SURRENDER EXISTENCE: Your Internal Ecosystem

My Internal Ecosystem is loud.

Last night the episode didn’t get posted, and this morning it followed me into meditation. I’m not doing enough. I’m not reaching my goals. I am not doing what is needed. It is loud; my energy is wrapped in it. The resistance is heavy, the lack of belief in where I am going sitting like weight in my chest.

It feels like more than one voice.

So I sit with it and ask who is speaking.

It’s Big Daddy.

He is pushing for more. He knows we are not doing all we can to be the best. He only knows production measurables. Space for self-creativity and healing is not work to him. He wants growth—money, praise, movement measured in black and white. He is the grinder, the “I’ll prove it” energy. He busts in, shows he’s the man, proves he can do the work—and then stops. He lives in anger, bitterness, entitlement. Look what I had to go through. Look what I survived.

He is correct.

I am not doing all I can.

He doesn’t want hype or appearance.

He wants the work.

Every morning is the same and, at the same time, different. The stories shift, but the current underneath does not. Each part of me shares truth with the others.

There is Little Cory—the innocent little boy before trauma, happy, joyous, knowing no better.

There is the Poet—born after the first trauma, deeply hurt, betrayed, emotionally destroyed. All my writing, all my creativity comes from him.

There is Riggo—my emotional being. The one who cries, lashes out, feels everything, good, bad, ugly. The one who just wants to be loved.

There is the Addict—the firestorm. The protector of the Poet and Riggo. Drink, drugs, whatever vice numbs everything. Vicious in protection.

There is Big Daddy.

There was Coach—the one who pushed others the way he should have pushed himself. The hard mirror turned outward. He coached as he coached himself but didn’t want to turn the mirror inward.

And now there is Cory J Riggs—the one who finally turned the mirror around.

They were built from each other. Each part formed from pains and fears the previous one could not hold. The next took it on, added experience, and handed it forward. That is why it is difficult to know who is speaking. You must focus. You must ask. You must allow them to speak.

The Addict grew from the Poet and wrapped himself around Riggo and Big Daddy—self-abuse, anger, vices. For years the Poet and his trauma were not just pushed down; it was as if it never happened. Buried through addiction and protection. It surfaced for brief moments, just long enough to see if I was ready, then returned to darkness.

Coach emerged to fight. He did not know he was fighting trauma; he thought he was building greatness. Hard work brings success. Practice is hard. He dragged me through vices to prove I did not need them. He broke through weight. He attacked anger. He confronted drinking and drugs. He built culture through grit and force.

Coach ran his course.

He got me here.

But even he knew someone else had to take me over the finish line.

It’s time to become.

I am no longer tied to where I have been, no longer measuring against others. My being will be intentional toward growth. I will fall; I will get up. I will be wrong; I will take notes. I will lose; I will find the way to win.

Becoming is not linear. It is ugly, hard, dirty. Peace will come and go. Energy will rise and fall. Courage will be strong and weak.

But you cannot stop.

Forward is better than still.

Life will life. You cannot allow it to create your narrative. That exists in forward movement. You have already arrived; you simply need to walk into it.

Fear is imaginary; it lives in the head. There are things that can hurt you. There are tools you do not yet have. That is not fear. Fear is allowing those things to become excuses to stop, to stay limited, to not follow your path. Obstacles have solutions. Find them. Be curious.

You do not need every tool.

You need movement.

To lead is to follow. To lead is to be humble. To lead is to allow yourself to be helped. This does not mean you do not feel fear; it means you walk through it. What waits on the other side may not be the solution; it will be the understanding of what is next.

Fear isn’t final.

It is the beginning of beauty.

And then something shifts.

Learning to allow. Learning to give up control. Allowing my mind to open. Allowing my heart to open. Listening—not for what I want to hear, but what is meant to be in me.

My life has been trying to fit in or forcing things to be as my ego insisted. I allowed stories to create identity. Every version was a portrait of fear. When my true self rose, my ego grew louder, told me why I was not that, kept me safe in its protection—the lies of its safety, the falsity of its care.

Until the heart became louder.

I could hear truth over lies. There is more to life than suffering, more than anger, more than survival. The heart would not be silenced. It did not promise ease; it promised love. It promised an end to suffering. It promised breath.

Love is found on the other side of pain, on the breakthrough of fear. You learn that by staring fear in the eyes and walking through it.

The only requirement is self.

Follow yourself.

Do the work.

I found myself in a prayer circle with my parts, holding hands, surrendering as one. Little Cory stood protected. The Poet no longer buried. Riggo no longer alone in his emotions. The Addict no longer in charge. Big Daddy no longer driving. Coach no longer shouting from the sidelines.

We allowed Mother Earth to take our worries. We allowed God to give grace. We released the past as history—not identity. The past is not us. It lives in the ego, but it does not define the self.

We gave pain to the Earth and leaned on her strength. We allowed love to open the heart. We let egos dissolve.

Fear is no longer our compass.

Love is the currency of life. Everything else is temporary. Love exists only now. You cannot love what is not in front of you. There is no love in the future, no pain in the future. The ego lives in “then,” in stories it can control.

Reality is the unknown.

To live now is to not know.

It takes faith and surrender to live in the now. You cannot control what is next; you can control how you respond in this moment.

Life is now.

Life is present.

Live from the heart.Live from love.Live what is.

Release.Love.Be guided.

Surrender existence.