Evan Sanders's Blog, page 39

12 Quotes Of Encouragement For Trying Times In Life

12 Quotes Of Encouragement For Trying Times In Life

There are always going to be trying times in life. Times when you are put to the test and when you really need to come through.

Dive into these 12 quotes of encouragement to keep you going no matter how hard things get. I’m sure you’ll find something you like.

You stand there, vulnerable, naked, with your mask in your hand saying…”Here I am. Flaws and all. Love me for it.”

Your flaws are a beautiful thing. They make you human. They make you special. If we could all learn to love ourselves for our imperfections, we would be a lot happier in life.

When it really comes down to it, we are shaping ourselves each and every day. If we have an end vision, we can create that through daily actions and positive intent. That’s what magic is made of.

 

Do it. Your future self will thank you later.

Dive into what scares you. Dive into what makes you tremble with fear. Courage is action in the presence of fear. Those moments of not being able to move don’t have to be your final moments.

You can move forward. You can continue on. You can be brave.

You are all of these things and more

58 Beautiful Strong Women Quotes

58 Beautiful Strong Women Quotes

Women are beautiful. Women are strong. Women make this world run in such a beautiful way. Without them, everything would probably fall apart. Dive into these 58 amazing strong women quotes and see what some of the world’s most famous women have to say in regards to motivation and life.

“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” | Helen Keller

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.” | Margaret Thatcher

“We are stronger than we’ve credited ourselves to be. We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.” | Lauren DeStefano

“Women have got to make the world safe for men since men have made it so darned unsafe for women.” | Nancy Astor

“Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That’s what music is to me.” |  Janis Joplin

“Whatever you do, be different – that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.” | Anita Roddick

“A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.” | Madonna

“A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” |  Eleanor Roosevelt

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” |  Maya Angelou

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” |  Anais Nin

 

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.” | Mother Teresa

“Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.” | J. K. Rowling

“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.” | Oprah Winfrey

“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.” |  Susan B. Anthony

“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.” | Oprah Winfrey

“I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” |  Eleanor Roosevelt

“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” | Diane Mariechild

“Just watch, all of you men. I’ll show you what a woman can do…I’ll go across the country, I’ll race to the Moon… I’ll never look back.” | Edna Gardner Whyte

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” |  Katharine Hepburn

“If you don’t like being a doormat then get off the floor.” | Anon

If anyone ever boos you off stage, that is simply applause from ghosts. | Sharon Needles

“A strong woman understands that the gifts such as logic, decisiveness, and strength are just as feminine as intuition and emotional connection. She values and uses all of her gifts.” | Nancy Rathburn

“The best protection any woman can have … is courage.” |  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“Success breeds confidence.” | Beryl Markham

“The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world see us and how we see ourselves successfully acknowledged by the world.” | Arlene Rankin

“We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.” | Marie Curie

“People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me.” | Princess Diana

“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.” | Rosalynn Carter

“I believe in strong women. I believe in the woman who is able to stand up for herself. I believe in the woman who doesn’t need to hide behind her husband’s back. I believe that if you have problems, as a woman you deal with them, you don’t play victim, you don’t make yourself look pitiful, you don’t point fingers. You stand and you deal. You face the world with a head held high and you carry the universe in your heart.” | C. JoyBell C.

“With the spread of conformity and image-driven superficiality, the allure of an individuated woman in full possession of herself and her powers will prove irresistible. We were born for plenitude and inner fulfillment.” | Elizabeth Prioleau

“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.” |  Charlotte Whitton

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” | Maya Angelou

“One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.” | Virginia Woolf

 

“Women are never stronger than when they arm themselves with their weaknesses.” |  Madame Marie du Deffand

“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you.” | Caroline Myss

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” |  Helen Keller

Life’s too short to bullshit. | Naomi Campbell

“A strong woman builds her own world. She is one who is wise enough to know that it will attract the man she will gladly share it with.” | Ellen J. Barrier

“She didn’t struggle and so she didn’t grow” | Paulo Coelho

“The king may rule the kingdom, but it’s the queen who moves the board.” | D.M. Timney

“Beautiful princesses and beautiful, strong queens are brainwashed into thinking ho’s and B****’s are virtuous titles.” | Delano Johnson

“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.” | Ruth Gordon

“One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go.” | Sheila Murray Bethel

“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” | Elizabeth Gilbert

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.” | J. K. Rowling

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. | Marilyn Monroe

If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? | RuPaul

If you have something about yourself that’s different, you’re lucky. It’s not a curse. | Taylor Swift

“You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.” | Marsha Evans

“Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.” | Rosalind Russell

I embrace mistakes, they make you who you are. | Beyoncé

“Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.” | Margaret Sanger

 

 

“You know your testimony is strong when your roots are so deep that other people’s storms will never knock you over.” | Shannon L. Alder

“Dignity will only happen when you realize that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth.” | Shannon L. Alder

“Strong women need not declare they can carry all the burdens in life. They just quietly do it and survive with a smile.” | Princess Maleiha Bajunaid Candao

 

“On the left side of a strong woman, stands a strong man; he is strengthened by her character.” | Ellen J. Barrier

“Spirit over mind. Mind over matter. It’s that simple” | Sahndra Fon Dufe

“The woman must be restored to her rightful place, as the strong, loving maternal leader of peace and reason.” | Bryant McGill

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The Gift Of Suffering: It’s Probably Not What You Think

If it wasn’t for the darkness, we wouldn’t appreciate the light.

Suffering is a gift.

Before you scoff and avoid this blog, like the other things you probably treat in the same way, I want you to hear me for a moment and try to suspend your disbelief. If you can do that, you may see that there’s something about the darkness that can make you come alive.

There’s something more to suffering than just suffering itself.

It’s something that we all share. It’s something that no one is immune to and it comes in many different forms for each person. But we all experience it. We all go through it…and as we are all breathing life into this world we are all weeping in one way or another.

Many try to escape it.

They do anything and everything possible to fill the holes in their soul instead of face grim realities and this only makes the suffering worse. Because once those holes can no longer be filled we end up realizing that the holes are still there. In reading many confessions that are made in the last moments of life..there seems to be one common thread amongst those in a great deal of pain.

Regret.

Regret that they didn’t actually follow their dreams, speak their heart, do what they always wanted to do or lived a life that they thought they had to live because they were told that was the way they were supposed to do it. And in those final moments of life, they are stung by the deep pain of regret and pass on only knowing a fraction of what they were capable of.

And yet, why does regret come about? Primarily fear. Fear that if you do follow your dreams, speak your heart, travel a new path…that it won’t work out or that it will fall apart in some way. So instead of actually making the effort we numb ourselves to the point where we don’t actually live a life at all.

And where does the suffering part come in?

We avoid the darkness, the pain, the suffering that naturally comes along with living  because we are scared of it. And, to be honest, for a very good reason. It hurts. These pains seemingly tear us to pieces and sheer so deep within our hearts that we never want to feel that type of pain again.

So we run like hell. We run away from that feeling and construct walls to protect ourselves from it ever getting in. But it always does. Because no matter how clever we are in our ability to try to protect ourselves, life has a wonderful way of giving you exactly what you need.

Maybe not what you want.

But what you need.

And sometimes, we need to be broken down to pieces in order to understand what it is to build ourselves back from nothing.

The benefit of falling flat on your back, broken, with nothing left in your life is that you get to understand what it means to create a foundation. Ground 0 is the place where you begin building something new. But there’s a decision there. One that is beyond empowering if you actually make it.

The decision to start anew…even if you have fallen as far into the depths as you can possibly imagine.

In this place, you will suffer. All too many times do I remember starting from what seemed like the pitch black and not being able to see any way out. Everything hurt. Everything was an absolute struggle. Every single day I wanted to hide away because I was embarrassed of myself and who I had become.

But in that place, I had a vision of what I wanted to see on the way out and struggled endlessly until those things started to come to light. Some of these things took years to take shape. One took 15 years. But there was a belief – even though that belief was challenged ruthlessly at times – that flowed through my veins and I tried and tried again.

Failure lives in this place.

A failure the size of a thousand lifetimes.

Another decision is to be made – to welcome failure into your life as a way of removing the ways that things “do not work,” getting you one step closer to something that will.

So you fail and fail again and again until something finally clicks. Because there is no other option really. There’s no quit – you’re already in the dark – and since you have that small vision of what is possible for you there’s never really an option to completely give up.

There’s only up. Only up from where you started.

So you continue to climb.

But the real gift of suffering comes from a way of being when you are in this place of darkness that is not really ever talked about in the mainstream.

You get shaped, pounded, molded, destroyed and forged into something that can withstand anything. And on this journey out of the black, you become something that can handle anything. Suffering strengthens you. I never said it feels good, but it viciously pounds you with perspective until you are able to see a different way. You are able to see that everyone in this world is fighting some sort of battle and out of this suffering comes something else…

Compassion.

Compassion…the ability to “be with” anything.

The greatest gift of horrible suffering with a will to be resilient is that you birth one of the most beautiful qualities of all…compassion.

And your compassion will change the world.

So if you are suffering, try to see it this way. Of course there’s pain. Of course you are hurting badly. Allow others to hold you when you need to be held. But never quit. Because the suffering will pass no matter how bad it is. And from that place, if you allow the seed to grow in the darkness, you will birth a strength and a compassion that will help set others free from their suffering.

-Evan Sanders

P.S. I have 3 spots left in my email coaching program before the price goes back up by double. The program gives you access to your own certified life coach – me – 7 days a week for a steal of a price. If you want some more information about it please click the following link http://619.be/EmailCoachingBMP or the picture below and sign up.

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From The Dirt, We Must All Grow

For a long time, it was hard to see clearly.

There was a dense fog that seemed to cover everything. And even for a bit, I was completely lost. Somewhere along the way I had to travel down a path for a very good reason…however that left me in a very troubling place that I didn’t really want to be. I never would have decided to travel down that path unless it was completely necessary…

But I had to nonetheless.

When the smoke cleared from that place, I found myself wandering around in the dark. A darkness left after I helped a young man in the most dire of circumstances. Blackness as thick as molasses. I had sacrificed pieces of my life in order to bring a light to all of it but it left me feeling ashy and torched in many ways.

I had lost my way…a sacrifice I would make time and time again…but I lost touch with some parts of me that didn’t seem to come back until recently.

This isn’t to say that there wasn’t any gain coming from that place – my perspective shifted on problems in life that truly mattered. My confidence in my ability to face this darkness bloomed and I was left a better person for it. But this blackness…it stayed with me until it finally drew itself out of me drip by drip.

I’m not sure what changed.

Maybe it was time? Maybe it was space? Maybe it was my willingness to stay with that feeling for as long as I had to until it decided to wander away from me?

I might never know. But what I do know is how things have changed in me since that time – one of the most trying times of my life riddled with moments I couldn’t possibly forget.

And yet here I am, finding my seat on the kitchen floor again with my laptop, ready to start something again with the same energy as when I started all of this in the first place.

The interesting thing about getting lost is that you often find out more about yourself than when you are on a path you’ve groomed for yourself. I asked many questions during that time…and discovered many answers. Sure they didn’t all come at once but eventually they did arrive.

It was belief that kept my glued together. A belief that no matter what was happening, that eventually light would shine through. The circumstances at play were not the end game. I had to keep telling myself that over and over again.

And then one day I just woke up and it seemed to all be gone.

I felt like a big weight had been lifted off of my shoulders…and with the events that happened throughout those months after this feeling of weightlessness grew upon me even more. I began to breathe again – something that I felt like I hadn’t done in a very long time.

This chapter of my life is a very interesting one. One that has had a very long lead up into this moment sitting here. For a while I have been struggling with staying on course with things because I have truly been exhausted. Exhausted at the idea of doing certain things and not finding the same passion in me to move forward as I once had. There has never been a shortage of enthusiasm in this heart…and yet for a while it seemed to turn itself down a few notches.

I was left to work with a slow burn and found the value in that leading my life.

But while reflecting upon what is coming my way and what I have set out to do in this world, I have opened up the lines of communication between whatever is and myself even more and sought more guidance without a deliberate need for answers. Just trust. Just a knowing that I’m being taken care of in one way or another and that all of this will one day make perfect sense.

I referred to the energy that started The Better Man Project 5+ years ago a bit earlier and what I mean by that is my commitment to writing. I spent such a great deal of time building other skills I forgot about what really makes me tick inside. I forgot about why writing was so important to me. When it really comes down to it, it’s a time for me every single day to sit down and reflect upon what’s happening in my life right now.

And there’s a lot.

A lot that strikes me every single day.

So if I sat here and really thought about what’s going on in my life right now, I would think about the adventures ahead – the great moments of exploration and discovery – the blooming of my creativity and what I am capable of – the opening of doorways to people of the past and the future and the willingness to accept everything that walks through that door with positive intentions – and the blossoming of a business that I built with my own two hands.

All of those things are amazing things and yet there are a few things on my mind now more than ever.

Those things, I will keep close to my heart for now…but they have made me sit back and wonder during the evenings the perfect display of timing. A timing that is reflected in “not what you want” but what you “need.” That’s a truth that is very very difficult to disagree with.

I’ve never been much of a believer in fate. I don’t believe that things are set out on a path for us and no matter what we do we are destined to see a specific thing through. But I do believe in putting in the work – in whatever stream of life you want to apply that to – and as a result of movement we put ourselves in the way of specific types of opportunities.

But without that movement our lives become a stagnant breeding ground for fear and other negative pestilences.

I have been moving. Moving from an interesting chapter of my life into an even more interesting one. I’ve hatched ideas and wonderful intentions that have finally been backed up in significant displays of action. Did I ever think that I would be where I am right now? No. Is all of this okay with me? Absolutely.

This part of my story – a story that I know will become the bedrock for my success in the future – is a beautifully complicated and absolutely perfect mess. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It has brought the best out in me…and for that I am incredibly thankful.

-Evan Sanders

P.S. I have 3 spots left in my email coaching program before the price goes back up by double. The program gives you access to your own certified life coach – me – 7 days a week for a steal of a price. If you want some more information about it please click the following link http://619.be/EmailCoachingBMP or the picture below and sign up.

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Moments You Never Want To Change

There are these little moments that aren’t so little at all.

Passing words, broken silences, quick glances and fleeting smiles.

Moments to a racing eye that wouldn’t even register…but to a calmer soul would impact it in ways that are incomprehensible.

These little moments, that aren’t so little at all, are the moments I’ve started to live for. It seems just a short time ago it was only something grandiose that could attract my attention, but as time has gone on, I have lived for the seemingly insignificant things that many don’t even pay attention to…

And those things mean the world to me.

A kind word.

A gesture.

An action without words to curb it’s driven purpose.

Beautiful. All of it beautiful. Living this way has changed me in ways that I haven’t been able to truly grasp yet. I don’t have to look at the bigger picture to find my gratitude, but rather can have a moment sitting in bed thinking about the day and just have a smile across my face.

No nerves. No anxiousness. Just a feeling of what is right.

There’s a trust there that didn’t exist in me before. I never used to  trust my intuition and now I purely am guided by it. Never really questioning why I am doing something the way I am doing it because I know it’s the right thing to do.

Never questioning the timing of things because I know that’s exactly how they are supposed to happen.

And with this trust comes a deep sense of faith. Faith that I am on the right path and that at the things that are coming across this path I walk are perfect for me in every single way – no matter how difficult they may be at times.

There’s something to be said for being right here…and enjoying that single moment…a moment that had been building for quite some time…and understanding that even if it ended right there…it would be perfect.

There’s nothing more to add to it. There’s nothing you had to subtract from it. Rather…you can just let it unfold as it is, just like a flower opening up to the sun, and there wouldn’t be a single thing you would need to change.

Today, was many things.

Today warmed my heart in many ways.

-Evan Sanders

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43 Perfect Letting Go Quotes For Moving On

 
43 Perfect Letting Go Quotes For Moving On

You have to let go.

You can’t continue holding onto things in the past – whatever they may be – because you think that things won’t be better in the future. The truth is, letting go is one of the hardest things in the world. But oh my is it worth it.

Because when you finally let go, you have the chance to live in the present moment – the only moment you truly have. So dive into these letting go quotes and move forward. Move on. Move into the future.

Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter. | Melissa Marr
But who can say what’s best? That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives. | Haruki Murakami
I guess that’s what saying good-bye is always like–like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you’re in the air, there’s nothing you can do but let go. | Lauren Oliver
Ghosts don’t haunt us. That’s not how it works. They’re present among us because we won’t let go of them. | Sue Grafton
In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go? | Gautama Buddha
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is. | Maxim Gorky
You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be. | Candace Bushnell
I have tried to let you go and I cannot. I cannot stop thinking of you. I cannot stop dreaming about you. | Erin Morgenstern
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure. | Stephen King
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free. | Thich Nhat Hanh
At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you. | Elizabeth Gilbert
Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it. | David Foster Wallace
I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. | Marilyn Monroe
We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better. | C. JoyBell C.
If you didn’t love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go. | Sarah Dessen
Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it’s the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open. | Gayle Forman
“Was it hard?” I ask. Letting go?” Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn’t real. | Lisa Schroeder
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.  | Oprah Winfrey
Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on. | Eckhart Tolle
In the end you can’t always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go. | Ally Condie
It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it’s so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn’t coma back. You’re left so alone that you can’t explain. Damn, there’s nothing like that, is there? I’ve been there and you have too. You’re nodding your head. | Henry Rollins
Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it. | Ann Landers
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. | Lao Tzu
We are the choices we make. | Patrick Ness
The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward. | Steve Maraboli
Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over. | Nicole Sobon
We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it. | Rainer Maria Rilke
So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go! | Jonathan Safran Foer
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were. | Kahlil Gibran
Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go. | Hermann Hesse
Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking. | Patrick Ness
If you love something so much let it go. If it comes back it was meant to be; if it doesn’t it never was. | Albert Schweitzer
If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate. | C. JoyBell C.
Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past. | Dan Brown
One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too. | Friedrich Nietzsche
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. | Thich Nhat Hanh
You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life. | Joel Osteen
This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends – they’ll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, somg go. The ones that stay with you through everything – they’re your true best friends. Don’t let go of them. | Marilyn Monroe
Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. | Ray Bradbury
It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. | Yann Martel
Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself. | Deborah Reber
I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. | Chuck Palahniuk
Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing. | Brian L. Weiss
Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss. | Meghan O’Rourke

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Risk It All: A Short Story On The Art Of The Comeback

Knocked down.

I’ve been there. I think we all have. Sometimes I shook when I tried to rise again – scared, afraid, wondering if I would be able to face what was in front of me. I would tremble wondering if it was possible for me to face another setback.

This story existed for quite some time. And yet, because of the fear of getting knocked down again…

It would inevitably happen.

Not because of life just doing its thing. Trust me – it will boot you it sees fit. Instead, this was being knocked down because of playing it safe.

Whenever you are too timid, you end up messing everything up anyways.

There’s nothing wrong with understanding the situation, the risks and rewards associated with it and doing your legwork before you head into something. But when you are going to go for it…you really have to go for it. Life doesn’t reward those who sit around playing it safe too afraid to go after what they want.

No…

The rewards are given to those who take the biggest risks and throw themselves into something time and time again with the belief that they will eventually accomplish it…no matter how many times they have failed.

Risk it all.

Because it’s in the risk that you truly come alive.

When you step into your greatest fears you end up realizing that there was nothing to really be afraid of in the first place. It was all shadows dancing around your mind. It was fear shaking in its own boots because it witnessed itself. I’ve never really been scared of a legitimate threat…most of the time it’s something that I’ve completed conceited in my own mind.

That’s where you lose the war.

In your mind.

Because if any negativity or fear can beat you in your mind, you’re done. You’re body won’t be able to do anything and you will live in a cage that you’ve only built for yourself. No one is holding you back from doing what you want to do or being who you want to be…

It’s your own thoughts about the world and about yourself that have you caged up and suffering.

Risk.

The opportunity to go for it or to play it safe.

And that’s the ultimate struggle isn’t it? Because we’ve all risked before. We’ve all gone for it and got completely burned and destroyed. But what in the world makes you think that you were going to get it right the first time you did it? I mean please…

When have you ever done something completely perfect the first time you did it?

So why is there this “it has to work out” expectation around everything?” There’s nothing you can really do to control the outcome that lives completely in the unknown. Nothing at all.

The only thing you can do is challenge yourself to give your absolute best effort and know that you will continue trying until it really does come together. You will know the moment it clicks. You will know when it all comes together and when you still have work to do.

The challenge is the thing that should motivate you to continue working hard.

The space in between where you are and where you truly want to be in the end is something that should motivate you…not discourage you.

But you’re not going to get there by just putting your toe in the water.

You have to dive in.

You have to work for it.

Sweat for it.

Dream about it.

And continue the journey until you reach an end that you have absolutely no idea what it will exactly look like or what it will be like. But you can fully trust that you will have the right feeling when you arrive.

Faith. Persistence. Risk.

This is your life. You only have one. You should go for it.

-Evan Sanders

P.S. I have 3 spots left in my email coaching program before the price goes back up by double. The program gives you access to your own certified life coach – me – 7 days a week for a steal of a price. If you want some more information about it please click the following link http://619.be/EmailCoachingBMP or the picture below and sign up.

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These Memories In The Night

Everything has changed.

And yet, there are still things that remain the same. These memories, they come back to me throughout the night and there I sit, reliving every single moment in full color as if I was sitting in an old theater watching a show.

They unfold constantly. One moment they are there are the next they are gone as quick as the wind could take them. But when they are there, they wrap my mind in emotion and refuse to let me distract myself.

So I let them take me.

They take me to places of the past. Words. Thoughts. Feelings. Moments.

These are the memories in the night.

I never ask much anymore why they come to me. I used to. I used to wonder because I never gave them the viewing they always deserved. I would try to escape them…bury them…burn them…and yet time and time again they would come back to haunt a soul that was always running away.

But when I stopped running, nothing could chase me.

I had nothing to hide from. I had nothing to truly fear anymore. I was who I was and refused to be anything but that.

And over time, as those memories came back to me in the night, I would just let them be. I let them dance around in my mind and make me smile or allow the water to well in my eyes.

Either was acceptable.

There was no just feeling one way anymore. A numbness that ruled my life was gone – it was only “all or nothing now.” And nothing wasn’t really much of an option.

As beautiful as those memories are and as painful as some may be…I understand them now. They want a little bit of attention because there’s something deep inside that needs to be heard – felt – loved.

So I allow for it. A gentle hand upon a soul that had been badly beaten for years. A young man relearning how to do everything but in a much softer way. Someone who finally realized just how much strength there is in the fluidity of life and middle ground.

I was unlearning everything I had ever been taught.

I was getting lost.

Truly lost.

And finding home within myself.

-Evan Sanders

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When You Break To Build

Listen to your thoughts, emotions and feelings. Hear what they have to say.

What are they telling you when they aren’t controlling you? What do the deep beckoning messages chatter in your heart? Are they telling you which way to go? Are they telling you to head in the other direction? Can you really listen to them despite the troubled relationship you’ve had with them in the past?

As time has gone on, there’s been a much healthier relationship with emotions developing.

I can work with the blackness. Listen to the messages forged in the dark and maintain my light despite their ever consuming nature.

I can feel them. Feel everything about them – the troubling thoughts and the brighter memories. They used to run my entire life. The past would unravel itself in my mind day after day revealing to me things that would spark memories…only to render me useless in this moment.

But not anymore.

I’ve learned to let go of those moments, after they arrive.

I’ve learned to heal the things in me that were always begging for my attention.

But I had to go through hell to get there. Dragged through pain in order to prove that I still believe in the brighter sides of life. I can see how it all connects now. If I had the choice to do it all over again, as tentative as I would be, I would. It brought me here.

It brought me to the place where my heart has truly let go of many different things and let me be excited about what’s here again. And the future, as much as I don’t live there anymore…I have that spark of excitement about what’s possible.

Yes, the future. I am looking forward to you again.

I have often believe that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but rather, you are the light.

Yet at times, it’s hard to even see the light you produce on your own. It can get so black at times that it seems to snuff out anything you are trying to create. I’ve been there. I’ve been through that many times and I am sure I will go through it many times more.

This is a reality that I have come to accept time and time again and know that it’s part of how I grow as a human being.

Because as much as I love the times of grace and peace, I know that I have developed and grown significantly more from the times I have been through the worst of it. It’s not exactly something I look forward to, but at the same time I don’t push it away.

There’s something to be said for being in moments that test you beyond belief.

I really know, and can go back to blogs from a long while ago, that I didn’t have the confidence behind me to be able to understand that I would get through these moments. It was always an uncertainty. However, as I have gained more and more momentum and refused to fall apart in these moments, I know that no matter what I will be able to get out on the other side.

This life has been challenging it its own ways.

But that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to grind you, tear you apart, put you back together and do it all over again for eternity. That’s how you become something truly remarkable. That’s how you become everything you were ever meant to be.

Most refuse to engage in life because the tearing apart feels awful. But when you get put back together again…there’s something about that feeling of coming back with a stronger and stronger foundation.

You break to build.

And for the brave, you do it again and again.

Heading back into the ring for one more fight just after the previous one almost caused you to not get back up.

Because you know, without a doubt, that something great will come from the challenge and the struggle.

So keep getting back up. No matter what. One more round. One more fight.

-Evan Sanders

P.S. I have 3 spots left in my email coaching program before the price goes back up by double. The program gives you access to your own certified life coach – me – 7 days a week for a steal of a price. If you want some more information about it please click the following link http://619.be/EmailCoachingBMP or the picture below and sign up.

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This Was His Masterpiece

One moment.

A single moment.

A choice. A decision. And in that decision, everything shifts.

The truth is, for the longest time I felt stuck, stagnant, trapped in something I couldn’t quite understand. But the other day it struck me – I had been putting off my masterpiece for quite some time.

Now you may ask, “What is this masterpiece you speak of?”

My masterpiece…be it far from perfect, is living the type of life that I absolutely love living. The expression. The art. The writing. The risk.

But after I had been beaten down by life, I had lost a bit of that fire. That “want” to put everything out there and to just go for it. My edge was dulled. And because of that, I held back more and more and procrastinated on what I knew was the absolute right thing for me to be doing.

I think we’ve all been there…

Putting off our deepest sense of fulfillment.

But for what? What is even a decent justification for allow ourselves to hollow our souls out through inaction?

Nothing.

Nothing worth anything really.

But struggle I did. However, there was a strong settling of the ashes that had been shot up into the sky from earlier times. I remembered who I was. I reconnected with what was most important to me and I healed pieces that hurt dearly.

Piece that till this day I will probably never understand how they got that way…but that’s okay. I don’t need to know. Because I already know.

Once in every great while, there are huge events in your life that somehow change you down to your foundation. You may know what they are in the moment or you may understand months to years later.

I have come to understand this past time as something I needed to really allow myself to take the next step into the fear and continue moving forward no matter what.

I have been afraid.

I’ve been very very afraid.

That fear has paralyzed me time and again from moving into what I know I have been put on this planet to do. And yet, as any athlete knows…it’s not how you start the game, but it’s about how you finish.

My procrastination has ended. I’ve found what I really want to do for this next piece, a realization that had the magnitude of starting this entire project in the first place, and feel completely comfortable heading into the unknown with it.

I have absolutely no idea what is coming for me, but I do know who I am deep down to my core. I know what I am meant to be doing.

I’m doing that once again.

The writing is pouring out.

The work feels like play again.

The fog…while scary at times…is encouraging me more than frightening me.

It’s a new day. It’s a new time.

-Evan Sanders

P.S. I have 8 spots left in my email coaching program before the price goes back up by double. The program gives you access to your own certified life coach – me – 7 days a week for a steal of a price. If you want some more information about it please click the following link http://619.be/EmailCoachingBMP or the picture below and sign up.

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