This Tree and Me
Season 2
You Don't Need It
Two Hours. Three Days.
Listening Is Not Living
It's Not Magical
Before You Lead Anyone Else
Give Yourself Permissio
What Do You Do With It
Belief is Built
The Work Nobody Sees
This Is The Handoff
1 of 6
by Cory J Riggs
What are you holding onto that you do not actually need? Not what you have lost. The things you are choosing to carry past the point where they were serving you. The version of yourself you outgrew but still perform. The safety net you never use but refuse to put down. The story about why things didn't work that you keep updated and ready. You cannot grow into what you are meant to be while carrying what you are done with. This episode is about the growth that starts with subtraction — why letting go is not a loss but the most underrated form of growth available. Why you do not have to know where you are going to know what you are done with. And what grows in the space when you finally put it down. Shed before you grow. That is where this episode lives. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
Two hours a day. Three days in a row. That is all it took to shift from weeks of noise to mornings that opened. This episode is about what actually happens when you stop waiting to feel ready and just move. Why the inner world gets loud when you are not doing what you know needs to be done. Why the tasks you are avoiding are not the fear — but the fear will find them and attach itself to them if you leave them undone. And what the mornings give you when the doing finally gets its place. This conversation covers the specific sequence that changed everything across three days, the question that shifted the practice from where does the noise live to where do I live, what two hours of the actual work looks like versus the visible work that feels productive, and why the clarity you have been waiting for is not waiting for you to figure something out — it is waiting for you to do something. The doing produces the clarity. Every time. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
There is a version of this work that feels like enough. The clarity that keeps arriving. The understanding that deepens. The knowing that grows. And it is not enough. Because listening is not living. This episode is about the step most people never take — the Follow. Why the Listen and the Allow are the beginning and not the destination. Why the act is what opens the door to everything that comes next. And what it actually looks like to stop waiting to feel ready and move in the direction you have already been shown. This conversation covers why the Follow is the hardest step, how the practice can quietly become protection, why everything changes after the act rather than before it, and what the smallest available Follow looks like right now in your own life. You already know. The only question is whether you are going to keep listening to it or start living it. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
What if the answer to everything you have been chasing is smaller than you think? Not a ceremony. Not a breakthrough. Not a vision. A clean kitchen. A made bed. A folded pile of laundry. This episode is about the most practical and most overlooked teaching in all of self-development — the little things. Why they are the actual foundation and not a checklist to complete before the real work begins. Why every small thing you skip puts quiet weight on you that shows up everywhere. And why knowing this and actually feeling it as true are two completely different things. This conversation covers the honest version of the question most of us avoid asking, the difference between intellectual knowledge and felt knowledge, what the cluttered space does to the cluttered mind, and what it looks like when the answer to what is next is smaller than you expected it to be. The magic of all of this is that it is not magical. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
Before you lead anyone else — there is something that has to happen first. Most people skip it. Not because they don't know it matters. Because they don't know what it actually looks like. This episode covers what self-leadership actually is and what it is not, why the LAF Method is not a clean sequence but a living process that loops and deepens, what it means to teach self-leadership by living it rather than performing it, and what the practice looks like on the quiet days when nothing dramatic arrives. The teaching at the center of this episode: you do not teach people how to lead others. You help them learn how to lead themselves. From that — they figure out how to lead others. You do not have to arrive before you start. The growth never ends. Lead yourself from wherever you are. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
How much of your life have you actually given yourself permission to live? Not the life you are capable of. Not the life you talk about. The life you have actually stepped into. This episode covers what the noise inside actually is and what it is pointing at, why we point outward at others when we cannot face something in ourselves, the version of you that got buried and why buried is not the same as gone, where the permission to be yourself went and how it gets taken away, and what it looks like to give it back to yourself without waiting for someone else to do it first. The performance of the healed arrived version is not sustainable. The one still in it — still building, still figuring it out — that is the one that lasts. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
You can meditate every morning. You can journal. You can get the clearest message of your life and feel completely aligned. And still be in the exact same place a week later. Not because the practice is wrong. Not because the message was unclear. Because the receiving and the doing are two different things. This episode is about the doing. This conversation covers: The distance between the message and the action — and what living in that distance actually costs The Allow as the decipher — the most precise articulation of the method's middle step Why the avoided thing generates the noise — and what happens when you sit with it instead What the doing looks like when it starts with the most ordinary work available The difference between finding yourself and building yourself The receiving is the beginning. The doing is the point. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
You can do all the work and still not get there. Not because of effort. Not because of discipline. Because of the gap. This episode names what lives in that gap — and how to fill it. Belief is not something you think into existence. It is not borrowed from someone else's excitement when you announce what you are building. It is proven. To yourself. By yourself. Through the accumulation of evidence you cannot argue with. This conversation covers: The gap between doing and arriving — and what actually fills it Why announcing what you are building creates more anxiety than doing it quietly How to look back for belief and forward for direction without confusing the two What the foundation work is actually producing — and why the result is not next What happens when the belief starts to thin — and the self-leadership response The honest question underneath all of it: what are you actually building toward This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs. Keywords: belief, self leadership, personal growth, foundation, inner work, ego, self awareness, building confidence, LAF method, self development, worthiness, mindset, proving yourself, emotional growth
Most people are building in the wrong order. The visible work gets done. The invisible work gets skipped. And eventually everything built on that unfinished ground falls — and the cycle starts again. This episode is about the foundation. What it actually is. Why most people skip it. And what it costs when they do. This conversation covers: Why doing alone is not enough — and what the gap actually is The house metaphor — foundation before walls, structure before aesthetics What your foundation actually consists of — the three layers that have to be solid first The practice vs the story — the difference between talking about self-leadership and living it Prove it to yourself before you prove it to anyone else The mirror principle — everything is a lesson about you This is the work that happens before anything visible gets built. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.
This episode is coming from inside the middle of something real. A life purge underway. The candles burning out one by one — Compassion first, Love next, Coach after, the ceremony candle last. A meditation mantra arriving and returning all morning: it takes all of us. This conversation covers: What a real purge looks like — not a closet cleanout, leaving the entire life that built you The difference between feel and look when making the hardest decisions What it means when all the parts — wounded and healed, scared and certain — are required together Witnessing the handoff from one version of yourself to the next — from the inside, in real time, without running Every transition before this one happened without being seen. This one is being witnessed while it occurs. That is the whole arc. That is the episode. This Tree & Me — hosted by Cory J Riggs.