Week 12 of 47.
This week the podcast ran a three-part conversation. And for once, the show and the letters split the work. The letters carried the ideas. The show carried the stories.
A legal pad conversation with the man I used to be. A walk back through the front door of a correctional facility. And the mornings this month where writing my book produced twenty words that survived.
Here's the thread that tied all three together. They were all about the middle.
1. The Week That Was
Not the start, where everything's ugly and nobody's embarrassed. Not the arrival. The middle. Where the excuse is gone, you can see what good looks like, and you're not there yet.
I also stopped doing something this week I'd been doing for four years. Prosecuting the guy I used to be. The three-column exercise settled it. He doesn't get the keys, but he's not the enemy. He's the guy who got me here.
This week's episodes, in case you missed them:
Episode 24: Three Columns. The night I sat down with the man I used to be, and the column that filled first.
Episode 25: Through the Front Door. The visit, the kitchen job, and the speeches nobody needs.
Episode 26: 380 Words. The book, the comeback, and the boring plan for the middle.
New here? Start with Episode 25.
2. The Question Behind the Episodes
What do you do with the parts of your story you'd rather not look at?
Monday it was the old version of me. Wednesday it was a building I'd been avoiding for three years. Friday it was a draft I keep deleting.
Three different things. Same move every time. I'd been treating them like evidence against me.
That's not guilt. Guilt is specific, and guilt is useful.
Guilt is doing something wrong and regretting it. Shame is feeling like a loser and wondering what I am even doing here.
Guilt says, you did that, own it, make it right. Then it lets you move.
Shame takes a Sharpie to everything good. It crops the picture until the mistake is all that fits. It writes the long speech. It reads three hundred and eighty deleted words and calls them a verdict.
Grace looks at the whole page. Column one included.
3. Three Things Worth Holding
You can be done with who you were without hating him. Keep the tools. Replace the driver. Throwing out good stuff to feel changed isn't change. It's a costume.
Guilt writes three sentences. Shame writes three paragraphs. If you've drifted from somebody, skip the speech. Send the short message and start walking.
The middle makes you homesick for a man you already decided not to be. That's the cucumbers talking. Keep the old guy's skills. Don't go back for his life.
4. The Reset
The middle doesn't feel like progress.
It feels like the same chapter. The same route. The same work. And when it feels like that, the old version of you starts looking pretty good, and the mirror starts calling your name every morning.
So here's the reset I'm running into Week 13. Fewer mirrors. More reps.
I'm not checking every morning to see if I've arrived. I'm doing the boring thing and letting the work stack where I can't see it yet.
It is progress anyway. Awkward is the price of the next level. Pay it daily.
5. One Thing to Try
Set your floor. Not your goal. Your floor. The thing that happens whether the week cooperates or not.
Here's mine for Week 12 of 47:
25 touches
180g protein
60 minutes of movement
A 60-minute writing block before 10 AM
Three podcasts
One newsletter
500 words a writing block, even if I delete 400
And one more for this week. Pick one mirror you're going to stop checking for seven days. Mine's the word count.
What are you in the awkward stage of right now? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
One step, one day. Grace over guilt.