Remember Who You Were Before the World Changed You

Eddie Pinero opens with a visualization exercise: close your eyes, find your five-year-old self, and ask that child what they would say about the parts of yourself you don't like. He shares his own experience with this exercise during a recent retreat, and it becomes the organizing image for an episode about self-love, destiny, and the cost of avoiding who you really are.

The Five-Year-Old Self and the Layers We Carry

Pinero describes attending a three-day retreat designed to help participants face what gets in their way. His own obstacle emerged clearly: a persistent voice of doubt and insecurity that shows up when he walks into rooms full of accomplished people, whispering "you don't belong here." He had learned to laugh it off and shake hands as if it didn't exist, but the feeling never fully dissolved. On the retreat's final day, the five-year-old self exercise forced him to confront it directly.

He imagined five-year-old Eddie running through the woods, playing in a wooden city like the Lost Boys in Hook. When the older Eddie approached and asked about the parts of himself he disliked, the child's eyes swelled with tears. "You hate me?" he whispered. Pinero tried to clarify that he was talking about grown-up Eddie, not the child. The five-year-old replied: "But I am you."