Evan Sanders's Blog, page 2

Never Look Back

At the end of the day, you just have to go out there and do the damn thing.

You can’t spend your entire life wondering what it would be like if you went for it.

You can’t wait until the perfect moment to get going because it will never arrive.

You can’t wish that all of the things that happened in the past would just go away and you could do it all over again.

You can’t.

As tough as a pill that may be to swallow, it’s the truth.

Sometimes the truth feels like a slap in the face.

But here’s what you can do.

You can get started.

You can make some moves – they don’t have to be perfect – and start building momentum.

You can take everything you learned from the past and start taking responsibility for how the next pages are going to be written.

You can take back your life from fear, doubt, worry and blame.

The greatest risk of all is having stayed camped out in the harbor instead of actually setting sail upon the ocean of possibility.

No regrets.

No looking back to the past wishing you actually went for it.

Live for these moments in front of you.

It’s all you have.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

No Mud, No Lotus

Your faith will guide you right back to where you need to be.

We get so lost from time to time. It’s hard not to in this world. Things happen that we never could have predicted and we get hurt in ways that rock us to our foundations.

It’s hard not to look up to the sky and yell, “What the actual fu*k is going on?! Why me?!”

But come back.

Come back to who you really are.

Come back to your heart.

Come back to this moment.

Never forget that you’ve been able to get through the worst of the worst every single time.

I know that doesn’t feel like much when you are struggling right now, but it really does count for something.

Everything is changing. It’s always changing.

When you’re really in the thick of it, remember…it’s on it’s way out.

When you are feeling wonderful and really in flow, remember that things are always subject to change.

That’s how we grow.

And as the old phrase goes…no mud, no lotus.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

Come Too Far To Quit

I’ve come too far to quit. This one scene of my life from a long long time ago continues to play over and over again in my head…

‘You mean to tell me there’s miracles?’

“Of course there are.”

The road to getting to this place has been difficult, challenging and full of mystery at times. I’ve spent thousands upon thousands of hours of learning and digging into areas of life that I never could have predicted I would have to dive into.

The answers were a bit strange.

Not strange in the sense that they were bizarre and hard to understand. More strange in the way that they are so unbelievably potent but virtually unknown. It’s like they were the greatest secrets of all but just a few layers deeper than where most would think to look.

Maybe the inner child in me that loves to dig holes inherently knew that if you continue to dig long enough, you’ll eventually run into something cool.

It was right.

I didn’t get here alone. Far from it. I got here with a handful of mentors, healers and teachers who, once again, I could have never predicted finding. They showed up and echoed the messages that my intuition had been saying for years.

And that brings me to this…

The other day when I was thinking about my struggles with consistency, I came to a particularly interesting insight. It suddenly dawned on me that my difficulty stemmed not from discipline (I’ve got that when I’m locked in) but rather from trust.

Time and time again I felt like my heart had been ripped out…and I don’t know if you can resonate with this feeling, but when you physically feel your chest – like it’s being pulled away from you – because you’re in so much pain, you really don’t want to feel that again.

That doesn’t stop the calling to trust.

All I know is that it takes time to build back your sense of faith. It’s not all gained back overnight. You’re still going to have to work through all of your old baggage – a lot of which is there for good reason – and have the courage to navigate what has been avoided for so long.

But on the other side of all of this is a new way of life.

Miracles do happen.

Trust that.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

The Inner Dialogue

The way you speak about yourself, to yourself, matters. That voice can either be one that is full of toxicity or full of healing. It can make things better or it can make things far far worse. Let me help you hear what’s inside…

The voice of the inner critic is the one that’s constantly spewing fear, doubt, worry, hate and judgement. It is the shadow. It is the balancing mechanism for our inner wisdom. The opposite side of the coin. And, in many different ways, it says, “You’re not good enough.” It knows exactly what to say to get under your skin and cause you to fall subject to fears (false evidence appearing real) and continue down the path of letting this voice tear you down.

The voice of inner wisdom is the one that’s soft but powerful. Wise, loving, compassionate and “knowing.” I call it the 95 year old grandma/grandpa version of you. It sees the truth through all the lies that the critic spews and speaks to you in short but powerful messages. It’s the deepest wisest version of who you are. It’s the guide towards the light.

Remember, one is the opposite of the other. You can’t get rid of the inner critic just like you can’t get rid of inner wisdom. They both grow and develop with you as you continue to change and move forward. But you can learn to work with the inner critic – to not fall prey to its toxic judgements – and to respond to its attacks with wisdom.

Just as your mom or dad gave you “the look” when you were acting up, your inner wisdom can do the exact same thing to the critic. “Heyyyyyy…knock it off.” Respond with powerful wisdom and truth. With love. With compassion. With joy. Your inner wisdom will help you see all of the lessons in the events of the past without an ounce of tearing yourself down.

Oh and by the way, your inner critic is pretty dang good at what it does. You’re going to fall to it from time to time. But get back up. Get back to your wisdom. Making this shift from judgement to compassion is the biggest change you’ll ever make in your life.

I can promise you that.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

The Stories You Tell Yourself

What is the story you’re telling yourself about what’s happening?

Without a doubt, this is one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself.

Humans are “meaning” creating machines. We create stories about everything. You have a stories about people, locations, household cleaning products, colors…and you definitely have stories about yourself.

There’s this line in Peaky Blinders where Tommy responds to his maid in a bit of a drunk rage (which is pretty common for him) “I know what this is. It’s just myself, talking to myself, about myself.” And considering how things were going, you could tell exactly which voice inside was running that conversation.

We have the voice of the inner critic and the voice of inner wisdom. I’ve talked about these plenty in other posts and the massive difference between the once that is filled with toxicity, fear and judgement vs. compassion, understanding and wisdom. Whichever one you allow to take the front seat in your mind will determine a whole lot about what happens next for you.

It takes a great deal of practice to even become aware of these voices and distinguish between the two. However, it’s some of the most important work you will ever do. When you’re creating stories in life, if they are rooted with unwholesome seeds, that experience itself is going to have a lot of negative effects and ripple effects.

So the most powerful thing you can do is to hunt out any negative stories you have and to begin to expand your awareness around them in an effort to come to a view that is much healthier.

It’s not about faking it or bs’ing yourself. It’s about searching deep within to hear the voice of reason and wisdom and see something for what it truly is. When you do this, you free up so much space in your life that was overrun by negative stories and perspectives. You open back up to possibility instead of retreating in fear.

So start small. Look at some of the narratives you’ve created about things and see if they serve you. If they don’t, challenge those narratives. Then, watch your world begin to change.

This is what we call “doing the good work.”

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

Forward You Go Through All The Fear

There’s this moment in The Matrix that always stuck out to me and I never really understood why until recently. Morpheus looks at Neo and says, “There’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.”

For a couple of years now, I’ve known the path. I’ve studied, learned, practiced and even from time to time really started to travel up on. But eventually, I always returned back to where I started. The comfortability of the struggles I had known was all too alluring and so I repeated an endless cycle countless amounts of times.

Coming back to this place over and over again was never where I was meant to stay. I learned over time that I arrived here because the roots of fear, mistrust and guilt had spread throughout parts of my foundation over the years. The fear of letting go of what I had known – even if I knew of a better place to be – was overriding my commitment in moving forward and experiencing unexplainable amounts of growth.

As much as my intuition told me to “let go”…I couldn’t. There were too many memories throughout the years that were replaying themselves in my mind that I just didn’t have the ability to make it happen.

But one by one, I started to yank out those ancient weeds and opened that space to be filled with something that I knew was good for me.

And that has led me here. Finally deciding to walk the path through and through.

Life isn’t linear in the way we think it is. We believe that because we count our age by some numerical quantity that we are moving on a straight line somehow.

But if I’ve learned anything, this is far from how it actually works. We grow, expand, and contract in ways we don’t often recognize. We start walking on paths, move in different directions, fall into unexplored areas and come back to where we need to be.

But the gift of all of this is understanding that the road to where you want to be is one of progression and not perfection. One of unfolding and constant learning. You’re never done.

All of it is about deeply honoring who you are, what your wisdom is telling you to do and the series of choices that will inevitably lead you to who you are meant to be.

Forward you go through fear.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

The End

From time to time, I think about the end. There I am, sitting in a chair somewhere on top of a mountain looking out across the valley reflecting on everything that has happened in my life. ⁠
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I think about all of the victories and defeats, what I created and left behind and how far I had come since I started off on my journey. ⁠
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But more than anything, I think about the people who I’ve come across and how they have impacted my life. And in that moment, it becomes immanently clear to me that the only thing that really matters is to have lived a life of virtue and to have loved other people as much as we possibly could. ⁠
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I don’t know what comes after all of this. I’ve heard many things. I’ve seen many things. I was once told it was like “crossing the street.” I’ve always liked that. The simplicity of continuing to walk into the unknown but just in a different way. ⁠
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But I do know that each of us are here to give a gift. First, we must learn what that gift is. And then, when we do, we are destined to pour that out into the universe as much as feasibly possible. ⁠
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We aren’t here to create more barriers. The world has enough of those. We are here to bridge all gaps and to come to the realization – like Thich Nhat Hanh said – that we are all made of the same stuff, the same cookie if you will, and we have simply forgotten that “other” is actually “me.”⁠
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Our lives are defined by who we decided to be. That’s our choice and ours alone. While many things will happen, wounds will need to be healed, fears overcome and doubts extinguished, we must always rise to the version of ourselves that reaches into the depths of our root and continues to offer our deepest of gifts. ⁠
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I hope that you give yourself the chance to make your decisions out of love rather than fear. Those choices, no matter how small they may seem, add up to be a reflection of who you’ve been. ⁠
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If you don’t like how the story has been written so far, the good news is you can change it. Create whatever you want. Touch the lives of those around you and countless others in a way that they will be left better off by knowing you. ⁠
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Love. Love hard.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

Who’s Taking Care Of You?

While you are going out into the world and taking care of everyone, who is taking care of you?

Who nourishes, supports and believes in you? Who is there for you when everything feels like it’s going wrong?

There are going to be many different types of people you come across in this lifetime. Most everyone will be seen as just a flash of a moment when you look back on it all. But then, there are going to be those rare few who ride with you all the way through.

They’ve “got you.” They look after you, remind you of who you are and all that it has taken for you to get to where you are, and bring out the best in you. These are the best types of people. The ones who planted roots with you and stayed.

You have to be patient as you are going along your journey and you’re looking for these types. And then, you have to be even more patient in growing that relationship every single day.

Because the gift of patience is roots that stretch deep into the earth and can weather any storm. And the deeper you plant yourself, the higher you can rise. Relationships are exactly the same way.

And most of all, you have to stay open. People come and go in our life. That’s just the reality of it all. It’s on wavelengths that can be really difficult to understand. But if you stay open to receiving the gifts, they will come.

Surround yourself with good people. Let go of the ones who only bring unrest. Set healthy boundaries out of love and strength when necessary. And always look after yourself as much as you are looking after other people.

The garden will come. You just have to patiently tend to the seeds.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

There’s This Fine Balance

There’s a fine balance between learning to let go and learning to hold on.

Something I’ve noticed a lot going on is everyone is talking about “letting go of what’s no longer for you.” In many respects, that’s completely right and something valuable to practice.

But there’s a distinction that exists between when is an appropriate time to let something go and when it’s absolutely critical not only to your relationships but also to your own growth as a human being to learn to fight for the truth.

Often, an “Oh I just let go of it” is actually disguised as a deeper underlying fear. Fear of what might happen if it doesn’t work out so you got out in front of it. Fear of actually entering into vulnerable conversations and really putting your heart on the line. Fear of investing in people and eventually having something shift and change in a way that you couldn’t have predicted.

There are times when you truly have to let something go. Something or someone is being toxic in your life and you have to clear that space out in having compassion for yourself.

But the universe doesn’t always take. If I’ve come to understand just a handful of things, it also provides great opportunities. Chances and moments for significant growth because you decided to do the thing that was hard. It will honor you for that choice.

The greatest treasures of life are not right on the surface that can simply be taken by the wind. They are deep within the earth and you have to dig and work for them. The path of faith and belief is not an easy road. It’s challenging to the core at times. Fear, doubt and worry have a way of creeping into the soul and causing internal strife.

So how do we get there? This balance between holding on and letting go?

We refuse to make our decisions out of fear and sit deeply within our inner wisdom – the deepest wisest version of who we are – and listen. Listen for the simplicity of the truth and the path you are being guided on.

Open your heart. Use the constructive mind. Listen. Be patient. Cultivate balance.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

In Those Quiet Moments

In those moments of silence, when you hear the voice coming from within, who are you?

Who are you being?
What matters to you?
What are your intentions, ambitions and dreams?

Do not be scared of the quiet. Welcome it with open arms. Even though you may hear the voices of criticism, you can let those go.

Quiet them down.
Do not fear them.
Do not run from them.

Hear them.
Calm them.
Be fiercely compassionate with them.

What does the 95 year old version of you say?

You know, the voice that speaks with endless love, compassion, wisdom and care. The deepest wisest version of you. The one that has been guiding you all along. What does that voice tell you to do? Who does it tell you to be?

Loving yourself through the endless unfolding of life can be difficult at times. It’s easy to travel the path of judgement and be brutal. But you are far more than the mistakes you’ve made, the habits you have and who you’ve been. Your soul is so much more than you know.

So be kind. Sit in the stillness. While it may seem like there’s nothing, there’s the potential for everything. The universe moves when you do.

Breathe.

Then be.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project