I first met Dean at the beginning of Covid in 2020. My immediate impression was of a man who was enormously intelligent and who was held together by a quality of strength only another such mind would seemingly appreciate and know.
Over the course of a few years, I shared with Dean my knowledge and tools for what I believed was the path to seeing life the right way up and to healing a mind that was fatigued and disorientated. His journey was to challenge his beliefs and bring his outer world into alignment with his full worth as a human being. Dean had to turn his feelings of injustice into words of wisdom, which can only be understood through consciously experiencing.
I watched my new friend grow as he stepped into the challenges of each day. He hung out with all of his feelings, paid attention each time he stepped into the world, and questioned his thoughts about what and who to trust. His mind was already fatigued from years of labouring against its natural rhythm and so unlearning and creating new neural pathways took enormous strength, courage and dedication.
Dean knew who he was at a deeper level. He could always feel it. He began to experience gradual changes in his interactions with life as one thing led to another.
The hardest part about retraining your mind is having to face the daily hard work of putting into action all the challenges you are faced with and know that you are not there yet. But it keeps you determined to keep going. Just as Dean was determined to feel his full measure, and to eventually find he was finally at home in his Self.
The true wealth of Dean’s experience was his capacity to face his challenges, and to learn to not react to his thoughts but to feel his fears as they came. By just being with it all, he could see who he was, observing himself and all those he met along the way. He could decipher what was true by just listening to his 'gut' feelings, or intuition. He was prepared to face his fears if it meant feeling good about who he was, doing what made him happy. He knew he had the power to grow something new. This was the strength and leadership I first saw in him, now his reality.