<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Alex's Letters]]></title><description><![CDATA[Gestalt therapist in training. Online sessions for loneliness, old patterns and childhood wounds.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QTX_!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F789cc3c1-af11-42bc-acae-9413628fb84d_1023x1023.png</url><title>Alex&apos;s Letters</title><link>https://substack.alexzah.com</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 01 Nov 2026 21:55:33 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://substack.alexzah.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[alexzah@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[alexzah@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[alexzah@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[alexzah@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[I have room for 4 people]]></title><description><![CDATA[My last letter about this for now.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/i-have-room-for-4-people</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/i-have-room-for-4-people</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 01 Nov 2026 17:02:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><div class="image-link image2" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:null,&quot;width&quot;:null,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YHht!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8451afb3-a666-437f-81f3-21f87d3ce044_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div></div></div></div></figure></div><p>Hey, it's Alex.</p><p>This is my last letter about this for now.</p><p><strong>I have room for 4 new people to work with me one to one.</strong></p><p>If something in these letters touched something in you, there are two ways to start:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><div class="image-link image2" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:null,&quot;width&quot;:null,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1p1A!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1acb320c-2546-4cd5-abc0-753c8c99f8ed_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div></div></div></div></figure></div><p>1. Book a free 30-minute call with me.</p><p>2. Or just reply and tell me what's going on. I'll write back myself.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s6" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:null,&quot;width&quot;:null,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s6&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bMWm!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F61884ef5-4e08-4994-bfb6-b5d86a813b88_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s6&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book your free call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s6"><span>Book your free call</span></a></p><p>I'll keep these 4 places open until Monday, November 2.</p><p>And if now isn't the right time, that's okay. You'll still hear from me now and then.</p><p>Alex</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA["It's not bad enough for therapy"]]></title><description><![CDATA[A thought I hear a lot.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/its-not-bad-enough-for-therapy</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/its-not-bad-enough-for-therapy</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:02:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg" width="992" height="558" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/cc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:558,&quot;width&quot;:992,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:132509,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E7_L!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc6a0e76-c469-4968-9891-195cb2b82483_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey, it's Alex.</p><p>There's one thought I hear a lot before people book a call with me:</p><p><strong>"It's not that bad. Other people have real problems."</strong></p><p>Maybe you're thinking that too.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:158380,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eEg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F279026b6-421b-4343-8d9d-14cf7d7b8022_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Here's what I've noticed. People rarely come when everything falls apart.</p><p>They come when the same thing keeps happening, and they're tired of handling it alone.</p><p>A few other things people ask me:</p><p><strong>"Does online really work?"</strong></p><p>Yes. Many people find it easier to talk from their own home.</p><p><strong>"What about time zones?"</strong></p><p>I work with people in different countries. We find a time that works for both of us.</p><p><strong>"What if I don't know what to say?"</strong></p><p>You don't need to. Many first calls start with "I don't really know where to begin." That's a good start.</p><p><strong>"What if it's not a fit?"</strong></p><p>Then I'll tell you. And if I can, I'll tell you what I'd try instead.</p><p>If you've been thinking about it for a while, maybe now is a good time to talk.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s5" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:173450,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s5&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q15v!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06417f47-2a41-4876-b401-c6bab104e88f_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s5&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book your free call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s5"><span>Book your free call</span></a></p><p>Alex</p><p>P.S. The first call is free. Sessions after that are &#8364;100 for 60 minutes.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What a session with me looks like]]></title><description><![CDATA[Plainly, step by step.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/what-a-session-with-me-looks-like</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/what-a-session-with-me-looks-like</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Oct 2026 17:01:53 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg" width="992" height="558" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:558,&quot;width&quot;:992,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:128039,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cwIK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c105095-2729-45c0-80d0-6c16c5907555_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey, it's Alex.</p><p>A few people asked me what working together actually looks like.</p><p>So here it is, plainly.</p><p><strong>Where and how long.</strong></p><p>Online, on Google Meet. Once a week or every two weeks. 60 minutes.</p><p><strong>What you bring.</strong></p><p>Whatever is alive for you that week. A conversation that went wrong. A feeling that won't leave. Something you can't name yet.</p><p><strong>What I do.</strong></p><p>No homework, no list of exercises. I pay attention to what happens while we talk. Your voice, your body, the moment you go quiet. When something real shows up, we stay with it.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:172438,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wHHZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd90c4815-a45e-4990-9c3d-6c4e773e65c2_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Who I am.</strong></p><p>I'm a Gestalt therapist in training, year 3 of 4 at the Gestalt Institute of Scandinavia. I work under supervision and follow the EAGT code of ethics.</p><p>Before this, I trained in brain-based coaching at the NeuroLeadership Institute and in ontological coaching. I spent 12 years building businesses in more than 20 countries.</p><p>I also built NerveWindow and the Inner Child app, which about a thousand people have bought.</p><p><strong>How it starts.</strong></p><p>A free 30-minute video call. You tell me what's going on. I tell you honestly what I see, and whether I think I can help.</p><p>If I'm not the right person, I'll tell you that too.</p><p>Sessions after that are &#8364;100 for 60 minutes.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s4" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:161130,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s4&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h0QH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47b37c56-d042-4a3b-8c9e-ae854c8a29ba_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s4&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book your free call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s4"><span>Book your free call</span></a></p><p>Alex</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The easy child]]></title><description><![CDATA[Were you the one who didn't make trouble?]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-easy-child</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-easy-child</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2026 17:00:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg" width="992" height="558" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:558,&quot;width&quot;:992,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:107708,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kF0U!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57bfd37d-06eb-43a1-8ac1-45c0af577be1_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey, it's Alex.</p><p>Many of the people who write to me were the easy child.</p><p>The one who didn't make trouble.</p><p>The one who noticed when a parent was tired or upset, and became quieter, more helpful, more "fine".</p><p><strong>That was smart.</strong></p><p>A child can't leave a home that feels tense. So the child adapts.</p><p>Being easy was a way to stay safe, and to stay close.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ebb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:164437,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AqAw!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Febb9d8a8-3ae6-4115-842f-4be7092e4257_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>But that habit doesn't know you grew up.</p><p>So today you might still:</p><p>&#8226; say yes when you mean no</p><p>&#8226; feel guilty when you rest</p><p>&#8226; read the mood in a room before you know what you feel yourself</p><p>None of this means something is wrong with you.</p><p>It means a younger part of you is still doing its old job.</p><p>In my work, we don't fight that part. We get to know it. What was it protecting? What does it need now?</p><p>When that part feels seen, it can finally relax a little.</p><p><strong>Were you the easy child too?</strong></p><p>Reply and tell me. Even one line.</p><p>Or, if you'd like to look at this together, you can book a free 30-minute call with me:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s3" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:169413,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s3&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zYvx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6d4b62e-d37f-4122-a836-58b196a459f7_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s3&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book your free call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s3"><span>Book your free call</span></a></p><p>Alex</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Say it in a few words]]></title><description><![CDATA[Something small to try tonight.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/say-it-in-a-few-words</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/say-it-in-a-few-words</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 16:02:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg" width="992" height="558" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:558,&quot;width&quot;:992,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:136428,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xq91!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ec2f5c8-c7cc-4a10-a7d7-ea94b607c7d5_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey, it's Alex.</p><p>Here's something small you can try tonight. It takes five seconds.</p><p>When the old feeling shows up, stop and name it.</p><p>Not the story. Just the feeling, in a few words.</p><p><em>"I feel small."</em></p><p><em>"I'm scared she's angry with me."</em></p><p><em>"I want to disappear."</em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:181499,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Xhf-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57923edb-e031-490f-af26-ece937827ad0_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Why does this work?</strong></p><p>Putting a feeling into words calms the alarm part of your brain.</p><p>In brain scans, you can watch it happen. The alarm area quiets down when people simply name what they feel.</p><p>It sounds too simple. But most of us were taught to explain feelings, fix them or hide them.</p><p>Very few of us were taught to just say them.</p><p>In Gestalt therapy we go one step further. We notice where the feeling sits in your body, and what it wants to do.</p><p>That's often where an old pattern starts to loosen.</p><p>Try it once this week. Then reply and tell me what you noticed. I'd really like to know.</p><p>Alex</p><p>P.S. If you'd rather try this with someone, you can book a free 30-minute call with me here:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s2" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:175665,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s2&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eoKH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ed35b46-60da-4967-b797-edf0c98ee701_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s2&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book your free call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s2"><span>Book your free call</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[When you know why, and it still happens]]></title><description><![CDATA[One question for you.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/when-you-know-why-and-it-still-happens</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/when-you-know-why-and-it-still-happens</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2026 16:02:38 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg" width="992" height="558" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:558,&quot;width&quot;:992,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:105133,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4MvP!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbc48ed57-3f92-4983-9837-448a65ab6a59_992x558.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey, it's Alex.</p><p>There's something I see again and again in my work.</p><p>Most people already understand a lot. They know where their patterns come from. They can explain why they react the way they do.</p><p><strong>And it still happens.</strong></p><p>That's not because you're doing it wrong.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:157551,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ikli!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb59dd704-8648-4500-b559-1b327e290c1a_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Understanding lives in the slow, thinking part of your brain. The old reaction comes from a faster part.</p><p>So the reaction shows up first. The understanding arrives a second too late.</p><p>Knowing why helps. But on its own, it rarely changes how it feels.</p><p>What changes it is slower and more human. Someone notices the moment with you, while it's happening. And you stay with it, instead of explaining it away.</p><p>That's the work I do one to one, as a Gestalt therapist in training.</p><p>But first, I'd like to hear from you.</p><p><strong>What keeps coming back for you, even though you understand it?</strong></p><p>Just hit reply. One sentence is enough.</p><p>I read every reply, and I answer them myself.</p><p>Alex</p><p>P.S. If you'd rather talk than write, you can book a free 30-minute call with me here:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s1" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMpg!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMpg!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg 848w, 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data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:172434,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s1&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMpg!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMpg!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMpg!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMpg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb9af75b-ac84-4cd6-ad57-973677daffd6_1200x675.jpeg 1456w" sizes="auto, 100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s1&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book your free call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/book-a-call/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=therapy_spots_oct&amp;utm_content=s1"><span>Book your free call</span></a></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[It started with the space between sessions]]></title><description><![CDATA[Six months of building simple tools for everyday life.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/it-started-with-the-space-between</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/it-started-with-the-space-between</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 20:21:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png" width="1456" height="971" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:971,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:3048496,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://substack.alexzah.com/i/214758260?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!05VI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8acee70-ba25-49dd-b2d9-b1b4b85c57c3_1536x1024.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I started building these tools for my coaching and therapy clients.</p><p>The idea was simple: something they could use between sessions.</p><p>A session gives us time to slow down, pay attention, and work with what is happening. But then we return to everyday life. There are decisions to make, difficult conversations, unfinished tasks, and evenings when we are still carrying the whole day with us.</p><p>I wanted to offer something practical for those moments. A guided exercise. A question worth sitting with. A small sequence someone could follow without having to remember everything we had discussed.</p><p><strong>That was the beginning.</strong></p><p>Over the last six months, it grew into a collection of apps and self-help tools. The collection became bigger than I originally imagined, but the reason behind it stayed the same: making useful practices easier to reach when you need them.</p><h2>Understanding something and using it are different things</h2><p>You can understand why you react a certain way and still find yourself reacting. You can know that rest matters and struggle to finish the working day. You can have a clear idea of what you want to do and spend another afternoon unable to begin.</p><p>That gap interests me.</p><p>Not because every difficulty needs an app. It doesn&#8217;t. Sometimes we need another person, more support, or a change in our circumstances.</p><p>But sometimes a small, well-defined tool can give us a place to start.</p><p>That is what I have been building.</p><h2>Small tools for specific moments</h2><h3>NerveWindow</h3><p><strong>Regulate your nervous system using the window of tolerance method.</strong></p><p>Check in first, follow a state-matched practice, then compare how you feel afterward.</p><p><a href="https://nervewindow.com/sp/">Explore NerveWindow</a></p><h3>NerveWindow Pro</h3><p><strong>Practise before the difficult moment arrives.</strong></p><p>A daily training layer with 21 additional exercises for breath, attention, reframing, and recovery.</p><p><a href="https://nervewindow.com/nervewindow-pro/">Explore NerveWindow Pro</a></p><h3>Inner Child Self-Care</h3><p><strong>Turn self-compassion into a daily practice.</strong></p><p>Guided reparenting combines a meaningful object, everyday care, and one evening reflection.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/inner-child-self-care/">Explore Inner Child Self-Care</a></p><h3>Find Your Inner Child</h3><p><strong>Make inner-child work tangible.</strong></p><p>A simple introduction built around a real object you can hold&#8212;not just an idea to understand.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/find-your-inner-child/">Explore Find Your Inner Child</a></p><h3>Freeze Protocol</h3><p><strong>For when you know the task but cannot start.</strong></p><p>A short, body-first sequence that leads toward the first physical action&#8212;not another productivity system.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/freeze-protocol/">Explore Freeze Protocol</a></p><h3>Momentum Creator</h3><p><strong>Different kinds of stuck need different next steps.</strong></p><p>Identify where you are in the Gestalt Cycle, follow a matched exercise, and leave with a concrete action.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/momentum-creator/">Explore Momentum Creator</a></p><h3>Business Spark</h3><p><strong>Reconnect with what makes your work feel meaningful.</strong></p><p>A seven-minute reflection on senses, overlooked wins, and one meaningful moment to put on your calendar.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/spark/">Explore Business Spark</a></p><h3>Snap Reset</h3><p><strong>Catch the moment before it becomes a reaction.</strong></p><p>A focused protocol for noticing the late-day tension you do not want to carry into your next interaction.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/snap-reset-checkout/">Explore Snap Reset</a></p><h3>Softness Starter</h3><p><strong>Give your working day a clear ending.</strong></p><p>A three-minute ritual for the transition from work into your evening.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/softness-checkout/">Explore Softness Starter</a></p><h3>Craving Protocol</h3><p><strong>Something practical to do when an urge feels strong.</strong></p><p>A seven-minute body-based sequence for the moment itself.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/craving-checkout/">Explore Craving Protocol</a></p><h3>Breakup Emergency Kit</h3><p><strong>Support matched to the breakup moment you&#8217;re in.</strong></p><p>Choose how you feel and find a corresponding practice&#8212;for looping thoughts, numbness, loneliness, or the urge to reach out.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/breakup-emergency-kit/">Explore Breakup Emergency Kit</a></p><h3>5 Senses Method</h3><p><strong>Turn &#8220;do something nice&#8221; into something specific.</strong></p><p>Build your personal sensory joy map, then schedule small enjoyable moments into your actual week.</p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/five-senses-method/">Explore 5 Senses Method</a></p><h2>A bigger collection, still built around small practices</h2><p>Seeing everything together, I can understand how it might look like a lot. But my invitation is not to use all of it.</p><p>It is to recognise a moment in your own life and see whether one tool fits.</p><p>Perhaps you need a way to check in with yourself. Perhaps you keep postponing a first step. Perhaps you want a clearer boundary between work and the rest of your evening.</p><p>Start there. You do not need to turn self-help into another full-time responsibility.</p><p>These tools are not a replacement for therapy, coaching, or the support of another person. They began as something to use alongside that work. Making them available more widely does not change that distinction.</p><p>Six months ago, I was building something for the space between sessions. Now it has grown into a larger part of my work: creating simple tools people can use in the middle of ordinary life.</p><p>I wanted to share that with you&#8212;not just the apps, but why they exist.</p><p><strong>What is one moment in your day when you wish you had a simple tool to turn to?</strong></p><p>You can reply to this email. I&#8217;d like to hear.</p><p>Alex</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You don't need another insight]]></title><description><![CDATA[You need one person who sees the whole of it.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/you-dont-need-another-insight</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/you-dont-need-another-insight</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:25:42 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f85ece91-a73f-432b-9864-cb525cd42d1a_1672x941.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey, it&#8217;s Alex.</p><p>Some of you use my tools.<br>Some of you have been reading me for a while.</p><p>Either way, you&#8217;re here for the same reason:<br>What your body and mind do when life gets heavy.</p><p>The tools and the reading do their job.<br>A 7-minute reset works in the moment. Understanding helps.</p><p>But you may have noticed what I&#8217;ve noticed:<br>Some things still come back.</p><p>The same weight, the next evening.<br>The same pattern, the next month.</p><p>And it looks different for each person.</p><p>For some, it&#8217;s loneliness even in a full house.<br>For some, it&#8217;s the relationship. The money pressure. A body that never fully relaxes.<br>For some, it's the past that won't let go or a tomorrow that already feels heavy.<br>And for some, it&#8217;s quieter than that: everything works, and something is still missing.</p><blockquote><p>You can calm the wave and still be standing in the same ocean.<br>That&#8217;s not a failure of the tools. And it&#8217;s not a failure of you.</p></blockquote><p>It&#8217;s the limit of what anyone can do alone.</p><p>The other half of my work is one-to-one Gestalt therapy.<br>According to ethical and global standards of therapy.</p><p>Not coaching or mentorship.<br>Therapy.</p><p>Real conversations, over time, with one person who sees the whole of it.</p><p>And Gestalt is a specific kind of conversation.<br>Most approaches work on your thoughts &#8212; analyzing them, correcting them, and exercises between sessions. You talk about your life from a safe distance.</p><p>The distance is the problem. You can describe your life perfectly, for years, and never touch it.</p><p>Gestalt works on contact.<br>What happens between two people in the present moment. Not the story of your week &#8212; what actually shows up while we speak.</p><p>And when the real thing appears, we don&#8217;t walk past it. We stay with it.</p><p>That&#8217;s where the things that keep coming back start to move.</p><p>I trained for this at one of Europe&#8217;s leading Gestalt institutes &#8212; on top of brain-based coaching at the NeuroLeadership Institute, and ontological coaching, the work of meaning.</p><p>This summer, I have room for a few people.</p><p>I&#8217;m not going to drop a booking link on you.<br>That&#8217;s too fast &#8212; for you, and honestly, for me too.</p><p>Instead, I want to ask you one thing.</p><p><strong>If something in this post touched something in you &#8212; reply to this email, or leave a comment, and tell me: what&#8217;s heavy right now?</strong></p><p>One sentence is enough. Even a few words.</p><p>I read every reply, and I answer them myself.</p><p>If what I do can help, I&#8217;ll tell you how it works. If it can&#8217;t, I&#8217;ll tell you that too &#8212; and what I&#8217;d try instead.</p><p>Either way, you&#8217;ll get a response from me.</p><p>Alex</p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Announcing: AI Workshop.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Claude Code. For normal people. No Coding. Plain English.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/announcing-ai-workshop</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/announcing-ai-workshop</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:27:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/344ecbe4-0bd4-42e3-84f0-3621ab0b19dd_1122x1402.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey,<br>It&#8217;s Alex.</p><p>You know me as the man who writes about why you're stuck and what&#8217;s happening inside of you. </p><p>Why you avoid the thing.</p><p>Why having every tool open in front of you somehow makes you do less, not more.</p><p><strong>This email is about the other half of my life.</strong></p><p></p><p>Because while I write to you about AI overwhelm &#8212; I also quietly built my whole business with AI. </p><p>And last week, a friend watched me do it and lost his mind.</p><p>His name is George. Twelve years in marketing, and we've known each other since we were kids. But he&#8217;d never watched me actually work.</p><p>One morning I&#8217;m making us breakfast.</p><p>Breaking eggs. Turning on the fire.</p><p>And in between, I pick up my phone on the counter and mumble something into it.</p><p>Cook a bit. Mumble again. Back to the eggs.</p><p>George just stood there watching me.</p><p>&#8220;What are you doing?&#8221;</p><p>I told him I was building the funnel for a new product. While the eggs cooked.</p><p>The product itself? I&#8217;d built it the day before. The same way.</p><p>No designer. No ClickFunnels. No copywriter.</p><p>I didn&#8217;t write a single line of copy. I didn&#8217;t touch a single line of code.</p><p>The ads &#8212; built and uploaded to Meta by AI. The integrations &#8212; fixed. The whole thing &#8212; running.</p><p></p><p>He went quiet for a long time.</p><p>Here&#8217;s what he told me later.</p><p>He thought he was ahead of the curve with AI. He&#8217;d open Claude, tell it to &#8220;pretend you&#8217;re the best copywriters in the world and write my copy,&#8221; take what it gave him, and paste it into ClickFunnels.</p><p>Then spend half a day editing it by hand anyway. He thought that was using AI.</p><p></p><p>Watching me, he said it felt like he&#8217;d been using a Ferrari to drive to the corner shop.</p><p>By the end of the week he went home and cancelled every subscription he&#8217;d been paying for.</p><p>And he had that look back in his eyes. The one you get when you realize you could finally build the thing you&#8217;ve been putting off for a year.</p><p>Then he said to me.</p><p>&#8220;You have to show my people how you do this. A workshop. Two nights. I&#8217;ll set the whole thing up. You just teach.&#8221;</p><p>I said no for a while. It&#8217;s just... how I work now. </p><p>I didn&#8217;t think anyone would care.</p><p>He didn&#8217;t let it go. He practically begged.</p><p>So we&#8217;re doing it. :)</p><p></p><p>Two nights. Live. June 9 and 10.</p><p>George hosts. I teach.</p><p></p><p>I&#8217;m not going to read you a list of &#8220;10 AI tools I love.&#8221;</p><p>I&#8217;m going to put my actual screen in front of you &#8212; the same one I look at every morning &#8212; and show you how I run a business on it. The sales pages. The funnels. The emails. The apps. On a setup that costs me less than most people&#8217;s Adobe bill.</p><p>You don&#8217;t need to know how to code. That&#8217;s the whole point.</p><p>You walk away with both nights recorded and yours for life, and a take-home portal with the exact prompts and setup. Copy, paste, go.</p><p>And because you&#8217;ve been on my list, reading my stuff for free for a long time &#8212; there&#8217;s $150 off for you.</p><p>The code is <strong>READER150</strong>. It gives you a 50% discount - the same price George&#8217;s own community pays. (Use it on the checkout page in the &#8220;add code&#8221; section)</p><p>Here&#8217;s everything &#8594; https://alexzah.com/catch-up-with-ai/</p><p></p><p>One last thing.</p><p>Don&#8217;t judge us by the photo of the two of us on that page.</p><p>I made it with AI in about two minutes, because George was standing over my shoulder telling me to hurry up so he could send his half of this to his own list.</p><p></p><p>Hope to see you live next week.</p><p></p><p>&#8212; Alex</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Built 12 Products in 10 Days. Got 1 Sale. Forgot About It by Thursday.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Why the solopreneurs who survive aren't smarter - they just hold more pain.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/i-built-12-products-in-10-days-got</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/i-built-12-products-in-10-days-got</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 22:01:53 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/49cb5613-307f-4df8-a8e4-ada875b41211_1456x816.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A few weeks ago, I got excited about a side project. It wasn&#8217;t even in my niche &#8212; just an idea that grabbed me and wouldn&#8217;t let go.</p><p></p><p>So I sat down and built twelve tools in ten days.</p><p>Launched them, ran Facebook ads, and waited&#8230;</p><p>I got one sale from an email list. Forty-seven dollars. After the ad spend, I was about ninety dollars in the minus. </p><p>I looked at the numbers, closed the tab, and by Thursday, I was already building something else. (This was the project, if you are curious https://getcancelkit.com/)</p><p>I&#8217;m telling you this not because I&#8217;m proud of it. I&#8217;m telling you because five years ago, that same situation would have played out very differently inside me.</p><p>The failure part isn&#8217;t new. I&#8217;ve been failing since I was twenty-two. </p><p></p><h3>My first website was about relationships.</h3><p>I don&#8217;t even remember what I thought was going to happen with it. I just knew I wanted to quit my job and somehow make money online.</p><p>It didn&#8217;t work. Obviously.</p><p>After that came a long line of projects. </p><ul><li><p>Marketing</p></li><li><p>Campaigns that went nowhere. </p></li><li><p>Direct sales. </p></li><li><p>Ideas that felt brilliant at two in the morning and embarrassing by</p></li></ul><p>noon. </p><p>One after another after another.</p><p>But here&#8217;s what&#8217;s interesting &#8212; back then, none of it really affected me. And I think the main reason is that I was young and naive enough to genuinely believe it was all going to work out. Not because of evidence. Just from being twenty-two.</p><p></p><h3><strong>This is the power of being young. You don&#8217;t overthink it. You just do.</strong> </h3><p>And I wasn&#8217;t alone in it. </p><p>I had three business partners. Four young guys with one shared dream: never work</p><p>for anyone else. We didn&#8217;t have much else going on. No kids, no real responsibilities. </p><p>Just our dream. </p><p>That combination of young confidence and brotherhood created a kind of armor. I could tolerate anything because I didn&#8217;t fully feel it.</p><p></p><p>Fast forward to now. I&#8217;m in my thirties. I&#8217;ve had one significant success along the way &#8212; a project that actually worked and made enough to give me space. </p><p>Space to stop and ask what actually matters to me.</p><p>That&#8217;s how I found myself studying ontological coaching, brain-based coaching, and eventually Gestalt psychotherapy at one of the most advanced training programs in Europe &#8212; a place people fly in from across the world to study at.</p><p>And here&#8217;s what I didn&#8217;t expect.</p><p></p><h3>The therapy training changed how I handle failure. </h3><p>Not because someone taught me a technique or gave me a mindset trick. Because the training itself puts enormous pressure on your nervous system.</p><ul><li><p>Group therapy sessions where you&#8217;re pushed right to your edge. </p></li><li><p>Waves of emotions you can&#8217;t think your way out of. </p></li><li><p>Hours of sitting with discomfort that has no quick fix.</p></li></ul><p>Two years of that, and something shifted inside me. </p><p>I became more patient. More tolerant. And not less sensitive &#8212; actually more. </p><p>I feel failure more deeply now than I did at twenty-two.</p><p>But my capacity to hold it grew faster than the pain did.</p><p></p><h3>There&#8217;s a concept in psychology called the Window of Tolerance. </h3><p>It&#8217;s the zone where your nervous system can handle what&#8217;s happening without shutting down or falling apart.</p><p>When too much hits you at once &#8212; stress, uncertainty, emotion &#8212; you leave the window. You freeze. You react. You quit.</p><p>When the window is narrow, even a small failure can feel catastrophic. </p><p>When it&#8217;s wide, you can hold a lot at the same time. Business pressure, relationship tension, health worries, financial uncertainty &#8212; all of it, without collapsing under the weight.</p><p>And here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve come to understand about entrepreneurship:</p><p><strong>The ones who survive aren&#8217;t smarter. They&#8217;re not more talented. They don&#8217;t have better strategies. Their window is just wider.</strong></p><ul><li><p>They can sit in the silence after a product launch that flopped.</p></li><li><p>They can look at zero sales and not go into &#8220;I&#8217;m not good enough.&#8221; </p></li><li><p>They can fail twelve times and start the thirteenth thing on Thursday.</p></li></ul><p>Not because they don&#8217;t feel it. Because their nervous system can hold it.</p><p></p><p>Nobody really talks about this. The business world treats resilience like a personality trait &#8212; something you either have or you don&#8217;t.</p><p>But it&#8217;s not the truth. It&#8217;s a nervous system capacity. <strong>And it can be trained</strong>.</p><ul><li><p>Not with affirmations. </p></li><li><p>Not with cold showers and morning routines.</p></li></ul><p>With real work. The kind that happens when you sit with another person &#8212; a coach, a therapist &#8212; and practice staying present with discomfort instead of running from it. </p><p>That&#8217;s what actually expands the window. That&#8217;s what real personal growth looks like. Not the Instagram version.</p><p></p><p>I notice it now in my daily life. I work more hours than I used to &#8212; not because I force myself, but because I can. I try more things, launch more experiments, and take more actions that could lead to failure.</p><p>And most of them do lead to failure. That&#8217;s just how it works.</p><p>But it hits different now. The capacity grew, so I can hold more. I can build twelve products that go nowhere and start the next one without drama. It wasn&#8217;t always like that&#8230;</p><ul><li><p>That&#8217;s not hustle. </p></li><li><p>That&#8217;s not discipline. </p></li><li><p>That&#8217;s a wide window.</p></li></ul><p>If you&#8217;re running your own thing and every failure stays with you longer than it should &#8212; if you catch yourself avoiding the next move because the last one still hurts.</p><p>It&#8217;s not a strategy problem. It&#8217;s a capacity problem.</p><p>Your window needs some work.</p><p>This is actually why I built the <strong><a href="https://alexzah.com/flow-state-email/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=window-of-tolerance-post">https://alexzah.com/flow-state-method/.</a></strong> </p><p>It helps you notice what&#8217;s pulling you out of flow and gives you a daily practice to stay in it. Because the wider your window gets, the more you can try.</p><p>And the more you try, the closer you get to the thing that actually works.</p><p>&#8212; Alex Zah</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The pattern behind everything you're avoiding]]></title><description><![CDATA[The neuroscience of being busy while avoiding what counts]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-pattern-behind-everything-youre</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-pattern-behind-everything-youre</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:30:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/dcc1c79a-c47b-4882-8373-4de9d7aa6c44_1456x816.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ten years ago, I was building my first business.</p><p>I had a list of people to call. Potential partners. Collaborations that could actually move things forward.</p><p>Instead, I redesigned the website. Again.</p><p>Changed the colors. Fixed some code. Spent four hours on something that didn&#8217;t matter &#8212; because the thing that mattered required me to pick up the phone and hear someone say no.</p><p>I told myself I was being productive. I was. <strong>Just not on the thing that counted</strong>.</p><p></p><p>I didn&#8217;t understand what was happening back then.</p><p>I thought I was lazy. Or scared. Or not ready.</p><p>I wasn&#8217;t any of those things. My nervous system was full. And when it&#8217;s full, it does something very specific &#8212; it sends you to the safe thing. The busy thing. The thing that feels like work but doesn&#8217;t carry any risk of pain.</p><h3>This has a name.</h3><p>Dan Siegel &#8212; clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, author of *The Developing Mind* &#8212; calls it your Window of Tolerance. It&#8217;s a concept from interpersonal neurobiology: how much stress, uncertainty, and discomfort you can actually hold before your system says &#8220;enough&#8221; and pulls you into survival mode.</p><p>When you&#8217;re inside the window, you can think clearly. Make the call. Have the hard conversation. Sit with the discomfort of something big and do it anyway.</p><p>When you&#8217;re outside it &#8212; and this is the part nobody tells you &#8212; you don&#8217;t feel like you&#8217;ve shut down. You feel busy. You feel like you&#8217;re handling things. You&#8217;re answering emails. Making small decisions. Staying in motion.</p><p>But the important thing stays untouched.</p><p></p><p>A few years ago, I was in a business partnership. Three of us.</p><p>One of the partners &#8212; smart, capable, good at her work &#8212; had a window that was too narrow for what we were building together.</p><p>She&#8217;d cry in meetings. Bring personal things into business decisions. Get irritated and judge situations that didn&#8217;t need judging.</p><p>It wasn&#8217;t that she was a bad partner. She genuinely cared. But her nervous system couldn&#8217;t hold both &#8212; the business pressure and the personal life &#8212; at the same time.</p><p>The partnership collapsed.</p><p>We&#8217;re still in touch, all three of us. And here&#8217;s the thing &#8212; she&#8217;s much better now. Not because the circumstances changed. Because her window grew. She got support. She did the work.</p><p>Three years later, same person, completely different capacity.</p><p></p><h3>This is the part that most people miss.</h3><p>When you look at people who seem to do impossible amounts of things &#8212; run businesses, maintain relationships, stay calm under pressure, keep going when everything is falling apart &#8212; you assume they&#8217;re built differently.</p><p>They&#8217;re not.</p><p>They developed a bigger window. Over time. Through experience, support, sometimes therapy, sometimes coaching. Their nervous system learned to hold more before it flips into protection mode.</p><p>It&#8217;s like a muscle. The more you train it, the more it can carry.</p><p>Harvard researchers proved this isn&#8217;t just a metaphor. Eight weeks of practice physically increased gray matter in the brain regions responsible for emotion regulation. The window doesn&#8217;t just feel bigger &#8212; it structurally changes.</p><p>And the research on procrastination confirms the same thing from a different angle. It&#8217;s not a time management problem. It&#8217;s an emotion regulation problem. People avoid tasks to repair their mood in the short term, at the cost of their future self. Not because they&#8217;re lazy &#8212; because their window is too narrow for the feeling that comes with doing the hard thing.</p><h3>Same circumstances. Different capacity. Different life.</h3><p>And when the window stays narrow for too long, the patterns don&#8217;t just stay as procrastination.</p><p>They grow into something heavier. Addiction. Numbness. A life that looks fine from the outside but feels empty inside.</p><p></p><p>I know this not just from research.</p><p>I&#8217;m training to be a Gestalt therapist. At GIS &#8212; Gestalt Institute of Scandinavia &#8212; they have this distinction that changed how I see everything.</p><p>They say the world of therapy is divided into two kinds of people.</p><p>Technicians. And real therapists.</p><p>A technician can read every book. Learn every technique. Pass every exam. They know the theory. They can name every pattern, explain every concept.</p><p>But they can&#8217;t hold another person&#8217;s pain &#8212; because they haven&#8217;t sat with their own.</p><p>A real therapist heals themselves first. And that healing &#8212; that process &#8212; is what expands the window. It&#8217;s not about knowing more. </p><p>It&#8217;s about being able to hold more.</p><p>That&#8217;s why the first step is always seeing your own pattern.</p><p>Not fixing it. Not studying it. Just seeing it.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><strong>Because the pattern that runs when you don&#8217;t see it &#8212; that&#8217;s the one that runs your life.</strong></p></blockquote><p></p><p>I built something for this.</p><p>Not a course. Not a program. A small, private tool.</p><p>12 questions. Takes 2 minutes on your phone.</p><p>It finds which pattern you&#8217;re running &#8212; Overdrive, Freeze, or Swing &#8212; and gives you a protocol matched specifically to <strong>YOUR</strong> type. </p><p>Not the same advice everyone gets. The one that works for your pattern.</p><p>It lives on your phone. You come back to it when the loop starts again.</p><p></p><p>You can read more about it  <strong><a href="https://alexzah.com/protocol-v2/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=organic&amp;utm_campaign=post">&#187;HERE&#171;</a></strong></p><p></p><p>Alex</p><p></p><p><strong>P.S.</strong> If this landed, read it again in a week. Not because you&#8217;ll forget &#8212; because your pattern will try to bury it.</p><p></p><p>References</p><p>- Siegel, D. (1999). *The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are.* Guilford Press. &#8212; The origin of the Window of Tolerance concept.</p><p>- Pychyl, T. &amp; Sirois, F. (2013). Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Repair. *Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7*(2), 115-127. &#8212; Procrastination as emotion regulation, not laziness.</p><p>- Gross, J. &amp; John, O. (2003). Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Strategies. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85*(2), 348-362. &#8212; 10,000+ citations. Reappraisal vs. suppression predicts well-being and performance.</p><p>- Gratz, K. &amp; Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation. *Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 26*(1), 41-54. &#8212; The DERS scale. Narrow regulation predicts substance use and avoidance.</p><p>- Holzel, B. et al. (2011). Mindfulness Practice Leads to Increases in Regional Brain Gray Matter Density. *Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191*(1), 36-43. &#8212; 8 weeks of practice physically changes brain structure.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You've been solving the wrong thing]]></title><description><![CDATA[I can tell which pattern you're in within 5 minutes.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/youve-been-solving-the-wrong-thing</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/youve-been-solving-the-wrong-thing</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 21 Mar 2026 14:18:31 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6be9a710-cefa-43d8-ae9a-25efea25269a_1456x816.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey,</p><p>Its&#8217; Alex.</p><p></p><p>I can tell which pattern you&#8217;re in within 5 minutes.</p><p>Not from what you say.</p><p>From what you avoid saying.</p><p></p><p>Every high achiever I&#8217;ve worked with falls into one of three patterns.</p><ul><li><p>They&#8217;re distinct. </p></li><li><p>They&#8217;re measurable. </p></li><li><p>And once you see yours &#8212; you can&#8217;t unsee it.</p><p></p></li></ul><p>The problem is most people spend years solving the wrong one.</p><p>Busy but empty? That&#8217;s not a productivity problem.</p><p>Can&#8217;t start? That&#8217;s not laziness.</p><p>Swinging between overdrive and shutdown? That&#8217;s not a character flaw.</p><p></p><p>It&#8217;s a nervous system pattern. And it has a name.</p><p>I built a 5-minute assessment that identifies yours.</p><p>35 seconds to see your pattern for free.</p><p></p><p>If you want the full picture &#8212; your window width, your specific bottleneck, and the exact sequence of tools to use &#8212; that&#8217;s $27.</p><p></p><p><strong><a href="https://alexzah.com/reset/">&#8594; Find your pattern here</a></strong></p><p></p><p>&#8212; Alex</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I built something I wish I had 3 years ago]]></title><description><![CDATA[Your nervous system has a pattern. This finds it.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/i-built-something-i-wish-i-had-3</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/i-built-something-i-wish-i-had-3</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:00:16 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/262ad4e1-edcc-425c-8458-834db5414ea9_1456x816.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve been sitting on this for a while.</p><p>In my private sessions, the first thing I do with every client is the same: identify their nervous system pattern.</p><p>Not their goals. Not their habits. Not their productivity system.</p><p><strong>Their pattern.</strong></p><p>Because until you know whether you&#8217;re stuck in hyper-arousal (busy but avoiding what matters), hypo-arousal (can&#8217;t start, can&#8217;t find the energy), or oscillating between the two &#8212; nothing else works.</p><ul><li><p>Every framework I give you. </p></li><li><p>Every email I write you. </p></li><li><p>Every concept I teach.</p></li></ul><p>None of it lands properly until you know <strong>YOUR</strong> pattern.</p><p>The problem is &#8212; I can only work with 10 people at a time. </p><p>And hundreds of you come through here every month.</p><p>So I built a tool.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Window of Tolerance Reset</strong> is a 15-question interactive assessment that does what I do in the first 30 minutes of a private session:</p><ul><li><p>It identifies your pattern. </p></li><li><p>It measures how narrow your window actually is. </p></li><li><p>It finds your bottleneck &#8212; body, language, or emotion. </p></li><li><p>And it gives you a personalized plan: which of my 4 methods to use, in what order, starting today.</p></li></ul><p>The same frameworks. The same diagnostic process. </p><p>The same PDF tools my clients use.</p><p>You take it online. It takes 4 minutes. Results are instant.</p><p>I priced it at $27.</p><p>Not because it&#8217;s worth $27 &#8212; my clients pay &#8364;150/session for the same framework.</p><p>But because I wanted this to be a &#8220;just do it&#8221; decision. Not something you think about for a week and forget.</p><p>If you&#8217;ve been reading these emails and thinking &#8220;this is me&#8221; &#8212; this is your next step.</p><p><strong>&#8594; <a href="http://alexzah.com/reset/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=reset_launch">Take the assessment here</a></strong></p><p>You&#8217;ll answer 5 questions for free and see your pattern immediately. If you want the full profile &#8212; bottleneck, window width, personalized plan, all 4 methods &#8212; that&#8217;s the $27.</p><p>No call required. No booking. No waiting.</p><p>&#8212; Alex Zah</p><p></p><p><strong>P.S.</strong> If you already know you want to work together 1-on-1, reply to this email. </p><p>I have 2 spots opening next month.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The real pain of failure isn’t the failure]]></title><description><![CDATA[The hardest part isn&#8217;t when things fall apart. It&#8217;s waking up the next day and deciding whether to try again.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-real-pain-of-failure-isnt-the</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-real-pain-of-failure-isnt-the</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:04:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/007db9b4-2188-4f4d-a41c-85d2e1dd3950_1456x816.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey,</p><p>It&#8217;s Alex.</p><p></p><p>It hurts the next morning. You wake up.</p><p>And before you even think clearly, the body already knows.</p><ul><li><p>The launch didn&#8217;t land.</p></li><li><p>The email stayed unanswered.</p></li><li><p>The post disappeared into silence.</p></li></ul><p></p><p>And now there&#8217;s pressure building up inside. Not only because something failed.</p><p>But because life is asking: <em>Are you going to put your hand back in the fire?</em></p><p></p><p><strong>That&#8217;s the part people don&#8217;t talk about.</strong></p><p>Failure hurts once in reality. Then again, in identity.</p><p>The second hit is usually the deeper one.</p><p>Because after a while, it&#8217;s no longer about the project.</p><p>It becomes about what the project seems to say about us.</p><p></p><ul><li><p>Maybe I&#8217;m not good enough.</p></li><li><p>Maybe I missed my chance.</p></li><li><p>Maybe I should stop trying to force this.</p><p></p></li></ul><p>This is why repeated failure changes people.</p><p>Not because they become lazy.</p><p><strong>Because the body starts linking effort with pain.</strong></p><p></p><p>Try. Miss. Recover. Try again. Miss again.</p><p>After a while, even hope starts feeling expensive.</p><p></p><p>And from the outside? </p><p>This looks like a lack of discipline.</p><p>From the inside, it&#8217;s self-protection.</p><p></p><p>We don&#8217;t stop because we don&#8217;t care. </p><p>We stop because caring has started to cost too much.</p><p></p><p><strong>You can see this everywhere.</strong></p><p></p><ul><li><p>The founder who keeps &#8220;improving&#8221; but avoids making the real offer.</p></li><li><p>The creative who keeps learning but cannot publish.</p></li><li><p>The coach who rewrites the sales page again and again because finishing means being seen.</p><p></p></li></ul><p>It looks like procrastination.</p><p>Sometimes it&#8217;s grief.</p><p>Sometimes it&#8217;s fear wearing a productive mask.</p><p></p><p><strong>And this is where most advice becomes useless.</strong></p><ul><li><p>&#8220;Just keep going.&#8221;</p></li><li><p>&#8220;Be resilient.&#8221;</p></li><li><p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t take it personally.&#8221;</p><p></p></li></ul><p>Nice words.</p><p>But if failure has fused with identity, those words don&#8217;t land. Because the issue is not effort. <strong>The issue is meaning.</strong></p><p></p><p>What does this failure mean about me?</p><p>That&#8217;s the real one.</p><p>If every miss becomes proof that something is wrong with us, of course, we hesitate.</p><p>Of course, we delay.</p><p>Of course, we suddenly become very interested in easier tasks.</p><p></p><p><strong>We are not avoiding work. We are avoiding the wound, the work might reopen.</strong></p><p></p><p>I feel this too.</p><p>There are moments when trying again does not feel brave. It feels humiliating.</p><p>Like being asked to return to the same place that already rejected you.</p><p></p><p>That&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t think the goal is to become someone who doesn&#8217;t care about failure. That sounds dead to me. </p><p></p><p>The goal is different. To feel the pain of failure&#8230; without turning it into identity.</p><p>To fail, and not immediately make it mean this is who I am.</p><p>To lose, and not reduce the whole self to the loss.</p><p></p><p><strong>That changes everything.</strong></p><p></p><p>Because then trying again stops being an act of self-proving.</p><p>It becomes an act of staying in contact with what still feels alive.</p><p>And that is a completely different movement.</p><ul><li><p>Not panic.</p></li><li><p>Not performance.</p></li><li><p>Not &#8220;I&#8217;ll show them.&#8221;</p><p></p></li></ul><p>Just a quieter truth: This still matters to me.</p><p>So I will try again.</p><p></p><p>Many of us are not tired because we have failed too much.</p><p>We are tired because every failure gets dragged into the self and made personal.</p><p>Carried like wet clothes.</p><ul><li><p>No wonder another attempt feels heavy.</p></li><li><p>No wonder the hand shakes before pressing publish.</p></li><li><p>No wonder stopping starts to look wise, when really it&#8217;s just less painful.</p></li></ul><p>The real question is not whether we can force one more try.</p><p>The real question is this: Are we trying again from aliveness?</p><p>Or are we trying again just to escape the shame of stopping?</p><p></p><p>If this hits something real in you, we can look at it together.</p><p>20 minutes. You tell me where you are, I tell you what I see.</p><p>And if it makes sense to work together &#8212; we&#8217;ll talk about that too.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://alexzah.com/20-minute-call/">https://alexzah.com/20-minute-call/</a></p><p></p><p>Alex Zah</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[AI gave you everything. Why can't you move?]]></title><description><![CDATA[The barrier isn't tools anymore.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/ai-gave-you-everything-why-cant-you</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/ai-gave-you-everything-why-cant-you</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:13:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/afa0eeba-062a-4496-b817-dc13329c5be7_1344x768.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Let me tell you something strange that&#8217;s happening right now.</p><p>You can build a business for $20 a month.</p><p></p><p>Not a fake one. A real one. With AI doing the heavy lifting &#8212; writing,</p><p>designing, analyzing, automating. Things that used to cost thousands.</p><p>The tools are there. The information is there. The opportunities are everywhere.</p><p></p><p><strong>And most people can&#8217;t move.</strong></p><p></p><p>Not because they don&#8217;t know how. They&#8217;ve taken the courses. They&#8217;ve</p><p>watched the tutorials. They know exactly what to do. They just... can&#8217;t do it.</p><p>And here&#8217;s the thing nobody wants to hear. It&#8217;s not an AI problem.</p><p></p><ul><li><p>The courses are fine. </p></li><li><p>The tools are incredible. </p></li><li><p>The opportunities are real.</p><p></p></li></ul><p>But underneath all of it &#8212; there are things running that no tool can reach.</p><p>Old patterns. Unresolved things from the past that keep showing up in the present. Anxiety about the future that sits in the chest and doesn&#8217;t let you breathe.</p><p>I know because I&#8217;ve been there myself.</p><p>Procrastination isn&#8217;t laziness. Overthinking isn&#8217;t a personality trait.</p><p>They&#8217;re symptoms. Of a nervous system that&#8217;s been in survival mode for too long.</p><p>AI didn&#8217;t create this. <strong>AI just made it impossible to ignore.</strong></p><p></p><p>So what do people do? They solve it with more AI.</p><ul><li><p>Another course. </p></li><li><p>Another tool. </p></li><li><p>Another automation. </p></li><li><p>Another chatbot conversation at 2 am.</p><p></p></li></ul><p>I use AI every day. I built AI agents. I&#8217;m not anti-technology.</p><p>But I see something that most people miss.</p><p>People are either totally obsessed with AI &#8212; hype, consuming everything, can&#8217;t stop &#8212; or they&#8217;re completely denying it, pretending nothing is changing, going passive.</p><p>Sound familiar?</p><p><strong>That&#8217;s the Window of Tolerance.</strong></p><p>Hyper. Or hypo. Two survival responses. And neither one is actually a solution.</p><p></p><p>The solution is in the middle. The ground. The place where you can tolerate the unclarity without reacting from panic. But most people have never been taught how to find that place.</p><p></p><p>ChatGPT can give you a plaster. A quick answer. A framework. A step-by-step plan.</p><p>But can it help you find your actual why? Not the LinkedIn why. Not the &#8220;I&#8217;m passionate about helping people&#8221; why.</p><p><strong>The real one.</strong> </p><p>The one that gets you out of bed when nothing makes sense. The one that doesn&#8217;t disappear when the hype dies down. </p><p>Can it look at your life and tell you why you&#8217;ve been stuck for two years despite having every tool in the world?</p><p>Can it see the pattern you&#8217;ve been repeating since your twenties?</p><p>It can&#8217;t.</p><p>Because that takes something AI will never have. <strong>Real</strong> <strong>human</strong> <strong>contact.</strong></p><ul><li><p>Not tips. </p></li><li><p>Not advice. </p></li><li><p>Not another PDF.</p></li></ul><p>Someone sitting with you. Asking the hard question. Holding the silence while you find the answer. That&#8217;s the one thing that actually moves people. And it&#8217;s the one thing everyone&#8217;s skipping.</p><p></p><p><strong>Because it&#8217;s uncomfortable. Because it&#8217;s painful. And because it requires courage.</strong></p><p></p><p>There&#8217;s no time anymore to stay stuck in past patterns. Not with this much happening around you. Not with this many doors opening.</p><p>But to walk through those doors, you need a wider window. You need to be able to tolerate what&#8217;s actually happening &#8212; the uncertainty, the speed, the pressure &#8212; without shutting down or spiraling.</p><p>You need the ground inside. Especially when there&#8217;s no ground outside.</p><p>And that doesn&#8217;t come from another course. It comes from looking at yourself honestly. With someone who can see what you can&#8217;t.</p><p></p><p>If something here landed &#8212; there&#8217;s a free 20-minute call.</p><p>No pitch. No selling. Just an honest conversation.</p><p><strong><a href="https://alexzah.com/20-minute-call/">https://alexzah.com/20-minute-call/</a></strong></p><p></p><p>Alex</p><p>Ontological Coach &amp; Advanced Gestalt Trainee (EAGT)</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Job You're Fighting to Keep Might Already Be Empty]]></title><description><![CDATA[You're not falling behind. You're losing the why.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-job-youre-fighting-to-keep-might</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-job-youre-fighting-to-keep-might</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:10:09 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/995221d1-e939-4303-afeb-d1818bf0741f_1024x1024.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yesterday, I built an AI agent that does a big part of what I used to do for a living.</p><p>Nothing dramatic. It analyzes my ad campaigns, spots what&#8217;s working, what&#8217;s not, and sends me a clean report on Telegram.</p><p></p><p>For years, this was my skill. Digging into data, finding patterns, reading the numbers the way a doctor reads an X-ray. It took me a long time to get good at it.</p><p>The agent does it better. Its attention is sharper. Its focus doesn&#8217;t wander. It catches things I miss.</p><p>My experience is still mine. It can&#8217;t take that &#8212; <strong>not yet</strong>.</p><p>But I felt something I want to be honest about.</p><p>A tiny, quiet panic.</p><p></p><p>Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the feeling of a piece of my professional identity becoming&#8230; optional. Like the ground under one specific skill simply dissolved.</p><p>And in that moment, I noticed something important.</p><p>It wasn&#8217;t about the AI. It was about what I felt when the skill was gone.</p><p></p><p>When a skill gets automated &#8212; when something you were proud of becomes a button, a vacuum appears. Not in your schedule.</p><p></p><p><strong>In your identity.</strong></p><p></p><p>And the instinct that I felt in myself is to fill that vacuum immediately. Because the inner feeling to live with that vacuum is extremely hard.</p><p>So the quickest solution to eliminate the vacuum is refocus on a:</p><ul><li><p>New course.</p></li><li><p>New tool.</p></li><li><p>New niche.</p></li></ul><p>Launch something. Pivot. Learn the next framework. Build a reel. Do anything. Just not to sit with the emptiness.</p><p>There are so many opportunities right now. AI makes it easy to create anything. Did you see the new Chinese video model Seedance 2.0? The quality is terrific.</p><p>It&#8217;s so easy to get lost in all of it.</p><p></p><p><strong>But here&#8217;s what I think almost nobody is talking about:</strong></p><p>Filling the vacuum from panic and filling it from clarity are two completely different things. And they lead to completely different lives.</p><p></p><p>I&#8217;ll give you an example.</p><p>A person takes 15 AI courses in six months.</p><p>You&#8217;d think they&#8217;d feel prepared. Confident. Ahead of the curve.</p><p><strong>They don&#8217;t.</strong></p><p></p><p>They feel overwhelmed. Saturated with information. And somehow &#8212; still not satisfied. Still with that quiet feeling underneath that says something is off.</p><p>Because the vacuum is still there.</p><p>They didn&#8217;t fill it. They buried it under noise.</p><p></p><p>When you learn something from fear &#8212; from &#8220;I&#8217;ll be left behind if I don&#8217;t&#8221; &#8212; the knowledge doesn&#8217;t land the same way. It doesn&#8217;t become part of you. It just sits on top of the anxiety like furniture on a cracked foundation.</p><p>This doesn&#8217;t mean those courses were wrong. Maybe they&#8217;re exactly what&#8217;s needed. But it depends on who takes them, when, and most importantly - <strong>why</strong>.</p><p></p><p>Did you choose this? Or did the panic choose for you?</p><p>That question changes everything.</p><p></p><p>I&#8217;ve been in this world for 12 years.</p><ul><li><p>Online marketing.</p></li><li><p>Building businesses.</p></li><li><p>Running campaigns across 20 countries.</p></li></ul><p>I know what it looks like when someone is succeeding on paper and <strong>empty inside</strong>.</p><p></p><p>Now I work one-on-one with solopreneurs and high achievers. And almost every week, someone sits across the screen &#8212; sharp, driven, capable &#8212; and I can feel it before they say anything.</p><p>The tension in the body. The overthinking that doesn&#8217;t stop. A worried energy that fills the room. And underneath all of it, the thing they never say first:</p><p><em>&#8220;I&#8217;m looking for the answer everywhere outside of me.&#8221;</em> </p><p>And the answer is never there&#8230;</p><p></p><p>One of my clients &#8212; a founder, running a growing company &#8212; came to me with what he thought was a productivity problem.</p><p>Everything had to be perfect. Every task. Every decision. Every detail.</p><p>The overthinking wasn&#8217;t just slowing him down. It was making him miserable. Affecting his health.</p><p>And the worst part?</p><p>He didn&#8217;t even notice he was stressed anymore. He&#8217;d been carrying it so long it just felt normal.</p><p>We didn&#8217;t start by optimizing his workflow. We didn&#8217;t build a better system.</p><p>We started by going back. Back to him.</p><p>Who is he, actually, underneath all the pressure? What does he like? What did he forget about himself while he was busy trying to make everything perfect?</p><p>And when he started opening those doors &#8212; the ones he was scared to look behind &#8212; he realized it wasn&#8217;t as bad as he thought.</p><p>It was actually a relief.</p><p>Like fresh air coming in after years of keeping the windows shut.</p><p>That&#8217;s what this work actually looks like. Not fixing. Discovering. Remembering things about yourself that got buried under the weight of trying to keep up.</p><p></p><p>Here&#8217;s the thing I keep coming back to.</p><p>I wrote it in a previous letter, and I think it&#8217;s even more true now:</p><p><strong>Meaning isn&#8217;t an information problem.</strong></p><p></p><ul><li><p>You can&#8217;t study your way to it.</p></li><li><p>You can&#8217;t &#8220;course&#8221; your way to it.</p></li><li><p>You can&#8217;t automate your way to it.</p><p></p></li></ul><p>Meaning is what&#8217;s left when you stop filling the vacuum with noise and ask a very simple, very uncomfortable question:</p><p><em>Why am I actually doing this?</em></p><p>Not the LinkedIn answer. Not the elevator pitch. <strong>The real one</strong>.</p><p>And most people don&#8217;t ask it &#8212; not because they don&#8217;t care, but because they&#8217;re terrified that the answer might be: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know anymore.&#8221;</p><p></p><p>I want to be honest about something.</p><p>I don&#8217;t have this figured out either.</p><p></p><p>Yesterday, after I watched my AI agent do in minutes what used to take me hours, I didn&#8217;t sit down and meditate on my purpose. I felt the panic. I felt the pull to immediately go build the next thing, learn the next tool, stay ahead. Just not to feel this horrible feeling.</p><p>The difference &#8212; and it&#8217;s a small difference, but it&#8217;s everything &#8212; <strong>is that I noticed it.</strong></p><p></p><p>I noticed the vacuum. I noticed the urge to fill it. And I gave myself ten seconds before I did anything. That&#8217;s it. Ten seconds of honesty.</p><p>And in those ten seconds, instead of reaching for the next tool &#8212; I reached out for contact. I went to my partner. And gave her a hug.</p><p></p><p>It doesn&#8217;t sound like much. But when you&#8217;re in survival mode, ten seconds of honest awareness is the hardest thing in the world.</p><p>And choosing connection over productivity in that moment?</p><p>That&#8217;s not a weakness. That&#8217;s the whole point.</p><p></p><p>Now let me address the thing you&#8217;re probably thinking.</p><p>&#8220;Alex, this is nice. But my competitor just automated their entire workflow. They undercut my price by half. Meaning isn&#8217;t going to pay my rent.&#8221;</p><p><strong>You&#8217;re right. It won&#8217;t.</strong></p><p></p><p>But here&#8217;s what I know from working with people on this, one-on-one, for years:</p><p>When you&#8217;re stuck in survival mode &#8212; the overthinking, the fear, the quiet panic &#8212; <strong>you make worse decisions</strong>. </p><p>You miss opportunities that are right in front of you. You burn energy fighting battles that don&#8217;t matter while the important ones pass you by.</p><p>And there are great opportunities right now.</p><p>Real ones. </p><p></p><p>The world isn&#8217;t just collapsing &#8212; it&#8217;s also reorganizing. New spaces are opening up. New needs are emerging. Things that only a human can do are becoming more valuable, <strong>not less</strong>.</p><p>But you can&#8217;t see any of that when your energy goes toward not falling behind.</p><p>The work I do with people isn&#8217;t sitting for an hour talking about feelings. Each session has a goal. Each session has an outcome. We work on a concrete process &#8212; getting you out of the survival mechanisms, the stuckness, the fears that are running the show. Not to make you feel warm and fuzzy.</p><p><strong>Real change isn&#8217;t a comfortable experience. It&#8217;s an experience of cleaning the space.</strong></p><p></p><p>So there is actually space for the good stuff to come in.</p><p>Because the good stuff is there. You just need room to see it.</p><p>So here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ll leave you with.</p><p>Not advice. Just a question.</p><p></p><p>Think about the last decision you made in your business. The last course you bought. The last project you started. The last late night at your desk.</p><p><strong>Was that you choosing? </strong></p><p><strong>Or was that the panic choosing for you?</strong></p><p>Sit with it. Don&#8217;t rush the answer.</p><p>If you&#8217;re honest with yourself, you&#8217;ll know.</p><p></p><p>And if something moved in you while reading this &#8212; if you recognized yourself in any of it &#8212; I&#8217;d like to talk with you.</p><p>20 minutes. You tell me where you are, I tell you what I see. And if it makes sense to work together &#8212; we&#8217;ll talk about that too.</p><p><strong><a href="https://alexzah.com/20-minute-call/">Book a free 20-minute call &#8594;</a></strong></p><p></p><p>Take care,</p><p>Alex</p><p></p><p>12 years in business. Executive Ontological Coach. Working with solopreneurs and high achievers who are done surviving and ready to start choosing.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why coaching wasn’t enough. (My new chapter)]]></title><description><![CDATA[You Can&#8217;t Outthink Your Nervous System.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/why-coaching-wasnt-enough-my-new</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/why-coaching-wasnt-enough-my-new</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 22:49:09 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/01c76d8c-8af8-4614-87a5-a3756f4a32ed_3168x1344.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Hey,</strong></p><p>I want to share a real shift in my work.</p><p>For the past few years, I&#8217;ve been doing Ontological Coaching with high-performers: founders, leaders, expats &#8212; ambitious humans who can think their way through almost anything. We worked with language. Identity. &#8220;Ways of being.&#8221; Designing the future.</p><p>It was powerful.</p><p>And&#8230; I kept running into the same edge.</p><p>People would have the right mindset. The right strategy. The right plan.<br>They could execute. They could perform. They could solve.</p><p>But inside?</p><p>They were tight. Tired. Running on willpower.<br>Not the &#8220;I need a nap&#8221; kind of tired &#8212; the deeper kind:</p><p>The tired of <strong>holding yourself together</strong>.</p><p>And no amount of insight was changing that.</p><p>That&#8217;s when I started seeing something clearly:</p><p>Sometimes the problem isn&#8217;t your mindset.<br>Sometimes your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do &#8212;<br>stay alert, stay productive, stay in control.</p><p>So I went deeper.</p><p>I began training at the <strong>Gestalt Institute of Scandinavia (GIS)</strong> &#8212; not to become more intellectual about the human experience, but more <em>contactful</em> with it.</p><p>Less performance. More truth.<br>Less strategy. More ground.</p><p>What I&#8217;m building now is an integration: <strong>Ontological Coaching + Gestalt depth</strong>.</p><p>A space where we don&#8217;t only talk about your goals &#8212;<br>we meet the person who&#8217;s trying to achieve them.</p><p>The part that&#8217;s successful on paper, but still can&#8217;t fully relax.<br>The part that&#8217;s accomplished, but not fully <em>home</em>.</p><p><strong>Today, I&#8217;m opening a waiting list</strong> for this new hybrid approach (Gestalt therapy-informed work + Ontological Coaching).<br>And if you&#8217;re more drawn to <strong>classic Ontological Coaching</strong>, that&#8217;s still available too.</p><p>If you&#8217;d like to be on the waiting list (or explore coaching), the simplest way is to message me through my website&#8217;s contact form:</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://alexzah.com/&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Alexzah.com&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://alexzah.com/"><span>Alexzah.com</span></a></p><p>Warmly,<br><strong>Alex</strong></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why therapy is so important for your happiness?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Learn how unresolved inner trauma shapes your life and how therapy and coaching can help you heal, grow, and rediscover yourself.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/why-therapy-is-so-important-for-your</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/why-therapy-is-so-important-for-your</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:29:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png" width="1456" height="636" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:636,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:8359778,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RnR1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb66974ef-02ce-4975-b342-ce60c000968c_3296x1440.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey,</p><p>It&#8217;s Alex.</p><p>Imagine you have a big dream:</p><ul><li><p>Having a nice car.</p></li><li><p>Buying a big house.</p></li><li><p>Or&#8230; Building a family.</p></li></ul><p>You can see a picture in your mind of how all this looks&#8230;</p><p>&#8230;And you live day by day, imagining yourself in that reality in the future.</p><p>You want this reality so much that most of your present life you spent working very hard for it.</p><p>You hustle so hard&#8230;</p><p>&#8230; That you give up on most of the things you could feel and enjoy around you.</p><blockquote><p>Most of your present life isn&#8217;t about feeling and living it.</p><p>It&#8217;s about preparing yourself so that one day you can enjoy it in the future.</p></blockquote><h3><strong>And then, finally, one day, you achieve it.</strong></h3><p>You are living your dream.</p><ul><li><p>You bought your big house.</p></li><li><p>You drive a fancy car.</p></li><li><p>And&#8230; Your kids are running around.</p></li></ul><p>But inside?</p><p>Something is wrong.</p><p>For some reason, you can&#8217;t feel it.</p><p>You can&#8217;t enjoy it the way you imagined.</p><p>It&#8217;s as if the muscle of joy and feeling has gone numb&#8230;</p><p>And the house?</p><p>Is too big and needs a lot of work and repairment.</p><p>The car?</p><p>You&#8217;re constantly worried someone will steal it because it&#8217;s too fancy for your neighborhood.</p><p>And the kids?</p><p>You love them, but they require so much patience and attention.</p><h3><strong>So, you do what you know best.</strong></h3><p>You start thinking about the next thing. </p><p>You imagine a new dream.</p><ul><li><p>A bigger house.</p></li><li><p>Another car.</p></li><li><p>Better education for the kids.</p></li></ul><blockquote><p>You just need a little bit more hustling, </p><p>and everything will start being okay as it is&#8230;</p></blockquote><p><strong>But this time, it&#8217;s harder.</strong></p><p>It&#8217;s harder to push yourself toward the next thing.</p><p>Inside, it feels like someone sold you a picture of life that doesn&#8217;t match your reality.</p><p>It feels totally different from what you imagined.</p><p>And time&#8230;</p><p>All those years of your life you sacrificed to get all these &#8220;<em>toys</em>&#8221; &#8212; you&#8217;re not even sure you want them anymore.</p><p>You look around, and for some reason, people can&#8217;t understand what&#8217;s bothering you.</p><h3>You tell yourself, &#8220;<em>I have everything. How dare I not be grateful and happy?</em>&#8221;</h3><p>With time, </p><p>This state of not being aware of what&#8217;s actually going on can grow into something bigger&#8230;</p><p>Some people call it a &#8220;<em>midlife crisis</em>.&#8221; </p><p>A time of: &#8220;<em>I&#8217;m done with this &#128169; I&#8217;m gonna do what I want&#8230;</em>&#8221;</p><p>It&#8217;s the time when men buy Harley-Davidson bikes and join bizarre communities.</p><p>And women dye their hair pink and join wild Zumba classes.</p><p><strong>These people are brave.</strong></p><p>They aren&#8217;t numbing what they feel; they&#8217;re trying to solve it with changes.</p><p>Others try to numb it with alcohol, video games, or other addictions.</p><p>But the truth is&#8230;</p><p>There&#8217;s no action in the world that can actually solve it. </p><p>To make this uncomfortable feeling go away.</p><ul><li><p>You can travel the entire globe and still feel it.</p></li><li><p>You can drink the entire local bar and know exactly how you&#8217;ll feel the next day.</p></li><li><p>You can play video games until 3 AM or try to buy the entire world.</p></li></ul><p><strong>It won&#8217;t disappear.</strong></p><p>It&#8217;s so deep that, eventually, you don&#8217;t even feel it as pain anymore.</p><p>Some explain it as boredom or a lack of meaning.</p><p>Others blame the world around them or their parents.</p><p>There are no right words or actions for it. </p><h3><strong>But there is a place where it comes from.</strong></h3><p>It comes from inside you.</p><p>It comes from your past, a time you mostly don&#8217;t remember.</p><p>And the annoying thing It could be anything&#8230;</p><p>And this &#8220;<em>anything</em>&#8221; pushed you to become who you are today.</p><p>This &#8220;<em>anything</em>&#8221; is an event or several events.</p><p>Events from your past that pushed you to develop <strong>survival mechanisms</strong> to avoid feeling the pain. And these mechanisms can be shown in your character and daily behavior until today.</p><p>How? It&#8217;s easy to spot it. Just look more careful&#8230;</p><ul><li><p>Some people develop survival mechanisms like perfectionism.</p></li><li><p>Others become overly nice and kind, sometimes to the point where it doesn&#8217;t feel genuine.</p></li><li><p>Others are constantly anxious and try to control everything around them.</p></li></ul><p>All these behaviors help us to survive.</p><p>It helped us to survive times when there was no other way.</p><p>No other choice:</p><ul><li><p>Than being perfect just to get some love. </p></li><li><p>Than being nice in order to get crumbs of attention. </p></li><li><p>No other way to feel safe and secure than to try to control everything around. </p></li></ul><h3>When we stop these behaviors, it feels like we stop being ourselves.</h3><p>It&#8217;s not comfortable. </p><p>It can be scary to death. </p><p>But beneath that discomfort and fear lies the<strong> real you.</strong></p><p>You that you neglected and forgot about.</p><p>So why is it so important to understand these behaviors, work through them, and let them go?</p><p><strong>Because you&#8217;re investing a HUGE amount of energy into being that person.</strong></p><p>You&#8217;re investing an enormous amount of energy to contain your inner trauma instead of healing it.</p><p>And the most significant reason?</p><blockquote><p>When you live your life through your inner trauma &#8212; trauma you can&#8217;t understand or even feel anymore &#8212; you don&#8217;t truly know who you are.</p></blockquote><p>Most of your personality and behavior are shaped by that inner trauma.</p><p>Your dreams?</p><p>They&#8217;re not because you truly want them. They&#8217;re because you believe achieving them will finally make you happy and at peace.</p><p>But that never happens! Ask anyone who&#8217;s achieved something big in life.</p><p>When you live through your trauma, with survival mechanisms preventing you from feeling your real emotions, you might find yourself:</p><ul><li><p>Building the wrong career.</p></li><li><p>Starting a family with the wrong person.</p></li><li><p>Getting hooked on addictions or destructive behaviors.</p></li></ul><p><strong>This is a serious issue.</strong></p><p>And people don&#8217;t give it enough attention and think that you just need to keep pushing and it will fade away.</p><p>But&#8230; There&#8217;s no need to run off right now, get divorced, or quit your job.</p><p><strong>It&#8217;s about being aware.</strong></p><p>Being aware that, statistically, about 60-70% of people have experienced at least one traumatic event during childhood, such as neglect, abuse, or household challenges, which deeply influences their emotional patterns and behaviors as adults.</p><blockquote><p>Felitti, V. J., et al. (1998). The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study: Relationship to adult health outcomes. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258.</p></blockquote><p>And if you feel like your life isn&#8217;t getting better with time or getting worse &#8212; there&#8217;s a way to change it.</p><p>Find yourself a good, trustworthy psychotherapist. Someone who knows what they&#8217;re doing.</p><p>I can&#8217;t help you heal (not yet). I&#8217;m studying Gestalt Psychotherapy, but I&#8217;m not taking clients who want to work on their inner trauma right now.</p><p>However, I can be part of the process.</p><p>I can be your coach and help you to go through that uncomfortable process of becoming alive and real again. </p><p>Coaching and psychotherapy together can be the best thing you do for yourself.</p><p><strong>Because you heal and grow at the same time. </strong></p><p>It is like experiencing life with a booster.</p><p></p><p>Reply to this email with &#8220;<em><strong>I&#8217;m interested</strong></em>,&#8221; and I&#8217;d love to talk to you about your challenges and how we can solve them together.</p><p></p><p>Take care,</p><p>Alex</p><p>Result coach for business owners &amp; entrepreneurs.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The power of self-awareness.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Learn how developing high self-awareness can lead to breakthroughs in every area of your life.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-power-of-self-awareness</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-power-of-self-awareness</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:10:45 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png" width="1456" height="636" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:636,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:8253027,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KRCq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77a2034a-01b4-4afe-bdb8-6f9f31499f5b_3296x1440.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey,</p><p>It&#8217;s Alex.</p><p>High self-awareness is the key to a meaningful, successful life.</p><p>I truly believe in that statement.</p><p>If you are aware of your:</p><ul><li><p>Beliefs</p></li><li><p>Behavior</p></li><li><p>Way of thinking</p></li><li><p>And&#8230; Daily actions and habits</p></li></ul><p>You can experience phenomenal breakthroughs in any area of your life.</p><p>But&#8230;</p><blockquote><p>No one is born with high self-awareness.</p><p>It&#8217;s something that you <em>&#8220;earn&#8221;</em> during your lifetime. And it depends on <strong>you</strong> how deep your understanding of yourself and the world is going to be.</p></blockquote><h3>&#8220;<em>You won. I gave up. Your life is a lost case.</em>&#8221;</h3><p>I heard this provocative statement from a psychotherapist towards his patient online.</p><p>It was an online dialogue, with the patient remaining anonymous.</p><p>This statement? </p><p>It&#8217;s not something you hear every day&#8230;</p><p>A therapist, whose role is to support and heal his clients, declares that he can&#8217;t help.</p><p><strong>But it was a bold provocation.</strong> </p><p>It was a provocation to shake the person and show him that this time, no one was going to &#8220;<em>buy his story</em>&#8221; like all the other ten therapists before.</p><p>Because this was the reality&#8230;</p><p>The patient was going from one therapist to another and seeking <em>&#8220;approval&#8221;</em> that his life situation is so bad that he has the right to give up on everything.</p><p>But not this time.</p><p>The goal of this statement was to push the person to the corner.</p><p>Indirectly, it was telling him: <em>&#8220;Wake up&#8230; Look at yourself and realize no one is going to save you.&#8221;</em></p><p>It&#8217;s harsh.</p><p>It&#8217;s brutal.</p><p>But sometimes this is what we need.</p><p>And the experience and wisdom of a good coach or therapist is to feel when to use the stick (tough love) and when to use the carrot (soft love).</p><p>Because sometimes we aren&#8217;t aware that <strong>we are the ones</strong> creating our own suffering.</p><h3>Being aware means to take 100% responsibility.</h3><p>This is why it&#8217;s not easy&#8230;</p><p><strong>When we aren&#8217;t aware:</strong> we look for excuses and someone to blame, especially when we&#8217;re dealing with something significant that requires a lot of energy.</p><p><strong>When we&#8217;re aware:</strong> we listen to ourselves and ask the hard questions that push us to think and find solutions.</p><p>Solutions for our problems.</p><p>So, it&#8217;s a constant process of gathering energy and thinking of solutions for the problems we face.</p><p>A <em>&#8220;dance&#8221;</em> between gathering energy from within or seeking it from the outside</p><p>There is no other way.</p><p>If you don&#8217;t look for solutions, you look for excuses and someone to blame.</p><p>This can make you feel comfortable for a while.</p><p>But for the long term?</p><p>It&#8217;s a wasted life of constant suffering, mediocrity, and drama.</p><p>Does this mean that we constantly need to be aware of everything and everyone?</p><p>Never share our struggles?</p><p>Of course not.</p><p>We all need warmth and support.</p><p>People can share empathy and give love.</p><p>But the main idea is even if right now you are:</p><ul><li><p>Down</p></li><li><p>The energy is low</p></li><li><p>Life circumstances are painful and hard</p></li></ul><p><strong>The energy and solution are supposed to come from inside of you.</strong></p><p>No one can live your life.</p><p>No one can know what you want.</p><p>And if you ask someone what you should do&#8230;</p><p>Perhaps you&#8217;re shifting the responsibility from yourself to someone else.</p><h3>Solutions come from asking the right questions.</h3><p>My favorite is: <em>&#8220;What do I want?&#8221;</em></p><p>Not &#8220;<em>What do I have to do?&#8221;</em>. </p><p>What do I want?</p><p>When we constantly do things because &#8220;we have to&#8221;, we lose our energy and desire for life.</p><p>When there is a big imbalance between <em>&#8220;I want&#8221;</em> and <em>&#8220;I have to,&#8221;</em> and most of your life is just things you have to do&#8230;</p><p>It&#8217;s a way to depression.</p><p><strong>What do I want?</strong></p><p><strong>What brings me joy?</strong></p><p>It seems like these questions should be easy to answer.</p><p>But this is the beauty of self-awareness.</p><p>We can&#8217;t always see when we lie to ourselves.</p><p>This is why therapy or coaching can be so powerful.</p><p>You will not succeed in holding your mask in front of a therapist or a coach for the long term.</p><p>Eventually, you&#8217;ll begin to see yourself more clearly, and your self-awareness will grow.</p><p>And when this happens&#8230;</p><p>You can finally live <strong>your</strong> life.</p><p>Not a life that you think you should live.</p><p>Not a life that you were thinking is good for you.</p><p>No&#8230; </p><p>A life that you want.</p><p><strong>Because you finally start to feel what is truly yours and what never was.</strong></p><p></p><h3><strong>Apply for 1:1 coaching with me.</strong></h3><p>Coaching That Doubles Your Results In 60 Minutes A Week.</p><p>My methods help my clients enjoy:</p><ul><li><p>Explosive business growth.</p></li><li><p>Winning habits and work routines.</p></li><li><p>Neuroscience-based brain &amp; time management.</p></li><li><p>Turning big ideas into results <strong>fast</strong>.</p></li><li><p>And&#8230; Getting rid of any inner blocks that cause you to self-sabotage.</p></li></ul><p>Reply &#8220;<strong>I&#8217;m In</strong>&#8221; to this email, and I&#8217;ll send you the details.</p><p>Take care,</p><p>Alex</p><p>Result coach for business owners &amp; entrepreneurs.</p><p></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The art of staying in a flow: my formula.]]></title><description><![CDATA[My personal strategy to create flow and make every day productive &#8212; whether it&#8217;s for work, business, writing, or any important activity you practice.]]></description><link>https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-art-of-staying-in-a-flow-my-formula</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://substack.alexzah.com/p/the-art-of-staying-in-a-flow-my-formula</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Zah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 18 Oct 2024 12:32:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png" width="972" height="508" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:508,&quot;width&quot;:972,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:818095,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QEfk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0de643a-7617-4639-8977-b0a080cea9fa_972x508.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey,</p><p>It&#8217;s Alex.</p><p>Not every day we have is productive and shiny.</p><p>Some are a total disaster from an efficiency perspective.</p><p>Let me share with you my insights &#8212; my personal strategy for getting back to your productive flow. </p><p>First&#8230; I would like to say that this email will not be just another &#8220;<em>how-to strategy</em>&#8221; with ways&nbsp;to overcome your tough days. </p><p>I will dig a little deeper.</p><h3>I was working 12 hours a day, and I was happy.</h3><p>I was 26.</p><p>I made enough money to travel and work online on my projects.</p><p>But most of my time, I was in a co-working space with my business partner, a whiteboard, and a sharp focus.</p><p>We were developing our first digital product. After years of promoting affiliate products and gaining priceless experience in how to do things the right way.</p><p>During these days, I didn&#8217;t have any &#8220;<em>slow</em> <em>days</em>&#8221;, where I would procrastinate or have low energy to do my tasks. Maybe just a little bit&#8230;</p><p>Mostly everything was clear, and nothing was bothering me that could shift my attention from my business.</p><p>But this workflow didn&#8217;t last forever&#8230;</p><p>After we launched our product and made decent money from it.</p><p>Our productivity started to decline.</p><p>We spent more time going out and having a social life. </p><p>It was mostly pleasure and less &#8220;<em>hustling.</em>&#8221;</p><p>It&#8217;s normal. We worked hard, and we wanted to have some life. </p><p>But we also had our goals&#8230; </p><p>Than&#8230; After one year, I again succeeded in getting back to a high level of focus and flow, and I wrote my first ebook about email marketing.</p><p>But this time, the reason for the productivity spike was different.</p><p>If the first time, the reasons were:</p><ul><li><p>An effective environment.</p></li><li><p>And&#8230; A supportive business partner.</p></li></ul><p>The second time, I was heartbroken, and mostly, I was creating from pain.</p><p>I was distracting myself from what was going on inside of me.</p><p>From a therapeutic perspective, perhaps not the best way to deal with pain.</p><p>But from a business perspective?</p><p>This pain pushed me to open a totally new niche in my business.</p><p>To express myself through writing and grow as a person.</p><p>Somehow, I succeeded in taking my pain and converting it into practical daily actions.</p><p>The third time?</p><p>I had a tremendous productivity spike when one of my projects grew so fast,</p><p>That there was no time for anything else except doing my part and being happy that everything was working. The third time, the flow came naturally from business momentum. </p><p>Let&#8217;s zoom out&#8230;</p><p><strong>What were the reasons that pushed my productivity up?</strong></p><ul><li><p>Environment</p></li><li><p>Inner pain</p></li><li><p>Momentum</p></li></ul><p>As you can see&#8230;</p><p>There&#8217;s some kind of formula here that we can actually replicate in any business or life situation.</p><p>The only thing I would change is the pain part. It doesn&#8217;t have to be pain or suffering.</p><p>It can be a deep meaning - your &#8220;why&#8221;.</p><p>An inner reason why you are doing what you are doing. </p><p>So, if we change it, we get:</p><ul><li><p>Environment</p></li><li><p>Meaning</p></li><li><p>And&#8230; Momentum</p></li></ul><p>It&#8217;s as simple as that.</p><h3>Your way to productive flow that produces results:</h3><p>Create the perfect environment for it.</p><p>A supportive environment that doesn&#8217;t distract you from what is important to you.</p><p>Feel and understand the meaning behind your actions - Why are you doing it in the first place? What is the meaning of all this for you?</p><p>And&#8230; </p><p>Look for momentum.</p><p>Now, momentum is a tricky thing.</p><p>Some people will say it&#8217;s mostly luck.</p><p>I prefer to look at momentum like the feeling you get in the middle of your gym training. </p><p>Who creates this feeling?</p><p>This amazing feeling that you&#8217;re in the flow, working on your body, and focused on just one thing - the next set?</p><p>You.</p><p>So you see&#8230; You do have the power to create momentum in your business or any important activity you choose.</p><p>There&#8217;s no need to wait.</p><p>Just remember the activities in your life where you create momentum easily, without overthinking and using a huge amount of energy.</p><p>How exactly are you different in these activities?</p><p>How can you use your &#8220;state of being&#8221; in these &#8220;<em>easygoing</em>&#8221; activities in other areas where you struggle to create momentum?</p><p></p><h3><strong>Apply for 1:1 coaching with me.</strong></h3><p>Coaching That Doubles Your Results In 60 Minutes A Week.</p><p>My methods help my clients enjoy:</p><ul><li><p>Explosive business growth.</p></li><li><p>Winning habits and work routines.</p></li><li><p>Neuroscience-based brain &amp; time management.</p></li><li><p>Turning big ideas into results <strong>fast</strong>.</p></li><li><p>And&#8230; Getting rid of any inner blocks that cause you to self-sabotage.</p></li></ul><p>Reply &#8220;<strong>I&#8217;m In</strong>&#8221; to this email, and I&#8217;ll send you the details.</p><p></p><p>Take care,</p><p>Alex</p><p>Result coach for business owners &amp; entrepreneurs.</p><p></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>