BEING MYSELF
Reflections on our relationship with ourselves and what happens when it evolves.
Written by Anna Scott.
What Are You Doing With Your Energy?
We were two minutes into our session in the Oakland Redwoods when he said it.
A city inspector had come to his restaurant. He was telling me about the visit, the stress, what she had checked, and what she had flagged.
And then, almost in passing: "They sent the most difficult person."
He kept talking, but my attention shifted.
I had heard everything I needed to hear.
Why Do I Feel Guilty Saying No to Someone I Love
About two years ago, I was doing laundry when my daughter came in, upset.
A piece of clothing had gone into the dryer that wasn't supposed to. She wanted me to look at each piece before putting it in to check the requirements for every item.
I noticed my automatic reaction immediately. Are you kidding me? What a stupid idea. The reaction was real. And I noticed it. I did not act on it.
Instead, I told her that if that was her request, I would no longer do her laundry.
That did not go over well.
Why I Keep Avoiding the One Thing I Know I Need to Do
He came into our session this morning carrying something heavy.
For two months, there was a call he needed to make. A fundraising call. The kind that required him to ask — directly, without apology — for something that mattered to him. Every week, the intention was there. Every week, the phone stayed in his pocket. He'd told himself he would do it. He hadn't. And somewhere in that gap, a story had taken root — one that said something about who he was.
He used the word loser.
She Already Knew
She sat across from me, hands folded in her lap, and told me about her boss.
He was angry. He was unprofessional. She had a long list of evidence, and she delivered it with the certainty of someone who had been building her case for a long time.
She wanted to go to HR. She wanted to file a complaint. She wanted to quit. Three plans. All of them pointed at him.
All Of Her Energy Was Pointed At Him
How to Be With Emotions (Without Fixing Them)
I used to run from my emotions like I was running from a house on fire.
Fast. Urgent. Wanting to escape.
Yet no matter how far or how fast I went, they were still there.
If anything, they grew louder, more present, and harder to ignore.
More insistent.
More present.
Harder to ignore.
Until I learned something different.
When Your Life Looks Right But Feels Wrong |
I was stuck on the Bay Bridge and sobbing.
My body had been trying to tell me something for years. That night, it stopped asking.
Traffic wasn't moving. My phone was dead. My son was at daycare waiting for me. Again.
And somewhere back in a conference room in the city I had just spent three days smiling in, there was a version of me still playing along.
The conference had gone well.
I said the right things. I laughed at the right moments. I was good at this. The salary said so. The stock options said so.
I was living the dream.
Except I wasn't.
Mar 24
Written By Anna Scott
I was stuck on the Bay Bridge, and I was weeping.
Not pretty crying. The kind that comes from somewhere you've been ignoring for a long time.
Traffic wasn't moving. My phone was dead. My son was at daycare waiting for me. Again.
And somewhere back in a conference room in the city I had just spent three days smiling in, there was a version of me still playing along.
The conference had gone well.
I said the right things. I laughed at the right moments. I was good at this. The salary said so. The stock options said so.
I was living the dream.
Except I wasn't.
What Emotions Are.
I have been fascinated with emotions for most of my life.
Not because I understood them—but because I wasn’t allowed to feel them.
When my father died, we were told we could not be sad. We were told to move on, to be strong, to shut it down. And what I came to understand, much later, is that you cannot shut down one emotion without shutting down all of them.
So I did.
And then I became interested.
The Hope Chest
My mother taught me not to feel. It took a lifetime — and my daughter — to unlearn it.
My father died when I was two.
My mother was left with six children. Five boys and one girl. Me. The youngest.
She did what she had to do. She kept the house running. She kept us fed. She kept moving forward.
Her motto was simple.
No one likes a whiner.
The Difference Between What Happened and the Story I Made It Mean
After we hung up the phone, I noticed a strong feeling move through me. I checked in with my heart and stayed with what was there.
First came resentment — resentment that she could travel, that she could get up and go while I felt stuck here.
Underneath the resentment was jealousy. And underneath the jealousy — something I wanted. To travel. My emotions pointed to something real.
But there was still no peace. Something deeper stirred. So I stayed.
Then the word arrived.
Abandoned.
And with it — a memory. Seven years old. My mother has left the country for three weeks. I am staying with my grandmother. I do not feel safe there.
I felt it.
When Someone Finally Says What They Want
The Moment
The bees in the flower pear trees were buzzing.
Tiny insects moved through the blossoms, the branches trembling with life. Behind us, the scent of jasmine drifted through the warm air. In the grass, sky-blue crocus pushed through the ground.
Danielle and I were sitting on a bench in Piedmont Park.
Spring had just begun.
The Relationship With Yourself Changes Everything
The real work begins within.
When I was younger, I was married to a man who was verbally abusive.
One day I came home and found my teddy bear with its head ripped off. A note was pinned to it.
Next is yours.
That was the day I left.
For years, I thought the story was about him.
After decades of inner work, I saw something deeper.
It wasn’t only him who was belittling me.
Futile
I found myself inside an emotion I didn't recognize. It wasn't despair. It wasn't fear. It was something new.
For a year and a half, my business had been in a season I didn't expect. I kept telling myself to stay open. Stay trusting. Stay generous. Nothing shifted the way I thought it would.
I was sitting with Sarah McCrum. She invited us to notice what was present. That's when it surfaced.
I tried different names. Hopelessness came close but didn't land. Helplessness — too familiar, wouldn't settle.
Then the thought arrived, simple and flat: Nothing I do makes a difference.
It hit like a dull bite. That's when the word came.
Futile.
Living From Love
I was working on my new website when I felt it.
A tightening in my chest.
My breath went shallow.
Fear
The fear of not getting it right.
The fear of being judged.
The fear of wasting my time.
As if there is a right.
As if love needs permission.
Burnout Before It Breaks You: One Lawyer's Story
She came to me because she was exhausted. A high-performing woman. A lawyer. Always on. Nights. Weekends. A nervous system that never shut down. On the outside, she was capable and respected. On the inside, everything felt loud and urgent. She told me she wanted to do work in a new way — though she didn't yet know how. She only knew the current pace wasn't sustainable. This is what burnout looks like before it breaks you.
Understanding How We Have Our Experience
It Wasn’t Complicated After All
My son is spending Christmas away for the first time.
Twenty-nine years of shared rituals, and now a quiet change.
I didn’t have an issue with him going. That part felt clean.
What hurt was something else.
I wasn’t held in mind.
Plans were made — with friends, with travel, with what came next — and somehow I wasn’t part of the orientation. When dates were offered later, they landed flat. January 25 didn’t feel like a celebration. It felt like a placeholder.
The meaning that came immediately was familiar:
I don’t matter. I’m not a priority.
The Moment I Crossed the Finish Line
The cold Thanksgiving air stung my cheeks as I rounded the final corner, breath sharp, legs trembling. My orange shoes slapped the pavement, steady as a heartbeat. When the finish line came into view, something in me cracked open.
The Quiet Transmission Between Two People at Work
The silence in his story felt charged, like the moment right before a wave breaks.
He sat across from me describing a meeting with his boss, and I could feel it — that invisible shift in the air when something unspoken enters the room.
He told me about the conversation — nothing dramatic, nothing explosive.
Just a simple exchange where his boss said one thing, but the space between them said something else entirely.
He had felt it immediately: a tightening across his chest, a flicker in his stomach, the swift rise of an emotion he didn’t yet have language for.
Listening Begins Within
I never meant to become a deep listener.
It wasn’t a skill I set out to master.
It happened because I became curious — I wanted to understand what I was really feeling inside myself.
To do that, I had to slow down and begin noticing.
My automatic thoughts.
My emotions.
The sensations and constrictions moving through my body.
I wanted to know what was true for me — beneath all the noise.
What Changes When You Bring Universal Love to Work
When we bring love, presence, and consciousness into the workplace, everything changes.
Work becomes more meaningful, relationships soften, and leadership feels natural instead of forced. This piece explores how the wisdom of Aikido and the 25th Gene Key—Universal Love—can transform how we work, lead, and connect with one another.
Why Do Certain People Always Trigger Me? Understanding the Mirror Effect.
He was standing in front of me, yelling. My chest tightened. I wanted to disappear. For years, I called him abusive. I said he made me small. But the truth I couldn't see then? I was already small—long before he ever raised his voice.
I used to collect evidence against certain people—my first husband, a demanding boss, a client who questioned everything. Each one seemed to have power over me. My stomach would twist. My voice would go tight. I'd replay their words for days, building an airtight case for why they were the problem.