The Power of Subtraction

The Power of Subtraction

Release.

Subtraction.

Loss.

Unlearn.

Empty.

These words often feel heavy, even threatening. Our culture teaches us to accumulate—knowledge, identity, certainty, roles, achievements. Yet spiritually, anything that clears the self is the opening to our Higher Consciousness.

And still… we resist.

We hold tightly to the very attachments that keep us looping in ego, sameness, and stuckness. We cling to identity. We cling to answers. We cling to who we think we are supposed to be.

The paradox is this:

The more we know, the more we expect.

The more we expect, the more we attach.

And the more we attach, the more veils we place between ourselves and truth.

Prayer, Meditation, and Getting the Mind Off Self

We have all heard about the benefits of prayer and meditation. Some are opposed to trying it or uncomfortable with a belief system - and that’s ok. The process doesn’t have to be anything formal, it could take place during a walk, hike or house project. It’s any activity that allows us to check in with ourselves or connect with something other than our own self-consuming patterns.

Prayer and meditation are not about gaining something new—they are about removing what is in the way. They are practices of getting the mind off the self. It’s like an image of clearing and cleansing the cobwebs of thought from our system.

Through the idea and internal process of loss, dying, surrendering, and letting go, we paradoxically gain everything. When we loosen our grip on identity and our compulsive need for answers, we create space for something much larger to move through us.

This is not a mental process.

It is a slowing.

A slowing of the mind’s activity so we can listen to the quieter signal of the heart.

In this space, there is no separation.

The Ten Thousand Things

Love is always present, but it often gets covered—dismantled by what ancient teachings call the ten thousand things of the mind. Thoughts, worries, projections, memories, anticipations, judgments.

Prayer and meditation gently slow this activity so we can listen again to our original nature.

But this process is easily disturbed.

We often think distractions come from the outside—phones, noise, responsibilities—but the biggest disturbance lives within us: our own inner chatter, running unnoticed throughout the day.

An unpleasant thought arises.

And before we even realize it, we move, shuffle, sigh, or retreat. The thought and feeling overpower our stillness and peace as it moves us in order to protect us from discomfort.

The body tells the story. It’s the container for all of the unhealed overflow.

A hand goes to the forehead, the nose, the top of the head.

The eyes shift left, right, upward, or downward.

The jaw tightens. The breath shortens.

Discomfort moves us automatically.

We are often being led by discomfort without even knowing it.

Building Resilience to Thought

The practice is not to eliminate thoughts, but to build the resilience and awareness to not be moved by them.

To notice without reacting.

To feel without contracting.

To remain present when discomfort arises.

This is where true understanding is cultivated—not through force, but through gentleness and observation.

And this is where the words we resist most become our allies.

The Gift Hidden in Loss

What we no longer hold, we gain the space to invite.

Unlearn.

Loss.

Surrender.

Release.

Subtraction.

These are not words we typically associate with positivity or growth. Yet they are the doorway out of the head, beyond personality and identity, and away from the constant fixation on self.

They are the opening to the greater good. To more lightness and freedom.

Breath leads this charge.

The breath is the bridge—guiding us from the thinking mind into the heart space. Each conscious breath loosens the grip of identity and brings us closer to presence.

This is how we reconnect to universal consciousness.

And universal consciousness is love, meaning no separateness.

Not the emotional version of love—but the vast, inclusive, steady field that holds everything.

Love as truth.

Love as origin.

Love as home.

This is my word for 2026.

And the path toward it begins not with more—but with less.