Layers, Intervals, and Becoming

Notes: belief stacks, 15-minute blocks, and meditation shifts.

I’ve been thinking about how much of our brain runs on hidden settings. The mind isn’t a single voice; it’s a hierarchy of beliefs stacked on top of each other. Therapy often feels hard, not because the work itself is impossible, but because the assumptions you operate from are invisible. If a distortion exists at one level, everything above it tilts. You start misreading or ignoring evidence without realising it. Healing from a complicated childhood often felt like pulling on a loose, never-ending thread—untangle one knot and you find another.

I’ve noticed that the way I manage time reflects this same architecture. My brain doesn’t track hours in the way many people’s do—it’s missing that automatic neural metronome. What helps me is to break down less important tasks into 15-minute intervals. If I write down steps and chunk the minutiae (anything that’s not deep work) into 15-minute units, I can maintain awareness of time’s passing and keep momentum without burning out. It’s not glamorous, but it’s been working to remove bottlenecks in minor tasks that would otherwise get delayed.

Meditation is slowly shifting from an action I do to a state I am in. You need to understand something fully before you can really work with it, and there were a lot of things that were going on underneath the surface. For years, my default internal voice was basically just a critic on loop. Now I’m building a new one. Some days it sounds like Gandalf, other days like Morgan Freeman (bonus of being an audiophile: your imagination comes with good speakers). And honestly, I feel too old for all the mental gymnastics I used to perform to cosplay adulthood. I’m slowly retiring those distortions, and it’s been surprising how much satisfaction comes back when you… Stop fighting yourself all the time. There’s a certain cognitive expenditure there; it’s still easy to get lost in what they call the ‘default mode network' at times, but I’m much quicker to find my way back.

The deeper I go, the more it feels like wandering a labyrinth—but practice really does cut new paths. I’m grateful I can dedicate an hour a day to this. Some friends look at me sideways when I say that, but it’s what holds my mental scaffolding together. Two hours felt even more grounding, but it was hard to sustain after the first few months; one hour has been enough to keep me steady. It’s both humbling and bittersweet to realise that emotional regulation, not competency, was the real glass ceiling. The distance between where I am and the life I envision isn’t primarily about skills—it’s about getting out of my own way.

I’m sharing this half-ramble because some of you might find parts of it relatable, and I think I might try this style of sharing and see how I feel. I’ve been back in New Zealand for what feels like forever now, and I’m itching to return to my life in San Francisco. The clock is ticking with my visa process, and I’m looking forward to carrying these practices with me into the next chapter.