enough to notice.

11/01/2026

New Year, Same You (Good.)

So, have you done it yet?
Started your new routine? Written your list?
Thrown out the wine, bought the yoga mat, said something vague about “alignment” on social media?

No judgment.
It’s a tradition by now.
The yearly self-upgrade. Version 2.0. A better you, with cleaner habits and no fear.

Maybe this time it works.
But if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean you’re broken.
It just means you started from the wrong place.

We fail when we begin with fiction, not with truth.

You wouldn’t knit a jumper for a creature you’ve never seen.
So why build a life for a version of you that only exists in theory?

Start here: acknowledge what is.
Not what should be.
Not what you wish you were.
Just what you are.

Then add gratitude. Quietly. No one has to see it.
Not as decoration, as perspective.

Then step one:
Just turn up.
Don’t optimise it. Don’t overthink it.
Whatever your plan is, just show up to the thing.

If it’s writing, open the document.
If it’s fitness, just go to the gym.
Loiter around with a water bottle in your hand and a sweat face.
No one needs to know it came from tying your shoelaces.

Play the system that’s designed to play you.
Even if you do absolutely nothing while you’re there, turn up again tomorrow.

This, my friend, is the path of a warrior.
The path of least resistance.

That’s where it starts. Not with intensity. With consistency.
Not because it looks good, or feels profound.
Because repetition creates reality.

You don’t need to fly.
You don’t even need to move fast.

You just need to stop running away from yourself.

Grow feathers first.

Every now and then, create a space just for yourself.
One without noise or performance.
Sit alone. In silence. Undisturbed.

And when you do, invite your fears to sit by the fire with you.
Not to talk. Not to fix.
Just offer them a hug.
Say it, “I give you my love, come to me.”
And be amazed at what happens next.

Problems used to be solutions.
They protected you.
They kept you small so you could stay safe.

But the world changed.
And now, you are the new solution. Realise this and you are free.

And always - be true to yourself - this is the most radical thing you can do ✊

21/12/2025

If I could leave only one message, it would be this.

Your life is not a mistake.
Your struggle is not proof of failure.
It is proof that you are alive in a world that asks much
and explains little.

Most of what hurts in you was formed before you had language for it.
Old patterns, old fears, old agreements
still echoing through a body that is trying to protect you.
There is nothing wrong with you.
You adapted.
You survived.
Now you are allowed to outgrow what once kept you safe.

Every person carries two selves.
The one shaped by the past
and the one waiting quietly beneath it.
Call it soul, call it atman, call it the observer,
call it the one who never leaves even when you do.
It is older than your wounds and softer than your fear
and it waits for your attention like a child left in the dark
hoping someone will finally strike a match.

You do not heal by force.
You heal by noticing.
You heal by meeting yourself without turning away.
One breath at a time.
One honest moment at a time.
One small act of courage when everything in you wants to retreat.

Let yourself be human.
Let yourself be flawed, tired, messy, magnificent.
Let yourself be held by your own awareness
the way a parent would hold a trembling child
without judgement
without hurry.

The world will push you toward noise, comparison, distraction.
Return to yourself anyway.
Return to the body that never lied to you.
Return to the breath that has carried every version of you.
Return to the quiet place inside that cannot be damaged,
only forgotten.

And remember this.
You are not here to be perfect.
You are here to wake up.
Slowly.
Honestly.
Without shame.

If you forget everything else, then take this:
you are enough to begin
and beginning is everything.

Sit by the fire.
Come home to yourself.
We walk from here together

Anima et Ignis. Fiat lux in anima tua.

07/12/2025

Most of us are harder on ourselves than life ever was.
We push through days, override our limits, hide our fears and call it normal.
But strength is not in pretending.
Strength begins the moment you admit what every human quietly knows:
something in me needs my attention.
Not judgement. Just attention.

There is a part of us we tend to overlook; not because it is hidden,
but because it is honest and raw.
The thoughts we whisper when nobody is watching.
The patterns we repeat until they feel carved into fate.

Here is what sits beneath all the theories.
Whatever we practise in the dark becomes who we are in the light.
Neurons that fire together wire together, yes,
but the point is not the science.
The point is ownership.
We are the ones shaping the pathways we walk.

Most of our worst habits were once survival.
In therapy we say that problems used to be solutions.
An old Slavic idiom says that habit is an iron shirt.
Once it is on, good luck taking it off.
Those old agreements made by younger versions of us
keep running the script long after the danger passed
and the world around us changed.
There is no shame in this. It is simply human.
Noticing it means you are already outgrowing the old code.
Your body is asking for your attention.
Give it freely, even for a few minutes a day.

Here is the good news.
The mind is loyal to repetition.
Give it a new instruction and it follows.
Shift one small response and the whole pattern begins to move with it.

Fear spirals when we leave it untouched.
It softens the moment you observe it.
Not by fighting, but by saying:
I see you. I know you are hurting. Not me, not today.
I am here for you. Stay with me.
Let me hold you for a moment, and watch the fear soften in the presence of love.

So start small.
One breath you control.
One thought you stop feeding.
One quiet act that says:
I have no obligation to carry this old story.
It belonged to who I was, not who I am.

It all begins with one honest moment of attention.
That is how real change starts.
Quietly, steadily, without performance.
This is stoic love in motion; the kind that heals rather than hides.

27/11/2025

You are here for a brief moment,
yet the light in you is older than the sun

20/11/2025

Every scar is an unfinished sentence; a comma between who you were and who you are becoming.

We break, heal, rebuild, and call it progress.
The mystics of old whispered per crucem, lux; through the cross, light. Alchemists called it calcinatio, the burning that reveals what is pure. Writers like Dostoyevsky saw beauty inside suffering. Philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard said that suffering is the school of the soul, the place where a person learns who they truly are.

So if you are tired, good. It means you are in motion.
If you feel uncertain, even better; awareness often begins where confidence ends.

Keep walking through the noise, through the ache, through the strange quiet that follows.
You are not falling apart. You are being tempered.

And here is the hidden irony that every old soul eventually learns; the obstacle is never just an obstacle. It is the whetstone. It sharpens you as you move through it.

Anima et Ignis. The soul and the fire.

02/11/2025

Welcome to Anima et Ignis

There’s more to self-care than scented candles and borrowed quotes.
It isn’t found in mantras or quick fixes, but in the quiet work of showing up for yourself.
Discipline is a form of kindness; honesty, the highest form of self-respect.

I’ve worked with systems and I’ve worked with minds. Engineering taught me structure; psychology taught me depth. Somewhere between the two, I learned that the real work is always within.

Hypnotherapy taught me something practical — that small, deliberate shifts in behaviour can reshape the mind. Whether it’s your morning routine, a workout, or a school project, the subconscious can be trained to work for you, not against you. That’s the warrior’s approach — the path of least resistance.

My aim is to share my journey with honesty and prudence; to offer lessons learned, insights tested, and to invite genuine connection along the way.

Most of us forgot how to tune into the body. We got lost in translation — between what we think and what we truly feel. Here, we learn that the words we whisper in our minds shape the physical world more than we realise.

Buddha warned: avoid idle thoughts. I say — make them useful. Give them direction. Train them to serve your growth. As Émile Coué put it: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”
If you can’t silence a thought, give it a job to do.

We realign here. We ground the work in the body — the ancient teacher so often treated as a machine. Trauma lives there, yes, but so does wisdom. Together, we’ll tap into those forgotten wells of knowing.

So tune in. Sit by the fire. Pass the gifts from left to right.
Share your warmth, your stories, your stillness.
We remember who we are together.

And last but not least - thanks for stopping by.

Rad May

25/10/2025

“Truth is a pathless land. You cannot approach it by any path, by any religion, by any sect.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti was once raised to be the new world teacher. The Theosophical Society built a movement around him, convinced he would lead humanity into enlightenment. And then, standing before thousands, he dissolved it all. Refused the crown. Walked away.

He said no one can give you the truth. A true teacher points, then disappears.

The irony is that even the pathless land has stepping stones. One of them is Atmavichara - self-inquiry, the art of using duality to dissolve itself.

See the distinction between the thought and the one observing the thought. This is the first spark of awareness, the witness noticing itself. When you see it, do not name it. Do not label it. Simply stay with it. Become it.

This observer is you. It was you all along. This is what teachers mean by unlearning.

It is what Jesus pointed to when he said, “Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” To see as a child is to see without prejudice, with humility and grace. To return to the beginning before the mind divided the world into this and that.

In our longing to be closer to the divine, we personified it. We called it God, the Universe, Cosmic Consciousness. We wanted to touch it, so we made it in our image. Yet with every description, we stepped one word further away from the truth into illusion we created in order to understand on the intellectual level. It’s the cost we pay for logic and reason. It’s the great philosophical schism that is here to unite us all.

For the truth cannot be spoken. It can only be lived - through awareness.

And remember this: you do not owe your thoughts to be completed.
Next time they disturb your peace, draw them back with your next inhale and think quietly, come back where you came from - I owe you nothing.
Then ask again, who is the one realising this, who is the one observing?

Each time you do, the illusion thins - until only truth remains, the one that has all forms, and forms all. Thank you, Jiddu, for being true to yourself, for not being swayed by fame and power like some others eg o(sh)o 🤷🏼 love and light

22/10/2025

What is your archetype?

When I first read Terrence Watt’s Warriors, Settlers & Nomads, it reminded me of something ancient; the truth that every system, from modern psychology to Vedic philosophy, builds its own language to describe the same mystery. Watts used three archetypes. Jung used many. The mystics spoke of paths, the alchemists of elements, the theologians of virtues. Different shapes, same core.

All schools of thought begin and end in the same place; the human heart and the restless mind that longs to understand itself.

The more I study, the clearer it becomes; none of these frameworks are about labelling. They are about remembering. About learning to see your strengths, your blind spots, and the quiet truth that runs underneath both.

Every seeker, whether spiritual or psychological, eventually finds themselves drawn toward one of five archetypal streams:

The Mystic — the path of surrender and silence. Truth is not reasoned but revealed. They dissolve the self through stillness.

The Philosopher — the path of reason and reflection. Truth is questioned into clarity. They build understanding one thought at a time.

The Magician — the path of transformation and will. Truth is tested in fire. They embody what others only study.

The Healer — the path of empathy and service. Truth is shared through restoration. They mend others to become whole themselves.

The Warrior — the path of courage and confrontation. Truth is sharpened by struggle. They find peace by walking through conflict, not around it.

Each path speaks a different language, yet all translate to the same sentence; awareness is freedom.
How you get there depends on your nature.

So, know your nature. Find your stream. Do not follow blindly, but walk consciously. Read, study, pray, experiment — whatever brings you closer to stillness.

Because all teachings, when stripped to their essence, point to one thing - what you are searching for is already looking through your eyes.

Whatever you do, make it unique to your journey. Do not compromise on your values, but always seek compromise with those you love and care about