Q: First your book has helped me so much I can’t thank you enough. I see right where I’m at and what is happening but can you be more specific about what will help move forward from here?

A: You say you “see right where you’re at and what is happening,” which is precisely why this question arises now. The mind recognizes the terrain and immediately tries to convert recognition into control. If I understand the phase, surely there must be something I can do to advance to the next one.

That’s the false self attempting to manage reality so it can survive the transition intact.

If you can see where you are, you don’t need me to tell you how to move forward. The part of you asking for ‘more specific guidance’ isn’t stuck, it’s hesitating. If you know where you are, then you also know exactly what you’re avoiding. Moving forward isn’t about adding something new. It’s about removing the one thing you’re still protecting.

What we’re really staring at here is the step that you don’t want to take. So what is it?

You already know which belief you won’t question, which relationship you won’t risk, which identity you won’t let burn, which comfort you won’t surrender, which fear you keep circling but won’t enter. That’s the bottleneck.

Progress isn’t made by understanding the terrain; it’s made by stepping onto the part of it that scares you.

It appears that you’re asking What will help me move forward?  But it’s actually, “What am I still hoping I won’t have to give up?”

That’s where the work is now. Take the thing you’re most certain you don’t need to examine and examine it until it collapses. That’s it. That’s the method. That’s always the method.

“What belief, if it were false, would leave me with nothing to stand on?”

This is the question that actually opens the next door. Write until the ground gives way.