Each day I die and in that death live more fully in the present

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:02]Hey, I'm Sam with this beautiful creature again today, the lovely Rolo.

[00:00:10]And it's uh a fine spring day here in the highlands of Scotland. Gray, cold, and wet.

[00:00:17][clears throat] But um it's been probably I don't know, I've probably only made a couple of videos in the last two months.

[00:00:27]And uh so I wanted to try and get back into the groove again of making regular content and uh you know talking about what's been happening. So it's not raining too hard yet. So uh although there are clouds approaching so I'll see if I can share some thoughts in uh whatever time I have. Um yeah, you know, I I the reason I haven't made any videos lately is because [clears throat] um you know, all the way through me making the the content for this channel, I've been doing my very best to to to document that the process that that you know, it's very much a process.

[00:01:17]something was happening to me and we call it healing.

[00:01:21]Um but it's you know one in the same time it's awakening and it's a very very painful process but there are definite stages to it and you know over the last few years on this channel because I because I you know this happened to me quite old. I'm in my 50s. I'm 56 now. And really, this began like 15 years ago. I think around 15 years ago.

[00:01:50]And because I'd been so profoundly traumatized from the beginning of my life, um I'd never really learned um how to be any other way other than in survival mode.

[00:02:12]And like you know I was I was fighting a battle all the way through my life.

[00:02:17]Um a battle inside me and a battle outside me and many battles. And so I think I just hungered for more. I hungered for something that seemed unattainable.

[00:02:40]As I got older, all all my life I'd hungered for safety.

[00:02:46]And so everything I did was directed toward that end. But as I as I got older, the the resistance that I'd experienced all through my life just got worse and worse and worse because the way I was going about things just didn't just created more conflict.

[00:03:04]And then, you know, after I broke down in my early 50s when I just couldn't go on, um I had to learn how to be a new way.

[00:03:17]But in in the breakdown of of identity, you know, nothing works anymore. Nothing works anymore. you don't function as a a you know you the purpose of your identity is to protect you and get needs met and when that doesn't work anymore what do you do and so you know I had to learn how to be a new way and that's taken time but at the same time as that part of the process happening there's a falling away of the illusions that have protected you all of your life. And that takes a long time because the illusions are deep because they've been there for so long.

[00:04:04]They've been there from when you started formulating ideas about who you were, what the world is, how it works, how you fit in, how you do what you do, think the way you do. You know, you build models and you just get stuck there.

[00:04:23]So, you know, learning there's a lot to learn and there's a an essential self-reflection in it all.

[00:04:41]How willing are you to to see yourself clearly and take responsibility for yourself, why you do things?

[00:04:49]Um, you know, it's our willingness to see ourselves clearly that that really invites the ongoing process of disappearance, the disappearance of the false self, but it's a very painful thing to go through because not only do you have to experience, you know, all the fear that you've had locked away inside you that all the movement of our coping mechanisms prevents us from processing.

[00:05:19]You know, when they don't work, you have to start feeling it. And then you see yourself. You see, you see yourself more and more clearly.

[00:05:31]How cruel you can be to yourself.

[00:05:43]He's trying to find a cool spot.

[00:05:46]Believe me, it's far from warm.

[00:05:50]Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing?

[00:05:58]Yeah, you see yourself more and more clearly. And as you you let go of your illusions because they first of all, they don't work anymore, but also you see how they are preventing you from connecting to the world and other people and they are What are you doing? What are you doing?

[00:06:23]And they are in the way from in of intimate experience really.

[00:06:31]You don't see things clearly.

[00:06:33]You don't experience life intimately cuz you're always looking through the structure of self and all its stories and illusions.

[00:06:43]So you don't have direct experience because you're judging, projecting, manipulating, controlling.

[00:06:51]And so all of this needs to be seen.

[00:06:55]But um it's our willingness to see it and take responsibility that, you know, draws us through this this agonizing process. But we resist. We're very reluctant to change. We want this idea of who we think we are and how the world should be and what we think we want and need and must have to be happy.

[00:07:29]But we don't realize that if if we were capable of achieving all of that and having all of that, we would have it already.

[00:07:38]So we need to go through a transformation before we can even accept life in a different way. Um but the thing is as you progress through the process you realize you don't actually want what you thought you wanted.

[00:07:59]You know the the process takes everything from you.

[00:08:09]It takes everything from you.

[00:08:13]But what it gives you is fundamentally presence.

[00:08:19]Because you're no longer fascinated with the story of the past, the pain you've been carrying, the desire for a future that maybe a soothing hope.

[00:08:37]None of that is necessary. It just doesn't make any sense at all to unhealthily focus on any of that.

[00:08:46]it just ends and then there is just being present now.

[00:08:59]And so what I've been doing on the channel is I've been trying to make sense out of memories and experiences because I hadn't let go. I hadn't processed anything that I went through as a kid. And that then I reenacted I reenacted the abuse I went through all the way through my life right up until my 50s because I was trying to resolve it. I was doing the same thing over and over again in the in the hope that maybe somehow something would be different this time. Maybe there would be some resolution. Maybe someone would save me.

[00:09:39]Someone would rescue me.

[00:09:43]And you know, I've been through hell in my life for long, long periods, decades.

[00:09:56]And it's a hell that I carried inside me.

[00:10:01]It's the hell of the terror of childhood, the confusion, the isolation.

[00:10:12]The injustice.

[00:10:28]But there's nothing to say about that anymore.

[00:10:46]And there's a kind of strange paradox when you stop focusing attention on trying to understand, trying to decipher, trying to find the minutiae of detail that you think is going to liberate you from the past. When you stop that and attention is in the present, the truth of the past is revealed and the truth of the present is revealed. You see more clearly and there is a an ongoing depth of understanding and sensitivity and nuance that just keeps keeps going.

[00:11:39]Um, but I know I've probably said said begun to talk about things I and and then I've talked about something else and you know this just maybe because I've it's been so long since I made a video. There's just a lot to say and I don't really know how to talk about what it is that I'm experiencing now that it seems very simple at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.

[00:12:19]And you know, when I look back at what I've done on the channel and what I've done to myself all of my life, reenacting the abuse in shocking and horrifying ways and then all the way through this channel, it just I think looking for a witness.

[00:12:40]But in the telling of my story, I felt such intense shame and self-hate.

[00:12:50]you know, and that's the stuff that we have to let go of.

[00:12:55]But, you know, that requires lengthy periods of just sitting, sitting with the body in the present, feeling what it's telling you.

[00:13:07]Stop telling stories about it and start feeling it.

[00:13:11]But the channel has been an incredible experience just to have so many people get what it is I've been saying has been very very uh supportive.

[00:13:24]But at the same time as I built the channel, you know, just by me just trying to tell the truth, I also fed into a foundational trauma that I had, which was abandonment.

[00:13:38]Because the more people that that subscribed and watched my videos, the more terrified I was of you all leaving me.

[00:13:48]And so though the channel was helpful in healing, I was also um also driven to keep doing what I was doing because I was terrified of being abandoned.

[00:14:12]And you know, so that's something I've had to face and that's probably been one of the most liberating things I've I've I've had to look at over the last few months because I I think that, you know, we we we continue with the same patterns of behavior and thought and action coming from the same place, fear, and we continue with them in cycles over and over and over and proof again until they be they become no longer functional as a mechanism to deal with what it is we're dealing with. Instead, they trigger what it is we're dealing with.

[00:14:55]And so, the coping mechanism and the trauma become indistinguishable.

[00:15:01]And so, that's what happened to me over the last few months. And it came to a head when I stopped making the videos a couple of months ago because I was just pushing myself to say more, to do more, and I just at the same time as doing that, it was bringing up this unavoidable fear of abandonment and the fact that I was worthless and um shameful and all of that stuff.

[00:15:34]And so when I stopped making videos, I sat with that fear.

[00:15:39]And hundreds of people have did unsubscribe.

[00:15:43]But you know, most of you have have stayed and waited.

[00:15:47]And but you know, that fear was terrible.

[00:15:57]Terrible. But actually, you know, facing it has been probably one of the most liberating things I've gone through over the last few years on on this channel.

[00:16:08]But, you know, at least now, you know, from the beginning of making these videos, I wanted to chronicle the the arc of transformation that I intuitively knew was ahead of me.

[00:16:25]And there have been times when people have just said, "You're stuck." and you're ret-raumatizing yourself and you know you need to get help.

[00:16:37]Um, and you know, maybe I was stuck, but maybe we need to be stuck until that becomes so claustrophobic we break free.

[00:16:49]Maybe I was ret-raumatizing myself.

[00:16:54]But I think we have to get to the point where the you know the stuff that we're carrying the trauma we're carrying is unavoidable are it becomes essential pivotal to actually deal with it go into it feel it burn it off until you can liberate yourself from it cuz we that's doing it to ourselves as we repeat the cycles over and over again and you know over the course of these videos the cycle. It's like a spiral more than anything else. I've been spiraling in, spiraling in, spiraling in all the way to the essence of what it is I've been carrying all of my life. And you know the threshold I've crossed lately as I kind of reached that crisis point of really another breakdown.

[00:17:48]The identity built around the channel and the coping mechanisms and the stories of the past that I identified so strongly with.

[00:17:57]You know those attachments have fallen away and and it becomes unnecessary to just keep doing the same thing to keep speaking from the same place to keep acting from the same place you know the fear is not there anymore so I wanted to chronicle that the the arc of transformation but I you know I didn't know what that would involve and but I intuitively knew that that the what I've been doing on the channel was going somewhere and it really has but it was it's been unexpected you know that that arc the path it took um But you know the identity built around everything I was doing everything I was holding because that's not there anymore.

[00:19:09]There is just this spa this this kind of feeling of spaciousness. This feeling of attention is actually all there is.

[00:19:26]And the backstory of the person that's associating everything experience to itself is not there you know so there is just noticing there is just attention there is just relationship and there's no need to manipulate I still do it sometimes the habitual patterns still come up, but I see them and just stop.

[00:19:59]So that you know there's no need to manipulate, control, project and you know everything I thought I wanted in the future.

[00:20:26]It's just there are still things I want to do, but attention is so in the moment.

[00:20:40]I was talking to a friend the other day, and if you go to Substack, I have a paid subscriber section, and there's there's quite a lot of videos on there. There's a lots of conversations I have I I have with a friend of mine who's already gone through this.

[00:20:55]And so she's acted as a as a kind of mentor to me and it's been very helpful.

[00:21:00]But there's there the other day we were talking and as we were talking I just became aware of how present I was and I just said it's it's as though we have always been here.

[00:21:19]We have always been here like this moment has always been here. there is nothing else.

[00:21:27]And I think that it's like the inverse of when we're traumatized and we get triggered, we collapse into total identification with that feeling around the trigger, the pain of the past, the story, the fear, and the eternity of this moment.

[00:21:49]you know the the everpresent nature of this moment gets condensed into that identification with the trauma and you think oh this is always going to be like this this pain.

[00:22:03]So when you release all of that, the opposite happens.

[00:22:07]And this presence, this stillness, this attentiveness, this noticing feels eternal, feels ever present.

[00:22:18]And there's no need to collapse into an identification with it because it's always changing. It's ever present, but it's changing all the time.

[00:22:36]You know, I don't really know what else to say about this. And I'm sure I'll watch this and I'll think that I've said something that doesn't make sense or that I won't want to publish it. But I really, really will. I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to publish this.

[00:22:53]I'm going to publish this.

[00:22:55]But, you know, every time I've tried to make a video over the last couple of weeks because I really wanted to get back into the to the groove of doing this, I just thought I just don't want to talk about it at the moment.

[00:23:07]Every time I've watched a video back, I just think, "No, there's something missing, or this is going to sound crazy, or it just I don't know what else to say, but I think that I I if I just to add something else, just thought of this that when I look back at over the last couple of years, I can see how there was a part of me that didn't want to forget longer than 3 years.

[00:23:50]God, a lifetime really. I didn't want to let go of the attachment to the pain in the past. And those fragments of me as a as a an infant, as a as a small boy, you know, at school, as a teenager, as a young man, as a trans woman, I didn't want to let go of any of these fragments that were frozen in time around unprocessed trauma because it it would be like they those parts of me would then be dying away. They would be falling away and they wouldn't exist anymore because I needed to hold on to them to sustain them because they had carried so much. They'd experienced so much and that if I didn't hold on to their pain, then those parts of me would die. And what would their suffering be for?

[00:24:48]It would mean nothing.

[00:24:50]But I don't think there are any parts anymore.

[00:24:54]There aren't parts. I know that lots of people find IFS helpful, but I really do think it should be seen as a stepping stone.

[00:25:04]There aren't any parts of you.

[00:25:08]There are until until you heal them, until you bring them into maturity, there is only you now.

[00:25:20]There are unprocessed memories and experiences that are attached to those parts and their roles.

[00:25:30]But at some point, it all needs to be let go.

[00:25:36]But I can see over the last few years, I didn't want to let these these the those parts of me die because what would it have all been for?

[00:25:46]you know that that this is what really stands in the way of our healing is that the the attachment to the past and the pain because of how much you've just suffered it must mean something and if you don't hold on to that suffering then where are your qualifications for life this is what I've been through this is what I've survived this is my pain this is what I've overcome are you free if you if you do that to yourself and we so we don't want to let go. We don't want to let go. So we hold it and hold it and hold it. But once you cross the threshold of you know that attachment to it all and the release into the present um there is just a continual letting go and in the letting go a clarity and understanding.

[00:26:46]Oh that's why I did that. [sighs] That's why that happened. Oh that's why that person does this. That's why I behaved the way I did.

[00:26:56]Now I see. Now I understand.

[00:27:01]Because you're not guarding yourself against clarity. You're not protecting yourself against a clarity that will release the attachment to an identity that you no longer need to hold.

[00:27:20]You can disappear.

[00:27:23]And what remains is a totally unique, you know, portal into the present.

[00:27:32]And that's what we are really essentially.

[00:27:40]So I have been asked to talk about dransition again and I will um you know it's a different climate now you know there's a there's a different tolerance for these conversations and you know I there's a part of me that's reluctant to talk about it partly because it doesn't feel necessary anymore But also because um you know they so much anger and hatred and intolerance.

[00:28:22]Um but you know there are a lot of people like me who are stuck in this predicament who have irreversibly surgically altered yourself and you are young. I mean, I'm lucky. I'm coming towards the end of my life. So, um I'm lucky in a lot of ways because I I I relish each moment and um I can release myself from the past and you know I'm I just feel free but I don't have my life ahead of me dealing with, you know, being mutilated.

[00:29:07]and um the loss that that brings. I I think this is very difficult for people to understand when they say, "Okay, right, you've dransitioned. Just go back to being a dude again."

[00:29:22]You know, they there's a very simplistic idea of what dransition is. And there's a very, you know, understandably ignorant um perception of the the loss that you live with after you've actually transitioned for however long. and then you just realize that you've made a mistake.

[00:29:47]Um, and you can't live with that conflict or compromise any longer. The loss that you live with, uh, it's difficult for people to comprehend.

[00:30:04]Um, but as I've said in lots of videos, I think the essence of our experience is loss. Our experience as a being is loss because we attach.

[00:30:14]We attach and we build identity around attachments and meaning and all of that um will be taken from us or we'll willingly go through the pain of surrender.

[00:30:32]And so you lose everything. Everything you think you you need to hold on to, everything you love, um everything that you think makes you you.

[00:30:44]But all of that needs to to be let go before you the essence of what you are is revealed.

[00:30:51]You know, everything you lose everything.

[00:30:54]But in the words of Thomas Merton, you gain only what you give up. And if you give up everything, you gain everything.

[00:31:07]So I will talk about that as well.

[00:31:10]Um, and you know, all the way through the point of me doing these videos, you know, I had a very kind of naive motivation because I wanted to help other people with these videos and I didn't realize, you know, what that would mean.

[00:31:36]In the beginning, I thought I would be sharing my insights and um you know this idea that I knew things that other people did and and that I had gained all these these insights from the experience of a life. But really I think from the very beginning I realized how little I knew.

[00:31:59]And so the form that this the help I wanted to offer took changed very quickly.

[00:32:10]And then I think it was just my hunger for truth, my hunger for freedom and what I was prepared to go through to release myself into that freedom and more truthful presence.

[00:32:26]You know, that's the value of the channel, I think.

[00:32:30]But I always wanted to help people and you know eventually work as a as a coach, as a mentor for people going through this.

[00:32:43]Um, and you know, there's times when I thought I'd never be able to do that, but I can see that happening now.

[00:32:57]Because when you release yourself from your own story, you know, in the words of Puma Children, let your heart break and drop the story.

[00:33:12]It's liberating. And then you can really start to be there for other people, you know? So, my motivation to make these videos is no longer about me working my out.

[00:33:24]It's about, you know, trying to speak truthfully, trying to share something useful for other people.

[00:33:32]Um, trying to support others and eventually work as a mentor, as a as a coach, as a guide.

[00:33:48]There's just so much suffering, you know, so much suffering that we humans experience.

[00:34:05]And I know that when when we're in the depths of our suffering, the depths of attachment, of holding the past, trying to resolve it, trying to fix it all, that suffering seems like never ending.

[00:34:22]But it does end. It really does end.

[00:34:29]There is still pain, but it's different.

[00:34:40]So, I shall try and get back into the groove and make regular videos as often as possible.

[00:34:49]Um, and get into the habit of bringing my camera with me everywhere I go. I'll start doing that again and just share a few thoughts. No matter how short the videos are, I'll try and just record as much as I can.

[00:35:04]Um because I'm busier than ever with the dogs now as well. And I'm going to end this now cuz he's cold.

[00:35:12]He's tugging himself a little hole.

[00:35:18]All right, we sausage.

[00:35:21]Should we go back into the warm?

[00:35:25]No.

[00:35:27]Hello little my boy.

[00:35:29]Hello little my boy.

[00:35:32]Look at that face.

[00:35:34]Little my boy.

[00:35:39]I'm so blessed. I I'm busier than ever and I just look after so many dogs now and I just absolutely adore them. I love my life.

[00:35:52]And look at these creatures that I spend most of my time with.

[00:35:56]Okay, that's it. So, if you do want to support the channel, you can always donate. There's a donations link below.

[00:36:04]And I really appreciate everybody that donates.

[00:36:08]And also, if you want to, you know, support the channel in a different way.

[00:36:12]You can go to Substack. There's uh there's a paid subscription option there. It's only about $8 a month. And uh I publish there as often as possible.

[00:36:21]And even though I haven't been publishing on YouTube, there's I have been publishing occasionally on Substack, so there's extra content over there. But um okay, that's it. I hope that wasn't too long-winded. Uh I'll be back soon hopefully with a shorter video. Uh take care and I'll see you soon. Bye.