Awareness · Release · Rebuilding; A Field Guide to Living With Conviction
*This article first appeared as a LinkedIn article.
How strength, stillness, and spiritual clarity restore a life that actually works
Most people try to outwork misalignment. I did too. The path back was simple, not easy: Awareness. Release. Rebuilding. It is the backbone of The Conviction Method at Lion & Light Co., and it is the road I had to walk myself.
Awareness: seeing what is actually driving you
If discipline is the engine, awareness is the steering wheel. Without it, you get productive drift. Busy. Helpful. Hollow.
My breaking point was not dramatic. I was working full time, serving full time in ministry, keeping relationships afloat, plugging every hole I could find. Right hand to the lead pastor. The Swiss army knife. On paper it looked noble. In my body it felt empty.
For the first time in years I let training slip. When the gym went quiet, my mind did not. Caffeine and grit replaced purpose. During a prayer night, I finally sat still long enough to hear the truth: I was doing a lot of good things while missing the thing I was made to do. The habit that kept me grounded was gone. My direction had gone with it.
Awareness begins there. A body audit. A mind audit. A spirit audit. Sleep, strength, triggers, labels, silence. Tell the truth without judgment. Self-awareness with compassion dissolves tension faster than any mantra.
There is a line I return to often from Heidi Priebe: “To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be… Our job is to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges.” Start by doing that for yourself.
Release: letting go without quitting
Letting go is not failure. Quitting is fear. Release is choice.
I had to step back from serving in ministry to reconnect with God and with myself. The good thing had gotten in the way of the God thing. Therapy helped. Prayer helped. Returning to physical practice helped. The combination brought me back to life. I remembered what I am here to do: guide people, help them get unstuck, raise the amount of love in the world one person at a time.
What release looks like in real life:
Prune inputs that hijack your attention.
Protect mornings and shut your days down on purpose.
Practice forgiveness and hands-open prayer.
Walk without headphones, breathe slowly, let your nervous system stop bracing.
Care deeply without carrying what is not yours. Let it fall if it must fall.
Rebuilding: becoming the person your life requires
Once the clutter is gone, you do not return to normal. You become new.
I bought weights. I put money where my mouth was and began again. As my body grew stronger, my mind steadied. I kept more promises to myself. Focus returned. Meditation and prayer deepened. I could finally see what was missing and who I had always been.
I wrote a creed and I live by it:
I am strong. I am focused. I am honest. I am disciplined.
That clarity bled into everything. Leadership. Counseling. The way I speak to strangers in the grocery store and to friends on hard days. I chose to teach and to develop character, healing, and identity wherever I go.
There was a day in the mountains of East Tennessee when the sun dropped behind the ridge and set the sky on fire. I cried for the first time in a long time. Quiet. Clear. Joy returned with the light. That moment was proof. Not of perfection, but of presence. Rebuilding works.
What rebuilding looks like in practice:
Train three to five days a week. Push, pull, carry.
Eat and recover with simple rules. Guardrails, not guilt.
Anchor training to a spiritual rhythm. Scripture, journaling, stillness.
Track what matters. Strength, energy, sleep, honesty with yourself.
The process that actually sustains change
Use every tool that helps:
Medication and therapy when needed.
God and prayer before performance.
Journaling and breath to name, feel, and release.
Fitness and friends so you do not carry heavy things alone.
Picture a simple wave. Peaks and valleys. Your job is not to avoid the wave. Your job is to learn the rhythm so your baseline rises over time.
Start here if you feel stuck
Fourteen days. Keep it simple.
Awareness
Tonight, write one paragraph: What is actually draining me.
Tomorrow morning, sit in quiet for five minutes and take five slow breaths.
Release
Remove one high-friction input for seven days. Say out loud, That is not mine to hold.
Rebuilding
Train three times this week. Push. Pull. Carry.
Write your creed. Live one line today.
You will feel it. Not fireworks. Foundations.
Why this matters
When you live this way, you stop negotiating with your values. Training becomes prayer with weight. You grow less reactive and more responsive. Peace shows up, not because life got easier, but because you got truer.
I built Lion & Light Co. to guide this work. The Conviction Method moves you through Awareness, Release, Rebuilding, and Integration over 90 days. Simple. Deep. Built to last.
If this met you today, reach out. If it only helped one person, it was worth writing. Even if that one person was me.