A 5-Month Update: Returning to Toronto, Navigating Love, and Embracing Change

The different humans I’ve crossed paths with have helped shift the lens through which I see the world. Born and raised in Toronto, knowing what it was and what it is now, I sometimes feel like a grumpy old guy. Words I wanted to say when I was young still want to slide off my tongue, but I hold back. I know things aren’t the same; like everything big and small, they change. Some aspects dissolve completely, and from that comes a process of rebirth. I see it. There’s a rebirth happening, and births are not meant to be painless because within the pain lie many lessons, preparing us for what’s on the other side.

This photo was taken six months ago. I’ll tell you in a moment why I saved it, but first, it’s been five months since I returned to Toronto. Four months ago, I signed my first one-year lease in three years. The mental transition has been tough, but I’ve finally found my flow. I have my friends and family, but I was missing community. Understandably, while I was living the nomadic life, everyone else’s life moved on.

I’m enjoying discovering new cafés, working on projects, working out, and practicing yoga. I’m spending time with my brother, nephew, niece, and friends and meeting new people. After two years, I’ve even started to date. At this age, I never thought I’d be here, but dating has been my biggest challenge to navigate.

Compared to dating and finding love, everything else in my life feels effortless, like a walk in the park.

I was going to share how difficult it’s been to find love, but that’s not true. What’s been difficult is receiving love. I’ve had opportunities to be in committed relationships, but my internal wiring was all crisscrossed. It’s taken me until now to feel psychologically and emotionally balanced and grounded.

I’ve been carrying around an unhealthy yearning to fill a void inside me. Yet, when opportunities for relationships came, I struggled to sustain them. Sometimes I chose wrong, too. Without diving too deep into that rabbit hole, I’ve come a long way in this daring process. To date is to be daring in this climate. It might sound odd, but I didn’t know how to date. I’m still learning, especially how to date in a healthy way—with openness, honesty, and emotional maturity.

I’m on one dating app, but I’ve also been going out and meeting women, rebuilding the courage and confidence to start conversations with strangers. This journey has been an education in openness and connection, and I’m grateful for every step.

I took this photo six months ago when I was in India. I went to the gym in my sister’s building to move the heaviness and clear up some of the darkness that was engulfing me. A combination of time to spare, algorithms, and changing a setting on Instagram led me to see the images coming out of Palestine. I began reading and seeing things that no human should ever have to witness, let alone experience. It teleported me into a darkness I hadn’t visited in ten years.

This darkness continued when I returned to Toronto. I struggled to reintegrate into this energy and accept the need to land here longer than I have in the last three years. Signing my first lease in three years triggered an anxiety attack. The weekdays were manageable, but the weekends—especially the long weekends—were filled with profound loneliness and sadness that pulled me back into the darkness. My piece Seductive Shadows came from this place.

It was dark, yes. Old narratives came rushing to the surface, and I must admit, it really fucking surprised me. But there was a big difference this time: I had the ability to watch, observe, and allow this internal drama to play out. I have tools to remain grounded and ride the waves of the darkest thoughts and emotions. The first four months felt like being back in the womb, and in the fifth month, I rebirthed with new energy, a fresh mind, an expansive heart, and a newfound excitement and optimism for life. I even rediscovered a love for Toronto (I know, hard to believe, right?!).

I know the darkness has its gifts, and I’ll embrace the waves when they return. But for now, oof, am I glad to be back on the surface, soaking in the sunshine.

Tearless Cries

I'm beginning to understand that emotional maturity and emotional expression are different things. We can articulate our feelings and still behave immaturely. In my writing, I’m projecting my journey towards greater emotional maturity. I’m learning to express and communicate my emotions better. If I'm happy, I can express it; if I'm angry, I can communicate that too. Now, I can even communicate sadness.

Before, I would suppress sadness with food, drinks, or media. Now, I recognize sadness and feel where it resides in my body. However, I don't know how to release it. Yesterday, I explored this: What happens if I don’t release my sadness? It fills my body with heaviness. This unreleased sadness often leads to despair and sometimes to a depressive state. For a long time, it has taken me there, except for a couple of months ago in India. I know that when I feel heavy inside, movement helps, especially lifting weights. Twenty to thirty minutes at the gym lifts my spirits. I think it’s the combination of movement and the release of endorphins.

Identifying emotions and communicating them to myself and others is a step toward further emotional maturity. But I’m still blocked when it comes to releasing sadness. Somewhere along the path, I suppressed this emotion. Over the years, I've learned that when we suppress one part of ourselves, like sadness, we also suppress its opposite—joy. If I can’t express and release sadness, I can't fully experience happiness and joy.

From the streets of Valencia

I've felt this deeply. There have been times and places, like recently in Valencia, where I could fully express both sadness and joy. Here in Toronto, it's a bit more challenging, but I’m working on it. I am better today than I was a year ago—more emotionally evolved. This means I don’t react to others' actions that trigger past pain. Instead, I can feel the emotion, observe its rise and fall like ocean waves.

These reflections have surfaced as I open myself to dating again and seeking a dynamic, expansive life partner. Someone who understands the layers of being, who has an insatiable curiosity about herself, others, and the world. Someone proactive in her day-to-day life, moving forward and upward.

Observing other couples, I realize there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Advice is based on individual experiences, and every piece of wisdom is unique. I listen, observe, and learn. I admire those who sustain long-term relationships. It’s never easy, yet some couples find a way to return to each other. It’s inspiring. I see that with the right partner, there’s an opportunity for greater freedom than I’m experiencing now.

However, I needed to release the patterns I absorbed as a child. Growing up in a traumatic household, we may intellectually reject it, but our minds are already programmed. We may not want what we experienced in childhood, but we’re drawn to the familiar. I replicated my parents' toxic patterns in my relationships. It took a lot of therapy, coaching, reading, and practices like yoga and meditation to deprogram and start reprogramming myself.

From my last relationship, I realized I was as emotionally immature as my parents and attracted similarly immature partners. Mature partners didn’t work because I wasn’t ready for them. I wasn’t even attracted to them because their energy was unfamiliar to me.

I am getting closer. All this work isn’t just to be more successful in my career or a better friend, sibling, or son. I do it because I’m preparing for her. It’s hard at times, but I know it will be worth the wait when she arrives in my life, and I in hers.

I recently listened to an interview with Esther Perel where she talked about “tearless cries.” This perfectly describes my experience with sadness. Most of the time, I wish I could cry and truly release my emotions through tears. Instead, I either suppress them or try to shake them out through physical activity. But what I really want is an epic, tearful cry.

What is the Difference between Mind and Brain?

I was curious for a long time about the difference between the mind and the brain. I asked around, but nobody had an answer. So I continued on with life, occasionally pondering the question. Without answers, it became more of a fleeting thought.

Over the last few years, though, I’ve been diving deeper into myself. My experiences have taught me to differentiate between the mind and the brain. The mind is like a river. It needs to flow. If you block it by building a dam, it overflows and drowns the nature surrounding it.

In our case, the brain is that nature, and it’s being drowned by the power and overflow of the mind.

We’ve built a dam around our necks, trapping the mind in our heads. I wonder if this was necessary for the brain's evolution. If the mind hadn't been parked in the head, would the human brain have evolved to where it is today? Would technology and science have reached these heights, and at such speed, without the mind's focused development of the brain?

I don’t have answers to these questions—just perspectives from my experiences. But I see another part of human evolution unfolding right now, and I’m not sure enough people are noticing. We’ve been driving our brains in fifth gear for so long that we’re wearing out the engine. Just look at the rise in mental illnesses. Is it a coincidence that yoga, meditation, and group activities like CrossFit and marathons are gaining popularity? These activities help us reconnect our minds and bodies.

To me, this is our body saying: it’s time to break the dam. The next stage of human evolution is to bring the rest of the body on board—the heart, the gut, everything from the neck down.

How? By sharpening the mind through meditation.

Display in the basement of Rooms Cafe on Ossington Street in Toronto

Many people say, “Meditation isn’t for me—I can’t stop thinking.” But meditation is exactly for those who can’t stop thinking (myself included).

Yoga, CrossFit, and running are amazing for connecting with the body, but they aren’t enough. Meditation sharpens the mind. Once learned and embraced, it takes us to the next level—full mind-body connection.

Parking the mind in the head was necessary for a time, but the systems we’ve built (corporate workplaces, for example) are outdated. We’ve lacked the courage and awareness to collectively change the systems we still play in. The importance of bringing the entire body on board is that, at a mass scale, we can start building systems from the heart and soul, not just the head.

Even religion is being run from the head—not the heart, not the soul. For most of us today, religion serves little purpose because it was designed as a system to access the soul, the spirit, our true being. But we’ve boxed it in the brain, trying to make it logical. Prayers aren’t logical. They’re mysterious and magical.

There’s no access to the soul, to the source, unless our minds and bodies are synced.

My grandmother was my guru. I see clearly now what she was doing. She was a simple woman—no hijab, no fluff, none of the nonsense that surrounds religion today—just simple prayer, five times a day. She used a tasbeeh (prayer beads), which, by definition, involves repetitive utterance of short sentences (thank you, Google). The tasbeeh was essentially a counter. My grandmother repeated mantras.

I only developed this awareness after training in transcendental meditation last year and experiencing the power of mantras. Through meditation and prayer, she opened the doors to the soul and dropped her prayers into the fountain of the Universe.

If we want to reach the level of the spirit—and that’s where we’re headed, whether we like it or not—we need to hit the tipping point of collective awareness. It’s happening, and the seeds are being heavily planted. Those already there are making it rain.

The brain (actually, it’s our ego) tells us meditation isn’t for us. The ego’s sole purpose is to keep the self suppressed. But sooner or later, it will be time for your ego to let your true self play, to break the dam and let the river of energy flow freely.

Parking the mind in our head leaves the rest of the body like a neglected garden, overgrown with weeds. I see meditation as the body’s Weedwacker. It sharpens the mind, resets the being, and clears away the weeds that no longer serve you.