Brains & Guts — The Pathway Is Unique (Sharpening Season Continues)

Author’s Note:
Brains & Guts isn’t just about what happens on the court. These entries document my real-time process of mastering the BAG mindstate — mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This post reflects one of the most personal phases of my sharpening season. It takes brains to analyze where you are, and guts to stay on the path. Every word you read is part of that process.

The Pathway Is Unique

Bag is a mindstate you must enter and exit. At the entrance, you meet amazement and lost treasures — a secret pathway to the ultimate state of being. I’m simply speaking from my experience using the BAG mindstate.

While traveling in the pathway you continue to hear chants and screams from the entrance — the past versions of yourself desperately holding on to the possibility of your return.
Once you enter, you have a choice:

• Go backwards to the entrance
• Or exit too soon and return prematurely.

As distance increases for me from the entrance, I can tell I’m starting to become hard to see — hard to make out. The frequency is desperate and continues to be loud due to the space between us. But as I keep my head down — not focused on destination, just moving forward — my steps fight for me and drown the noise.
It’s aware of my arrival.
It refuses to accept the accomplishment of my new state of being.
I can’t move backward.
I refuse.
I’m becoming something that is foreign.

I know nothing is new underneath the sun, but I wonder who in my bloodline has walked this path before me and passed this experience into my hands.
I’m grateful for them.
I shall walk until we rise again.

No one.
No noise will stop me from heading forward for us.
The bag mindstate is a constant forward motion — not perfect, but progressing.

The Nature of the Sound

The sound uses words like “never” and “always.”
It communicates strictly through judgment.
It begs for empathy — but once you give it space, you become a perspective jumper… trying to decode its view, trying to justify your own.

When I’ve done that in the past, I didn’t move backwards — but I was tempted to leave the pathway.

That temptation is part of the test.
It dangles my inner issues.
It challenges me beyond my own understanding.

The Inner Battle Team

You can’t fight this with your adult self alone.
Your inner child and the memories of your past must come to the fight with you.

That’s why I’m grateful for the ones who walked before me.
I know they’re watching and assisting me.
Inner child.
Adult self.
Ancestors.

We hold hands together as we walk.
Reminding the sound:

“We’ve united before. And we stayed strong through this cycle of life.”

Time?
Energy?
They continue to shift this pathway to carry the story once told.
And again, I stay out of the way —

Head down.
Moving towards the inevitable.

Forward Is The Only Direction

The goal of the sound was to get me to go backwards.
But I’ve realized:

Forward and steady is the pace of life inside the BAG mindstate.

Doubt is gone.
Fear is gone.
Pain is felt — but understood.

The deepest pain I once carried was not being involved in my child’s life as much as I would like.
But I’ve chosen to release control over what I can’t hold.
I’m grateful for every moment, at any capacity, I get to share my experience with my daughter.

For Her — And All Who Come After Me

The bag mindstate will meet her one day.
I’m grateful to walk this path now — to share my experience.
Even if not in words — I will love and bond with her in ways that imprint energy she’ll carry.

The ancestors will hold her hand, just as they held mine.
Her inner child will fight the good fight for her one day.

Always grateful for the opportunity.

I walk this pathway with full faith.
Every treasure I drop along the way may one day be found by her.

There is nothing new under the sun:

• First born.
• Separated from each other.
• Father and daughter.
• The cycle repeats, but the healing begins here.

The world may push fathers out of the home — but I will walk forward, into the pathway.
Not only to find the exit, but to remind her that her father is a man who accepted balance…
Who sought aids…
And who reached gratitude.

🧠⚡️❤️⚓️

Post Summary Tagline:
“Forward and steady is the pace of life inside the BAG mindstate.”