TWO MONTHS AGO, after the two-and-a-half-hour bullet train from Osaka, I’d moved to Tokyo. It was evening. I unpacked, then I went to explore my new neighborhood, Nakano. I stumbled upon a Buddhist shrine. The smell of burning incense drifted on the warm spring breeze. I pass through the shrine nearly every day to pay my respects.

It’s one of the most beautiful I’ve been to — not grand or extravagant, but a humble neighborhood shrine. When passing through, I ask the statues for wisdom. They look like travelers. I asked for their guidance when I passed them today.

I’m sitting on a step in the shrine beside some pale blue hydrangeas, their color like a clear sky. It’s an early June morning. The air is soft and subtly fragrant.

I’ve spent the morning walking, thinking about life, pondering the words of my supernatural aid, who’s guided me on my spiritual odyssey.

My soul is urging me to slow down; I gaze around the shrine at the whispering leaves and the sunny square; at the yellow sunlight and pale shadows that fall upon the stairs. There’s little sound but the trickling of water from the fountain and the music of the birds. There are ants amongst my feet, flowers blooming, teeming with life.

For years, my self has been occluded by pain. Now, instead of trying to fix my self, I’m striving to better understand it. For six years, I’ve tried to heal chronic back pain physically. I don’t blame myself for this. I’m so, so proud of who I’ve become and what I’ve made it through.

I’ve broken down so many times. Yet I just kept staying strong, no matter how much it hurt. I’ve never lost my faith. It’s rational that if the body is in pain, it’s the body that needs fixing. But I just don’t see it that way anymore. A greater intelligence needed me to look within, deeper than ever before.

So it broke me completely.

Nearly two months ago, I had four flare-ups in my back, basically spending an entire month in debilitating pain. I had no further choice but to surrender. I gave up fighting; I’m done.

When I surrendered, the universe guided me to the work of Dr. John Sarno and the world of mindbody healing. Dr. Sarno writes in his book Healing Back Pain:

“One of the unfortunate realities about working with a disorder like TMS (the mindbody syndrome) is that most people will reject the idea until they are desperate for a solution.”

The premise behind TMS is that the brain creates real physical pain in our body to distract us from our repressed emotions. I don’t think I rejected this idea until now — I just didn’t understand it. My mom has told me for years, I think the pain is emotional. But what does that really mean? What do I make of that? Maybe I just didn’t want to hear it coming from her (sorry, mom).

When I hit rock bottom, fate led me to the woman who became my supernatural aid (a term from the hero’s journey — but she genuinely is my supernatural aid). She showed me how she’d healed through an understanding of TMS. It all started making sense.

Now, I’ve stepped through the threshold, and there’s no going back. This is so much deeper than just healing back pain. This is clearing out all the negative energy stored in my body since childhood, rewiring my brain and nervous system, and becoming a new person by understanding oneness with all.

This pain is my gift — it serves as a path through the mountain pass and into the valley of my soul. Without the pain, this valley may not have been worth venturing into; ultimately, my potential would remain unrealized.

How does one know that the soul is in conflict? Chronic physical pain, anxiety, depression. If you’re in chronic pain and you’ve seen countless medical professionals, yet none of them know what’s wrong, there’s something deeper that must be explored.

Think about it. From the inside out, our bodies are powerful, intelligent, resilient, divine. Should we really be in pain from sitting in a chair, or from sleeping on a soft mattress, or from running — what humans have literally been doing for millions of years? It’s what we’re built for!

Our bodies may look different from our primordial ancestors, but fundamentally they have changed little, just as the new computers may look different from those of ten years ago, but you still recognize the hardware on the surface — it’s a computer.

We’re still human beings.

It’s our inner world, our software — that of the mind, spirit and soul — that has been infinitely updated. We’ve been given with meat suits to hurl around the world for a handful of decades , but the soul is eternal. The soul is who we are. Most of us go a lifetime never getting to know it.

The universe is on our side. Yet sometimes, it will have no choice but to use pain — physical, emotional, spiritual — to wake our soul to consciousness. I had to hit rock bottom so I’d finally perceive this lack of harmony within, most poignant as back pain over the last six years, but really it’s been consistently lurking beneath the surface throughout my life.

Pain comes from a lack of self-love, an inability to accept and truly embrace our inner light; I’ve felt this light since I was little, yet fear has eclipsed it. I felt I didn’t deserve the privileges and gifts. Who am I to be so fortunate? What did I do to deserve this? Nothing, really.

So my unconscious mind created pain to hold me down and make me believe, You don’t deserve the life of your dreams. You don’t deserve health, joy, success. Unconsciously, this is what I’ve thought I’m due. I thought I had to do more to be worthy.

I had to overcome this pain and show the world that I could chase my dreams while dealing with what felt insurmountable. I had to do more, be more, accomplish more. I’ve fought and fought, and I’m tired of fighting.

When I hit my lowest point two months ago, I considered giving up on my dream, seriously, for the first time on this six-year journey. I’d wondered about it in the past, but my faith has always persevered. But this was just too much.

I can’t travel like this, I thought. I can’t pursue my dreams if I’m in constant pain. Maybe the life of an explorer, an adventurer, a creator just isn’t for me — maybe that’s okay.

And the universe said, Yes! You’re finally letting go. What would it actually mean for you to change course?

The universe will take away the thing we love most to help us grasp its importance in our lives, and to make us recognize who we are without it.

Why do I even want to travel? I wondered. Is it to write about the experiences? Is it to be the next Anthony Bourdain like I tell people? Really? I don’t think so. For the first time, I genuinely saw this life taken from me. When I no longer felt attached to it, I could see my life objectively.

When I let go, everything changed.

My soul has been in conflict since graduating from college (that’s when the back pain started). That is when I first began pursuing this unordinary life.

That conflict comes from a source that I can’t explain, but can only feel. All this time I’ve tried to understand my dream when I don’t need to. We don’t need to know why we are who we are, we just gotta be who we are, or we’ll forever remain disharmonious.

I’ve doubted my dreams every step of the way, and while my shell has cracked, letting out streaks of longing, I’ve unconsciously repressed my light, afraid of shining fully and completely as I am. In the words of author Marianne Williamson:

“It’s our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

There’s a fire inside of me, a yearning for depth, wisdom, and an understanding of the world. I long to know how people have lived since time immemorial. I feel a need to slow down and observe. That’s why I write. I write these articles to understand, but writing books gives me a joy unlike anything else.

Working on my book for the past two years has sustained me through all the adversity. It’s depth I love — spending time with a thing and watching it grow until nothing remains but your truth.

It’s not an option anymore. I must unapologetically live the life of my dreams; everything is back on the table (no pun intended). The universe took away the thing I want most, the thing I love most, to make me understand it in a much deeper way.

There’s nothing about my body that I have to tune up so that it’ll stop being in pain. My mind, body, and soul are incongruous. That is the source of this chronic pain. I’m not out of the woods yet, but there is no timeline on this healing. No longer do I think, I must heal. I’m simply healing, each and every day.

I cry nearly every day during my morning meditation. I’m learning to judge less — both others and myself. I’m in awe of life, falling in love with this journey.

Dots are connecting like stars in a constellation, forming the picture of who I am. I don’t want what other people want. I want to experience a morning, a day, a month in the mountains of Peru. Scotland. France. Australia. Nepal. I want to experience it all; I want to live; I am, like never before.

You may be thinking, Vinny, you live in Japan. What the hell has changed.

You’re right. On the surface, perhaps very little. I’ve traveled a ton, and I’ve written incessantly about my passions. Words can’t express how grateful I am for all I’ve experienced so far. But I haven’t sincerely accepted me with every fiber of my being.

I’ve unconsciously felt guilty for my life, and guilt is the number one source of chronic pain. I’ve feared my light; I’ve been afraid of my own prosperity and truth. I will no longer live in fear. This is my calling. There is no timeline, nor an answer to be found. But this is my path, and all I must do is walk it.