Coherence of the Center · Eye of the Mountain

“And following our will and wind we may just go where no one’s been
We’ll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one’s been”
- Maynard, Lateralus

When you view things from the center, order and organization are a lot easier to observe than when viewing things from the periphery.

When you organize yourself around your center, it takes a lot less effort to hold everything together than when you’re organized around fragments.

The energy can be used more efficiently and tension doesn’t have to fight tension.

The possibilities expand and multiply. The standards can be redefined. The limitations lifted.

So how do we find our center and maintain it?

There is a cycle of three steps that can achieve it. It involves:

1. Accepting reality
2. Being present with pain
3. Facing our fear

We all have an inherent intelligence that guides us to healing, growth and fulfillment. We all have a part of us that has all the answers.

Our pain carries essential information and our fear points us towards our growth. It’s a built-in compass. We just forget how to use it.

Accepting reality demands seeing clearly, inside and outside, and the strength to accept the truth, however inconvenient and painful. But at its core it’s just a mindset and it can be actively chosen: reality over fantasy. No denial, blame, distraction or dissociation. Sure it’s frightening, sure it hurts.

Dealing with pain demands sensitivity and presence. It is an inherently feminine quality. Ideally, this is something that’s taught to us by our mother. That’s her most important role. But, even without proper mothering, it’s something we can get through community or therapy.

Facing fear demands courage and discipline. It’s a penetrating or you could say masculine quality. Ideally, this is taught to us by our father. But it is possible to develop this on our own.

Pain reveals the cost of denial. Fear reveals the cost of avoidance. Acceptance becomes flow: nothing to overcome, everything to allow.

The song the universe gets revealed when you stop resisting the truth. It’s the geometry of alignment — the heartbeat of creation heard through the spine. When we heal, our rhythm returns to the pattern of the whole, and the cosmos exhales through us again.

Reality → Acceptance → Alignment ↑
Pain → Understanding → Integration ↑
Fear → Courage → Expansion ↑

This was my path.

I. Premise - The Nature of Suffering

Nervous system dysregulation, emotional repression and disembodiment create fragmentation, our goal is not perfection, but coherence.

Trauma is not the wound; it’s an adaptation. Healing isn’t erasing it — it’s integrating the intelligence it carried.

Suffering is not a punishment, it’s our path to grace.

II. Catalyst – The Moment of Breakdown

Every transformation begins with collapse — physical, emotional, existential.

The depression and suicidality, the broken spine.

This phase is the death of the false self, the initiation into humility and truth.

I call this stage the Ocean of Pain — the place where the old structure dissolves through grief.

My trauma was extreme and in a way that’s a blessing because I reached a point where my coping mechanisms couldn’t carry me any further. Most people with less dysfunction never hit a breakdown point, their coping mechanisms are adequate to carry them through life. They settle for mediocrity never knowing that something else was possible. That’s the real tragedy.

The good news is you don’t need a devastating life stopping breakdown to heal and grow.

III. Process – The Arc of Becoming

Healing happens on seven levels outlined by the chakras:

1. Root Chakra – Belonging

Accepting reality: You are here. You have a body. You belong to Earth and the universe. You are not separate and different. You’re not an anomaly.

Learning from pain: Safety is built through contact and surrender, not control and manipulation.

Following fear: Move toward presence instead of withdrawal.

Lesson: You can trust life enough to stay.

2. Sacral Chakra – Desire

Accepting reality: You want what you want, no point in resisting it.

Learning from pain: Rejection and shame refine intimacy, they don’t define it.

Following fear: Let yourself be seen in your wanting.

Lesson: Pleasure and vulnerability are sacred. Desire is energy.

3. Solar Plexus – Agency

Accepting reality: You have agency; you make choices that shape you and the world.

Learning from pain: Failure teaches discernment. You either win or you learn.

Following fear: Step into visibility and responsibility.

Lesson: True strength is self-trust, not dominance.

4. Heart – Connection

Accepting reality: You need and are needed.

Learning from pain: Betrayal opens the gate to forgiveness.

Following fear: Risk loving again.

Lesson: Wholeness is found in relationship.

5. Throat – Truth

Accepting reality: You have a voice; your perspective matters.

Learning from pain: Conflict refines authenticity.

Following fear: Speak even when your voice trembles.

Lesson: Power becomes integrity when it meets truth.

6. Third Eye – Perception

Accepting reality: See things as they are, not as you wish.

Learning from pain: Disillusionment clarifies wisdom.

Following fear: Look into the unknown and keep your eyes open.

Lesson: Seeing clearly is an act of love.

7. Crown – Transcendence

Accepting reality: You are part of everything.

Learning from pain: Let go of the illusion of separateness.

Following fear: Surrender into vastness. Safety through routine and success is an illusion.

Lesson: Freedom is participation in all that is.

IV. Breakthrough – The Fractal Wave of Coherence

For a while healing happens incrementally and it’s really hard. Every step is a battle. It’s exhausting and painful. But, ready for the good news? There’s a point when you accumulate enough momentum and reach a certain critical mass to break through the threshold, and suddenly everything starts falling into place.

I call this stage the fractal wave of coherence. Progress turns into a chain reaction across multiple systems: emotionally, physically, socially.

When I hit this stage, my body changed, posture improved, scoliosis straightened, tension and pain faded, it felt like my skeleton rearranged itself, every vertebra readjusted. My digestion improved. My energy levels stabilized.

Grief stopped being a way to manage pain and became a way to manage energy. Fear became a call to immediate action. I started writing this substack! I was finally able to rest without distracting with productivity and addiction. I stopped needing to be liked by others. I stopped needing external validation. The thoughts of desperation and panic became optional.

I started being able to see other people’s needs, desires and insecurities, instead of being caught up in my own reactivity. Channeling the eye of the mountain stopped being a random occurrence and became accessible whenever without the grief cycle.

V. Outcome – The Emergent Self

The center gets reclaimed and maintained: not the “healed” self, but the whole one. The one who can hold intensity and peace simultaneously. Who no longer needs a wound to feel depth.

You might call this the feral state — unchained, self-generated, sovereign, loving.

VI. Expression – Transmission & Service

Transformation completes only when it’s shared. Writing, art, dance, presence — these aren’t hobbies, they’re transmission technologies.

This is the stage where healing becomes leadership. Not so much by teaching others, but by radiating coherence through presence so they can remember themselves.

VII. Spiral – The Eternal Return

We all fall back into contraction. That’s part of it.

Integration is lifelong, cyclical, and endlessly deepening.

The spiral is the symbol here: progress that curves back through familiar terrain, each time from a higher vantage.

The truth is that I will never get to the version of Tommy that would have been without the trauma. There is no end to the brokenness. I will never know what it’s like to run a marathon without ankle weights.

That’s part of the reality that needs accepting. There will always be times when life gets overwhelming and old patterns surface, when something triggers me and the ocean of pain becomes too much to contain and bear.

The end of suffering is not escape, it’s rhythm.

That’s just my path. I accept it with humility and faith.