hello, it's been about a year since I last wrote...

In brief

Had long covid for a while. Put no energy to work-beyond-income or long term professional games. Life remained wonderful most of the time. The momentum I had built with 'train your intuition'/'deep life' and on social media is long-gone. But my enthusiasm for sharing the ideas behind them has strengthened and broadened. So, I'll start again in a month or two. This time: course first, audience later. Book cancelled.  More on the past year below. Back to newslettery-things at some point soon.

The longer version

Back in January and February 2022, life was a little complicated due to over-running work on our boat-home (leaving us at one point carrying all of our belongings between houses); but work was going well. My cognitive coaching was over-subscribed. My course, Train Your Intuition was almost ready to record for those who bought it early. The beta of my book, Deep Life had recieved wonderful and useful feedback. I had a wonderful assistant helping me build a social media presence without too much of my own time involved. A small but active newsletter (hey y'all).

Then I caught COVID (a relatively mild case) which morphed into long-covid. I somehow mistook the initial symptoms as my body responding to being "busy" getting the boat sorted; something to be worked-through. That's not the only way in which long-covid messed with my normal intutive self-knowledge.

By mid-March, my energy levels were very low indeed. Work aside from almost-enough to live stopped. Milestones were missed. Momentum was gone, a problem which gets worse with time. By now, most of you have likely forgotten me aside from as "the guy on the boat with his family... something about intuition or deep life, right?".

Rest

After two months of near-zero energy inertia, life got back to being great. We got the boat ready and went sailing again, off to the islands of Belize. I was still low on energy, but either enjoying and immersed in life or (more commonly) resting peacefully staring at the sea and half-watching my family. I can't complain. And it's not that complaining about long covid would be churlish when millions died and billions can't earn a living with 5-6 good working hours a week; its that I barely experienced sustained negative valence emotions and so had nothing to complain about. If you'd asked me, 98% of the time I'd have said life was great, with a minor caveat or two.

The more sustained negative emotions I did feel were around things I was missing or finding difficult with family: falling asleep reading with Hector; saying no to chess with Theo; Arthur missing his more aggressive playmate; Charlotte having to shoulder more family-burden; not having endless patience; struggling to keep up with some of the boat work; pretty much losing touch with my brother for a while, and not speaking to mum often. Plus of course, sometimes I wanted to go snorkeling on the reefs of Belize. I did a couple of times, for an hour or so, and was near-incapacitated for 2 days afterwards.

But life was good for us all regardless.

Recovery, retraining

As my energy returned, I turned my brain to long covid and my own internal state. Various things helped significantly, I don't really want to share those as they're somewhat idiosyncratic and would harm a subset of other people in (what on the surface looks like) the same situation. Thanks to these things, and time/healing, by August my self-knowledge was back; self-regulation was getting there; and energy levels were cycling intermittently in the right direction.

I fell asleep reading to the children for the last time in August, and by November could chase them around a water-assault-course for a few hours without spending the next couple of days essentially useless. I had energy to spare for odd projects, like building a sailing dinghy for the kids (we're all kids in this family). By December I was back to working a "full" week (15 hours, sometimes 20) without energy impacting my quality of life.

The exceptions to my bodymind's self-regulation are intriguing. My thermoregulation is still way off, something that's tough to sort out without any way to reliably experience "cold," so that can wait until later in the year. Sleep is currently both good and weird - I'm sleeping deeply and enough, but with very inconsistent timing rather than sun-driven. I'm leaving that alone. My appetite was also particularly odd; hugely variable and with the odd craving I've not had for a decade. And I'm nearly back to defaulting to fun/yes/play and various other things, and letting go of control of what I do again.

Work-wise

I have been focusing on my remaining coaching clients and research. Firstly, that was for reliable and immediate income, as our accessible savings neared zero late last year, since when we've had plenty to spend finishing some essential boat work. Secondly, research was easier to compartmentalize and set aside if my energy levels changed or other things took priority. Plus, I was drawn into some meaningful sustainability challenges, which has been nice.

Recently, long-term games, and education, have been coming to my attention more often and with more urgency. So I'm orienting that way with what time I can make available. That's why I'm reaching out to say hello now, really (as well as why I spent a while drafting a 'why I'm here' manifesto-style piece, and re-read my course notes, and have been reading voraciously again generally...).

The book, Deep Life, I'm going to set aside or re-use elsewhere - the 'thought leader' professional direction and consequent tone I gave that draft doesn't feel like the right fit for me. Thanks Mia and Dan, for the insightful and open feedback which first prompted those thoughts. As well as that, there are many other good people working on the set of problems that book can help with. Not the right place for me to start.

Train Your Intuition or something similar will certainly go ahead; its a perfect fit for what I want to do, where I want to help people get to, and what I understand better than anyone else (or at least anyone else I know of). So, I will be building some things-like-that-course and sharing them with everyone who purchased before plus (at least in part) with the Deep Life Beta buyers.

Now, and Plans

Given our sailing plans, it'll likely be the Summer when I get around to finalizing and launching, and returning to the online-world meaningfully. We're back in Belize, enjoying the islands once again while we wait for a couple of parts for our catamaran's steering system (which is fine close to shore, but not quite good enough for us to feel safe offshore).

When the parts arrive and we fit them, we'll be waiting for weather for a two-week sail from to the Dominican Republic (possibly via Jamaica or the Bahamas). Then, a while later, we'll almost certainly be crossing the Atlantic the harder way, from somewhere around the Dominican Republic to one of Portugal or Ireland (likely via the Azores). I don't want anything other than weather and the condition of our boat dictating when we make those passages, so am making no promises of contact or work in the meantime.

My inbox and mind are now open if any of you want to reach out, with the caveat that it might be a week or two before I get back to you. Sorry for the lack of response to those of you who have e-mailed over previous months...

Dave