I am temporarily homeless

That is to say, my apartment is in shambles.

Not metaphorically. Literally. Stripped down to the bare walls.

What was supposed to be a quick refresh has turned into a six month ordeal. No stove. No working shower. No sense of when “normal” resumes.

There’s plastic and cardboard where walls should be. Contractors come and go. Timelines are uncertain. Budgets shift.

If this had happened to me years ago, I would have lost my sh#t! I would have stressed out, micromanaged and tried to force life back into the shape I wanted it in.

So, I find myself surprised at how calm I am in the face of having no home base and no projected date for moving back in.

I’m realizing that I am not feeling the urge to fix this. It feels like I am being led to let go of it.

We like to believe that peace comes from order. A working kitchen. A finished bathroom. A clear timeline. A predictable outcome. But that’s not peace. That’s preference.

Real peace is what’s left (and what we are forced to cultivate) when preference is removed.

When my apartment stopped being livable, life presented another invitation: If you’re not anchored here, where else might you be meant to go?

So I went.

I spoke on stage as part of an international event. Nothing tests your commitment more than proclaiming it live to a global audience.

I sat with a friend in Ohio as his mother approached the final days of her life. There was nothing to solve there. Nothing to optimize. Only presence.

That experience stripped away any lingering illusion that inconvenience is suffering. When you sit beside someone saying goodbye to this world, you learn very quickly what matters and what never did.

From there, I traveled to Costa Rica for an ayahuasca journey.

And if there is any environment where resistance is futile, that’s it.

You don’t control the medicine. You can’t dictate the lesson.

Now this detachment from the environment doesn’t mean that I don’t care.

It means I’m learning to stop insisting that life follows a script.

This detachment is recognizing that control was never the source of safety.

The last few weeks, I have lived moments I might have missed if the renovation had gone any other way.

So often we exhaust ourselves fighting the circumstances of our reality.

Maybe my apartment and I are a lot alike right now. Torn down to the bones and getting rid of what was, so that something new and beautiful can take its place.

When you meet reality with acceptance and curiosity you conserve energy—and that energy becomes available for insight, compassion, and growth.

Sometimes the house has to be uninhabitable so that our discomfort puts us on the road of exploration and experiences.

And sometimes, the greatest renovation isn’t happening to your home at all.

It’s happening to you.