An Afterthought on Honesty — The Easter Principle

A coaching letter arrived in my memory this morning. Written in 2019 by Dr. Channa. Seven years later it is more precise, not less.

The letter was about Easter — not as religion but as psychological event. Something dies. Something more real emerges. But the thing that has to die, she wrote, is not the relationship and not the other person.

It is the version of you that is trying to control outcomes.

Most people come to coaching wanting love, clarity, commitment, or closure. Underneath that, what they are really asking for is control over uncertainty. And control, she wrote, is the opposite of connection.

Then the line that cuts deepest: You cannot experience a genuine relationship while running a protection strategy.

Attachment is often just a strategy — to secure validation, avoid abandonment, maintain identity. What presents as love may be a highly intelligent pattern designed to keep you emotionally safe. Resurrection doesn't happen by improving the strategy. It happens by letting it die.

I read this now in relation to honesty — the theme that woke with me this morning.

Susi's honesty was the opposite of control. She stopped negotiating with reality. Named what was true. Her pilgrimage began there — not in a destination, but in that act of release. It landed as clarity for me precisely because the strategy died. The clean wound, not the slow damage.

There is also a pattern I have carried for a long time — building FOR people rather than WITH them. Apparent generosity that is also, underneath, a position of control. You determine what is needed. You deliver it. The relationship stays on your terms even when it looks like service. That is a protection strategy too. Harder to see because it wears the face of care.

The Easter frame of this pilgrimage was not planned.

Departure from Müllrose on March 26. Return for Julika's birthday on April 4 — the day I named Death Ground. Return north on Easter Sunday, April 5, into the wind. The calendar built the structure without being asked. Something dies. Something more real emerges.

Dr. Channa's question — What part of me is trying to control this, and what happens if I let that part go? — is not a question I am asking in order to recover something lost. That question has been set down. I carry it now as a description of where the pilgrimage is arriving. Clear. Detached. Deeply present.

Six days of solitary work ahead. The garden as witness. The wake-up number each morning as the first honest act.

Not negotiating with reality. Just meeting it.

A Pilgrim's Fitness Plan — Gut Nisdorf 2026
Gut Nisdorf, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — April 2026

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