The First Step of Co-Creation

Every meaningful journey begins with a solid foundation. Before we dive into the excitement of vision-setting or the magic of co-creating with others, we have to start closer to home, within ourselves. Building and nurturing an inner foundation isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the essential first step. Without it, everything else we try to build risks crumbling.

In our early years, it’s natural and necessary to lean on the world around us. Parents, teachers, family, and circumstances provide the safety and protection we need to grow. This external support is perfect for childhood. But as we step into adulthood, continuing to depend primarily on outside structures for our sense of stability becomes fragile and, frankly, unsustainable.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: everything external is impermanent. Jobs change, relationships evolve or end, health fluctuates, possessions disappear. When our security is tied to things that can be lost, we end up carrying a quiet, constant insecurity. True, lasting stability can only come from within. A strong inner foundation rests on three core pillars:

I. Truthful Information

II. Self-Care (Meeting Our Real Needs)

III. Trust

These three elements form the rich, fertile soil from which all genuine co-creation grows.

I. Truthful Information: What We Allow to Shape Us

The first pillar is information. Everything we create in life follows the information we carry inside. The very word “information” breaks down to “in-form-ation”, that which forms us from within.

Our bodies, identities, beliefs, dreams, and deepest fears all took shape around the information we absorbed in our earliest years, along with the interpretations we made at the time. Much of this now lives in our unconscious, quietly running the show without us even realizing it.

To build a new foundation, we need to start fresh with clear, truthful information. In today’s world, where opinions, algorithms, and influencers constantly blur the line between fact and fiction, discernment has become a superpower. We don’t need more information, we need the right kind. Information that’s alive, grounded, embodied, and verified through direct experience.

A healthy skepticism helps: cross-check sources, dig down to first principles, and most importantly, move beyond mental agreement. Instead of asking, “Does my mind think this is true?” ask, “Does this resonate as true in my lived experience?”

One powerful way to uncover the hidden information we’re carrying is to use life itself as a mirror:

“Given this recurring pattern in my experiences,

what must I believe to be true for reality to keep showing up this way?”

For the journey of co-creation and self-mastery, we can anchor ourselves in the timeless principles of human nature, these are reliable, universal truths we can return to again and again. At Sakura Living, our interior decorations will serve to perfection to remind us, in a beautifying and most practical way.

II. Self-Care: Meeting Our Real Needs

The second pillar is self-care, learning to meet our own genuine needs as adults.

In childhood, we rightfully depend on caregivers to feed, protect, and nurture us. That dependence is vital then, but many of us never fully make the shift to caring for ourselves as grown-ups. We might intellectually know we’re responsible for our well-being, yet unconsciously keep looking for partners, friends, communities, or even workplaces to fill that old role.

It is a well known fact that we take better care of our pets, than we do for ourselves. There's no blame, it is about awareness and knowing we are perfectly capable of changing if life isn't working out.

"Self-care isn’t indulgence or selfishness; it’s mature responsibility."

It starts with honest inquiry: What do I actually need (not just want)? A quick search will reveal well-researched lists of basic human needs, use them as a starting point.

Learning to distinguish needs from wants is transformative.

When our true needs go unmet, we become vulnerable to manipulation, burnout, unbalanced relationships, and weak negotiation positions in every area of life. Meeting those needs ourselves creates the inner stability that makes everything else possible.

III. Trust: The Soil in Which We Root

The third pillar is trust, our first new partner on the path of conscious co-creation.

Here’s a subtle but profound realization you’ll come to: we can’t fully “trust ourselves” in the way we often think. Real trust is ultimately a choice, not a feeling we manufacture.

To step courageously into the unknown (which co-creation always requires), we need to trust something greater than our limited ego-self. We choose to trust life itself, knowing we are inseparable from it.

Trusting life means knowing that it will deliver exactly the experiences we need to grow, heal, and liberate ourselves. It guides us to confront the protective barriers we built long ago, barriers that once kept us safe but now only limit us.

This kind of trust isn’t blind faith dropped on us overnight. It’s cultivated slowly, tested through challenges, and strengthened season after season, like roots pushing deeper into the earth.

When these three pillars; truthful information, self-care, and trust, are in place, we finally stand on ground that cannot be shaken by external change. Only then are we truly ready to aim upward and envision a new dream.

This is the foundation. Tend to it well, and everything that follows will flourish.

Steven Pauwels, for Sakura Living.