This newsletter is a window into my life.
Authenticity is everything.
I’m not here to tell you how things are or what to believe. I’m here to share what I’m discovering—and invite you to question your own assumptions.
Because sometimes, the most powerful insights come not from answers, but from better questions.
With that in mind, let me share something I noticed this week.
I caught myself scrolling through my phone and realized that almost everything I was looking at was designed to shape my perception of reality.
And then I noticed the same thing happen that happens to most of us…
My mind immediately began constructing a reality:
“They’ve got it figured out.”
“They’re successful.”
“They’re happy.”
“They’re living the life I want.”
But then I stopped and asked a different question:
What if none of what I’m experiencing is actually coming from them?
What if what I’m experiencing isn’t them at all?
Let me explain what happened next.
1. The Trap of Projection
Here’s what I realized:
The attraction you feel towards another person’s success, confidence, beauty, intelligence, or status is not actually coming from them.
It’s coming from your mind’s simulation of Being.
You are being hooked by your mind’s projections.
Your experience of the other is fundamentally an experience you are having within yourself. The feelings of admiration, envy, inspiration, insecurity, or attraction do not originate from the other person.
They arise from the meaning your mind has assigned to what it perceives.
In reality, it tells you nothing about the other.
Your mind grants imagination the perception of reality, creating the illusion that the attraction is caused by something external to you.
That’s the illusion.
Their success isn’t making you feel inadequate.
The image isn’t creating the attraction.
The person isn’t causing the experience.
Here’s proof:
Two people can look at exactly the same person and have completely different experiences. One feels intimidated. One feels inspired. One feels indifferent.
The external stimulus is the same.
The internal experience is different.
So what’s actually happening?
Want to learn the complete 3-step method that helps you see through these illusions? Read the full Awareness Intelligence Manifesto.
2. What Remains When the Illusion Dissolves?
This is the question I keep returning to:
What is authentic?
What remains when the stories fall away?
What remains when the illusion dissolves?
The moment you recognize this, something profound happens.
You stop treating your thoughts as reality.
You stop treating imagination as truth.
You stop assuming your experience of the world is the world itself.
And what remains?
Being. And the sense of being present.
This is something I’ve learned not just from philosophy, but from real life.
3. Working as a Doctor in Indigenous Communities
Some of the most meaningful lessons I’ve learned have come not from medical textbooks, but from relationships with people whose experiences challenged my assumptions and reminded me that genuine understanding begins with presence, humility, and a willingness to listen.
Social media and public discourse often encourage us to engage with our ideas about people and communities rather than the reality of their lived experience.
Yet reality is almost always richer, more complex, and more human than the stories we construct about it.
Time and again, I’ve been reminded that understanding emerges not from assumption, but from being present enough to see what is actually there.
This is what I call the first layer of the Three Layers of Mental Tyranny—Oblivion of Being. The forgetting of what’s actually real.
If you missed my previous article, I break down this complete framework and why fighting your mind doesn’t work in Stop Fighting Your Mind. Find Creative Solutions Through Awareness.
4. Why the Mind Hooks You in Imagination
This week for me was all about how the mind hooks me in imagination and deceives me to treat it as reality.
This got me thinking…
Why does the mind make up stories about myself and others?
And more importantly: Why does it compel me to treat them as reality—making me blind and unavailable to what is actually there?
I’ve discovered there are two ways to look at this:
First, you can look at the mind’s projections and realize they have no true reality. (This is the Awareness Method I wrote about in my first article, When Things Are Not in Control, That’s When You’re Most in Control.)
Second, you can look at the compelling dynamic of the mind itself—and realize its mission is to control your reality.
And here’s where it gets interesting…
It took me some time to make this observation.
But when I did, everything changed.
5. The Breakthrough
Here’s what I mean:
I realized that the mind is not here to protect me.
The mind wants to create certainty in an uncertain world.
The mind would rather tell me negative things about myself and others that feel certain than leave me in the uncertainty of not knowing.
All these years I had a stutter, I thought I was dealing with a speech impediment.
But I wasn’t.
I was dealing with the mind dishing out negative opinions of myself and creating doomsday scenarios that had no true reality—but were the mind’s way of controlling my reality.
The moment I let go of my resistance to all of it and was able to be with all the nonsense it was spitting out in my consciousness, I was free to speak fluently.
I discovered that I never had a speech impediment.
Well, this was quite an insight. This was an interesting experience I had.
At least that’s what I thought…
But what came next was even more insightful and literally mind-shattering.
In case you’re curious…
I came to realize that I never had any true external challenges. The real enemy was my ignorance.
On my journey of awareness, I observed that every time I have a negative thought, the mind wants me to engage with it or solve it as a problem—which are all ways for the mind to control my reality.
And of course, when I engage with my thoughts, whatever they are, it escalates and only amplifies the problem.
The mind rather keeps me small for the sake of certainty than considering what is possible.
I realized that the narrative, all these stories I carry with me which seem real when they appear have no true reality.
It is just the way of the mind to create an appearance of reality and keep me hooked in its narrative.
The problem is that when you find yourself in the middle of it there is no way out.
The only way out is to allow for the experience you are having, let it rage, stay with it, not engage with it until it dissolves in awareness.
You don’t have to fix your problems. You don’t have to work it out.
The true solution to your problems is found in seeing through the illusion of the mind, seeing that it has no true reality, and declining to give in to the false urgency the mind creates to engage with whatever it dishes out.
What remains is Being.
Return to Being.
This is basically how I developed the Awareness Method.
6. The Ultimate Discovery
Now you might wonder: What happens if you don’t do anything, let the thinking be, and don’t allow it to control your reality?
This question brings me to the ultimate discovery of what is true, which came to me in the practice of the Awareness Method.
Here’s what I realized:
The mind creates false urgency because it demands an appearance of reality.
It can’t stand the uncertainty of not knowing.
But that uncertainty—that state of non-being and not-knowing—is actually your perfect state.
Timeless. Untainted. Ever-existent.
Your perfect state is where all is One where it is impossible to point to a single thing as ever existent. The ultimate discovery is the illusion of consciousness.
I know this might sound abstract. There’s a lot I haven’t said here. I’ll elaborate in future issues of The Awareness Contrarian.
But here’s the practical part:
Your ability to be with the uncertainty of not knowing is your access as an entrepreneur to create and impact results.
If you find out how your life works, your life will work out.
Knowing how your life works basically means knowing what is real.
Then everything else takes care of itself.
And knowing what is real means knowing how the mind hooks you in imagination and deceives you to treat it as reality.
The Bottom Line
This week taught me something simple but profound:
The question isn’t “How do I become more successful?”
The question is “What is actually real?”
And the answer is always the same:
Being.
Everything else? Just an interesting appearance.
Here’s How I Can Help You:
1. Join the Bootcamp (Limited to 50 People)
The 3-day Awareness Intelligence Bootcamp + Masterclass happens July 14-17, 2026.
This is an intimate, hands-on experience limited to just 50 participants.
You’ll learn:
- How to see through the mind’s illusions in real-time
- How to access the state of non-being for creative breakthroughs
- How to make decisions from Being, not thinking
- How to stop being controlled by your mind’s projections
Space is limited to maintain the quality of interaction and personal attention.
2. Read the Manifesto
Want to understand the complete framework?
Read the full Awareness Intelligence Manifesto:
Discover why this is the Category of One—an intelligence AI can never replicate.
3. Subscribe to The Awareness Contrarian
Get weekly insights delivered to your inbox every Sunday:
4. Read Previous Issues
Catch up on the series:
- Issue #1: When Things Are Not in Control – Carmen’s Liberty training and the paradox of control through surrender
- Issue #2: The Ghost Town – The collapse of the social body and why The Great Return is necessary
- Issue #3: Stop Fighting Your Mind – The Three Layers of Mental Tyranny and the remote road discovery
- Read all issues on Medium →
If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. I read every response.
New here? Welcome! Start with the Awareness Intelligence Manifesto to understand what this is all about. También disponible en español.