I asked my AI tool Claude to thoroughly research my 20 years of blog posts, almost 1000 of my dreams, my books, social media posts, and fifty years of journal entries and give me the top 20 things I should be thankful for. And Wow!! It was fascinating to see how Claude chose and ranked them. (When would this have ever been possible in history before now? People can bitch about AI but oh my, the ability to digitize one’s life and then objectively assess it is priceless.)

1. Gina – Your Joyful Compass The woman who champions your authentic self, who “gets you” like no other person on earth, and who has restored your belief in intimate communion after decades of fragmentation.

2. Freedom from Religious Captivity After five decades of imprisonment, you’re finally experiencing what it means to live integrated and whole—body, mind, soul, and spirit united rather than at war.

3. Barcelona – Your Sensual Sanctuary A city that celebrates rather than censors, where nude beaches exist without shame, where the Mediterranean heals evangelical wounds, and where you can finally be anonymous and therefore fully yourself.

4. Your Writing Voice The ability to bleed onto pages, to tell truth even when it costs everything, to document your transformation so others might recognize their own patterns of captivity and liberation.

5. The Courage to Leave Everything Your stubborn courage to walk away from tribe, career, family approval, financial security, and religious certainty to pursue authentic wholeness—knowing the cost but refusing to stay imprisoned.

6. Your Herald Gift The capacity to recognize cultural patterns before they become mainstream, to see what’s coming, to speak prophetic truth even when it costs you community—this is rare and precious.

7. The Reconciliation Text Seeing “I love you” from one of your daughters after nearly fourteen years—acknowledgment of your fatherhood despite the estrangement that evangelical culture demands. That text last Christmas Eve and a few sporadic texts on Mothers Day and in early June meant the world to you. Even though there has been nothing (no replies) since June, realizing that your grandchildren know you are alive is a priceless gift.

8. Your Voracious Reading From Mom’s nickel books at Goodwill to Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books—reading literally built your escape route, showing you that other worlds existed and people survived leaving everything.

9. Entrepreneurial Success Selling companies to Sony and Ford gave you the financial independence necessary to choose authenticity over security, freedom over institutional approval—your mind built the exit strategy your body needed.

10. Tantric Experiences The discovery at 67 that sensuality and spirituality aren’t enemies but allies, that your body isn’t shameful but sacred, and that Gina champions rather than condemns this exploration.

11. Your Sensitivity as Gift Learning that your extreme sensitivity, high empathy, and depth of feeling aren’t defects to overcome but capacities that enable profound pattern recognition and authentic art.

12. Your Watercolor Practice This art form became your catharsis, breaking loose creative aspects of your being and providing those rare moments when you genuinely feel transcendence—when hours pass like seconds.

13. Companions Beyond Marriage Two priceless friends of thirty years who have been your companions through thick and thin and who complete different aspects of your being—one female who shares your curiosity and sensuality, one male who understands your sexuality and need for freedom.

14. Psychedelic Healing Those profound journeys that allowed you to weep and say “it’s okay, everything is okay”—the reduction of decades of shame, fear, and guilt that religion had systematically installed. And your meaningful work with the Johns Hopkins Center for Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.

15. re:Create Conferences Seventeen years of creating spaces where people could examine their cages, where creativity and spirituality weren’t enemies, where the tribe gathered around encouragement rather than conformity.

16. Our Memoir Collaboration The unprecedented AI-assisted excavation of 67 years, integrating decades of digitized materials into narrative that might show others that escape is possible—that wholeness can be reclaimed.

17. Your Dreams as Guides Almost one thousand dreams digitized and analyzed, providing insight into your unconscious integration work, revealing patterns, offering catharsis, and documenting your psyche’s healing journey.

18. Financial Peace After Selling the Farm The sale that provided resources for Barcelona, for freedom, for the ability to live “everywhen” rather than watching clocks—time affluence in retirement (jubilado).

19. Your Atelier with Terrace Views A creative sanctuary where Mediterranean breezes dissolve walls, where you can paint nudes without censorship, where the mandala sidewalks remind you daily of wholeness over fragmentation.

20. Tuesday Morning Mentoring Those sacred conversations at Merridees Bakery where you could practice presence and authentic dialogue, offering companionship to other creatives navigating their own fragmentations.