Evan Sanders's Blog, page 20

As The Soul Moves & Shakes

“It’s time.”

I whispered that to myself this morning. I knew it was time to come back to my writing and put down everything that’s been happening into words. 

To be honest, this time period has been quite complicated. 

As I’ve taken more and more responsibility for my life and headed down the paths that I have been shown, there’s been this awakening that has come with an onslaught of past memories and experiences. 

People. Places. Events. Moments. 

They have all come to the surface and revealed themselves at once. Part of me thinks that I was almost walking around asleep or blind to it all. 

This, at times, has been incredibly difficult to process. While there’s a sense of clarity and understanding, there’s also a few major lessons I need to learn – forgiveness, acceptance, presence. 

Forgiveness.

Our younger selves don’t know what they don’t know. Despite how we may see it now, most of us are doing their best with what they have. I know I did. Did I make some big mistakes? Yes. Of course. Would I do things differently if I could? Yes. 

But the thing is, I can’t go back. There’s only what I know now. There’s only forward. 

One of the biggest tricks my mind has been playing on me is this desire to want to go back and relive moments as if I could erase them and do them over again. 

But the thing is, the wiser side of me knows that if I did get to “go back” I couldn’t take all I know now. I would be right back where I was going through the pain and suffering again wanting to only move forward. 

It’s time to forgive. Myself. Others. Moments.

Acceptance.

The way it happened, for better or for worse, was the perfect way. 

If I wrote that same sentence years ago, my body would have recoiled. My mind would have gone nuts. But now, I understand. All of these experiences and all of these events that took place in my life were meant to bring out the best in me. 

Were they fun?

Some. However, many where not. Many were devastating. 

But I’m here right? I’m still alive. I’m chasing my dreams. I broke through it all no matter how bad it was. 

I’ve discovered that whenever I’m in conflict with life it’s because I’m usually not accepting something. I’m usually moving against the grain when the depths of my soul are telling me to head in the direction I’m being guided. 

I lose my trust and faith in that place. 

But when I feel the most alive is when I’m living in alignment with what I know I’m meant to do and who I’m meant to become. 

Acceptance has been walking through the doorway. 

Presence. 

Here. Here. Here. 

I keep reminding myself of that. My mind can replay countless moments of victory and defeat but all of them keep me distracted from what is going on now. 

Here, in this moment, is when I’m happiest. It’s when I’m free. 

Everything that happened throughout the years has faded away. It’s gone. I don’t know what is about the mind but it loves to constantly drift back and latch onto things. 

The way things were. The way things were said. The way they turned out. 

But it’s all a trap. 

It just causes a mess. 

But when I’m here, I see the beauty in these moments. No judgement. No past. No future. Just moments that are seeds of creation. 

With these seeds, I know I can create something beautiful. Why? Because that’s who I am – a creator. A lover. A dreamer.

Alive.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

The post As The Soul Moves & Shakes appeared first on The Better Man Project.

I’ve Been Searching For A Very Long Time

It’s hard to explain where I’ve been.

Even though I was the one who walked the path, not every step was accounted for by memory.

I was called to come back home from my travels, to dive deep into the mountains, to quiet everything down and to learn in a way like I never had before.

The journey challenged me down to my core and asked of me far more than I had ever asked of myself. I raged and battled against it for some time but eventually I started to float down river with it and found things I never knew I was looking for.

After a year of diving into the depths, I found my healers, mentors and guides.

I found answers to questions I had been holding for my entire life and learned how to heal my body and soul. While I’m not at the “end of the line” I now realize that I am much closer to completely uncharted territory than I had ever been.

The path that I traveled was traveled by very few before. I listened to their stories and learned from their experiences. I realized that they struggled and suffered deeply on it as well and that freed me in a way. It made me realize that my experience wasn’t an exception, but rather a right of passage that everyone has to go through.

I feel like I have another chance at life.

The first 29 years were everything and anything. They shaped me in the most mysterious of ways. As I look back on it now, starting to write was one the most impactful decisions I have ever made. While I didn’t write every single day, I wrote when it mattered (and that I can be proud of).

This life hasn’t turned out anything like I thought it would. I never could have predicted this. But I think that’s the point. The point is you get what you need and not necessarily what you want.

I definitely received what I needed.

The reason I know I’m on the right path is because this doesn’t feel like some big goal that has to be achieved, but just a nice easy movement forward in the right direction.

It won’t last 8,10, or 12 weeks…but rather a lifetime.

The last time I made a decision like that, it changed my life drastically.

So this is it.

A new day.

Another step forward.

We are on our way.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project

The post I’ve Been Searching For A Very Long Time appeared first on The Better Man Project.

Never Turning Back

Throughout the years, I’ve reached a few moments in my life where I stand at a crossroads. 

I can continue down the path that I have known and discovered for a great deal of time, or I can answer a calling to head in a different direction. 

My soul, more than anything, knows the right answer to the question of “Which way should I go?” However, the rest of me has put up quite the fight and resisted despite my best intentions and efforts. 

This has been my story for the past few years now. 

The truth is, I wasn’t ready to move forward onto another unknown path. I was timid, nervous, and fearful that once again the shoe would drop and I would find myself devastated by loss. 

For better or worse there have been a handful of situations over the past few years that have been hard to move past. The residual pains of events that marked my heart left a significant amount of scar tissue that manifested themselves through an abundance of fear in answering another call. 

I’ve seen this clear as day. I’ve noticed this about myself and witnessed the repercussions of acting before I was fully committed. The failed attempts stacked up and my desire to continue changing was slowly but surely snuffed out. 

In having spent the past two weeks writing the origin story of The Better Man Project I’ve come to realize just how far I have traveled throughout these past 7 years. 

View this post on Instagram

One breath at a time. One choice at a time. One step at a time. Every day you are creating your future. You can choose to plant the seeds of your dreams if you wish. It takes belief. It takes energy. It takes you putting your heart into it. But one day, that little seed will become a giant tree and it will be all worth it.

What Do You See?

What do you see?

What do you see around the bend?

Your future. Your dreams. Your aspirations.

What do they look like…feel like…move like?

Can you touch them? Are they pieces of you that you are waiting to be introduced to? Are they in your fingertips?

Do you believe in them?

Can you hear them whisper?

There is a calling I’ve heard for quite some time. In the past, I’ve written about my battles with it. I spoke about not wanting to give up the live I have lived in fear of what the future would bring.

For the first time in my life, I started to see why I was so hesitant to move forward on a new journey. I saw that there were still so many afflictions from the past controlling my daily dynamic. I didn’t have enough energy after so many disappointments and situations that went south. The events of life had taken a toll and I needed to pull back. I needed to readjust. I needed time to recover.

The hard part about all of this was there was this story in my mind telling me that I was somehow quitting on my old dreams or giving up. The truth was, my body and soul were forcing me to slow down and disconnect.

They shut everything off so I could listen.

So there I was, in the forest alone, listening to the faintest of whispers…and that’s when it started to all make sense.

Everything that had happened in the past set me up to live in a new way. I had gained an understanding of not just the depths of my own experience, but the experiences of many others who were trying to navigate this life.

And that’s where the lesson lived.

How can you understand the suffering people go through if you don’t suffer yourself? You can’t. So Nature made sure I did.

How can you speak to people about betrayal, abandonment, shame, and the darker shades of this experience if you’ve never had it yourself? You couldn’t. So Nature made sure I did.

And here I am now, though heavily scarred, battle tested and ready.

I am ready to rise to the potential of everything I have ever seen and to leave the other aspects of my old life behind. I am ready to tell the story. I am ready to write a new one that’s full of passion, wisdom, defeat and victory.

I am ready to step into my role, the one I have always known was waiting for me.

All of this came at a great cost. That cost was too much to even begin to write down here.

But the final note reads something like this…

It was all worth it.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

The post What Do You See? appeared first on The Better Man Project.

Letting Go Of The Past

[image error]

I have to start out by saying that this lesson — letting go — has been the hardest thing I’ve ever learned in my life.

And for that reason, I feel like I can speak on it tonight.

I spent a majority of my lifetime trapped in the prison of the past.

I couldn’t get out.

I raged against it.

I couldn’t stop myself from going back and perpetuating a loop of guilt, sadness, depression and pulling from the dark corners of my heart. I was consumed by it.

Chased.

Hunted.

Ruined.

And yet, I’m here tonight writing away in peace.

A lot had to happen for this to take place. I think, in trying to figure out what I want to write about, that the best thing for me to do is tell you how I got out of that prison in the first place.

I went searching.

I started seeking out answers to why I was constantly feeling beaten down by life. I think at some point I knew deep down that life really shouldn’t be this difficult…right?

Books. Videos. Masters. Gurus. Teachers. Cultures. Traditions. Religions.

I dove into it all.

At first, this big net that I threw helped me feel like I was onto something. I knew that if I just kept hunting, that maybe somewhere I would find exactly what I was looking for.

Those answers showed up a lot later than I thought they would…

But in the end, they arrived.

And down the rabbit hole I went.

That seed that I planted yielded fields and fields of knowledge and wisdom that at times I had no idea what to do with.

But even more than that, as I continued to dive farther and farther in, I saw all of the dots in my life connect. I would read something and suddenly there would be a nugget of information that sparked something in my mind that happened 10+ years ago and I started to understand why it was happening.

I learned about mental states, emotions, true health, systems, business, and the list goes on and on.

But how does this have anything to do with the past?

It has everything to do with it.

When I was stuck in that prison, I couldn’t make sense of anything. I didn’t have any answers and because I was so blinded by my emotions I couldn’t find any way out.

But when I started to knock on the doors of the things I wanted to learn, everything shifted. Everything started to change.

And then, I became hooked.

I read as much as I could about anything that didn’t make sense to me. And the more I read, the more the prison walls started to come down and I could see that all of my issues and worries came out of not having access to wisdom or intution.

I’ve often found that letting go of the past only really comes when you go back to it and seek wisdom from it.

Anything else with it is no good.

I’ve been doing this a lot. There’s been a long year long conversation with myself over things that happened and I’ve started to see with much fresher eyes why things went down the way they did.

There have been some harder moments. Some memories have been much harder to get over than others. But in all, the practice is worth it.

It’s worth going back to work some things out with yourself if you’re going to do it in a healthy way. I have to say, I feel much more sorted now. I feel like I know a lot more about myself and who I am down to my core.

So for that, it’s worth it.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

Letting go of the past

I have to start out by saying that this lesson — letting go — has been the hardest thing I’ve ever learned in my life.

And for that reason, I feel like I can speak on it tonight.

I spent a majority of my lifetime trapped in the prison of the past.

I couldn’t get out.

I raged against it.

I couldn’t stop myself from going back and perpetuating a loop of guilt, sadness, depression and pulling from the dark corners of my heart. I was consumed by it.

Chased.

Hunted.

Ruined.

And yet, I’m here tonight writing away in peace.

A lot had to happen for this to take place. I think, in trying to figure out what I want to write about, that the best thing for me to do is tell you how I got out of that prison in the first place.

I went searching.

I started seeking out answers to why I was constantly feeling beaten down by life. I think at some point I knew deep down that life really shouldn’t be this difficult…right?

Books. Videos. Masters. Gurus. Teachers. Cultures. Traditions. Religions.

I dove into it all.

At first, this big net that I threw helped me feel like I was onto something. I knew that if I just kept hunting, that maybe somewhere I would find exactly what I was looking for.

Those answers showed up a lot later than I thought they would…

But in the end, they arrived.

And down the rabbit hole I went.

That seed that I planted yielded fields and fields of knowledge and wisdom that at times I had no idea what to do with.

But even more than that, as I continued to dive farther and farther in, I saw all of the dots in my life connect. I would read something and suddenly there would be a nugget of information that sparked something in my mind that happened 10+ years ago and I started to understand why it was happening.

I learned about mental states, emotions, true health, systems, business, and the list goes on and on.

But how does this have anything to do with the past?

It has everything to do with it.

When I was stuck in that prison, I couldn’t make sense of anything. I didn’t have any answers and because I was so blinded by my emotions I couldn’t find any way out.

But when I started to knock on the doors of the things I wanted to learn, everything shifted. Everything started to change.

And then, I became hooked.

I read as much as I could about anything that didn’t make sense to me. And the more I read, the more the prison walls started to come down and I could see that all of my issues and worries came out of not having access to wisdom or intution.

I’ve often found that letting go of the past only really comes when you go back to it and seek wisdom from it.

Anything else with it is no good.

I’ve been doing this a lot. There’s been a long year long conversation with myself over things that happened and I’ve started to see with much fresher eyes why things went down the way they did.

There have been some harder moments. Some memories have been much harder to get over than others. But in all, the practice is worth it.

It’s worth going back to work some things out with yourself if you’re going to do it in a healthy way. I have to say, I feel much more sorted now. I feel like I know a lot more about myself and who I am down to my core.

So for that, it’s worth it.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

The post Letting go of the past appeared first on The Better Man Project.

Built Into Every Last Moment

[image error]

What’s been the difference?

Gratitude.

Gratitude for the good and the bad, the challenging moments and the ones filled with peace, and everything else in between.

Those moments that rock my world, I’m grateful for those too (even though at times I wished they weren’t happening) because they teach me so many important lessons.

This path has not been easy.

It’s been anything but easy.

But the absolute truth is..it’s been worth it.

Without the ups and the downs, I would have never been able to become who I am today and in many ways I feel like I am just getting started.

What often trips me up is that I have always felt old at heart and I forget that even at 29 years old, I’m still very young. As the years have gone on, I’ve always felt like my 30’s were going to be a decade of a massive Renaissance in my life.

After having spent my 20’s working away at an idea, I can now understand why.

You don’t have any idea when things are going to start cooking for you. You never really know when the seed is going to really take root and shoot upwards through the ground.

But one thing that I have found to be the absolute truth is that if you pull off the road and just give up, you’ll never get to your destination.

That may sound like a pretty simple concept, and it is, but I am still stunned how others and myself included tend to just park it for a while. I can’t tell you how many times I have lost my way and paused in life for far too long.

As tough as all of this may be, it’s been the greatest journey I’ve ever taken. All of those cliches about life being the greatest teacher of all are true.

No one could have taught me like it did.

No one could have guided me like it did.

For that, I am extremely grateful and that feeling goes into every moment in front of me.

That’s what has made all the difference.

That’s what helped me change.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

Built Into Every Last Moment

What’s been the difference?

Gratitude.

Gratitude for the good and the bad, the challenging moments and the ones filled with peace, and everything else in between.

Those moments that rock my world, I’m grateful for those too (even though at times I wished they weren’t happening) because they teach me so many important lessons.

This path has not been easy.

It’s been anything but easy.

But the absolute truth is..it’s been worth it.

Without the ups and the downs, I would have never been able to become who I am today and in many ways I feel like I am just getting started.

What often trips me up is that I have always felt old at heart and I forget that even at 29 years old, I’m still very young. As the years have gone on, I’ve always felt like my 30’s were going to be a decade of a massive Renaissance in my life.

After having spent my 20’s working away at an idea, I can now understand why.

You don’t have any idea when things are going to start cooking for you. You never really know when the seed is going to really take root and shoot upwards through the ground.

But one thing that I have found to be the absolute truth is that if you pull off the road and just give up, you’ll never get to your destination.

That may sound like a pretty simple concept, and it is, but I am still stunned how others and myself included tend to just park it for a while. I can’t tell you how many times I have lost my way and paused in life for far too long.

As tough as all of this may be, it’s been the greatest journey I’ve ever taken. All of those cliches about life being the greatest teacher of all are true.

No one could have taught me like it did.

No one could have guided me like it did.

For that, I am extremely grateful and that feeling goes into every moment in front of me.

That’s what has made all the difference.

That’s what helped me change.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

The post Built Into Every Last Moment appeared first on The Better Man Project.

Those Deep Stretching Roots

Birthdays are always a time period of deep reflection for me.

This past one, 29, offered something quite different though.

Perspective.

Grounding.

Peace.

I think for a long time I drifted in the waters wondering if I was heading on the right path. I felt that there was this transition inside of me — painful at times — that tugged and pulled at what needed to go and I finally released.

I let go of some things that I really needed to let go of.

An old life, old people and many old events.

I went through this bizarre transition period of feeling this guilt with all of the knowledge and wisdom I had gained over the years. I looked back on previous moments of my life and wished I could do them over again with what I know now.

But I know things don’t work that way. It was silly to even think of that in the first place.

In fact, I am a wildly different person than who I was just even a year ago. And, so many wonderful things came through this year long process I took for myself.

So why would I even want to go back? If I went back, I would have lost this and so many other things would probably change.

No, this is exactly where I need to be. That’s the perspective I was given.

Here’s where the grounding came in.

As the days went on throughout July, I started to understand that I had arrived at the very moment in which I was to plant the seeds of a garden in a very fertile field. It was time to cover them with the fresh dirt and tend to them.

For some time, I had been wondering what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I couldn’t figure out what was right around the bend.

Even though I had ideas, nothing really stuck. But then, as everything comes in three’s for me, things just seemed to go…

click. click. click.

Okay. Okay I see that now. Time to get to planting.

In many ways I felt like I started over fresh and there was a completely new opportunity for me to move forward in so many different ways. It didn’t come through thinking about it, it just showed up one day.

I felt, grounded. Planted. Ready to go for it and see this vision I’ve had all the way through.

I think in many ways we wish things could have happened sooner or we wanted them sprout quicker. But for me, I know that if things had happened earlier in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I couldn’t have taken things popping years ago. It would have wrecked me in so many ways.

But now, sitting where I am and having really taken the deep dive into who I am, I know that I can handle whatever comes my way. The roots have grown deep into the ground and I can withstand the storms to come if they may.

And then there was the peace.

As I returned back to the mountains, my heart softened. I understood exactly what I needed to do and gently started taking action. Those words usually wouldn’t come in the same sentence for me in years past but they have now.

I can understand that my passions work very well in specific ways and that I can move into this next period of life with a whole lot more faith and a lot of grace.

I see the endings to old paths that I will honor all the way through with my Last Call and see beginnings that will change how I do things for the rest of my life.

There’s peace here…in this time.

A deep relaxation despite all the efforts being made.

Connection with the above and the earth underneath me.

This feels good here. I’ll stay a while.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

The post Those Deep Stretching Roots appeared first on The Better Man Project.

The Courtship Of Failure

What will this teach me?

Everything.

Everything you’ll need to know.

I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t put on this planet with all the answers. And, when I look at how my life has gone so far, I can see that almost all of my greatest lessons were taught to me through failure.

I learned how to love deeply by being with people who seemed to lack the capacity whatsoever.

I learned the importance of commitment through giving up (really bad) a handful of times.

I learned how to think for myself and trust my intuition by having others send me down bad paths that only led to a whole lot of pain.

The list really goes on.

But what comes out of all of that is the same message…

Failure teaches you.

I think it’s really important to note that despite having my butt kicked by life and failing very badly at times, I didn’t stay in that place.

I looked at what happened (even if it took me forever) and adjusted my strategy. Then, I went back at it again.

That “I went back at it again” statement also needs to be explained. Why?

Because I went back at it relentlessly until eventually something budged. I sought out the answers to get through by others who have traveled that path successfully. I picked apart the steps I had taken looking for the places that I had gone wrong.

And yes, at times, I didn’t change a damn thing and just went at it with sheer will. Sometimes, that made the difference.

You can’t stay in the mud when you fall. You have to get back up and give it another go.

You always have to remember, you weren’t given all the answers to the test at the beginning.

If you can get on board with that, it becomes much easier to take failure when it comes because that’s part of the process.

But then the next step arrives…

Courting it.

What do I mean by that? I mean, head straight into things that you are going to be a complete beginner at and just know that you’re probably going to suck at it a lot of the time at the beginning.

That’s part of the process. That’s part of learning. The only way to get to a place where you eventually master something is to start at the place where you are a total beginner.

You can’t skip it.

You have to work right through it.

So here I am this evening looking towards the future and the path I want to travel…spending time thinking about all of the places that I could head into and fail…

That excites me.

That moves me.

That’s going to be something that compels me to move forward.

Because I know, that if I bring that same relentless attitude towards all of those failures, that eventually I will make something more of myself.

Growth.

Development.

Change.

All for the better and all for the future.

So court failure.

Become best friends.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

The post The Courtship Of Failure appeared first on The Better Man Project.