CraigJustCraig

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  • Language vs. Reality

    Language was built by ancient minds which tends towards fixed ideas—stability, constants, categories, simple problems, and quick fixes. But the world it tries to describe is change, growth, complexity, connection and anything but static. This creates a gap between reality and the rigid shapes we think in. The power in language, change your language, change your reality

  • soul alchemy

    the more you become a
    connoisseur of gratitude, the less
    you are a victim of resentment,
    depression, and despair. Gratitude
    will act as an elixir that will
    gradually dissolve the hard shell
    of your ego—your need to possess
    and control—and transform you
    into a generous being. The sense
    of gratitude produces true spiritual
    alchemy, makes us magnanimous—
    large souled —Sam Keen

     “expectations are nothing more than resentments as yet unfulfilled.”

  • A Return to Love

    Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our
    deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
    It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. You are
    a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
    there’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
    people won’t feel insecure around you.
    We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is
    within us. It’s not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
    And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give
    other people permission to do the same.
    As we are liberated from our fear, our presence
    automatically liberates others —Marianne Williamson

  • The Illusion: Breaking the Chains

    A request is either a choice or a demand—there is no in-between. The difference is revealed the moment you say no. A demand punishes refusal, branding it as defiance. And when faced with a demand, you are given only two paths: submit or rebel. We are not born slaves! We will not bow, no matter who speaks. The instant judgment, blame, or criticism follows, the illusion of a request is shattered.

    Yet how often do we deceive ourselves? How often do we dress our demands in?

    • “He should…”
    • “She’s supposed to…”
    • “I deserve…”
    • “I’m justified…”
    • “I have a right to…”

    These are but whispers of control, silent chains, forged with our own words. But true requests—do not seek to coerce, but they awaken, they invite, us to connect. Words are power itself! They create, they bind, and they command. Judgment, guilt, shame, and criticism are weapons, wielded to twist others to our whim. They are desperate attempts to force alignment through decree.

    But we see. And we refuse .

  • before you engage, know this

    I do not hide who I am.
    I don’t downplay it. I don’t dress it up.
    I don’t lie about who I am.
    I show up exactly as advertised.

    You don’t need to decode me—I’ll tell you flat out:

    I’m a sadist.
    I move in the realms of fear, pain, pleasure, and surrender.
    My path is intense. My kinks are dark.

    I am not here for your comfort.
    I celebrate my darkness. I honor and seek the abyss.
    I show you my fire, my darkness, my pleasure.
    I don’t tone it down.
    I don’t offer comfort. I offer intensity.
    I don’t want fans. I want energy, I want honesty, and I want devotion.

    This is the body, mind, and soul set ablaze.

    My kinks are not cute. They are not digestible.
    They are dark, deep, and dangerous to the unprepared.

    This is edgeplay, pain, degradation, fear, sacrifice, ritual, and power—expressed with precision, purpose, and consent.

    I walk the path of hedonism, debauchery, and indulgence—

    Pleasure is my power. Indulgence is my devotion.
    The erotic is my altar. The shadow is my sermon.
    And this practice is my truth.

    I don’t offer entertainment. I offer awakening.
    And awakening is not comfortable.

    I negotiate with clarity and intention.
    If I tell you I’m going to do something, and you agree to it—you are responsible for that agreement.

    If you choose to dance in darkness, step into the abyss, and merge with my will—you must also accept the consequences.

    Once you step into my temple,
    once you sip the wine,
    once you kneel at the altar—
    you are accountable.

    If you chase the flame,
    you don’t get to be shocked when it burns.

    If you comes into my space without intention, without honesty, without readiness—
    you will be removed.
    Not out of pettiness, but because I have a responsibility to protect my work and my energy.

    I don’t tolerate dishonesty, disrespect, or shallow engagement.

    If you’re not grounded, focused, and serious, then you do not belong in this space.
    That’s not a punishment—it’s protection.

    This is a sanctuary.
    A path for the devoted, the willing, the aligned.

    This is sacred, sadistic, shadow work.
    This is practice(cultivate experiences connecting with something beyond your self). philosophy(systematic study of existence, knowledge, values, and reason,). power(the ability to act, influence, or produce change).

    I mix the erotic and the spiritual. I use ritual, altered states, shadow play as tools of expansion.
    Pleasure isn’t just something I enjoy—it’s something I use.
    This is the fire of shadow and flesh.
    This is the unrelenting truth of ecstatic soul.

    this is a path of integration and reverence.

    I seek the disciplined, the passionate, and the willing to engage deeply.

    Those who understand that showing up here comes with expectations.

    I give my time, my energy, and my presence fully.
    That must be reciprocated—whether through time, contribution, support, effort, or service.

    Access is granted only through alignment, action, and sacrifice.

    If this feels like too much
    If this does not resonate,

    If this path does not stir your soul,
    if this current does not call you home—

    turn back now.

    This will swallow you whole.

    But if it does…

    if it speaks to something deep inside you

    If you want depth,
    if you’re ready to be broken open and reshaped with care, cruelty, and intention—step forward.

    Strip bare.
    lay down your offering.
    And step into the flame.

  • Letters to a Young Poet

    Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. . . . Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. —Rainer Maria Rilke,

  • Night sea journey

    The “night sea journey” is the journey into the parts of ourselves that are split off, disavowed, unknown, unwanted, cast out, and exiled to the various subterranean worlds of consciousness. . . . The goal of this journey is to reunite us with ourselves. Such a homecoming can be surprisingly painful, even brutal. In order to undertake it, we must first agree to exile nothing.

    —Stephen Cope

  • The Great Work of Your Life

    We can hardly bear to look. The shadow may carry the best of the life we have not lived. Go into the basement, the attic, the refuse bin. Find gold there. Find an animal who has not been fed or watered. It is you!! This neglected, exiled animal, hungry for attention, is a part of your self.

    —Marion Woodman (as quoted by Stephen Cope in The Great Work of Your Life)

  • I was talking to a goddess

    She didn’t speak in words, but in heat, in breath, in the ache behind my ribs:
    “You are not responsible for their feelings.”

    …I used to believe otherwise.

    I shackled my worth to people’s moods, contorted myself into someone else’s idea.
    I made myself small.
    I apologized for existing.
    The fear of abandonment, of rejection, of being too much and not enough at the same time.
    Boy, what a time.

    Then came the revolt.

    I told myself I didn’t care.
    I wore detachment like armor.
    If I couldn’t please them—fuck them.
    I became loud with boundaries and quiet with vulnerability.
    But I wasn’t free.
    I was still ruled—by them.

    Then came a knowing:
    That I can hold space without setting myself aflame.
    That my needs matter.
    And that theirs did too.

    I was not taught this.
    I was taught to blame—either myself or them.
    I was taught to focus on them and to lose myself.
    I’ve learned: feelings are not caused by others, but shaped by how we receive them—filtered through our own needs and expectations.
    Now, my work is to OWN that.

    This is hard to learn.
    Trauma trained me to see everything and everyone as dangerous.
    I forgot how to play.
    I forgot how to imagine.
    But my body remembered, even when my mind forgot.
    And shame clung deep.

    But pleasure is not sin.

    So I began to ask myself:
    What makes me feel good?
    Can I ask—clearly—for what I want?
    Can I speak in a language that is not vague or coded in shame?

    Instead of “Don’t ignore me,”
    I would say, “Would you be willing to check in?”

    Instead of “You don’t care,”
    I would say, “I feel lonely and need connection.”

    This is power.

    I wasn’t given these tools—I had to make them.
    Walking around yearning, yet terrified to feel it.

    Risk, with clarity.

    For the child in me who never learned.
    For the adult in me who is still learning.
    Knowing it’s safe to say:

    I don’t know where I’m going.
    But I promise: I know the way.

  • Hollow Smiles and A Velvet Thrones

    …breath that catches, through heat rising in the belly.

    This time, she came whispering about needs versus strategies.

    I didn’t recognize the difference at first. How easily we miss each other. like boats passing in the night. I’ve spent so long trying to survive that I blurred the line between the two. It’s subtle, but different strategies—like requests or desires—are about specifics. While needs? Needs are different. They’re universal truths we all carry.

    “Your needs are not too much. And they are not the same as the strategies you use to fulfill them.”

    For so long, I was confused.

    I’d say: _Call me, see me, don’t leave me, change for me._
    What I meant was: _I need connection. I need reassurance. I need to be seen._

    But I didn’t have the language. I only had the longing, the shame—and I’d end up analyzing or criticizing.
    “You’re selfish.”
    “You never listen.”

    I didn’t know I could just _name the need_.
    So vulnerable. So exposed.

    Not make someone responsible.
    Not demand a script.

    Just… that I have the right to say:
    _I need care._
    _I need respect._
    _I need room._

    Once I could name my needs, I became aware of my strategies—how I cope with the fear of my needs not being met.

    They are the most human part of me.

    When I lose sight of the truth, I trap myself. I stop seeing possibility.

    It all comes back to this: Be here, now, with what’s real. That’s the gift.

    I think about all the times .
    “I didn’t know how to ask for…”
    “I didn’t know how to say…”
    “I didn’t know how to take ‘no’ as anything other than proof I was unworthy.”

    It fucking sucks to learn this now—unseen, unspoken, unmet needs.

    To realize: I was simply trying to survive.

    That kind of shift—the one that doesn’t need to scream, that doesn’t collapse—it just _is_.

    To name what you feel.
    To honor what you need.
    To ask.

    And when I really get quiet and sit still, I feel it—that sense that our needs aren’t separate.

    We all just want to be whole.