Integration, Transformation, and the Journey Beyond

After a two-month pause, I return to explore personal growth, neuroscience, and conscious leadership, sharing how transformation unfolds in my personal life and professional practice.

It’s been two months since I last posted on Substack, and much has shifted. During this time, I’ve had the space to reflect, integrate, and recalibrate after completing my series on the Hero’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (HJTF). Writing that series was more than recounting an archetypal journey; it was a process I was living in real time, step by step.

For those new here or needing a quick refresher, the HJTF is about transforming deep wounds of trauma into inner freedom and peace. It’s a journey that many of us undergo, often without realizing it. The 12 steps I outlined followed the monomythic¹ path—from the call to adventure to confronting the shadow and returning with new wisdom.

However, as I finished the final chapter, I realized that my own journey hadn’t ended.

What followed felt like a “13th step” — an unplanned phase that emerged naturally. In recovery terminology, a “13th step” often refers to falling back into old habits, but for me, it was more of a pause for deeper integration. During this time, I confronted new layers of fear, anxiety, and inertia.

It was unsettling to feel the weight of these emotions resurface, but instead of succumbing to them, I realized they were offering me another opportunity for deeper transformation.

Over time, my perspective began to shift from a physicalist² worldview to one of nondual idealism—a moment of insight, or satori, that seemed to reflect the cumulative effects of my inner work.³ While this shift has significantly transformed how I view the world, myself, and existence, I recognize that such moments of awakening are deeply personal and may unfold differently for others. For many, these insights require ongoing reflection and integration, rather than being a sudden or complete transformation.

After going through this shift, I started exploring a way to bring together everything I’ve learned—a framework I call Existential Meta-Psychology (EMP). EMP isn’t about reinventing the wheel, but more about connecting the dots between existing approaches like Jungian psychology, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and the latest discoveries in neuroscience.

In particular, I’ve been diving into the neural correlates⁴ of this transformation, focusing on how the Default Mode Network (DMN), Salience Network (SN), and Task Positive Network (TPN) play crucial roles in shaping our thoughts, emotions, and actions. It’s something that’s helped me understand my own journey better, and it’s become a way I support others in bridging the gap between the mind and the spirit.⁵

Where the mind meets the universe: A glimpse into how our thoughts and the universe are connected, capturing the balance between consciousness and the material world, and evoking a sense of insight and transformation.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is what often pulls us into those loops of overthinking, reinforcing the stories we tell ourselves about who we are—sometimes trapping us in feelings of self-doubt. This is where we form our sense of self, our ego, and unfortunately, it’s where our negativity bias kicks in, which used to help us survive by keeping us on high alert for danger. But today, it’s the part that keeps us stuck in stress and anxiety, triggering our brain’s fight-or-flight response, even when there’s no real threat. Shifting our focus to positive memories or future visualizations may engage our brain's reward pathways and foster a state of relaxation, healing, and growth through the parasympathetic nervous system.

Meanwhile, the Salience Network acts as a switchboard, helping us transition between the DMN (our inner world of thoughts) and the TPN (our focus on the outside world and tasks). It filters through the noise and brings attention to what’s most relevant, highlighting synchronicities or opportunities that align with our goals and desires. It’s a fascinating process because the SN seems to be the link between our internal narratives and the external actions we take.

This idea of attention, focus, and salience brings me to a deeper reflection on nondual idealism and the interplay of Shiva and Shakti in Kashmir Shaivism.

Shiva represents pure consciousness – the stillness, the unchanging, the lake. Shakti, on the other hand, is the dynamic energy – the ripples on the lake, the creative force of the universe. In this metaphysical dance, creation happens when Shakti moves away from Shiva and dissolution occurs when she returns. Together, they create everything. Shakti not only moves outward to reveal the world but also conceals it when she returns. I often wonder—what makes Shakti move? Is it will? Or is it something deeper, like attention or salience itself? Before creation – before the word – there is attention, the first spark that shifts us from stillness into action. It’s not lost on me that this mirrors the way the Salience Network moves us from our inner stories to outward creation, much like the tantric practice of taking action in the world as a complement to spiritual contemplation.

As these networks shape how we engage with life, I’ve found that my professional work has also evolved.

Over the past few months, I’ve fully opened my coaching practice, which had previously been a part-time endeavor. My coaching focuses on career transitions, personal development, and recovery from toxic, narcissistic relationships—areas where I’ve walked the path myself. I also help disruptive leaders create conscious organizations that prioritize people and the planet alongside profits. Leadership, when done consciously, becomes about stewarding a vision that serves the greater good.

In addition to coaching, I’ve expanded into offering digital marketing services to businesses aligned with these values. It’s been deeply rewarding to work with organizations committed to making a positive impact in the world. I support leaders and businesses who aim to balance growth with responsibility, knowing that their work can benefit both their communities and the environment.

In this way, my personal and professional journeys continue to intertwine, guided by the same principles I’ve explored throughout this post: the dance of inner reflection and outer action, the interplay of stillness and creation. Whether in coaching, leadership, or business, it’s all about finding that balance between contemplation and meaningful impact in the world.

1. The monomyth, also known as the hero's journey, is a storytelling pattern that describes a hero's adventure, victory, and transformation. It's a common template for many stories across cultures and time periods

2. Physicalism is the broader term, roughly meaning that what is real are those properties that our physical theories describe. This includes things like space, time, energy, and matter. Materialism is, strictly speaking, a more restrictive term, roughly meaning that what is real is matter.

3. Nondual idealism, a philosophical view where the distinction between mind and matter dissolves, offers a perspective where consciousness itself is the foundation of reality.

4. Neural correlate is the brain activity that corresponds with and is necessary to produce a particular experience.

5. While I’ve shifted to a worldview of nondual idealism, where consciousness is seen as the foundation of reality, I also believe in exploring the brain’s role in shaping thoughts, emotions, and actions. From this perspective, the brain is not the origin of consciousness but a crucial interface through which consciousness expresses itself in the material world. By understanding neural correlates, we can gain insights into how our subjective experiences arise within this broader framework of nondual awareness.