Your Participation is Required

Why Real Change Requires Participation, Not Pills or Shortcuts

We all love the idea of transformation. The cultural promise is seductive: a pill, surgery, a retreat, a needle, a mushroom, new workshop and poof, life is easier.

We want the root cause, the breakthrough, the aha moment as if that will fix the problem, erase the discomfort, and make us feel whole.

One and done, please and thank you.

Oh, the lies that sell!

But here’s the truth: real change doesn’t come from anything outside of you. Not the medication, not the meditation app, not even the qigong class (though yes, I do love me some qigong).

Transformation asks for participation. And participation is messy, inconvenient, and sometimes terrifying.

We say we want the root cause, but that’s not about digging into a dusty memory from childhood or cataloguing every uncomfortable experience.

The root cause, in practice, is in the here and now. It’s the moment that’s asking you to turn discomfort into fertile ground. It’s the sticky, frustrating, stressful, inconvenient present, insisting you show up differently.

And, this is where bypassing can show up. Spiritual bypassing, therapeutic bypassing, shortcut thinking, whatever you want to call it, is when we reach for the outside solution to avoid the work inside. You want the medicine to do it for you. You want the retreat, the magic mushroom, the practitioner to make your nervous system obey. You want to yoga yourself out of a difficult conversation or qigong yourself out of having to actually do the work.

And yes, these sacred practices can jostle something loose, as they do so you spring into effective action. I practice giving you the tools and it’s about you using them.

Here’s the kicker: the practices themselves aren’t the work. They’re the support.

Discomfort is the solution asking for support.

My skills help you turn toward the discomfort rather than away from it. They give your body, mind, and nervous system the capacity to observe tension, to notice, to choose, to act. They don’t replace the hard part - showing up differently in life, again and again, in the places that matter.

This is the practice of power. Of making choices you didn’t make before. Of having conversations you were afraid to have. Of creating allies and communities, using your senses and presence instead of hiding behind someone else’s solution. That’s what actually transforms a life. Not the pill. Not the ceremony. Not the workshop. You. Using your tools.

Knowledge Isn’t Practice: Why Showing Up Matters More Than Insight

And let’s be real: this is scary. Change is scary. Showing up differently, practicing differently, being differently — all of that can feel unsafe. It’s easier to reach for the solution outside of me. But here’s the upside: the fear is part of the proof. If it weren’t scary, you wouldn’t be expanding at all. The discomfort is the signal that something is happening, that the nervous system, the habits, the old patterns, are starting to shift.

So yes, practice is tedious. It’s repetitive. It’s human. But it’s also where freedom lives. The first time you pause instead of snapping, the first time you make the choice to set a clear boundary instead of collapsing, the first time you notice your stress and do something different and not store it in your body, that’s change. Tiny, messy, incremental, profound change. And over time, it accumulates. The person you become is the one who showed up, again and again, when no one was watching.

The Real Transformation Happens Between the Sessions

If you’re waiting for someone else to fix you, I have bad news: that’s not how it works. You get to do the work. You get to practice. You get to feel the fear, notice the discomfort, and turn it into fertile ground. Everything else — the tools, the support, the mushrooms, the sessions, they’re just scaffolding. The structure is already inside you. You just have to show up and use it.

And yes, that’s hard. But it’s also the most edgy and fun part. Because when you start showing up differently in life, even just a little, you realize: I can handle this. I can make choices. I can create the life I actually want with the communities I want to be part of.

No one else can do that for you. Not the pill, not the workshop, not the meditation. It’s you, practicing, again and again, until it’s a new habit. And that’s when the magic happens.

You discover you are the magic!