Nate Hamm

There is a voice in your head that never stops speaking. Its constant chatter is an incessant stream of worries and anxieties, cravings and desires, judgments and complaints.

The voice never feels satisfied because it’s always finding new things to want. It never feels safe because it’s always finding new things to fear. And it never, ever stops.

The bad news is that everyone has this voice in their head. The good news is that the voice in your head is not you.

It’s merely the voice of the ego, a false mind-made self pretending to be you. This mentally-constructed self may seem real, but ultimately it’s just an illusion. It’s not who you are.

When you mistake the ego for who you really are, you identify with the voice in your head. And the more you identify with that voice, the more you suffer.

Freedom comes as you begin to notice the voice, observe it, listen to it without judgment, and recognize it as the voice of the ego. By witnessing the voice, you weaken your unconscious identification with it.

You realize that you are not the voice in your head. You are not the ego with all its wants and fears. You are the witness. You are free.

[ If my work inspires any peace or joy in you, you can support my writing and teaching via Patreon or PayPal. I’m deeply grateful for your generosity. ]

You’re afraid you’ll drown in the waves.
But you are the ocean.

You’re afraid you’ll perish in the whirlwind.
But you are the storm.

You’re afraid you’ll burn in the flames.
But you are the fire.

You’re afraid you’ll vanish in the darkness.
But you are the light.

You’re afraid that you’ll lose your life.
But you don’t have a life. You are life.

[ If my work inspires any peace or joy in you, you can support my writing and teaching via Patreon or PayPal. I’m deeply grateful for your generosity. ]

Within every nightmare
of sorrow, separation, and suffering
is the quiet invitation to awaken
to unity, wholeness, serenity, and peace.


[ If my work inspires any peace or joy in you, you can support my writing and teaching via Patreon or PayPal. I’m deeply grateful for your generosity. ]

It’s often wise to postpone pleasure, but it’s never wise to postpone joy.

Your mind will tell you that you can’t be joyful now. It will insist that you can only be joyful sometime in the future, once you get whatever you want. What your mind doesn’t know is that joy is a present reality, not a future one.

If you postpone joy until you achieve some future success or arrive at some future destination, you will never arrive. Or you will arrive, but the destination won’t be what you expected it to be. The success won’t give you what you wanted. Joy deferred is joy denied.

Joy never happens then, later, in some distant future. It always happens now. So when you ignore, deny, or miss the now, you miss out on joy. If you postpone pleasure, you may experience delayed gratification. But if you wait to feel joy, you will wait forever.

Joy is already deep within you and all around you. It’s an intrinsic part of the journey, not just the destination. You can’t achieve joy or arrive at joy in the future. But you can find it and feel it here and now.

[ If my work inspires any peace or joy in you, you can support my writing and teaching via Patreon or PayPal. I’m deeply grateful for your generosity. ]

when you are truly
present in this moment,
awake and alive to all
that is here and now, then

every step is an arrival
every place is a thin space
every breath is a prayer
every journey is a pilgrimage

every stone is an altar
every mountaintop is a temple
every forest is a cathedral
every star in the sky is a sanctuary

every flower is a secret garden
every garden is an ancient paradise


[ *every step an arrival* is a line from Denise Levertov ]


[ If my work inspires any peace or joy in you, you can support my writing and teaching via Patreon or PayPal. I’m deeply grateful for your generosity. ]