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Have you ever felt judged by standards that simply don’t fit who you are? In this episode of The Gentle Rebel, we explore Aesop’s fable of the “useless tree” and unpack why introverted and highly sensitive people internalise criticism from those who don’t understand what they bring to the table. The fable describes two travellers who find a plane tree in the midday sun. They take refuge beneath its branches but complain that it’s useless because it produces no edible fruit or nuts. In another version, the tree is an oak. When the rain arrives, they stay dry beneath its leaves. It gets cold, and they make a fire from its broken branches. They get tired and use the leaves to make a bed. The moral is usually told from the travellers’ perspective: don’t overlook the unexpected gifts you might take for granted. But it was interesting to look at the story from the tree’s perspective. And how it feels to overhear the judgement from the people it has sheltered. What story does it tell itself about itself as a result? It is providing exactly what the travellers need. Yet they judge it according to something it doesn’t, and can’t, provide. And what happens when the tree overhears itself described as useless? https://youtu.be/_Mil-167tTc When We Overhear the Judgement Have you ever tried to change something about yourself because of a judgement you heard from someone else? Maybe it was directed at you. Maybe it was directed at someone else, but it punched you in the gut when you overheard it because it felt familiar. Many of us get measured against standards that don’t make sense for us. We might know that intellectually, but it doesn’t take much for the message to seep in and get under our skin, especially if it’s repeated enough times. Maybe it’s the story that you need to be more outgoing, toughen up, or stop caring what other people think. We might start looking for ways to turn ourselves into the proverbial apple tree. Or we might shrink back into the shadows and try to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. The judgement doesn’t have to be true to have an impact. It just has to be believed. The Story I Absorbed Like many introverted and highly sensitive people, I grew up absorbing a story about my behaviour going against the grain of what I should be doing. I wasn’t disruptive and loud. Quite the opposite. I often saw “speak up more” and “put yourself forward” on school reports. This even became a target: “Put your hand up once in every lesson to volunteer an answer.” Was that what I needed? Did it help me connect with the subject and learn better? No. It had the opposite effect. Interestingly, a few teachers never made me feel bad for being quiet. In those classes, I felt much more confident speaking up…if and when I had something to say. The safety to stay quiet made it comfortable to speak up. What Story Does the Judgement Plant? There’s a big difference between changing yourself and changing yourself. We are presented with moulds to fit ourselves into, with the assumption that to belong we have to change who we are. But there’s a difference between changing because you’ve decided something matters to you, and changing because you’ve overheard someone saying there’s something wrong with the way you are. An oak tree grows. It loses branches, extends its roots, and takes shape in response to the weather. But it changes as it is. It doesn’t become an apple tree (it can’t). There’s something liberating about knowing that. Because the judgements we overhear can sting, but they can also become stories about who we think we’re supposed to be. What could change when you stop trying to be somewhere other than where you are?

I’m sure you’re aware of the controversy surrounding Ed Sheeran’s 2026 Loop Tour. The situation escalated after billionaire tycoon and sports mogul Robert Kraft blocked Ed Sheeran’s support artist, Macklemore, from performing at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, following Macklemore’s declaration of solidarity with Palestinians in the face of the genocide being perpetrated by Israel. Under pressure from other stadium owners, Sheeran dropped Macklemore from the entire tour. After the other support artists and his backing band dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore, he continued on his own. He played the first show in Philadelphia last weekend, which he began by reading a prepared statement. This was uncomfortable for him because Sheeran has repeatedly described his commitment to being apolitical and inclusive. He has never wanted to be an “activist musician”. His goal is to create safe spaces where people can sing his songs together without bringing politics into the arena. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I explore how this situation has revealed that it’s not about the politics we carry into that arena (or leave at its door). It’s that politics IS the arena, which is what I want to explore a bit today. https://youtu.be/97b3zG6GW-s The Apolitical Arena Despite a strong interest that I’ve had for decades, I don’t explicitly talk about politics very often. I graduated in 2008 with a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Southampton. I would certainly say my interest in the subject underpins a lot of what I do and how I do it. It definitely informs my philosophical framework, especially to things like my critique of the self-help industry. I’ve always been more drawn to the underlying structure than the everyday spectacle of politics: how power, resources, and violence organise themselves, and how ideological narratives normalise those arrangements and maintain stability within society. This is Water Robert Kraft opened a rift and exposed a dimension that is usually well hidden. That rupture has revealed the political structure behind Ed Sheeran’s apolitical stance, which isn’t a particular political expression or belief. The author David Foster Wallace opened his famous commencement speech with the story, This Is Water. You’ve likely heard it. He described two young fish swimming along who meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, until one looks at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?” Wallace’s point was that the most obvious and important realities are often the hardest to see. The Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci talked about this in terms of ideological hegemony. Political power doesn’t operate only through laws, coercion, or direct force. It also operates through the things that come to feel normal, natural and obvious. The assumptions and boundaries we don’t think to question because we don’t notice them. Gramsci was interested in how systems of power could persist without constantly forcing people into submission, and how a particular social arrangement becomes Common Sense. Mark Fisher explored a similar idea through Capitalist Realism: the way capitalism has become so pervasive that it can feel less like an man-made idea than the water we move in, breathe in, think in, dream in, and relate to one another in. Ideology, in this sense, isn’t only a belief system someone actively subscribes to. It’s also the structural power relations beneath our words, actions, and beliefs. We can find ourselves acting within systems that tell a different story from the one we consciously believe. Political moments and political art can expose these structures. The Underlying Structure of a Political Belief Ed Sheeran describes his massive stadium tour as a neutral, apolitical space where people are free to sing together and love one another. I don’t doubt that he believes that’s what he is creating. Nothing implies he is being deliberately deceptive. He is describing the experience he wants people to have. But the concert doesn’t float outside of a power structure. And therefore, it doesn’t exist outside of a political context. It is anchored in labour relations, the flow of capital, and the decisions ultimately made by those who own the platforms the rest of us create and consume inside. Most of the time, this happens without us noticing. But in this situation, that rift opened, and we’ve had a little peek beneath the surface. We’ve been reminded that this is water. When we look around so much of life right now, it feels abundantly clear that we are in so many rooms we don’t have a meaningful power stake in. Most of the time we don’t notice. But every so often something happens to remind us. The rent goes up. We get closed down, lose access, or we can’t afford to stay. That is water.

Have you ever experienced the joy of unblocking a drain? I know, I know. But if you know, you know…it’s satisfying! Not least because a blocked drain is the opposite of satisfying. We’re not going to focus on blocked drains in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, don’t worry. It’s just a metaphor for what happens sometimes in life, when things that feel like they’re supposed to be free-flowing get stuck, festering in a stagnant pool of unwanted water. Sometimes something gets stuck because stuff around it jams it. Sometimes we might even put that stuff there ourselves, not realising it doesn’t really fit…or help. I’ve often added so much around the edges of a meaningful endeavour or important project that it eventually comes to a grinding halt because it becomes so overly complicated. I love planning. Sometimes a bit too much. I love planning. I love making systems and creating templates. When I was at school, I liked making revision timetables so much that I ran out of time to actually revise because I was too busy planning. I love dreaming up everything that could happen. Those dreams can get derailed under the weight of their plans. This year I’ve been experimenting with paring back parts of life that have become over-complex, and making space for my tendency to add complexity when I notice that temptation arises. I’ve also been trying to create breathing room to simplify after complexity has occurred, before committing it to anything concrete or permanent. Because I’ve also noticed that sometimes complexity is actually a necessary part of the process. Shutting it down as soon as it starts might mean pulling the plug on something that could be important later. So I don’t want to do that. The key is recognising that complexity might simply be part of what is going on under the soil for a while, rather than something that means I ought to rewrite every page on my website, add new channels and announce my commitment to a bunch of things that are both impossible and undesirable to maintain once I eventually strip back to the simple heart of things at the right moment. I stopped overcomplicating change I’ve been to Finland twice this year. The first trip involved gout threat, a painful shoulder injury caused by reaching for a seatbelt, and a realisation when I got home that something needed to change. I’d been trying to improve my health and fitness for years. But this time I decided to keep things small and simple rather than following an elaborate plan. Things Change But Not Necessarily On Our Timetable You may be familiar with the idea behind Gates’s law: We overestimate what can happen in the short term and underestimate what can happen in the long term. Over the past five months, I’ve seen a lot of progress with my weight and fitness. In large part because I’ve kept it small and simple, resisting the urge to overcomplicate things, make elaborate plans and build complicated systems and processes. Something just sort of clicked in April. Along with a meaningful motivation, it’s the fact that I haven’t got in my own way by demanding too much, too fast. The Pressure We Put on Quick Fixes When I’m motivated to change and thinking about it a lot, I want it now. The more urgently I want change to happen, the more likely I am to overengineer the process. And that’s what drives me to make elaborate plans to get as much done in as little time as possible. Not only does this risk burning the desire out, but it can also divert important resources from other parts of life, leading to a compounding negative effect. Simplicity can be a strategy for change So how do we stop ourselves from adding complexity to systems that just need time to blossom? The big secret? I guess it’s about being patient. Oh wow. How boring. Yeah, I know. Sorry. It’s also about avoiding overplanning and making everything elaborately complex. Oh, but I really like making detailed plans and timetables. I know! Sorry. We’re going to need to find other ways to scratch that itch, because I’ll concede it is a fun one to go at. Environmental Sensitivity and The Impact of Small Things For highly sensitive people, this might matter even more. Research into differential susceptibility shows that people with sensory processing sensitivity can be more strongly affected by their surroundings, both positively and negatively. When we add layers of complexity around our goals, we can create cognitive chaos: a foggy mess of stimulation that eventually leads us to check out and pull the plug on the goal altogether. On the other hand, a few simple habits and environmental cues can have a surprisingly positive effect. This doesn’t mean that highly sensitive people need empty lives. Complexity is sometimes unavoidable, and sometimes valuable. It means that unnecessary complexity can have a disproportionately large effect when we’re already processing a lot. If you’re struggling to let something flow without blocking the drain with too much planning and complexity, you might try… 1. Protecting your energy more than your schedule For me, planning has often meant time-blocking activities on the calendar and assuming I can switch gears and get things done during an allotted window. I’ve done this many, many times, even though I know it’s not how I function best. It always feels like a nice ideal. But patience is a resource that requires energy. If you overcomplicate your process with rigid trackers, strict rules and unnecessary concrete time commitments, you drain your mental battery. Simplicity can be a strategic choice because it preserves the energy patience requires. Identifying one or two actions you’re committed to doing without tying them to a specific timetable means you can match your available energy to the action. And it takes the pressure off doing it every day. Right now, I generally like running three times a week: Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday are my placeholder days. But this is subject to change. One is enough to move me in the direction I want. I won’t go more than three times in a week. I’ve figured out what works best for me. I don’t think it would be quite so good if I said, “Right, I’m getting up at 5:30 every morning to work out.” I would resist that kind of injunction, and would have given up months ago. If it feels like a rule, it is there to be broken. 2. Watering the seed rather than digging it up When we don’t see results in a week or two, our instinct might be to change the plan. We might tweak the dial, add something new, buy a different running programme or rewrite the habit tracker. Every time we do this, we interrupt the consistency that allows small changes to accumulate. Patience is about trusting the process of consistency. It’s about getting those basic, ridiculously small and simple habits in place and then keeping the proverbial seed watered. For a while, we don’t see the fruits of that seed. It’s just trusting that it is growing beneath the soil. If measuring things motivates you, find alternative measures in the short run. Notice how something feels. Notice what else might be changing as you go. Tick off each time you do something that contributes to the broader goal. In other words, track the thing that helps you water the seed, rather than trying to track the progress of the seed itself when you can’t yet see what’s happening underneath the soil. 3. Keeping a mirror for your progress I’ve heard people talk about “arrival amnesia”. Along with underestimating what can change over the long term, we often underestimate what has already changed. I definitely forget how far I’ve come and how quickly I can adapt to new normals. This is one reason I find journaling so useful. Looking back at old entries can show me the difference between what was going on then and what is happening now. It highlights the things I can’t imagine not having today, but that grew so gradually over time that I almost took them for granted. And how some things change simply because I get out of the way and let them change, one day at a time. We don’t always need a plan, a system, or a process. We just need to identify the small, simple thing that makes a difference. And keep doing that whenever we can and as often as we’ve decided works best.

Why do we bother doing what we do? What tone do you hear in that question? To bother: taking the trouble or effort to do something. To be bothered: to be affected by something and/or to care about it. I hadn’t really thought much about this phrase until it came up in a conversation related to stuckness a few days ago. And now I can’t stop thinking about it. https://youtu.be/SSCHoKd3tCc Someone shared that, despite having written a huge number of words, they felt self-doubt, uncertainty, and boredom were why they hadn’t yet managed to complete a draft of the novel they’d been working on for the past couple of years. Exploring the map, watching the videos, and using the reflection guide helped them realise there might be more to it than an internal issue. In reality, the publishing industry is going through a period of deep uncertainty, and it’s harder than ever to get into. That adds a very real obstacle to the stuckness. Stuckness Doesn’t Occur in a Vacuum Feeling stuck is often a dance between internal and external factors. And it always happens within a broader context. Unstable material conditions, unhelpful environments, and systemic inequalities make stuckness more than a mindset or attitude issue. I’ve known people struggling to stay afloat amid overwhelming busyness, grief, and health challenges, who believe they have the wrong attitude because they wish they could feel better and move forward. As if you haven’t got enough to deal with, there’s the added pressure of personal responsibility to respond positively to things beyond your control. A Mindset Fallacy The focus on mindset and positive thinking as a solution to stuckness can implicitly misdiagnose its source as lying squarely within the individual. It places us in charge of our own reality, a common position we’ve noticed throughout the history of the self-help movement. At its most extreme, this becomes the belief that we can literally manifest material wealth, health, and prosperity through the power of positive thinking. At one level, this way of thinking seems harmless enough. But when we peel back the layers, it reveals some more insidious assumptions. Not least, it assumes that if everything boils down to individual responsibility for the quality of our own life through positive thinking, then we are personally to blame for our suffering. This can be a really lonely place to be. We feel stuck because of the projected images we see from others who tell stories of self-made success. These tell us what we SHOULD want and aspire to. Then, when we struggle to get there, we beat ourselves up for not having what those successful people seem to have. A lot of smoke and mirrors surround those stories. When you believe that you’re the only one finding it hard, but that the result is necessary for your value as a human, you are more likely to act from desperation rather than curiosity. And the cycle continues. Why Bother? Good question. Glad you asked. These pressures subtly influence our response to the question. So do the ways we’re encouraged to measure value. I remember reading a blog post many years ago about the difference in quality between the amateur and the professional. It referenced Steven Pressfield’s archetypes of The Professional and The Amateur in The War of Art, his book about what he coined as The Resistance, the enemy force that derails a creative pursuit. I haven’t read it for about 15 years, but I remember it containing some helpful ideas and some that made less sense to me. In it he writes: “The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time.” I’ll save my greater exceptions for another day, perhaps. But at a basic level, and in response to “why bother?”, we can see the pressure potentially undermining Pressfield’s message. Although he presents the distinction as archetypes of attitude, it’s hard to escape the implication that the creative pursuit must provide a person’s main income (or full-time occupation) if the person truly loves it. Why DO I bother? When the thing becomes a means to an end, the end can begin to determine whether the thing itself feels worth doing. This can leave us feeling stuck. Confused about why we bother. I know people who have become derailed after being encouraged to take something they had great passion, love, and drive for and turn it into a source of income. They used to bother because they cared. It was a catalyst for creativity and imagination, providing a way to express themselves freely. They were curious, explored, and grew, pouring resources into their passion regardless of profitability. And they gave their time to it without a second thought. But when they went professional, things changed. Concerns about marketing, efficiency, avoiding waste, and so on meant their relationship with what they used to do out of habit and ease became something only worth doing if it yielded a profitable outcome. This isn’t to say it’s a bad idea to make something your profession. Rather, I think it’s a bad idea to assume that a professional is simply a more serious amateur. It’s a radically different position. In many cases, the amateur can maintain their connection, love, and raw, organic passion for what they do because professionalism brings separate pressures, not necessarily linked to quality and care for the work. The Overjustification Effect I know amateurs who love their work so much that they free it from market pressure and find other ways to fund a life they can dedicate what they love doing around the edges. And some are more skilled, passionate, and dedicated than their professional counterparts in the same field. It’s ironic that for all his talk of Resistance, Pressfield may have inadvertently introduced and exacerbated a source of it by drawing this distinction. This may also be linked to something psychologists call the overjustification effect. An external incentive, like money, praise, or professional status, can change our relationship with an activity we already do for love. External rewards can make us less interested in doing something for its own sake. Why bother? It’s only worth it if I see results. And when it feels like the odds are stacked against you, why bother? It would be easier to find another way to make a living. Bothering can become futile when the outcome we’ve attached to the endeavour becomes harder to achieve. And this can happen when we become less intrinsically connected to it. The Pressure To Stay Positive If things feel like a struggle, maybe business is slow, and external events are making it worse, we might hear someone say, “Why bother?” and try to help them stay positive. “Come on, you’ve got to have a positive mental attitude. You’ve got this. Don’t give up. Believe in yourself. You’ll get through it.” Maybe there’s a time and place for that. But sometimes there are immovable objects in the way, and the question “why bother?” asks something else of us. It’s also apparent that when we’re already struggling, another person’s extraordinary success story can leave us feeling more alone. We Need More Failure Stories While inspiring or motivational stories are meant to give us hope, hearing from people who tried just as hard and didn’t get the same result can be more grounding and encouraging. I love a good failure story. Yeah, I know I’m a bit odd. But survivorship bias gives us a rather skewed impression of the link between working hard and succeeding. But when we come together around these shared struggles, we can find a motivating energy far more powerful than hearing that it IS possible to win the lottery because, look, someone won it. They won millions of pounds. Why? Because millions of people didn’t win. The story of the collective experience is less romantic, but it’s much warmer. It’s the reminder that we’re not alone. This is just hard. Success isn’t guaranteed by hard work alone. No matter what we do, factors beyond our control limit our chances of succeeding. Well, that’s depressing…why bother then? I’m glad you asked… We can dig back into that question with a fresh perspective and a personal connection. We can rediscover why we want to do what I want to do. What sparks our care, passion, and creative drive. Knowing and accepting that sometimes things don’t work out. The book doesn’t get finished, let alone published. But it is worth it anyway. Why? Because there is something about the endeavour that brings you to life. That’s the bit that matters. And everything else is gravy. And there is something beautifully rebellious and defiant about being alongside others in this spirit. Rejecting the assumption that we are in it alone. And finding solace in our shared experiences of things not necessarily going to plan, yet being bothered enough to continue anyway. Growing In Circles That’s really what I’m hoping we get to experience in Pick The Lock: Growing In Circles. If you’d like to explore your own relationship with something you’re currently feeling frustrated or stuck around, you can find out more about the group and join us here.

The movie Hook begins with the premise that Peter Pan has been away from Neverland for so long that he has forgotten who he is. He is all grown up, with two children and a high-flying legal job that leaves him little time or patience for them. When Captain Hook (Peter’s arch-nemesis, whom he now has no memory of) kidnaps his kids, he quickly learns that his attempts to use the logic of his reality to buy them back or to threaten legal action aren’t going to fly here (pun intended). Instead, he needs to do the opposite of ‘grow up’ and rediscover his imagination and ability to play if he is going to survive and accomplish his objective. This kind of Adult Fog can creep in, obscuring our view of something that’s still there. I describe this as Adult Fog in The Return To Serenity Island. I’m not imagining something huge descending on us that suddenly stops us from being ourselves. Fog can arrive with a subtle creep. We might not notice the visibility getting worse until we look up and try to see the path ahead. The path hasn’t disappeared, but our ability to see it has become clouded by other people’s expectations, judgements, and assumptions. https://youtu.be/kTKrcvfJ15c Being Told To Grow Up Last week, I was on the clifftop, saying my goodbyes to one of my favourite spots overlooking the Baltic Sea in Espoo, after a month in Finland. As I did so, I happened upon something that inspired me to play… A nest full of abandoned eggs. Well, technically they were small pine and/or spruce cones. But that’s not what my imagination and I decided to believe. And so I made a silly video. After an uber-quick editing job, I posted it online and got in the sauna. Comments began to arrive. The first one said “they are acorns, not an egg”, which was a slightly strange yet potentially endearing attempt at correcting the details of a joke that hadn’t landed. But the next two comments really caught my attention. One said, “Grow Up FFS”, and the other said “grown man 😂😂”. I replied to the comment “grown man” with “I was told it was a Spanish slug”, innocently (playfully) assuming he was referring to the slug. It turns out these “killer” slugs are an invasive species that can harm the native ecosystem. He dismissed this as ragebait, refusing to believe a slug could have made it all the way from Spain to Finland. I’m pretty sure he was serious, too. His comment was a helpful reminder that growing up doesn’t necessarily equate to knowing better. Then another comment arrived. “They are not eggs,” it began. Oh, here we go again, I thought. “Anyone can see, they are turds from a walrus. Look up in the trees, and you should see it unless it has flown away.” I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. Especially because this looked like a mature, fully grown adult man. And he had come to play. He got it. People Can Make or Break Our Spirit It amazes me how much of an impact we can have on other people, including strangers online. It made me think about the power of words and the stories we can create from them without realising. Words can give us wings to fly and explore, and they can give us great weight that brings us down to earth with a great thud. My natural childlike spirit tends to express itself through silliness and absurdity. When that element of me can emerge, I know I feel safe, which is an important part of this equation. When I got back to the apartment, I knew I could share what I’d made with Tuula (with whom I was staying), and she’d get it, even if she was confused about what I was banging on about. Childlike Spirit Our childlike spirit looks different for each of us. Maybe it’s collecting things, getting absorbed in researching obscure subjects, role-playing, historical re-enactment, making things, nurturing something and watching it change, or getting excited about stuff you are into and looking forward to. It’s not about being silly or even about “play” in the conventional sense. It’s about having the freedom to engage with the world in a way that feels naturally ours. And I think the people around us can make a huge difference to whether that part of us gets to emerge. When we feel safe from judgement, ridicule or criticism, we have more freedom to explore it. But when those things are present, the Adult Fog can descend before we’ve even given ourselves a chance. “That’s stupid.” “That’s not realistic.” “We don’t do things like that here.” “That’s childish.” “That’s selfish.” “You’re showing off.” “That’s unwise.” “You should know better by now.” And there’s an interesting link to research showing that when humans lose their bearings, we tend to walk in circles rather than in a straight line. When we can’t see landmarks, natural reference points, or otherwise establish where we are, we can end up returning to where we started. Perhaps something similar happens when the Adult Fog descends, and these stories obscure the landmarks we use to orient ourselves. As a result, we might keep moving and try to gather more information, but without our personal bearings, we can burn a lot of energy believing we’re making progress only to find ourselves back where we started. Stuckness and Social Sensitivity For Highly Sensitive People, these fog-inducing stories can leave us particularly stuck. We’re often highly attuned to the social environment, noticing other people’s reactions and picking up on subtle signals of approval, disapproval, safety and threat. We can internalise words and judgements that were never directed at us. “Don’t they realise how silly they look?” “People like that are so selfish.” “They never think about the impact of their actions on others.” These judgements can resurface when we are about to do something important to us. What would that person think of me? Silly, selfish, childish, thoughtless. And so we might pull back and avoid doing what could upset others. And “selfish” can pack a special punch. We might absorb the message that addressing our own needs, pursuing something we find meaningful, or experiencing joy despite the suffering we see in the news is somehow morally suspect. For many sensitive people I’ve known over the years, thinking of others comes naturally. The trait has care, connection, and community baked into it. But things can get foggy if we forever de-prioritise our own needs. What does YOUR childlike spirit look like? When it’s unclouded by Adult Fog, how do you come out to play? When do you feel most like yourself? If you’d like to explore what might be getting in the way of finding your own bearings, I’m going to be exploring more of this over the coming weeks. Sign up below, and I’ll keep you posted.

A post on Threads caught my attention this week. It spoke to me about a common form of stuckness that we may overlook. It felt like a good example of the insidious reach of toxic productivity. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I attempt to explain why… https://youtu.be/nBvFoHil9qM Don’t Try To Remember In his language-learning audio courses, Michel Thomas usually spoke with two participants. Every so often, he would respond to them by saying, “stop trying to remember”. His methodology rested on the assumption that if you’re stressed and putting effort into conscious memorising, you sabotage your ability to learn. When he heard them racking their brains for the answer, he told them to stop. The same happens in creativity. We get inspired when we’re not trying to remember. When we’re not forcing dots to connect. Like in the shower, swimming pool, or sauna. Yes, for me it often accompanies being wet and somewhat nude. Don’t ask me why. Inspiration often strikes when we’re busy looking elsewhere. But I don’t believe it’s a bolt from the blue. One of the reasons it appears to arrive in meditation or in the shower, is because we engage with a stillness that allows us to hear. And as such, it’s not a scarce resource. There is always something speaking. Waiting to be noticed. But sometimes, we need to stop trying to remember. Stop trying to control. Stop trying to turn it into something useful, productive, or profitable.

This episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast is a bit different from normal. It contains the audio from It Just Sort of Happens, the short film I produced for the HSP Gathering in Oulu, Finland, at the start of August. You can watch it here. https://youtu.be/NWaK8O4VLuo The film is an audiovisual collage of stories from throughout my life. It has a particular focus on the role of songwriting and music-making in helping me make sense of myself, my experiences, and the way the world is. I believe creativity is especially in nurturing our relationship with our innate sensitivity. But when we absorb messages from the cultures we swim in, they can disconnect us from these natural aspects of ourselves. I hope ‘It Just Sort of Happens’ gives you reassurance and confidence that you’re not alone. Language Beyond Words Music has always been my natural language. It speaks when words aren’t enough. Music helps things make sense. What about you? These aren’t stories about what sensitivity or creativity should look like for everyone. I don’t believe that’s how it works. Rather, they are just a handful of my stories, which I hope may encourage you to notice, connect with, and continue developing your own. Questions To Consider At the HSP Heimojuhlat gathering in Oulu, I scattered mini-zines around the room. They contained questions to help people consider their relationship with the film’s themes. They may be especially useful if you’re feeling stuck in some way right now, or if you’re ready to let your creativity give voice to your sensitivity and your sensitivity give shape to your creativity… What is something you remember creating as a child? What made it memorable? What does society value that you don’t? What is something you care about that others often overlook? When do you wish time would stand still so you could dwell there for longer? What made you laugh this week? What helps you process and observe what’s going on within you? What are you waiting for the courage to do, try, or start? Let the film’s sound wash over you and see what catches your attention. It’s worth finding somewhere quiet to listen, and with headphones if possible. Share Your Reflections And if anything connects for you, or you have a question about something I’ve shared, I’d love to hear from you. Head to this page for links to the original source materials and to get in touch. Courtyard Replay Log in below to view the replay of our community conversation in response to the film. It will be available until the end of August 2026. Or become a Courtyard member if you don’t yet have an account. Email Address Password Remember Me

What do people who believe they are writing songs when they use Suno AI, YouTuber Hank Green, and Narcissus from Greek mythology all have in common? Quite a lot, it turns out. And they can help us recognise a form of stuckness that’s becoming increasingly common as people’s relationship with generative AI begins to blur the boundary between ourselves and the technologies we use, making it more difficult to know where the human ends and the machine begins. https://youtu.be/zSMwN0wKGlE Getting Stuck in the Digital Image Our relationship with technology and, in particular, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Suno poses a really interesting existential dilemma. I’ve been fascinated to see how these are often sold as tools to overcome stuckness. While at the same time, they create a whole different form of stuckness when we become attached to them. The demise of Narcissus came through an obsession with his own reflection. Perhaps the price of looking away from his reflection brought its own kind of departure and death. Maybe the image had become more real, perfect, and desirable than the human staring at it. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we consider how the reflection of ourselves in the machines we use can bend us out of shape and leave us uncertain of who we are and what we’re capable of. What Does It Mean to Write a Song? Fil Henley, AKA Wings of Pegasus, asked this simple question in a recent video. He analysed an advert from the AI music generation platform Suno, which features producers and songwriters using it to make songs. Fil says, “If you don’t know what the song is going to sound like before you hear it, then you haven’t written the song.” Platforms like Suno act like fruit machines. The output is based more on luck than judgement. What makes them compelling and perhaps even addictive, is that the result is impossible for us to predict. It’s a surprise each time that feels exciting to reveal. And it can turn any old crap into something you might hear on the radio. As we see in the video. More Than a Tool This is what makes these services different from tools. A tool reliably enables us to carry out a task without doing everything and more autonomously. So when the producer says that Suno is showing him stuff he never would have thought about, he is revealing the blurred boundary between us and these machines. It is more than a tool for songwriting. It’s generating the song itself. Suno isn’t like a digital audio workstation (a tool), where a songwriter records, edits, and produces music they have written and performed. It goes further, making many of the creative decisions that normally require time, judgement, and consideration throughout the songwriting process. In other words, the user doesn’t need the skill required to produce the result. Whose Ideas Are They? So if YOU didn’t think of them, whose ideas are they? And if it’s outputting stuff based on something you haven’t thought of, what’s the point in you being there at all? The song is found in the mirror as generative AI reflects back an image of a reality that doesn’t exist above the surface. Creative Block as a Rite of Passage In reality, human creativity emerges through the energy generated by those moments of friction, uncertainty, and obstacle. By intervening early with generative AI before we have taken the opportunity to grapple with a block, we deprive ourselves of that bittersweet joy of finding something that comes to life THROUGH US. Instead, a service like Suno short-circuits the block. It presents fully formed solutions that we “never would have thought about”. Perhaps, we would have thought of something much better and more “us” if we had been patient and given ourselves time to grapple with the block. The Allure of The Mirror When you listen to these outputs, there is a professional sheen to them that feels sharp. It sounds just like stuff you hear on the radio. But it sounds like stuff you hear on the radio. There is a sameness to it. An increasingly homogenous stasis. Maybe this technology is attractive precisely because it DOESN’T sound like us. It’s familiar enough for us to to glimpse ourselves. But we look different. It cleans up the parts we might cringe at and be afraid of revealing. Those bits that feel messy, broken, chaotic, and weird. We don’t argue with the machine that makes us sound like something you’d hear on the radio, see on TV, or LinkedIn. Slick, clean, authoritative, clinical, soulless, indistinguishable, unremarkable, dull. Incidentally, this is a good way to identify the best producers, editors, and coaches to work with. They don’t try to make us sound like them or force us to emulate their processes. Instead, they seek to understand and support us. They are able to help us notice, accept, and amplify those parts that we would try to shrink down and hide when left to our own devices. The machine holds a mirror with some perfected image that we believe is us, but is stripped of blemishes, stains, and imperfections. But rather than being the Platonic ideal version of us, it’s more like an aggregate approximation of who everyone else is in the land of mediocre homogeneity. We arrive in this territory when we sand off our edges and lose our spark. The Culture of Narcissism In his 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch offers a fresh way of thinking about the myth of Narcissus. We tend to think that Narcissus died because he fell in love with his own reflection and couldn’t look away, so was unable to do anything other than stare obsessively at himself in the water. Lasch adds another layer, depicting cultural narcissism emerging as the image of the human in the water becomes more important than the human it reflects. Telling Us Apart YouTuber Hank Green recently revealed that he had become over-reliant on ChatGPT after viewers pointed out something in a video that felt off to them. When viewed in context, the clip actually makes more sense than the reactionary commentary suggested. But while he said he didn’t accidentally read something from ChatGPT left in the script, Green didn’t dismiss the criticism. Instead, he agreed, “I think what people have said in this thread about me diluting myself is spot on”. Diluting oneself through the use of technology indicates how a separation between the image and the self can get blurred. This is perhaps why those using Suno to make songs believe they themselves are writing songs. It’s not necessarily a deliberate deception being perpetrated by people pretending to know more than they do or pretending they’ve done things they haven’t. There is a real belief being seeded and nurtured that means people genuinely struggle to distinguish between themselves and the output generated by these technologies. The Gift of Getting Stuck There is a gift in getting stuck along the way during the creative process. It invites us to be resourceful problem solvers. It builds character and reveals more about who we are as we experiment, test, and try things without guaranteed results. Imperfectly. Clumsily. Grappling with creative friction gives opportunities to deepen our confidence and grow our experiences of being okay after failing. These tools are sold to us as ways to avoid that friction. But in so doing, we avoid strengthening the tension wood of creativity altogether, grown in a dance with the rhythm of life’s winds and storms. It Takes a Village (of Humans) In this Sunotopia, depicted through their advert, we see many people gathered in the studio. Yet, the future reality that will come through the success of these platforms appears to be very different. The technology is moving us away from others so we don’t need a producer, an engineer, or other musicians to work with. All we need is Suno because Suno doesn’t get blocked. It will work with whatever crap you feed it. And it will turn any old noise into the kind of song you might hear on the radio. Happiness is Only Real When… Christopher McCandless’s diary concluded that “happiness is only real when shared”. An observation made under tragic circumstances. I think there is a lot of truth in this. I’ve found many times that even the happiest experiences I’ve had on my own feel more complete when they are witnessed through sharing a story with someone else. When we’re feeling the pressure to conform to the schedule of our unrelenting world, we need the courage to give it time. To give OURSELVES and ONE ANOTHER time. Maybe our intuition and imagination will start to show us stuff an LLM never would have thought of… It is rebellious to release ourselves from the pressure to rush and force output for the sake of it. Technologies like Suno and ChatGPT can become an attractive crutch when they are sold as ways to keep going amidst the limitless demands of a productivity-obsessed world. But they gradually erode confidence in our own creative capacity. We would do well to remember, “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”. This is where we become unstuck (in the best possible way).

There is something strange in the space between languages. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it’s fun to explore. It poses a question and presents a challenge…what am I actually trying to say here? When I started work on a video about the relationship between sensitivity and creativity for this year’s HSP Gathering in Oulu, Finland, which happened a few days ago as I’m recording this, I didn’t really think about the process of translating it from English into Finnish for the subtitles. I assumed it would be a straightforward part of the process, which it could have been on one level, given the technology we have at our fingertips these days, where language translation can happen more or less instantly. But it doesn’t take much for meaning to go adrift in the basic translation these tools provide. I was grateful for human assistance, as my friend Tuula was on hand to translate. My gratitude was not only because of her bilingual skills, but because I know she understands what I’m trying to say beneath and beyond the words. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3wHlXyQ6E Good Translation is About More Than The Right Words It seems obvious that translation requires far more than vocabulary, grammar, and syntax across multiple languages. An idiom or joke in one language might be complete gobbledegook when translated directly into another. But when the translator understands the two cultures, including the soul of their humour and their general relationship with tone and subtext, they can find appropriate options to bridge intent so it makes sense across the linguistic surface. Even with its sophisticated capabilities, there were a bunch of times when an initial chatbot translation missed the heart of my words. It made several incorrect assumptions and predictions about my intended meaning without any basis or clarification. Fortunately, Tuula felt this too, and we were able to hone our way to better ways of expressing what I meant. This was extra challenging when some of the original ideas and wording were intentionally poetic and infused with ambiguity. Machines are often eager to sand down nuance and replace it with familiar clichés and well-worn turns of phrase. The whole process showed me the importance of having someone who knows me and understands my ‘thinking’ for a task like this. This principle might apply to a range of contexts and situations in life. Who we are can get lost in a bad translation and found in a good one. Translating The Highly Sensitive Experience I believe this is one reason so much of the creative coaching I do is with highly sensitive and more introverted people. It’s a translation issue. In a world that makes many assumptions about what ‘normal’ looks like and assumes the goal is to fit the mould to get on in life, I tend to work from the premise that it’s not us that doesn’t fit society; it’s usually society that doesn’t fit us. I don’t do this to cultivate an ‘us versus them’ mentality. Quite the opposite, in fact. We are attempting to translate across a bridge, which so often leaves us misunderstanding one another. Likewise, I am very aware of the language used to describe the trait of high sensitivity. In the introduction to the HSP Gathering film I shared on Saturday, I talked about how adopting language around sensitivity has helped us better understand ourselves and our experiences alongside others. But while we have the trait of sensitivity in common, it also takes unique forms for each of us. That shared language can only take us so far, and we don’t want to overdo it. High sensitivity isn’t an identity or a personality type, nor does it dictate what we should like, value, or create. Over the years, I’ve noticed how easily one person’s experience of sensitivity can become the dominant narrative, leaving others wondering whether they’re a “proper HSP”. The Balancing Act in Translating Our Experiences The translator plays an important role in bringing their cultural understanding and experience, without letting it outrun the intention behind the person’s words. And as highly sensitive people, I think we’ve got to be aware of this in the way we listen to and interpret HSPs. To put the person first. That’s why I’m drawn to stories and anecdotes individuals share about their experiences of sensitivity. Not to universalise the experience or assume it’s the same for everyone, but to open the door so that each of us can feel at home with our differences. Which is what I wanted to do with the film I shared at the gathering. “It Just Sort of Happens” is a series of stories about the relationship I’ve noticed between my sensitivity and creativity, and how they have helped me make sense of the world, my personal experiences, and myself throughout my life. I wanted to use the stories as examples to help others map their own experiences and notice what they hear beneath the surface of my words. If you’d like to watch it, I’ll be sharing it in The Courtyard on Sunday, when we’ll also chat about any comments and questions afterwards. Learn more about it and register for your free Courtyard Membership (there will be a replay for those who can’t make it live). If you have any questions or comments in the meantime, please drop me a message and let me know.

Imagine a piece of bait dangling in the water. A passing fish sees it. What a stroke of luck to stumble upon a free, unsuspecting meal. Believing it has found prey, it strikes, convinced it has the power and is acting on its own terms. Only after the hook pierces through does the reality set in. This fish was the target rather than the predator. It got caught in a trap that took advantage of its reactive instinct. In this episode, I talk about how leaving it there can be an act of gentle rebellion. Not in terms of setting traps, but in terms of letting the bait dangle. https://youtu.be/5T44fux-rX8 “Leave it there” is our current exploration theme in The Haven. As I reflected on this idea of bait and tempting action, I realised there are two sides to it. There is the bait that is left there in the hope we bite. And there is what we can do when we engage our critical thinking and cultivate a sense of indifference to the attention and engagement economy that so desperately needs us to react. The Hook Hidden Inside Rage Bait We see this everywhere. I often think about the Jaguar advert that caused such a massive stir online. The internet absolutely erupted. Thousands of people rushed to their keyboards to make videos rejecting it, mocking it, asking where the car was, and lamenting the death of the company. It was interesting to notice how people thought they were being edgy by standing up to corporate culture in this way. But they performed exactly as predicted. They had bitten down on the hook, carefully prepared by the chefs in the Jaguar marketing kitchen. Reacting predictably isn’t necessarily the act of resistance we imagine it to be. It isn’t a display of strength. In fact, it’s often compliance with what the data would expect us to do. Rage bait seeks to cash in on our good faith and our sensitivity to injustice, unfairness, and ignorance. It is an energy vampire that leaves a bitter taste in our mouths, not only robbing us of time to create, contribute, and bring more beautiful things into the world, but also tainting those things with that flavour. Shifting our relationship with rage bait has a greater potential reach than the respite we might experience in the moment. The Attention Economy Wants Us to React Philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes about the shift towards an “achievement society“. We are no longer controlled primarily by an external authority telling us what we should do in order to gain favour. Instead, Han argues, that pressure has moved inwards. Power now operates through the pressure of the “endless can”. There are abundant opportunities and invitations to work without limits, hustle harder, outpace the competition, and stay ahead of the game. A never-ending, asymptotic game, where the end we think we’re closing in on remains forever just out of reach. And the person cracking the whip is inside us. The super-egoic injunction to forever do more than you’re currently doing. Online clout chasers and rage baiters are part of this ecosystem. Not necessarily as evil masterminds, but as people trapped in an endless demand for attention. Constantly pressured to exploit themselves and stay visible, whatever the cost to others and to society as a whole. The platform designers, however well-intentioned they may have been at the start, consistently end up building digital arenas based on algorithms that turn us against one another (and ourselves). Whether directly or indirectly, they stir strong emotions that can be turned into profit. Once attention becomes the currency, people begin competing for it in whatever ways work best. When Defiance Becomes Compliance There is a type of rage bait (trolling, poking the bear, questioning authority) that seems to me a very natural expression of youth. To rebel and rail against society as a way to distinguish one’s own subjectivity. But the mechanics of capitalism have a way of commodifying rebellion. It folds attempts to rebel, especially online, back into its own logic, handing over a creator revenue dashboard and dangling the carrot of potential financial reward. Defiance becomes compliance. What may have started as an act of individual autonomy in the face of authority becomes a highly predictable form of algorithmic compliance with authority. For everyone else, the temptation to react to those dangling rage bait in the waters around us can be incredibly strong. But it is also predictable, and it becomes part of the currency. It risks eroding trust, patience, and honesty. When Everything Starts Looking Like Rage Bait I’ve noticed on Threads recently how often jokes seem to get misunderstood. I saw one earlier: “They’re called Fish FINGERS, not Fish STICKS. Fish don’t have sticks!!!” It seems to be a joke poking fun at the fact that they’re called “fish fingers” in the UK and “fish sticks” elsewhere. The punchline is built on the absurdity of the speaker failing to subvert the logic of the debate. They’ve assumed they’re called fish fingers because they’re literally the fingers from fish. It’s a nice, neat joke. Obviously a joke… Apparently not obviously a joke. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed people instinctively reaching for the label “rage bait.” Whether they missed the joke or simply assumed it was another bad faith provocation, I was struck by how quickly people interpreted it through that lens. Maybe constant exposure to online engagement bait (bad faith posts intended to make people react) has trained us to interpret everything defensively. Instead of asking, “Is this funny?” we’re asking, *”What’s this person trying to do to me?” or “What are they trying to take from me?” A joke is laughter bait. Chuckle bait. Groan bait. Not rage bait. These wider algorithmic trends may be eroding our discernment and, with it, changing how we think. Leave It There So how do we respond with gentle rebellion? We can return to the phrase that cuts both ways: There are those who leave the bait dangling in our feeds, hoping to cash in on our sensitivity and unsettle things for the sake of an algorithmic payday. Our ultimate defiance is to look directly at it, recognise what it is, and choose how to respond. Sometimes that means saying nothing, changing the subject, making something, or simply giving our attention to something we’ve already decided deserves it more. It isn’t always the most cathartic response. The pull to react can be incredibly strong in that moment, and it can feel like an instant hit of relief to do so. But once the dust settles, there’s a deeper satisfaction in knowing your attention went where you chose, not where someone else wanted to drag it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Join us for free in The Haven Courtyard. Maybe we can cultivate rebellious indifference together.

Why nervous systems built to care about others can leave us feeling disconnected in a globally connected world. I’ve been dipping into Britt Frank’s book, The Science of Stuck, over the past week. It’s much more of a self-help book than I was hoping based on the title, but it’s providing some ideas to explore. This concept of stuckness has been on my mind recently… What does it mean to be stuck? What causes us to feel stuck? Does feeling stuck always mean we are stuck? How do we get unstuck when we know what we want to do but can’t seem to take the action we know is required? What happens when our nervous system gets caught in patterns of defence and self-protection when we try to make meaningful changes? https://youtu.be/lbpdjTgJA9w Stuckness and Sensitivity I’m especially interested in the type of stuckness we might see in highly sensitive people. Frank writes: “If you feel guilty because ‘other people have it worse,’ remember—perspective is helpful, but comparison is not. You have a right to exist. You have a right to take up space on this planet. You have a right to feel angry, scared, and hurt. And you also have the right to experience happiness in your life and to feel at home in your body.” Many HSPs I’ve known downplay their right to take up space, particularly when it comes to valuing their own feelings and needs. What I liked about this quote is that it invites both/and thinking. At least, that’s how I’ve interpreted it. It’s not about denying the comparison so much as giving it perspective. Comparison happens because we are social beings. What is unhelpful is letting our response to it diminish ourselves. It’s about making room for both things to be true. When being built to care about others makes it difficult to care for ourselves Highly sensitive people may sometimes see need, pain, and injustice around them and feel stuck when it comes to their own needs, wishes, and feelings. Maybe it’s guilt or shame. Maybe it’s sadness, anger, or hopelessness. We might dismiss our own situation by saying “I shouldn’t complain” or “I should count my blessings.” And again, to bring some both-and perspective, there is nothing wrong with having a sense of the bigger picture. Being built to care is a survival strength rather than a flaw. But both things can be true at once… Allowing your own needs, feelings, and preferences to breathe doesn’t diminish someone else’s. Recognising that someone else is in what appears to be a worse situation doesn’t need to diminish your own. But this isn’t only about validating our own feelings. It’s also about recognising what is lost when we shrink back and disappear from our own lives in that way. The world needs people who have come alive There’s a famous quote by Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” For years, I’ve ended my podcast episodes with the words: “You are an artist. The world needs your art. Now, go and make somebody’s day.” I say this because when sensitive people disconnect from what makes them come alive, everyone loses something. The world becomes poorer for it. I shared this idea in my Notes From a Slow Coach email newsletter at the weekend, and someone replied to emphasise their own experience with this. They quoted: “When you do bad in the world, you make the whole world that much worse, but when you do good, you take the whole world with you, and you make it that much better. People need so little encouragement for it to make a huge difference in their lives.” That’s so true. It takes so little encouragement to make someone’s day. And yet, when focused solely on the big picture, we might believe we can’t make a difference at all. When The “Strategy” of Care Meets a Global World I wonder whether the paralysing effect of “other people have it worse” is a scaled-up version of a highly sensitive trait that operates at a local level. One reason high sensitivity has endured as a successful survival trait is its social element. Rather than being a by-product of low self-esteem or a diminished self-concept, it reflects a nervous system that finds safety by nurturing peace and soothing distress within the surrounding community. At a local level, this is an effective strategy. When you notice someone struggling in your immediate environment, your awareness and attention can make a meaningful difference. Being wired to care means noticing subtleties and patterns that can predict and prevent escalation. Whether of disease, dis-ease, or potential dangers from the surrounding environment. The capacity to sense subtle changes, anticipate needs, and respond with compassion can strengthen the community. But when this same instinct is plugged into the whole world, with instant access through technology, it can rapidly become a reason we feel stuck. It’s impossible to reconcile in any meaningful sense. There will always be people in distress, news of suffering somewhere in the world, and horrifying decisions made by people with far more power to implement than we have to prevent. The Pressure To Care About Everything Maybe you feel this. If you’re built to care about everything, the constant flow of news can leave you feeling helpless. Like there’s no meaningful action you can take that will make much of a difference. And when our attention and compassion are pulled in so many directions, it becomes all too easy to overlook those things that make us come alive. Both what we already know we love, and those things we are yet to discover we love. When we start close in and small, maybe we can recover some sense of perspective. It’s not about pretending the wider world doesn’t exist or that these other things aren’t happening, but about remembering that we’re part of this tapestry too, and that the art we are creating with our lives creates ripples through space and time. And while it might not feel directly related to those things beyond reach that emotionally affect us, and however trivial they seem, if they matter to us, they matter. Caring about others isn’t the problem I would love to hear from you if this feels familiar. Maybe you’ve found ways to reconcile these feelings. Or maybe you’re feeling stuck because you can’t seem to avoid shrinking yourself and feeling like you don’t have as much right as others to take up space on this planet. We can be gentle and encouraging with ourselves and one another as we explore what makes us come alive, while also caring about, grieving for, and living within the contradictions of our messy world. Figuring it out together The Haven Courtyard Membership provides free access to the community space within.

Feeling stuck is not always the same as being stuck. We might respond to a feeling before we’ve identified its source, and when we do, we can end up reacting to the wrong problem. If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to quit your job, transform or abandon a creative project, change direction, or start over completely, it’s worth asking a simple question: What if the thing you’re trying to change isn’t actually what’s making you feel stuck? https://youtu.be/DuUXYBeCK00 Why Feeling Stuck Isn’t Always What It Seems In last weekend’s Notes From a Slow Coach, I wrote about times when we might feel jammed. Things get jammed when too many elements are competing for the limited space available. Ideas, options, other people’s opinions, recommendations, everyday pressures, worries, news, and expectations all compete for our attention until everything starts to feel equally important. When everything feels important, it’s difficult to distinguish the signal from the noise. Are You Really Stuck? Sometimes we do get stuck. Life puts the brakes on where we were heading. A relationship ends. We lose a job. We experience bereavement. A project reaches the end of the road, and we don’t know what to do next. These situations take time to process. Calling ourselves “stuck” might be to misidentify them as problems to solve rather than circumstances to adapt to with self-compassion. When We Solve the Wrong Problem I’ve noticed this pattern in myself many times. I’ll be working on a project that seems to be going well. Then one morning I’ll wake up convinced it needs changing. I’ll start adding features, shifting the focus, rewriting pages, or replacing it altogether. Except the project wasn’t the problem. It had simply become a proxy for something else. Perhaps I was tired after a busy weekend, worried about an upcoming event, or anxious about underlying pressures. Tweaking gives me concrete details to focus on. It provides a feeling of movement and control. I may even convince myself that the thing I’m tweaking is genuinely stuck. It seems I’d often rather rewrite a perfectly good landing page than stop long enough to notice what actually feels jammed. Sometimes the Jam Needs Clearing. Sometimes It Needs Time. Not every traffic jam is the same. Sometimes an obstruction needs removing. Other times you simply need to wait for the traffic to thin out. The important thing is recognising which situation you’re actually in. Some require action. Others require patience. In fact, trying to force movement often becomes part of the jam itself. Three Signs I’m Reacting Rather Than Responding I’ve noticed signs that tell me I’m probably not in the best state to make important changes or decisions. The first is a sudden collapse in confidence. A project I felt good about yesterday suddenly seems completely wrong today. This can feel all-encompassing. But I know if the crisis of confidence has only just begun, I should hold off on acting for a few days. Another is telling myself there’s a magic bullet that can make everything okay. The one correct path. I dismiss perfectly adequate options because they don’t match the image I have in mind of the non-existent perfect one. A third is if I notice myself using action or work to give a feeling of progress, to avoid sitting with discomfort and recognising what might be going on at a deeper level. It doesn’t matter what I do, just do something. Hop lanes. Book alternative transport. At times, the feeling of movement feels better than the feeling of being stuck. Perhaps we’ve come to associate feeling stuck with waiting, patience, and the natural rhythms, processes, and seasons of life. Questions to ask when you’re tempted to respond to feeling stuck with mindless action: Does something actually need to change, or did my mood just change? Would the version of me from yesterday agree with this conclusion? Am I changing this because it genuinely isn’t working, or because I’m simply bored of looking at it today? If I’m bored, what could I do to scratch that itch without affecting the integrity of the underlying structure? These are questions I’ve been exploring for years in Pick The Lock conversations. I’m gathering stories and experiences to build practical resources for navigating those seasons and recurring patterns when we feel stuck. Before we decide what to do next, it helps to know what kind of situation we’re actually in. It began with the Map of Stuckness and Possibility, a free workbook designed to help you identify the landscape you’re in before deciding what to do next. You can download it here.

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore the variety of neurodiversity. I’ve been staying with friends over the past few weeks, including Lucas, who is nearly 12. He is autistic, and after spending time trawling through the Gentle Rebel Podcast episode archive, we had a chat about topics he thought would be good to explore. One of those topics was what he described as “the variety of neurodiversity”. When I asked what that meant to him, and why he felt that was an important thing to discuss, he said that it’s important to realise that not all neurodivergent people have the same needs or preferences. It can be frustrating for him when people make assumptions because of his autism, confusing one person’s experience as being true and applicable to everyone. It reminded me of the story I’ve told a few times on the podcast, when I shared that I love horror films and someone responded by saying it meant I wasn’t a highly sensitive person (HSP). Fortunately, I met a bunch of fellow HSP horror fans who were very grateful to discover they were not alone in that love and passion. It was a really nice reminder that we are all different. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to our natural variations, and while brains share characteristics across neurotypes, our needs, preferences, and tastes are a more complex mix of genetics, environment, and psychology. https://youtu.be/4xJmXtRoIlM 13 Questions I created a mini-zine for Lucas to answer some questions about this topic, which I share in the episode. He has given me permission to talk about his responses because we hope this can help people feel a bit safer and more confident being themselves, even if it makes them different. And for those listening who spend time with neurodivergent people, we hope this encourages them to see everyone as an individual rather than making assumptions that they would be the same as others they’ve met, or as themselves. I would also love to invite you to share your own responses to these questions. I’ve created a survey because I’d be really interested in gathering a variety of responses and getting a sense of the variety of neurodiversity. Can you remember a time when someone assumed something about you because you were autistic? What did they get wrong? Before moving to be educated at home, Lucas had noticed adults assuming that he was like the other autistic children at the school. The teachers assumed he found it difficult to learn, but in Lucas’s case, he found it difficult to be at school. Having spent a lot of time with the family over the past five years, I’ve seen this radical shift as he has transitioned from that institutional school setting to home-based education and is absolutely blossoming. In a way, it feels frustrating that the teachers who had all but written him off through those assumptions will likely never see it. He loves learning, is a sponge for knowledge, and embraces the joy of connecting the dots across a vast range of subjects. What do people tend to misunderstand most about neurodivergent people? “Sometimes people think we’re all the same”, Lucas replied to this one. “They assume that ADHD people are naughty, but actually our brains have so much to focus on so it’s hard to listen.” “Naughty” is a judgement based on the person making it (and the context they are in). In many situations not designed for different types of brains, when people are unable to focus, respond as expected, or do so at the correct speed, authority figures may ascribe intent to those actions. This underpins the disadvantage faced by those expected to play by rules that impose a heavy cognitive load. This can prevent them from functioning and flourishing in their natural way. Have people ever tried to help you in a way that actually made things harder? What did they do? I didn’t ask this question to make people with good hearts feel bad. But because it sits at the heart of much of this stuff, and I’ve heard countless stories of kids being ignored by those who think they know what’s best for them. Lucas described how his needs were ignored by the adults at school. We know about the role of differential susceptibility from the ever-growing body of research around environmental sensitivity. Vantage Sensitivity indicates that the more sensitive someone is, the more positively they are affected by a safe and supportive environment. Diathesis Stress shows that the more sensitive a person is, the more they’re negatively affected by stressful conditions. The school setting can be stressful for neurotypes with diverse sensitivities whose nervous systems don’t naturally fit the normalised environment. Do you know autistic people who are very different from you? How are they different? Lucas said yes to this because, for example, some autistic people he knows are more confident when speaking. Those whose brains function in similar ways still have different personalities, tastes, and abilities. It can be encouraging to see people with the same neurotype who are also different, because it inspires us to believe we’re not necessarily limited or restricted, especially when those limits or restrictions are imposed by unfair assumptions and unfavourable environments. Have you ever felt like you’re not autistic in the right way? If so, what makes you say that? Lucas wondered if his brain was too complex to be autistic, but when he learned about neurodiversity, he learned about differences and similarities in brain functioning. If you could design the perfect school or learning environment for yourself, what would it include? And what would it not include? Schools are such formative environments. And as we all know, they can leave a lasting imprint on the shape of our lives and our sense of self. “In a perfect environment”, Lucas said, “I would feel safe and there would be someone I trust”. Trust is a big word here because it is so easily eroded when people want others to comply and conform with societal norms. I don’t think I know anyone with a more astute and accurate BS detector than Lucas. It’s been refined by experiences of being coaxed into situations by adults who say things like, “You can trust me; you’ll enjoy it once you’re in there.” Accumulate enough such experiences, and it becomes very difficult to trust what authority figures say, especially when you don’t enjoy it once you’re in that overwhelming environment. Do you think other autistic people would want exactly the same things? Why or why not? “No, we’re all different. For example, some autistic people like quiet, but I like music and loud noises.” This is the heart of the variety of neurodiversity that inspired Lucas to highlight this topic. For one person, silence can be really distracting and create a lot of noise within them. For another person, silence is the only way they can focus and calm their mind. Lucas also noted that, from his experience, some things seem common across many autistic people. For example, “finding conversations tricky and we might need more time for things”. What is something important about you that has nothing to do with autism? It can be challenging to recognise things about ourselves that make us different from others. Lucas noticed things he has in common with his dad, who isn’t autistic. They both look similar. They both like music and silly jokes, and are very polite. He has a wonderful, vibrant imagination as well. There’s a joy to see whirring away. His was the mind behind The Spirit of The Cheese, where Jono (his dad) and I took direction and turned his vision into a reality. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dWSuB3WqEaE If someone met you for five minutes, what would they probably get wrong about you? “They might think I don’t speak”, was Lucas’s response to this. Familiar, I’m sure, to many of us, especially introverts and highly sensitive people who take time to pause and assess things before stepping into environments and situations. He continued, “I only really chat to people when they feel okay to talk to. When I know people are safe, I really like chatting to them.” This is the same for me. I can get lost in the flow of conversation. But on meeting me, people often assume I’m quiet, shy, or reserved. What do you wish people cared more about? Lucas’s response to this was a frustration with people caring so much about humans as being more special than everything else. He is passionate and knowledgeable about the natural world, and acutely aware of how damaging humans have been to it because of this underlying attitude of human exceptionalism. He added that he would also like to see neurodivergent people as people who matter. It occurs to me that both would make the world a better place, allowing everyone to see the impact of human exceptionalism. Not just on the environment but on humans themselves. It is part of what leads us to become more divided as a species. And it reinforces systems of inequality and individualistic habits of wealth hoarding. Likewise, when neurodiversity is treated in a way that doesn’t honour value and allow everyone to flourish in sync with their natural potentials, we diminish the richness of our collective human experience. I concur. That is something I wish people cared more about, too. If someone gives you advice, how do you decide whether it will work for you? Sometimes advice comes from people who, as we’ve talked about already, make assumptions that don’t apply to us. They might be speaking from a foundation that is different from who we are, what we care about, and what we think is important. Lucas said, “I think about whether I respect them, trust them, and know them.” Adding, “If I don’t like them, I might regret following their advice.” Have you ever been told “this works for autistic people” and thought, well, not for

I sometimes notice that I’m feeling stuck. When I’m frustrated, trying to figure something out. Stuck for inspiration when I’m attempting to create something or solve a problem. Stuck in thought patterns and loops. It’s tempting to give up or seek shortcuts when this feeling kicks in, as if it’s something to avoid or overcome. But stuckness can encompass a wide range of experiences and open the door to all sorts of interesting discoveries about ourselves and the things we care about. https://youtu.be/0pIjNB-ZoA4 Feeling Stuck Because You Don’t Know What You Want Sometimes we feel stuck when we don’t know what to do. Not just in the existential sense of “What should I do with my life?”, but in smaller, everyday ways too. We might struggle to choose between two options. We might know what we don’t want, but not be able to identify what we do want. Or the idea of settling on one thing brings a flood of everything we need to sacrifice to do so. Feeling Stuck Because There Are Too Many Possibilities Sometimes stuckness comes from having too many possibilities. Too many interests, projects, and lives we want to live. We need to reconcile and navigate life with our finite time, energy, and capacity without becoming overwhelmed by the abundance of options. Feeling Stuck Because None of the Options Feel Right We might feel stuck when none of the available or obvious options feel right. The choices on offer don’t reflect who we are, or we’re trying to force ourselves into a life designed by someone else for someone else. Perhaps things flowed freely for a while, but they no longer seem to fit. Feeling Stuck Even Though You Know What You Want Sometimes, stuckness comes because we know exactly what we want. But we’re afraid of what choosing it might mean. We might fear what others will think and worry about regretting the sacrifices it asks of us. Feeling Stuck as a Doorway Feeling stuck can be a doorway to self-awareness, curiosity, and discovery. It’s a territory that lends itself perfectly to map-making. Rather than creating a list of things to do, fixes, solutions, missing pieces, and the correct answers, we can treat feeling stuck as a territory to explore. Before deciding what to do, we might ask ourselves where we are and how we got here. The Map of Stuckness and Possibility I didn’t anticipate the map I created over the weekend becoming anything specific. But as I explored these questions, I could feel it coming to life as a mini-zine journal companion workbook centred on a simple question… What do I care about? As simple as that question may seem, it can be difficult for many people to answer, especially those whose decisions, choices, and priorities have been shaped by concern for how their actions will affect others. Maybe something has changed in your life, and you suddenly have more time and space to think about what you want to do. Or perhaps you’ve reached a point where you feel yourself fading away, and you recognise that it’s time to come home to yourself. To figure out what you care about, what’s important, and the shape you want your life to take. A Mini-Zine Journal Workbook The workbook isn’t designed to tell you what to do. That’s never been my approach. Instead, it’s designed to help you slow down long enough to hear yourself, notice where you are and what you care about, and perhaps make surprising discoveries along the way. Learn more and download it here.

The Strangest Secret was released in 1956. Earl Nightingale’s 35-minute, six-and-a-half-thousand-word recording was one of the earliest motivational tapes. It sold more than a million copies and became the first spoken-word recording to achieve Gold Record status. The recording was released during a period of post-war economic expansion in the United States. Consumer culture was booming, and suburban home ownership was rising. The promise of upward mobility felt tangible for a growing American middle class encouraged to live a story about abundance, opportunity, and individual advancement. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I look at some of the ideas and assumptions running through The Strangest Secret, and how they echo themes that have become deeply embedded in self-help culture over the past century. https://youtu.be/-t_aynxdw9E What interests me is less whether Nightingale’s advice works than the story he tells about success, failure, responsibility, and human potential. It’s a format followed by generations of motivational speakers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and personal development enthusiasts. It continues to influence how many of us think about ourselves and the world today. I heard about The Strangest Secret through a video by Sean Munger titled The Tools Cult: History of the Amway Motivational Tape Scam. My attention was caught by a reference to Napoleon Hill, who inspired Nightingale when he read Think and Grow Rich in 1948. That book, as well as Nightingale’s tape, became important resources on the Amway reading list. Nightingale’s Definition of Success “When we say about 5% achieve success, we have to define success, and here’s the definition. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” This is a reasonable concept. To act in the service of bringing a worthy ideal into being provides a flexible definition that can be applied in many ways. Nightingale says he believes that success is a life lived with a specific sense of purpose and direction. So it’s confusing when he seems to undermine this by viewing success through a financial lens. He suggests that if you follow 100 men between the ages of 25 and 65, you would witness a desire for success at the start of life, but by the time they’re 65, one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be working, and 54 will be broke. This underpins his position that only 5% of people are successful. So which is it? Being financially independent by age 65 or progressively realising a worthy ideal? Those things are not necessarily linked. An artist, a teacher, a carer, or a community organiser, and anyone who does something despite the lack of guaranteed financial reward. By Nightingale’s own definition, these people may well be successful. They are realising a worthy ideal. Yet his framework shifts from an existential definition of success to an economic one, where in reality, a person can only be deemed successful if they make lots of money. Self-Help Tropes Nightingale’s talk conforms with many of the self-help tropes we are becoming familiar with on this journey. The Secret “If you understand completely what I’m going to tell you from this moment on, your life will never be the same again. You will suddenly find that good luck just seems to be attracted to you. The things you want just seem to fall in line and from now on you won’t have the problems, the worries, the knowing lump of anxiety that, perhaps, you have experienced before. Doubt, fear, well they’ll be things of the past.” The idea of a secret runs through the history of self-help. There is always some missing piece, some hidden principle that, once understood and applied, will change everything. The details vary slightly from book to book, but the structure remains remarkably similar. The reader is invited to believe that happiness, peace, prosperity, confidence, healing, or fulfilment are all waiting on the other side of a single insight. It’s a compelling promise. Nice if true. Metaphor As Evidence Self-help authors often lean on metaphors in ways that make them seem like evidence for a position. Nightingale says, “People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going,” and compares successful people to ships sailing towards a predetermined destination. He then imagines a ship without a captain, crew, or destination and concludes that it will drift aimlessly. The comparison sounds persuasive until you stop and think about it. A ship is designed for a destination. Human beings are not. Some of the richest experiences in life emerge through experimentation, curiosity, accident, and changing direction. A ship without a crew and a destination isn’t fulfilling its literal purpose and reason for existing (built by humans as a logistical tool). A human is not the same. There are many reasons people choose not to structure their lives around the pursuit of goals. “The man who has no goal, who doesn’t know where he is going and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion and anxiety and fear and worry, becomes what he thinks about. His life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry and if he thinks about nothing, he becomes nothing.” I would suggest that many successful people function effectively without the kind of goals Nightingale advocates. And people who have focused so obsessively on a single drive that they’ve lost important things like their health, relationships, and meaningful hobbies. Cherry-Picked Quotes Like many self-help authors, Nightingale draws on the authority of famous thinkers. One example is his quotation of Marcus Aurelius: “a man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.” I couldn’t find this in any of the translations of Meditations I checked, suggesting it is more likely a paraphrase than a direct quotation. The same pattern appears in his use of William James. Nightingale focuses on James’s claim that if you wish to be rich, learned, or good, you can become those things. “If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly ascertain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. If you wish to be good, you will good. Only you must then really wish these things and wish them exclusively and not wish at the same time a hundred other compatible things just as strongly.” To achieve something extraordinary requires excluding countless other possibilities. What happens when wealth becomes the exclusive organising principle of a life? What gets pushed aside? Relationships? Leisure? Health? Community? James seems at least as interested in that question as he is in achievement itself. Nightingale doesn’t acknowledge this. The Strangest Quote of Them All Perhaps the most confusing quote he uses is from George Bernard Shaw, who said, “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.” It sounds like Shaw was spouting a self-help slogan. But this sounded strange to me because Shaw was a committed socialist and a leading member of the Fabian Society. He spent much of his life criticising the idea that individuals simply rise or fall according to personal merit. He repeatedly explored how economic and social structures shape people’s lives in his plays. Throughout his work, Shaw explored the relationship between individual agency and the social conditions people inherit. So where did this quote come from? It is actually a line spoken by the character Vivie Warren in Mrs Warren’s Profession, not by Shaw directly. As with any playwright, author, or comedian, we need to be careful about treating a character’s words as the artist’s personal philosophy. Charles Dickens (Fagin – Oliver Twist) The Obligatory Call To Action (and disclaimer) Like any good self-help talk, Nightingale finishes with a challenge. Write down what you want more than anything else. Carry it with you. Look at it every day. Maintain a positive outlook and give more than you’ve ever given before. The framework handles failure with a familiar disclaimer. If the method works, it gets the credit. If it doesn’t work, responsibility falls back on the individual. You didn’t believe enough, weren’t committed enough, lost focus, or didn’t give what was required. This secret is neither particularly strange nor surprising. It is a derivative of Napoleon Hill. In fact, it’s almost identical to what he wrote in Think and Grow Rich. There is always another level of effort required and another reason success remains just beyond reach. The possibility that the promise itself might be flawed rarely enters the conversation. My Enduring Question There is a gap between the question Nightingale starts with and the answer he arrives at. As a child growing up in poverty, he wanted to understand why some people prospered while others struggled. It’s an interesting question to explore. It opens up the potential to probe into themes of opportunity, power, ownership, luck, and the socio-economic landscape of society itself. Yet by the end of The Strangest Secret, that complexity has been replaced by a one-dimensional explanation and cure. Inequality is a direct product of our thoughts, goals, and willingness to work in the service of our personal dream. This move has become so familiar within self-help culture that it can be difficult to notice. Social questions become personal. Structural problems are solved by mindset. Inequality becomes a failure of ambition, and burnout becomes a failure of attitude. More than seventy years after The Strangest Secret was released, people are still being sold variations of the same promise. Support My Work It takes me time to resear