Journal Entry 009: THE FLAT SPACE
Jul 14, 2025
11:27PM
Angelus Oaks, CA
My therapist and I often visualize the ebbs and flows of life as if they're a pulse on a heart rate monitor.
Up until recently, I either found myself thriving off of the highs and wins, or absolutely dwelling in the lows in the absence of those wins. No in-between.
Wins were the only reason to exist outside of the lows.
I couldn’t, for the life of me, wrap my head around the idea that one could just be content with oneself without some sort of tangible progress immediately ahead and also in the rearview mirror.
It was a strange paradox, because I eventually started to see the wins as a waning experience - a brief rush that only signaled an inevitable decline into the low, until the next win.
I truly believed workaholism was real and I was deep in it, because if the wins weren’t sustained, what was it all for? An insatiable addiction to progress and success - like a drug I couldn’t wait for the next hit of in fear of withdrawal.
Ultimately, I think I was scared of sitting with myself and who I was without the affirmation of accolades.
Success was a carrot on a stick that I willingly dangled in front of my own face.
Keep chasing. Keep chasing what?
Let me walk you through those extremes in two important dates:
Feb 2nd, 2023
I landed a gig with one of my biggest artistic inspirations. My second nationwide tour.
Five years of investing in this opportunity - hard work and manifestation were finally coming true…
I said I’d do it, and I did it.
It was the highest high I’d ever felt.
I flew out of Los Angeles at 8:30AM to embark on a month on the road, ready to watch my dreams unfold before my waking eyes.
You think you’re ready, until you’re not.
25 days later…
Feb 27th, 2023
I landed back in Los Angeles with the band at 12:26PM, my best friend Caro picked me up from Burbank Airport.
I don’t remember much of that car ride back to my apartment, but she says I was a shell of a human. That feels like an accurate description. I just remember the weight of my eyes and mouth feeling physically heavy and numb.
Over the course of the previous few weeks traveling the country, expectations and plans of what I’d thought my future would be shattered in various greenrooms and on stages I once dreamt of.
Months of depression deeper than I’d never known possible followed. Mold grew in my shower, self-esteem down the drain.
My biggest dreams, in reality, contradicted what I’d spent my entire young adult life idealizing them to be.
Everything I believed in was a lie.
“What’s the point of pursuing dreams if they can end up like this? It was perfect. I swear, it was perfect. What went wrong?”
I didn’t touch a camera, not even the one built into my phone, for almost a year.
I spent a long time pinning the blame on the artist I worked with. Through months of weekly therapy sessions, I came to realize that I put so much weight on positive reception from others that, regardless of who it was or how they treated me, how I actually felt about myself was in everybody else’s hands but mine.
There must be a way to exist normally between these turbulent and unsustainable headspaces…
Enter: The Flat Space (a term coined by my therapist)
Living life, ENJOYING life, regardless of what may be coming or what may have happened.
Existing, happily, with myself without the need for permission or validation from anyone or anything external.
I disappeared for a bit, started showing up for myself, and who would’ve thought: things started falling into place.
Confidence and ownership of who I want to be in the current moment is key - and that’s where I find myself now. That foundation has seeped into every other aspect of my life from the art, relationships, health, all of it.
I think it shows, and I’m really excited to explore how it all manifests. It finally feels like it’s time to step into the fullest version of myself that I’ve known has always been there. That version of JT will be very successful very soon (in a healthy way). That’s not here, yet. So for now, we’re enjoying things as they come.
Now, I realize that this whole “Flat Space” notion insinuates that true fulfillment is found in the middle ground - or in the context of our heart rate monitor metaphor, flatlining: which, in a medical sense, would mean death…
But maybe there is merit in that. Some dreams died, but I came out more alive than I’ve ever been.
Here’s the accompanying playlist, as per usual.
