The System Didn't Break You
It just buried your 'Favorite Self' in optimization
Welcome to Iteration #2 of Standup & Surrender
Hey, it’s Dan.
This is part 2 of the Favorite Self series. A weekly dispatch of real drop-ins with high-capacity leaders who don’t need “fixing”, just remembering.
Today: Ava.
The intuitive creative who built a beautiful machine… and lost herself in it.
This is her story, woven through insight, intuition, and 15 minutes that reconnected her to her signal buried beneath all the systems.
🌀 The Drop-In
Ava came in tired but functioning.
She’d done everything “right”—the perfect tech stack, dialed-in habits, a calendar that would make any productivity coach weep with joy.
And yet…
“I’m not lit up anymore,” she admitted.
What happened in our 15-minute call wasn’t strategic. It was somatic. She dropped out of her head, into her body, and met the version of herself that wasn’t trying to “keep up” with her own system.
She left that call softer, clearer, and reconnected.
To her Favorite Self.
「✦ Ava’s Insight ✦」
My spark didn’t die.
I thought I was broken.
Turns out, I was saturated.
Buried in calendars, checklists, and the pressure to do it right.I didn’t need another new system, tool, or human.
I needed to feel again.Before I could create anything new,
I had to learn to receive what was already here.
🟡 Ritual Embodiment - Choose joy and receive the present
🔵 Transmission - Tune into your ‘Favorite Self’
🟢 Self-Advice - Allow authenticity to inform
🔴 Alpha State - Feel before effortSix Shifts to Ava’s ‘Favorite Self’
① I’m not broken, I’m whole in motion
Ava had defined her value through output. She’d diagnosed every low moment as inefficiency, every “meh” feeling as a UX bug in her life system.
Her disconnection wasn’t a breakdown, it was an invitation to slow down. A Zoom invite from her parts to re-enter her whole body. To pause long enough to feel instead of fixing. She wasn’t broken, she was receiving data.
Burnout wasn’t the fire drill.
It was the smoke signal from her ‘Favorite Self’.
② Time is a system we made up
When you’re the architect of everything, time becomes your god.
Ava’s relationship with time was rigid. Efficient. Measured. She worshipped the block calendar and sprint cycle.
Beneath that worship sat a common fear: “If I’m not producing, I’m falling behind.”
In our session, that collapsed.
She realized: Time is just a container. Not the compass.
She could reprogram her system from the inside out, starting with how she chose to be before doing.
③ I’m not receiving because I’m not giving from resonance
This one hit her in the chest.
Ava was showing up daily… but not from fullness. From pressure. From the “shoulds”. Her message was polished. But it didn’t land. She was broadcasting from depletion.
The shift?
Realizing that giving isn’t a transaction. It’s an echo of your frequency.
And when your frequency’s off?
Start receiving first.
④ Receiving is the space between “thank you” and “you’re welcome”
This one came from Ava’s morning.
Still in bed. Eyes closed. Phone silenced.
No notifications. No Slack pings. No smart mirror with AI-generated affirmations.
Just breath. Just listening.
This is where her Favorite Self showed up.
Not to perform. Not to plan.
Just to be with her.
And when she sat in gratitude with her?
The nervous system softened. She dialed in.
⑤ Frequency is the message
Ava stopped optimizing for results.
She stopped “giving to get”.
She started transmitting from resonance.
Her voices stopped scrambling for sprint cycles.
They harmonized.
“I felt like I was talking to myself,” she said.
“And I could finally hear my music”.
⑥ Don’t get out of bed until joy shows up.
This is the ritual Ava took with her.
Simple. Soft. Radical.
Each morning, she now asks:
“Can I receive before I respond?”
Not a mindset trick. Not a gimmick.
Just a reminder that you set the frequency before you transmit.
Don’t hustle for your signal.
Become it.
This is How Systems Feel Again
Ava didn’t burn it all down.
She rebuilt from the inside out.
She created a simple ritual:
Joy before feet hit floor.
A somatic decision that told her body:
I get to do this—not I have to.
And in that pause, the spark returned.
💬 Want to meet the part of you that’s been buried in your own system?
DM me “Ava” or reply to this email.
I’ll send you my calendar link to book a 15-minute experiment.
You don’t need clarity.
You just need a signal strong enough to follow.
🔁 Missed last week’s post?
📰 Meet Casey → The Burned-Out Builder
She wasn’t stuck.
She was buffering.
🟣 Integration prompt for the week:
Where in your routine can you pause before performance?
In 🍇 awareness,
Dan