Evan Sanders's Blog, page 22

It Begins With A Simple Step

One step, a single step, is all it takes.

A pure heart.

An intention to correct all wrongs.

That one step can send you in a wildly different direction. It can bring you closer to who you really are. It can honor all of the mistakes you have made in the past and yet you can still move forward with grace.

That’s all it takes…

One step.

This path I have been on has challenged me to my core. I have had a handful of bizarre things happen in my life that are just beyond mere coincidence. I’ve traveled thousands upon thousands of miles and experienced so many different things, and yet I feel like I have been brought right back to where I started in a few different ways.

I rediscovered my love for writing.

The courage necessary to head back into my old work and bring new life to it has reignited from within.

I’ve lost my way and myself…and that’s exactly what brought me right back to who I really am.

In ways, this has been a bit of a mind-bending experience.

How could you get lost and find what you needed to?

Yet, now I understand more than ever that who I think I am is just the surface of the lake…

And who I really am…that’s the entire lake.

I feel like I’m starting to discover more and more of the lake.

Every single habit, way of thinking, attachment, and old story that I let go of, I discover hidden treasures that I didn’t know were there. I haven’t been adding on things, but subtracting. And through that cleansing process, I’ve realized far more than I ever could have.

I feel lucky.

I feel lucky that I had the chance over the past 9 months to struggle with my old ways of doing things, try on new ways, practice, learn, wander and get lost in the mountains and truly head completely off path…only to find that this is what I was meant to do all along.

I was meant to lose myself.

I was meant to lose all of the ways of thinking…in fact really stop thinking…

And just settle into something else. 

That freed me. That freed me to see everything that had happened, no matter how hard it was at times, as events that brought me closer and closer to really beginning to know and not just understand.

Something changed overnight deep in my sleep.

I felt a click this morning.

And with that click, a release.

This word surrender kept arriving for me over and over again. Surrender to the path. Surrender to you. Surrender to what you believe in.

And as I sit here, not knowing at all what to expect from the coming moments, I’ve never felt more here. 

I finally have taken my oars out of the water and have stopped trying to get there. 

This is where I belong.

-Evan Sanders

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You Never Lost The Path…

Every step that you have taken has been part of the path.

You’ve never been lost.

You’ve never taken steps backwards.

You’ve only been finding your way this entire time. You’ve only been starting to discover that the footsteps you have made, no matter how you viewed them, have been the steps you needed to take in order to become who you truly are.

Every fall.

Every mistake.

Every victory and defeat.

These all have led you here, to this place, waking up more and more as the days go on.

How could you ever say that these things that happened, while painful at times, were not meant to be if you are finding the gold that lays within them?

They were what you needed to learn.

To become.

To shift and morph as is willed.

The only trouble that comes is when you use the paths of the outside world to judge your own. They are inherently and distinctly different. The pointing of fingers is misguided and unhelpful.

So here you are.

Awakening.

Seeing.

Rooting and discovering.

Who are you going to be with the following moments?

The events of the past have turned to fluid paintings and are almost like a dream. How can we nourish them? How can we soften them? How can we turn them into something beautiful no matter how dark they were at times?

Remember who you are.

Remember that as tough as things may become, there’s still great beauty in your life and there’s always light in the presence of the darkness.

You have always wanted to repaint the scene.

No one else can travel that path but you.

These rocks in the river can be moved. These barriers can be broken. These moments can be transformed. They all can shift. But you have to let them. You have to finally let go and step forward, one mindful step after another, in a way you have always been asked to.

Trust.

Trust in your heart.

Trust in who you really are.

Then, become.

Who you think you are is only a fraction of who you really are. Awaken.

You have so much time in front of you.

You have a many lifetimes left. All of that time you spent struggling and battling against the cards that had been given to you, that time can be reclaimed as well.

But you have to make the choice.

You never lost your way.

You’ve been on it this entire time.

-Evan Sanders

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Metanoia In My Veins

Many thousands of days ago, I walked out upon a brand new path not knowing where I was going.

All I knew, is that where I was wasn’t the place I needed to be.

So I set out in an unknown direction towards an unknown goal. Maybe any movement during that time was a good thing. While all places in life are part of the path, some parts of that path aren’t meant to be a place of rest.

Some parts of the path are meant to pressure you to become more. 

And thousands of days later, here I am having made a decision to wander upon a new path. But this path is different.

This path is chosen.

This path is rooted in belief.

This one…I’ve seen in my mind for quite some time and finally surrendered to the heavens themselves to guide me with all strength, courage, and persistence.

As I have continued to dive farther and farther into myself, I have learned many things about who I really am. I have seen the inextinguishable love and light that exists inside and have also witnessed the habits of old that have kept those very same things dimmed from myself and the world.

I’ve come to understand why they exist.

I have wrestled with these serpents trying to get them under control. I have been drowned, defeated, abused and used by them. But in all of my failures to cast them out, I haven’t allowed them to make me quit, but rather bring forth even more resolve to finally get it right.

The quiet, the solitude…these places act as a mirror to who you really are.

The picture may not always be pretty, but if you allow them to show you the truth without shying away you will see who you could truly be.

They will make you appreciate the mud and the lotus.

As the months went by, I was afforded this opportunity to witness myself in the light of day. The fear, the grasping, the avoidance, the confusion…the stories that were rooted in this lifetime and lifetimes of old. I saw the deck that had been handed me…sought out The Wisemen and The Sages…and became determined to flip those cards.

What I am now, full of darkness and light, will not be the end of the story.

But rather, just the beginning.

The time that lay before me will be an eruption of metanoia.

To the skies witnessing me above…

See my devotion.

See me be.

-Evan Sanders

 

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Burning The Ships

I believe that there are certain times in life where you have to set ablaze any fallback plan you may have and devote yourself completely to moving forward with unfaltering resolve.

This unbending desire is the exact thing that actually helps you break through whatever affliction has its grasp on you.

For me, and for some time now, I’ve been holding a can of gasoline in my hand and a match…

…the only problem was is that I simply refused to light it.

When I really look back over the past couple of years, I see this battle going on.

One side didn’t want to let go of how things had been but another side pleaded for me to move forward no matter the hardships that may come my way.

Why?

Wisdom. Victory. Worth. Dreams.

All of these things are on the other side. All of these things exist in making that final decision to strike the match and lay it down upon the earth.

I had to put myself upon death ground and dive deep into my character to make it actually work.

I stalled. I stalled over and over again.

Some of it was for good reason. A lot of it wasn’t.

I stood there, holding that match in my hand and even as it burn straight down to my fingertips I just didn’t let go. There was this tension in finally letting go. There was this fear that if I did let go, things would be worse…not better.

But it’s a liar. A convincing liar yes…but a liar nonetheless.

I must because I can. 

I remember hearing that statement for the first time years and years ago. “Why must you do this? Because you can.”

We are all given these wonderful gifts that we are designed to bring to life. We can either hide in fear or we can allow ourselves to go through the process of growing and changing while we evoke them from the depths of our heart.

But they are ours and ours alone.

I don’t want to spend my life wondering what would have happened if I really went for it. I want to see what that will look like. I want to experience what is on the other side of this great bank of fog.

I have no idea what to expect. I truly don’t.

That’s me being incredibly honest.

But, there’s this massive pull to do it. Maybe that’s faith pulling at me again. Egging me on. Saying, “Let’s go kid…we got you.”

So I’m going to lay that match down…a bit tentatively

Fingers singed.

But ready.

Ready for whatever the hell comes my way.

That’s truly being alive.

-Evan Sanders

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What I Thought I Had Lost, I Found

I’ve been lost for quite some time.

Years. Decades.

Misled. Confused. Trapped. Hungry for shadows.

As lost as I have felt, I tread a specific path that brought me here. As painful as that path had been at times, it was also beautiful.

On that path however, I remained a slave to concepts, ideas, memories and feelings that I ended up realizing weren’t even my own. They were just, there. They weren’t me. They weren’t who I really was.

For reasons unknown at the time, I was driven into the mountains to wander amongst the trees and work out my own madness. The silence made me finally listen and helped me understand what was necessary to reclaim my soul.

I heard the whispers amongst the trees and felt the mountains ground me in truth.

And thus the transition began.

It wasn’t smooth.

Old pieces of me rebelled viciously. I fell under the control of bad habits, vowed to break them, valiantly attempted, sabotaged, failed, and rose time and time again. Never to quit. Never to lay down to die. Always to get back up no matter what and try time and time again.

I saw the potential of who I was deep down in my bones. I saw who I had been and how that kept me from being everything I was meant to be. I witnessed the broken thinking, the pain that still ran through my veins, the anger towards events that had happened in the past…

…and finally, I allowed myself to start to heal.

I have needed this time.

This time for me.

To be away from everyone and everything.

To mend the deep wounds of abandonment, betrayal and shame.

They drove me mad.

Hiking into the mountains became my daily pilgrimage towards my destiny.

I ran through things, the old and the new, and started to sort out this nest of my past. It was a mess. Months went by, multiple “ah-ha” moments arrived, and through the struggle…I have arrived here…far more clear than I have ever been.

Every once in a while, I come across a moment that is unlike any other. My future unfolds right before my eyes and the path illuminates.

I refused to answer the call time and time again.

I would put my toe in the water and change slowly in fear of what would happen if I just let go.

But my soul found its way.

It found its way back home again. It uprooted everything that needed to go and asked me to simple let it all slip right through my grasp.

So I have.

I’ve let go.

At times, my hands shake wanting to hold on.

But gently, patiently, I remind myself of who I really am.

What I thought I had lost, I finally found.

-Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project.

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Letting Go Of The Past

I think one of the coolest things about this life is the fact that your past loss doesn’t guarantee that you are going to lose again.

It’s just like in sports – your last at-bat doesn’t mean you’re going to strike out again. So the opportunity is when you lose in life…you have a failure…is just to simply learn from it.

You can see that as a crippling defeat that’s going to lead you into anger and bitterness and hatred and blah blah blah or you can see it as an opportunity for you to learn.

You can see it as, “Well that way didn’t work so that gets me one step closer towards my success” and you can see it in the optimistic light.

But that really comes down to your choice and there is no there is no guarantee that things will go the same that they did in the past when you failed. One of the guarantees is that if you keep on doing the same thing that didn’t work sure the past will be the same as the future…but that just comes with a general way of miss-perceiving things,

You need to look at things and you need to understand them. You need to learn from them. Wisdom truly is the application of what you know. “I know now for a fact that this does not work and I’m not going go down that direction ever again.”

But if you keep on pounding at the exact same way of doing things you’re going to get the exact same results and of course that’s going to be demoralizing.

So use your mind to understand – to look at what happened in the past – and to go, “Yeah that way didn’t really work and I’m going to apply a different strategy.

I’m going to do something completely different that’s going to give me different results. And if that doesn’t work I’m going to keep going until I find what clicks.”

It’s just the law of life that if you keep on putting effort into something eventually something is going to work for you. Something is going to stick for you.

There’s an old saying that says even a broken clock is right twice a day. Eventually something’s going to work. But if you get negative about it nothing is going to work for you. You’re just going to be in the same position over and over and over again.

So put in the effort. Put in the effort to look at your past. Look at it with understanding…to seek wisdom from it…remove judgment and continue moving forward with your life aiming at a specific goal or what you want for yourself and eventually something will pop for you.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

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Critical Thinking And Seeing Things As They Are

When you can being to develop a proper relationship with your mind and see things as they are and not the way you want them to be, you being to navigate life with much more skill.

One of the things that gets us into a lot of trouble is when we start trying to project onto something our own ideas of how it actually is. But the issue starts when the alignment of our own personal reality and the actual reality are off. They can be very different.

It doesn’t matter if it’s in relationships, your body, your career…these delusions can get you into a lot of trouble. Not seeing things as they actually are can send you on a very long and painful path. Don’t dive into those delusions.

When you can start to see things very very clearly you get less emotionally involved and unhealthily attached and you can have a right sense of thinking about it. You can look at what’s in front of you and go…

This is the way that it is and it’s aligned with truth.

This is aligned with how it’s actually existing. 

When you are aligned with this, you are going to make very good and strategic decisions for yourself and for others. This is why you want to see things as they are and not the way you want them to be.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

 

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Bite Sized Goal Setting Theory

I want to talk to you about an aspect of goal-setting today that often gets overlooked and is really really really effective in helping you achieve your goals.

So everyone talks about SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-oriented goals – but I have another little kind of goal-setting secret I think really is going to help you and it’s going to allow you to take your goal-setting to the next level.

I want you to begin viewing these goals as almost like a warlike scenario. I have a campaign at the end and in order to achieve the campaign I have to have milestones along the way and I have to take recognition of all of the things that I have in this moment…what I’m capable of putting forward in terms of effort…and then you have to be able to go day by day by day by day by day by day in breaking down your goals.

If you can take your end goal and bring it all the way down to day by day actions you’re going to massively increase your chances of becoming successful.

Crank it all the way down to what you have to do – day-by-day daily task lists – and by the end of 30 days or 60 days or 90 days you’re going to be on point because you took the time to take this goal at point Z and bring it all the way back to point A.

That’s gonna pay off huge. The other reason why it pays off huge is mentally. Mentally you can have a goal of needing to lose…let’s say 30 pounds and if you’re going to lose one to two pounds a week… you know that’s 15 weeks total.

Now, the tactical side of goal-setting is answering the question, “What do I need to do every single day to ensure that I am going to be able to lose that amount of weight by 15 weeks?

Knowing that it’s one to two pounds and maybe I shed a little bit more or a little bit less here and there right there’s some margin for error, there’s some leeway, how can I make sure that this is a 100% success?”

Breaking things down into bite sized chunks allows you to make the task a whole lot less daunting.

You know exactly what it’s going to take and what things you have to do on the daily to make your end goal a success.

This will also make sure that you don’t get distracted on your path by other things that you may or may not think you have to do.

If you have a big goal, break it down into tasks. Put it down into manageable pieces and you will see your success rate go way up!

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

A Life Changing Social Anxiety Hack

So I have a little tip for everyone who has a little bit of social anxiety and has trouble making friends and connecting with other people and this one’s really gonna help you.

This will actually helped me a bunch because I’m a natural introvert but let me drop it on you. Instead of trying to figure out “Oh my god what am I gonna say right that’s going to make this other person like me…that they’re gonna see me in a good light?” and paralyzing yourself with not knowing what to say or not knowing what to do because you’re focusing so much on yourself…

Focus all of your energy on learning who that person is across from you.

Get fascinated with who they are. Se them as a mystery…this thing that you have to unfold and learn about and ask questions and and really discover what it is about that person that makes them tick!

When you become genuinely fascinated with another person and who they are and their past history, you’re going to start a conversation and you’re going to start building a relationship – one where they go “Wow this person is genuinely really interested in me…I wonder what it is about them too that’s also interesting?”

They’re also going to think you’re an unbelievable listener as they go on and talk about themselves and talk about their life and the memories that they have. people genuinely really love to talk about themselves.

So if you can take your focus off of you and being self conscious about not knowing what to say versus really wanting to learn about the person across from you, you are going to see a major major major shift in your relationships.

So you have to direct the focus from you to them. Learn who they are. Learn what makes them tick. See how many questions you can ask. Make it authentic of course. You don’t want to be just like a robot with it but really just go “Like I wonder who that person is?”

Naturally in turn you’re going to start a conversation and build a relationship that’s going grow like crazy.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

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THE PATH OF SPIRITUAL HEALING AND WORKING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN

Everyone is looking for ways to heal their pain or to solve their problems and most of the time the way that they actually do that is by avoiding it.

“Right! Well maybe if I just avoid it it’ll go away?!”

The problem is, it never goes away. Even if you think it has gone away, it’s probably manifested somewhere in your spirit or in your emotions or your thinking or in your body. You never get rid of it until you begin to face it…until you turn into it and you understand…

What has caused this… what has allowed this suffering is pain to arise…and then when you come to that “ah-hah” moment – that insight of “Wow okay this is how it has come about” – then you can begin to heal.

Then you begin to nourish. Then you begin to transform. Then you begin to take that thing that was so solid and that was so painful in your life and you begin to dissolve the layers of it…and eventually if you bring enough love and you bring enough understanding to that thing that was so painful…it begins to disappear

But you have to face it.

When you’re constantly avoiding these things or you’re grasping onto the past and you refuse to let go or you’re telling yourself delusionally…

“Oh it was this and it really was something else” you’re going to allow for that suffering that pain to perpetuate… to keep on going and going and going and going and to bring forth more pain and more suffering.

But when you face it truly with the eye of wisdom and insight you will be able to change it and shift it and morph it and work with it.

It takes practice and you have to arrive to that suffering with a sense of love and compassion versus hating it and avoiding it.

If you judge it, it will get worse.

But if you begin to love it… you begin to turn into that suffering… it will change and shift. So give it a shot.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

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