Inklings Bruce Sanguin's blog

I’ve been thinking lately about manifestation. Not the pop-spiritual version that reduces reality to positive thinking. Nor the cynical dismissal that treats all manifestation language as fantasy. I mean something deeper: the relationship between consciousness, trauma, desire, perception, and the reality we participate in creating. I increasingly suspect that most manifestation teachings miss the central … Read more

I’ve been reflecting lately on the possibility that we don’t actually possess a single unified value system. We possess two. One belongs to the nervous systeorganized around survival. The other belongs to what I call the Heart Self — the dimension of us oriented toward truth, beauty, goodness, creativity, wonder, and aliveness. The survival self … Read more

We all know the feeling.A missed appointment.A sudden change of plans.A wrench thrown into the day you had carefully designed. And then there are the big ones—the failures, the illnesses, the heartbreaks,the sudden losses that leave us breathless,staring at a future we didn’t choose. These are moments when life wrests the steering wheel from our … Read more

We all had a day when play became a strategy.When expression became impression.When “being” quietly turned into “being impressive.”That’s the day we left the garden. Not with drama.With self-consciousness.A watcher took a seat in the front row of our mind and never stopped judging the show. Maybe you couldn’t penetrate a parent’s narcissism.No matter what … Read more

Mainstream Media In Mainstream Media Journalistic integrity is critical to a well-functioning free society. It monitors power and safeguards democracy. But is it working? Matt Taibbi teamed up with Douglas Murray to debate Malcolm Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg in the Monk Debates. The organizers framed the theme as: “Be it resolved, don’t trust mainstream media.” … Read more

The Spiritual Solution to People Pleasing? A Return to Love People-pleasing is not just a bad habit or a behavioral pattern to break. It is a spiritual crisis. The spiritual solution to people pleasing? A return to love. At the core of people-pleasing is a single devastating belief: I am unlovable as I am. This … Read more

Shame and self-expression are intimately related. The goal of life is to express oneself fully. It’s what we’re here to do. It rarely happens because full self-expression means full visibility. Full visibility, in turn, risks being judged and criticized by people who have no life of their own. You’ve put yourself out there, for good … Read more

Introduction: What Are Compensating Actions and Beliefs (CABs)? To understand people pleasing we need to understand the roots of people pleasing and how ego is formed. The foundation of ego—the self-protective construct we rely on to navigate the world—is shaped by what I call Compensating Actions and Beliefs (CABs). These are the behaviors, thought patterns, … Read more

Your brain is a prediction machine. In his book The Experience Machine, Andy Clark describes how our brains work not only by receiving sensory information but by actively predicting what we’ll experience. This isn’t just a mental shortcut—it’s how we organize the world. But here’s the kicker: when negative Core Unconscious Beliefs are in play, … Read more