I do this from time to time to try to conjure up the other up what my intuition is trying to speak through me. I get up and I start writing about the first thing on my mind that pops in my head as I’m trying to motivate myself out of bed.

I woke up with the very familiar feeling of slight anxiety I get this time of year with work. Today will be a doozy, I have some orders Sunday and Monday which is usually my time to rest and next week is really ramping up. Days off are done for the month I try to squeeze in some downtime but next Monday is a beast and that means prep on Sunday to support it. It’s not the 7 day work week that gets me it’s the last minute surprises that take me into work at 4am that mess up my rhythm. I’m not complaining, I’m not humble bragging about my business I’m only authoring my holiday routine. Yes the business is great. It also takes a permanent piece of me away each time.

I woke up thinking about a thing I journaled about last year on December 27th. It wasn’t hard for me to find it the headline stuck out to me and generally that date in the last 5 years has been break between Christmas and my last big day New Year’s Eve. I read it to myself again and smirked at some things I had written. Going back and reading some of my journals I can pick out what I wrote and what the other guy wrote. The other guy I’m referring to would be the my higher consciousness. The real me. The much much older me, the one I’ve been trying to remember for quite some time. If you read this and think I’m into some new age crystal shit well you’re a million miles off. It’s much older than that.

Much older.

I intend to go into more detail sometime but this isn’t that time. I’ll only say that once it began waking me up I’ve never been the same. I’m not alone. There’s more out there than you think.

Anyhoo

I was rereading that specific journal entry because I was encouraged from my intuition. I got a little into my anxious feels yesterday as I was calculating my future itinerary. I’m in the thick of my season. I usually don’t write during this time but this one felt compelled so I went with it and it’s good for the soul to release a little word vomit.

Last year I wrote about how my life transitions after every December the last 5 years. Some subtle some major. It’s like I have to go through this ridiculous process of struggle for a month. I get put through the wringer and come out a different person. It’s not overnight it’s a cycle. It may take weeks, months but I go through a cocooning phase. I come out exhausted, broken.

But

I’m also grateful with a sense of cleansing and peace.

The entire month shakes up my comfort zones, schedules and routines that I’m very attached to. I don’t go into fight or flight I’m too distracted I get up and put on my clothes and head into work. I focus on what’s at hand and go home eat dinner and go to bed some nights as early as 7:30. I’ll do the same amount of charcuterie in a month that I normally do in 6. It’s a mental thing I’m not chopping wood for hours, I’m not using a wheelbarrow to build a pyramid it’s mental. If you’re a painter imagine being asked to paint 6 paintings in a day. I exhaust my creativity.

High volume arts and crafts I call it.

It’s a ritual of passage now and I get it. I get it so much that I look forward to the product that comes out of the other side. I’m a different person each time. If not different then I own a new perspective.

My first year of charcuterie was a fun one because I had no clue wtf I was doing and it was chaos from day one. We got it done though. The day after new years I boarded a plane for Hawaii and got to spend time with my family without the extension of a restaurant attached to my psyche. It was an amazing reset. First one I think I’d ever experienced or that I acknowledged. I also sold our family home the week I got back. Another reset of a place with some good memories and a lot of not so good memories. It was necessary and for some reason I feel like that month of struggle manifested the selling of our home. It would be the first step of my journey of reckoning. That other person inside of me recognized that house wasn’t meant to be and we needed to leave it behind.

The first 7 months at our new home was rocky as was my mental health. I wasn’t dealing with no longer being a restaurant owner very well. Working out of a small space while renting a tiny home downtown was humbling but I hadn’t swallowed it yet. It felt like a punishment not a reprieve. Our marriage rocked back and forth for months but we held on. That next holiday would be my first as a seasoned charcuterie guy in a real kitchen and I got my ass handed to me. Same as last year but I had a grasp on what I was doing. After that whooping I came out the other side with the notion to stop drinking. I did it quietly for two months and drove to Sedona to dissociate for a week. Once I got absorbed into the magic of that area my brain clicked and told me “Chad will no longer be a drunk”. And I’ve listened to him since. It had actually told me on my 50th birthday the year before but I was slow catching on.

2023 was a little tumultuous but I held on to my promise to put the bottle down. I dedicated that year to travel. I headed to Vermont, Arizona and Montana. I shed a lot of the old Chad from those trips. The brewery announced they were shutting down in October and that put me in a bad spot for a bit. I was struggling to find a kitchen just as my charcuterie season was kicking in. I got ghosted by a few people and did not want to do another high volume month in a 1000 so ft home. I didn’t have the space for it. Meadery saved the day but by then I was burned out by the volatility of this work. Once again I put my head down and went through the process of a getting my ass handed to me in another kitchen, another space to learn my parameters. Fourth different kitchen in 4 years.

When the year ended I sat still for a week and my mind told me “it’s been enough time. You’re ready” I looked at my finances and decided to plan for Grazeland. Two years of sobriety repaired my mental health enough to get back into the game. Different rules this time. I carefully planned out how I would operate my business and planted restrictions immediately.

2024 kicked my entire ass. Operation delays, slow take off, Covid, hurricanes and hand grenades for months. Empty bank account and exhaustion. For a month it felt like everyone forgot that I still did charcuterie. Then late October came around and I got my ass handed to me with orders for the rest of the year. I paid myself back from my work investment and I was able to relax once the dust settled. It was then that I recognized how I go through this marathon of struggle and come out the other end different. I even wrote “I’m interested to see what I become in 2025.” In my head I felt something or it was my heart.

It’s all related.

I looked at some keywords that I wrote last year

“Manifesting” I wrote that word probably a dozen times like it had just been introduced to me.

“Geometry”

“Enlightenment”

“Intuition”

Intuition was written quite a bit.

I stopped where I mentioned reckoning with my inner dialogue. When I read it again it pinged like a trail marker. When I wrote it out it didn’t have the same meaning it does now.

“Changing my inner thoughts”

I wrote it and discarded it

“2025” was the title of that entry

2025 was when my mind opened more than just a tad and a veil got pulled from my eyes.

The little voice in my head that said 2025 was going to be different wasn’t joking. It wasn’t my subconscious it was the quiet guy that has been lurking around for a few years. He wasn’t kidding man.

The world broke open for me in February and it hasn’t stopped. My world changed and I spend everyday trying to evaluate it. I’ve gotten better with riding with the flow but I see things differently now. I quit looking out and went inside instead because that’s where everything comes from.

I’m not here to sell books or change your outlook. It’s not my place. If it reaches you you’ll know the moment it happens. I wouldn’t take lottery money over this even though calling this a reward doesn’t fit the vibe. This is what real freedom is like. Once you see it you can’t unsee it.

That’s a whole ‘nother story that a lot of you aren’t quite ready for. This isn’t me exalting myself. It’s quite humbling honestly. It’s also quite lonely.

2026 is going to be wild. Maybe not for all but for me it will be my intuition spikes just writing about it. I’m much better at reading the signs now. This will most likely be my last journal entry until post Christmas and I’m ok with that. I’m in a good flow right now.

Cheers