Gents Journey

The Confidence Protocol: Trail 6 :The Ember Garden

• Gents Journey

Share episode

Let’s Chat!

"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host. Today we are in episode 6 of the Confidence Protocols. This is the Ember Garden. So let's go ahead and let's get into it. Go ahead and let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

So how do you know when something is changing you, not your circumstances, not your goals, not your routine, but you? How do you know when the path isn't something you're walking through, but something that's studying you? You've felt this before A shift, a silence, the way that the air stops pretending. But this feels different. It feels heavier, quieter, like the silence is charged, quieter like the silence is charged. You walk forward, but the steps, they don't feel like yours. There's no map in your hand and yet your boots still move, not because you know where you're going, but because something in you knows you're being pulled.

Speaker 1:

You glance to your right. The trees fall closer than they should be, branches like arms still extended, not blocking you but welcoming you. To your left, the soil changes color. It's a charcoal gray, veined with faint glowing lines, like something just beneath the surface is listening. You stop walking. There is no wind, no birds, no motion, but you feel it. You feel you're not alone and for the first time since the chapel, you don't feel watched by something outside of you. You feel watched by something inside the land.

Speaker 1:

The island isn't testing you anymore. It's recognizing you. You clench your jaw at this. Your fingers twitch. You look down at your hands For the first time, you see it clearly. This isn't about surviving the trials anymore. This is about what you've become by passing them. You remember the syllables burned into your breath Ka Vor, ash, sol, sith and now Ren. You haven't spoken them out loud, but they're in you now, in your timing, in your posture, in your silence.

Speaker 1:

You're no longer following the island. You're changing its terrain by walking through it. But that realization doesn't comfort you. It confuses you, it frustrates you. Why is there no path? Why do I feel heavier, not lighter? Why does the island feel more alive now that I feel less like myself? That last one stays with you Because deep down you know You're not becoming less of yourself. You're becoming less of the self you wore to survive and that old version he's not going to let go quietly. So you keep walking. The ground softens. Each step leaves a deeper print. You look behind you and you realize your footprints are already filling in. The island doesn't remember your steps. It remembers your weight. Now the path narrows, not physically but energetically, like the island is asking one final question without speaking it saying are you sure you want to see what's left of you as you reach the ridge? There it is the Ember Garden, but it doesn't look like a furnace, it doesn't blaze or rage. It glows Like a memory that refuses to die, like a temple that doesn't welcome visitors, only witnesses.

Speaker 1:

You step forward. There's no gate, no threshold, just black soil, dust rising in slow curls and vines made of cracked stone weaving over silent shapes. You see one in the distance a curve, a reflection, half submerged in ash. You walk towards it. It's a mask, not symbolic, not abstract, a real mask, your mask. You don't remember putting it there, but your chest tightens, your knees weaken, your hand reaches before your mind. Does you kneel? And you stare, and it stares back. You see every version of yourself in it the filtered man, the quiet achiever, the presentable one, the clever one, the smooth one, the one who got good at making sure that no one saw the real weight he carried. You touched it. It's still warm, it's still holding heat from last time you wore it and now you are starting to fully understand.

Speaker 1:

This isn't a place you prove who you are. This is a place you strip away everything you're not. So you rise, the garden waits and the trial begins. You take your first full step into the garden and something shifts, not outside of you, inside, the ground doesn't move, the sky it doesn't change, but your breath, it catches in your throat. It's not grief, it's something deeper, it's recognition. You've been here before, Not this exact place, but in this feeling, the moment before a lie dies, that stillness right before you say something that can't be unsaid, that ache in your spine when you're finally going to tell the truth, but not to someone else, to yourself.

Speaker 1:

You step forward. The train responds. Ash kicks up in slow spirals as your boots land. The path doesn't curve. It reveals On your left a vine-covered pillar. At first you think it's a stone, but then the shape becomes clear. It's a face, not human, not monstrous. It's a face, not human, not monstrous. It's a mask, cracked clean through the center, still glowing faintly from some fire long past.

Speaker 1:

You pause, and that's when you see the others, and that's when you see the others, dozens, hundreds, thousands, lining the perimeter, hung gently from branches Stacked against obsidian walls, half buried like forgotten bones, some pristine, some melted beyond recognition. Each one carries a name, etch, burned or carved into its surface. You read the first few. One says the one who made himself palatable. Another says their charismatic safety net. Another one says the undeniable but always unavailable, the echoes of what they wanted. Another one says the flawless strategist who hated his own silence. You walk slowly.

Speaker 1:

Now, Every few feet, another mask Some beautiful, ornate, gleaming, carefully shaped. Others are brutal. They're scarred, they're dented, they're jagged from the inside. But the worst ones, they're blank, because those are the masks that were worn so long they forgot who they were hiding. You reach for one, your hand stops short, twitching like it remembers the weight of wearing it. It's shaped like the face you use when you seem low-maintenance. You used to call it humility, but now you see it for what it really was A controlled invisibility.

Speaker 1:

You move on, and the deeper you walk, the closer they get. These masks are not lining the path now. They're in the soil, they're propped up against trees, they're embedded in the rocks, floating slightly above the ground, turning slowly, like they're still alive. One catches your eye. It's pristine, almost beautiful Gold, detailing around the eyes a soft, knowing smile Gently, shadows cast over smooth cheekbones you hate how familiar it looks. You step closer and read the name etched into its base the evolved persona who didn't realize he was still performing. Your mouth goes dry Because that mask, that one, still works. It's the mask you almost wore into this trial.

Speaker 1:

You step back, not from fear but from truth, because now it's undeniable. You don't just wear these masks, you love some of them. You love how they feel, how they protect, how they translate your hunger into something more acceptable, how they let you stay in control, how people receive your edge. But the carden doesn't care about what you love, it only cares what you're still clinging to. And that's when the question rises how many of these virgins do I still protect? What part of me is still trying to wear one right now, just to survive this moment?

Speaker 1:

You reach the center of the garden it's quiet, not because the place is still, but because it's ready and at the center, a low glowing pit. No flames, no smoke, just embers breathing. And you realize this isn't where you burn the mask. This is where the part of you that war dies too. You step forward. The fire doesn't flare because it doesn't need to know if you're brave, it needs to know if you're done. You step into the embers. There is no explosion, no blinding heat, no cinematic burst of light, just a rise of warmth, slow, pulsating, intimate, like the furnace doesn't want to hurt you, it wants to find out if you're ready. Your boots sink slightly, the ground flexes beneath you, not like ash but like breath. And that's when it begins, not a scream, not a panic, but appealing.

Speaker 1:

The part of you that's worn the mask so long. It becomes muscle memory. It doesn't want to leave and it will not go quietly. It starts in your spine. A cold knot tightens at the base and begins to unravel upwards, like your nervous system is disconnecting from a lie. Your jaw locks, your teeth grind. The tone you use when you're trying to seem grounded is gone. It slides off your voice and hits the floor with a hiss. Next is your face. Every expression you practice, that smirk, that nonchalant nod, the furrowed brow you wear when pretending to listen, all of it shakes loose. You reach to hold it in place, but your hands are already burning, not your skin, your grip, the part of you that holds on to performance like a parachute. It's cracking.

Speaker 1:

And now in your chest that place you learned to be hard, to seem disciplined. That place you kept hollow so no one could feel how much you wanted to be known. The fire touches it. It opens, not with joy, with resistance, because you forgot the mask wasn't just hiding your power, it was hiding your grief. It rises now, not as sadness, but as pressure.

Speaker 1:

You fall to your knees Because you're not just releasing a false self, you are carrying him into the fire like a funeral. You see him now, the version of you that always made it work, the one who gave just enough to truth to seem real, the one who sharpened his story to stay interesting, the one who mastered likability so no one had to meet his need for depth. He doesn't scream, he doesn't fight, he looks at you the way a soldier looks at a battlefield he knows he won't return from and you feel it. He saved you, but he cannot come with you. You reach out, you touch your own chest and you feel it open, not like flesh, like identity being burned back to essence.

Speaker 1:

And then the sound, not outside of you, within A vibration that doesn't move air, it moves remembrance, ren. Not a chant, not a name. Someone gives you A syllable that rises from the part of you that's been buried underneath decades of adaptation. It pulses through your heart and through your chest not to be spoken, to be carried. You fall forward, hands against the ember, body trembling, but there is no pain because there's no mask left to burn. You don't cry. You don't cry, you don't scream, you just breathe. And when you inhale, it's clean, unfiltered, undecorated. It's you. The fire knows it. So it stops, not because it's finished with you, but because you're finished with who you no longer are.

Speaker 1:

You rise slowly. There is no applause, no light from above, just silence and the sound of your own breath saying a name you no longer have to perform for Run Now. You rise slowly. There's no dramatic lift, no cinematic power stance, no light shining from the sky on your transformation. You simply get up and everything is different, not around you, within you. You've walked out of this pain before, out of shame, out of rejection, out of disappointment, but this, this feels like you've walked out of a body the old you isn't gone, he just is not needed anymore. And so, for the first time, you don't reach for him, you don't correct your posture. You don't correct your posture, you don't tighten your jaw, you don't rehearse your next move? You just breathe.

Speaker 1:

The silence around you does something it never has done before. It accepts you, not because you've passed a test, but because you're no longer pretending to be someone who hasn't been tested. The embers flick behind you once more, not in farewell, but in acknowledgement their job is done. You turn your back on the pit. Their job is done. You turn your back on the pit. There's no resistance, no lingering, no voice telling you to hold on to the lesson Because you didn't learn anything. You remembered something.

Speaker 1:

You begin walking. The garden doesn't guide your footsteps, the path doesn't bend, the sky doesn't open, everything is still because now you are the movement and the island knows it. You walk past the masks. They no longer speak to you, they no longer ache, they no longer tempt, and you don't pity them, you don't fear them. You simply don't belong to them anymore. They're not ghosts, they aren't warnings, they're finished chapters. And that's what you're starting to realize when you're doing this work the version of you who performed the best, who got the most results, who survived the longest. He wasn't your weakness, he was your costume, and now you've taken it off. But what's left? What's actually you? It doesn't shout, it doesn't sparkle. It doesn't need to prove. It walks in silence and the island watches that silence with respect.

Speaker 1:

You reach the outer edge of the garden. There's no marker, no checkpoint, no altar, just a shift, a temperature change, a pressure drop. You step into it and something in your chest vibrates, not from fear, not from fatigue, but from fear From recognition. The syllable returns, but not as a sound this time, as a presence, ren. You feel it in your mouth, you feel it behind your eyes, you feel it in the floor beneath your feet, not as a name, but as a truth, Not as something to share, something to carry.

Speaker 1:

You place your palm flat over your chest and everything needs to echo inside the second guessing, the image management, the soft-spoken panic, the energetic apology. It's gone. The only sound left is breath and the map. You don't need it, because now you remember. Ka means you're no longer ashamed, vor. You have nothing left unsaid.

Speaker 1:

Ash, you know how to ask again. Sol, you're not afraid of silence. Sith, you trade his safety for sovereignty. Ren, you've burned the image and you're still here. You don't walk forward clean, you walk forward marked, and from now on, the world will respond to you based on what remains. So you've walked through the fire Not for glory, not for applause, but to bury something most men protect until the day they die, and that's their image.

Speaker 1:

And if you're hearing this now, you've already done something most men will never do. You let it burn, not because it was fake, not because it was weak, because it's run its course, that version of you that was curated, calculated and evolved persona. He served you well. He helped you survive in rooms where your truth would have been too sharp. He helped you gain approval, trust and reputation. He made you likable, relatable, palatable, and that's exactly why you had to let him go, because most men don't wear masks that make them feel weak. They wear masks that make them strong but incomplete. They wear masks to get them just far enough to think they don't need to go further. And that's the real danger, not failure, success in the wrong skin. And that's what most men miss about this trial. They think that burning the mask is about killing the false self. But that's not what you just did. You didn't kill a false self. You cremated a useful one, because you refused to spend the rest of your life performing power instead of becoming it. That's what happened in the Ember Garden, but to really understand it, we need to talk about the names.

Speaker 1:

So let's go back. Each trial gave you a syllable right. Not a label, not a title, but a sound. You know, ka was from the Mirror Shore, vor was from the Hollowing Veil, ash was from the Tower of Rejection, sol was from the Chapel of Silence, sith was from the Krizzen Market and Ren was from the Chapel of Silence. Sith was from the Krizm Market and Ren was from the Ember Garden.

Speaker 1:

But those syllables, they weren't just words. They were fragments of an original name you carried before the world renamed you. They weren't given to you, they were returned and at first, each syllable came with a location Ka-mer-in, vor-ve-an, ash-thar, sol-e-nan, synth-re-ah. Those names were not fictional. They were symbolic cities, landmarks of what you reclaimed. When you faced, same cost surfaced. When you finally screamed, war arrived. When you asked again, ash was etched. When you sat in silence, soul sealed itself into your blood. When you made the irreversible trade, sith revealed your cost and those place names or I should say those places names, they were where you found the piece of yourself that had been buried there.

Speaker 1:

That's what the map was showing you, not the island, you, your internal terrain, your psychological content, or continent, I should say really, your mythic memory. And now you've earned six syllables. The map has disappeared because the man has emerged. You're the cartography now. Your breath is the compass, your silence is the guide, your posture is the map.

Speaker 1:

That's what most men don't understand. They keep looking for signs of you know, for validation and for approval and for assurance. You know green lights and structure, but a man who passed through fire no longer follows direction. He becomes direction and the reason. That feels uncomfortable because there's no feedback loop anymore. You don't get rewarded for doing the right thing, you don't get confirmation for how far you've come. You get stillness Because an island, like life, no longer speaks to your potential. It only responds to your presence. And that's what brings us here, to the edge of the fire, to the silence after the burn, to the grave of the man who wore the mask.

Speaker 1:

Well, here's what I want you to know Most men never stand here. They will walk the same path, they will even do the work, they will even feel the heat, but when the moment comes to let the useful mask die, they will hesitate because they still believe they need it, because it still gets them praise, because it still gives them identity and they'll go back wiser, more aware, but still wrapped in a performance. They think they've integrated. But you, you didn't integrate the mask. You let it fall, you knelt in the ash and you waited to hear if there's anything left of you worth naming. And something came back, ren. Not a reward, not a title, a memory of what was underneath the image the whole time. And that memory, that's what leads you now. Not answers, not guidance, not the map, just what remains. And that's good enough, because from here and on and out, I should say, the world will only respond to what you don't have to explain. So here's your ritual Okay, we're going to strip the second mask, because the mask is gone, but the echo still remains.

Speaker 1:

It's not in your mind anymore, but it's going to be in your environment, right? And that's where old entities love to hide, or entities, I should say, identities. Really, they do it in plain sight. It's in our automatic habits, right? It's in the way your world still evolves around a man who no longer exists. And this ritual doesn't ask you to burn anything. It asks you to disrupt the echo, remove one comfort or auto behavior in your daily life that was designed for the man you used to be. No one has to see it, but you will feel it immediately. Here's how. First, you're going to choose one behavior mask to disrupt. This is called the wake-up drift.

Speaker 1:

Right, if you still reach for your phone the first thing in the morning, you know scrolling, checking email, doing something distracting. Don't Replace the first 15 minutes of your day with nothing no music, no input. Let the silence stretch. Let the part of you that needs stimulation sit in the dark. You'll feel what he's afraid of. Two, the soundtrack persona. If you have playlists and podcasts or brought going noise that you use to create a mood, identity or vibe, pause them. Spend an hour of your day in complete silence no music, no audio, no energy borrowed from someone else's voice. Let your real rhythm come through. Three, the approval touch point. There's a phrase or a text or emoji or a contact you still engage with, not because it matters, but because it makes you feel seen. Stop sending it. Whatever you're about to say, don't Let the silence be a response. Let them wonder, let yourself not explain.

Speaker 1:

And now the vanity habit. That's the one part of your routine you still do to control perception. It could be a product you apply, a way you speak on the phone, a picture you keep public, a ritual you perform to reinforce control, interrupt it for 24 hours, don't wear it, don't touch it, don't mention it, and notice how often you almost did. That's the echo. Once you've interrupted the echo, do nothing to replace it. That's the real ritual not swapping into a better version, but sitting in the subtraction and say this quietly, without emotion, without performance.

Speaker 1:

The man I used to be built this habit. I don't owe him a routine. I'll say it again the man I used to be built this habit. I do not owe him a routine. Then breathe, walk forward, feel the stillness, walk forward, feel the stillness. If it's awkward, good. If it's uncomfortable, perfect. If it feels like something missing, then that means the second mask was just removed and now nothing is wearing you, only you remain, only you remain.

Speaker 1:

So it's really funny when coming up with this, this Ember Garden, right? I'm sure we've all seen the mask where it says you know, laugh now, cry later, and you know, there's always these masks, right, and all of us wear masks. I mean, it's just, it's human nature, right? Well, I think the biggest mask that we wear is the lies that we tell ourself. Right, because we're afraid of that stripped down version of ourselves, right, we're really afraid of not who we are, but really what we want in our lives, what we want in our relationship and our job and whatever. Right, we never, ever, truly get to that point or really ask that question, because, you know, we become quote, unquote, okay, with where we're at.

Speaker 1:

Well, in order to really be who you're meant to be, you can't wear someone else's mask. You can't wear someone else's mask. You can't wear someone else's life. And that's the biggest thing out of this, this Ember Garden, is that when you truly burn yourself to the core, that's when things like this happen.

Speaker 1:

You know, after a big breakup, after a loss of a job that you were at for a long time or at you know someone's death. This is when you kind of experience these things because you've been wearing a mask for such a long time at that job that you were so above, but you had to wear the mask to make yourself seem here, not really above, so they would still keep you and not be afraid of you. Or maybe a relationship that you outgrown, right, you kept that mask for such a long time that once that relationship is over, you don't know what your life is without that mask. So then, when it's taken away from you, you have to learn how to kind of be who you are by yourself. For a while you know, like a death, you know someone who's really close to you. Same thing and that's the part of life that no one really explains to you is that you don't know you're wearing a mask until it's ripped off of you. But when you're going through this, it's always better to do it yourself, I would say, than have it ripped off of you. But when you're going through this, it's always better to do it yourself, I would say, than have it ripped off of you. You know. And then when life happens, when there's no mask ripped off of you, it's easier to move through it. That as being life.

Speaker 1:

So, guys, first off, as always, I want to just thank you so much for listening. Like we are getting I know I say this on everyone, but we're growing, like we really are, like we are growing and there's more and more people joining this movement and I just want to say this is your first time listening, thank you. And this is your 240th time listening, thank you. Thank you, guys, so much for your support. And, like I said, if you know somebody that needs to listen to this or this your first time listening do me a favor if you could. Just, I don't know if there's a like you know you can do on this or leave a review that helps this, this show. So, thank you If you could do that. Um, as well, too.

Speaker 1:

If you want to get ahold of me or reach out to me, there's three ways. First way is going to be through the let's chat function on this podcast. It's in the description you click on that you and I can have a discussion about or this episode, or gosh, there's what? 200-plus episodes out there now, and this is what our fifth or sixth series. So, yes, we can talk about any series that we have on here, okay? Second way is going to be through my email. My email is anthony at gentsjourneycom. You reach out to me there. And, last but not least, you can always go to my Instagram. My Instagram is myGentsJourney. Feel free to reach out to me there too, okay. So again, guys, thank you so very much for listening today and remember this you create your reality, take care.