Evan Sanders's Blog, page 46

Beaten To Hell, The Captain Bleeds

‘Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice.’

The Captain murmured repeatedly walking along the decks of the burning ship. Bottle in hand. Bloodied from life. The stench of dark memories burning along with the ship.

‘Sacrifice.’

He stumbled and fell being brought down to his knees. His knees were skinned from the weeks of hell brought forth by the raging ocean. A hell that tried to break him but only leaving him with dents.

He couldn’t be broken.

But oh did they really give it a good try. In their anger they set aflame to his ship sending his men into the lifeboats begging for him to dive overboard.

He just chuckled as he continued to walk amongst the engulfed timbers and sales.

‘No old ways eh? Ahh and yet how could you possibly see this coming? That’s right young man…you couldn’t have. Let it burn. Let it burn down into the depths of the ocean.’

The Captain took a moment to reflect on what had happened…a slew of delightfully catastrophic situations came his way to bring him down to the depths as well but he stood in his flames. He made decisions that would have destroyed him years ago. He knew what was best and let nothing tear away his heart from his knowing despite the great Mystery.

But he never knew the consequences of living in this role.

He never knew that at the end of the day there was nothing to put his back upon but himself. He couldn’t trust someone else to make the decision for him because he was the only one to make the decision.

With those decisions, if made with heart, he would begin to trust himself and live with the pain of growth rather than regret.

Never again would he live in regret. Never again would he wonder what could have happened if he trusted himself.

But the pains…oh the pains.

The pains of standing up to fear and walking those decks naked and vulnerable willing to be tested by life time after time.

He never knew those pains in this way.

Now, he knew. He knew better than most.

He knew the pains of putting himself in the wrong hands, a pain that he would never feel again. He didn’t belong to anyone now, but to the hands of the heavens themselves.

Out of the dark of the night and the flames of the ship came that Dark Wolf once again.

Seething at the jaws to feed off of the Captain’s fear.

But soon he turned his back because he realized there was nothing there for him to feed off. The Captain had embraced the Dark Wolf at last understanding that it was indeed the mud that made the lotus, and the lotus that needed the mud.

To a few looking upon the ship, seeing the Captain walk its boards melting under the fire, they believed he may have lost his mind. But to those who knew him intimately, a very small group amongst many, they knew he had come to terms with everything.

They knew he wasn’t burning down.

But that he was going through a reformation. They knew that he was blooming with redemption.

It was never the Captain’s intention to end this passage this way…walking amongst the burning vessel that brought him to this place. However, he knew better than most that you never could really see what was far down the line or how things were going to play out…you just had to embrace what was going on in the moment.

So for what some saw as a bit of madness, the Captain saw it as being truly alive.

There was something masochistic about his relationship with the darkness.

The mixing black colors in his soul.

He knew that every single time he entered that place, being battered down and beaten nearly to death by life, that something good was coming. Smiling with blood in his mouth he spit it out onto the deck and asked for more if it so dared.

The heavens saw that he had enough.

That his floor drenched with tears and the searing scars across his body had taught him enough for now.

So it began to rain.

And those flames that were scorching his ship were put out. The men who escaped from the wreck returned and he looked at them with a glint in his eye and an intensity that had been birthed from the raging fires of hell itself…

We go on men.

What’s in the past is gone. What’s in the future no longer concerns me.

Minute by minute.

This is the only time we have.

-Evan Sanders

Redemption

It’s never too late.

It’s never too late to start over. This isn’t a comeback story…because this story doesn’t end. This story has no “I made it” because there’s nothing to grasp onto.

All of that has been given up.

This is a story of being able and willing to start over, every single day if need be, and to try and try again no matter how many times you have tried before.

This is your redemption…

And your redemption comes every single day.

Time and time again I have looked at my life and knew I needed a fresh start. I needed to let things go and move forward. I’ve done this…what feels like…countless times and it has been at the core of who I am.

You can’t take me back to the man I was 5 years ago…I can’t go back. Not because I wouldn’t recognize him (I would) but because everything has changed so much my mind couldn’t go back to where it was back then.

You don’t have to be afraid of change.

Sometimes the changes that happen in our lives are completely unexpected.

But isn’t that the word right there…expected.

We put ourselves in grave danger when we have expectations of other people, our futures, how things are supposed to go…

Shakespeare himself said, “Expectation is the root of all heartache.”

And I think he really has a point there.

Once you expect something to go some way…and it doesn’t…your heart breaks in a way.

But throw away all your expectations and live a life full of faith…you will be constantly surprised.

You will be in this wonderful display of magic because absolutely anything is possible. Truly…

If you toss away what you think is going to happen…anything can happen. What a wonderful world to live in…a world that can knock your socks off at any moment. A world where you can give up your shallow thoughts of what will happen in the future and live in a way where you are open to anything and everything happen.

No walls live there.

Not a single wall.

So my challenge to you is to throw away your expectations of what is going to happen and be open to it all. Be open to people coming back in your life. Be open to people exiting your life. Be open to your dreams coming true and be open to having challenges continuously thrown your way because they are grooming you into the person you are supposed to become.

It’s a different way of living.

But you truly live for once.

Evan Sanders

[NOTE: Time to make a change? I have created a FREE life coaching training program called the 9 Secrets To A Good Life that has officially launched! If you want to be part of this training please take a second to sign up by clicking here or on the picture below!]

What I Was Seeking, Was Also Seeking Me

It was looking for me the entire time I was looking for it.

All that I was seeking…was also seeking me.

When I opened myself to “not knowing” I expanded my world a million times over.

Because it was in the creation of plans far into an unknowable future that constricted all that was my life.

There’s no color there.

There’s no mystery there.

There’s only what you have tried to see and no room left for ambiguity.

A shallow life.

An untrusting life.

That life brought me to this place, but made a request of me a while ago to let everything go and run on faith.

Faith that I would be taken care of.

Faith that my wounds would be healed in time.

Faith that I was being looked over with a kind eye and that I would make the right decisions if I stayed true to what was in my heart.

For a long time I thought that I had to do this all by myself. I thought that I had to travel this path as the lone wolf and forge my way ahead.

What an exhausting life.

What a lonely life that was.

It was only until I let it all go…let go of that story of bounding alone into the wilderness that everything turned to color.

At times this path can be lonely, but that comes with the territory. What I have found however is that no matter how many patches of silence there are, there have been incredible treasures found along the way.

Some of those treasures are people. Some of those treasures are realizations about myself. Some gifts. Some straight magic.

But these treasures are to be found by me and to be cherished.

They are not treasures of monetary value…but treasures of life. Treasures that give life to me in a way that I could never pay for. The sense of family, knowing there are certain people who have my back no matter what and I would never doubt their loyalty to me.

They add so much to my life…

I couldn’t even begin to describe the reality of it all.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have struggled with all of this responsibility and pressure…

And in a way lost sight of what all of this was about.

It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not supposed to be hard. It just is what it is. The path I’m on is the perfect path for me and I have chosen to travel it.

I know that at any point I could decide to turn back and destroy all of this…but I couldn’t if you know what I mean.

Because that would destroy me. This path, and who I am, are one. We met 5 years ago and we will never split.

Because what I was seeking…was also seeking me.

We found each other.

And that has made all the difference.

Evan Sanders

[NOTE: Time to make a change? I have created a FREE life coaching training program called the 9 Secrets To A Good Life that has officially launched! If you want to be part of this training please take a second to sign up by clicking here or on the picture below!]

 

The Lion In The Night

The pressure.

The pressure grew under my skin and got to me today. It crawled through my blood and agitated everything inside of me. It grew and grew and grew until I sat there on my kitchen floor with my hands in my face wondering what the hell to do.

That lion…

Hunting in the night…

I couldn’t understand the pressure. I didn’t now why it was coming up to the surface. Why in the world do I feel like I’m being split apart.

Maybe I’m being broken open…

More and more as the days go on.

The pressure from within is breaking me open in many ways right now. It’s infuriating, exhausting, painful…and yet there’s that whispering voice telling me exactly what to do.

I didn’t understand all of this until right now.

The tests. The challenges. The obstacles. The constant breaking and building…breaking and building…this never ending process that seems like it will go on forever.

Then I thought about that lion in the night…

Hunting for its prey…

But the man who truly has some of the lion in his heart doesn’t seek the easy. No, he falls in love with the process of finding something that is worth his efforts. A challenge. Because when he catches that it will be that much precious to him because he knows exactly what it means to him.

The pressures I am facing are that I have these massive dreams and visions that have not come to me by accident. I have seen and experienced these things before they have happened and the weight of their responsibilities are grand in scale.

Sometimes, in all honesty, they weigh on me. They excite me of course, but at the same time, they truly do weigh on me.

It was a month and a half ago that I accomplished a vision that I had for myself since I was 11 years old…and 15 years went by and what I think absolutely rocked me over these weeks since then was the fact of how unexpected life was when that dream came into reality…

But everything else changed.

It shook me. It hurt me. It helped me bloom. It honestly changed me in ways that I am still finding out.

I haven’t been able to come here and write that often because I honestly don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know what to say. I have changed in ways where I feel incredibly different every single day I wake up and don’t know how to describe it.

My heart has changed in ways I don’t understand either and I’ve had to work through some murky colors that have bubbled up because of what life does best that have been hard to deal with. They weren’t pretty. There were moments of complete distrust in everyone and everything in order to protect myself from the world.

And yet I know that’s not why I’m here.

I know that I am supposed to stand here naked and vulnerable in front of everyone and everything and let the world flow through me. I am supposed to experience everything that there is to offer and let it shape me and mold me in the way that the heavens see for me.

That’s the path that I know I’m supposed to take…and I know that I’m supposed to help others take that path as well.

But that pressure gets to me sometimes because living in that space takes so much damn faith and there’s a complete lack of “sight.” I see the beauty in this world but I also see its darkness and cruelty. I am not naive.

I see this place for what it is and will continue to see more and more as I go on. But that faith part…that faith part is driving me to bring in a new type of way for people to experience and I’m having some trouble jumping into things I know I can do.

It’s this constant battle of falling and mustering up the courage to get back up again.

Sometimes you just want to stay laying down…

And that’s just the damn truth.

I have tried so many times to get back up again and again that it becomes hard on your mind, heart, and body after a while.

But there’s always something calling me to do it. There’s always something calling me to give it another shot. So here I am tonight, once again sitting on my kitchen floor asking myself to get back up in the morning and give it another go.

To start over again…

Not as a punishment…but as a gift.

Evan Sanders

[NOTE: Time to make a change? I have created a FREE life coaching training program called the 9 Secrets To A Good Life that has officially launched! If you want to be part of this training please take a second to sign up by clicking here or on the picture below!]

 

 

 

Everyone Believes The World’s Greatest Lie

You can shake the world in so many gentle ways

9 Secrets To A Good Life

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

Everyone has a story.

Everyone starts somewhere. But the difference between those who go out into the world and make a huge difference and those who stay “stuck” comes down to one thing: action.

I think Joseph Campbell, the famous American Mythologist who wrote, “The Heroes Journey” would certainly agree.

We all know that we have something deep inside of us that is just begging to come out.

For some that might be a courage, for others that might be acceptance.

But we all are on a journey.

I’m going to tell you this right now so you know what to expect: the journey you have in front of you, if you decide to take it, is going to be absolutely life changing. There will be victories and there will be defeats. But guess what? You’re not going to be doing it on your own.

You will have a community of people traveling with you who not only believe in you, but who can skillfully help you navigate the land of the unknown through their support as well.

There will be many times you will be challenged throughout this program (if it didn’t challenge you…you wouldn’t be growing). That comes with the territory. But if you stick with it and dedicate yourself to simply “showing up” no matter how hard the day may be, you will grow.

You will grow in ways you never imagined.

We are going to develop your mind, body, and soul.

We are going to take steps into fears, celebrate breakthroughs, and change your life one day at a time.

So get ready for the journey of your life.

Here we go!

If it’s time to make a change, please take a minute to sign up by clicking here or on the picture below! 

Magic In These Moments

Pressure.

Extreme pressure. The type of pressure that condenses you and shapes you into something different. The birth of kings. The birth of queens. The birth of something new.

There’s fury in this heart of mine right now. There’s this strong pull I can feel tearing at me to go a different direction.

I’ve felt this pressure before.

I’ve felt this building for some time.

I can feel this over my chest, running up through my cheekbones and down the sides of my neck. It’s circulating.

It’s begging me to do what I know I can.

I am being asked to drastically change my actions…to drop my previous decisions…to let old pieces of me fall away to and usher in something focus, new, driven by a voice, and flowing with faith.

I’ve not made that decision previously because I was scared to. Scared to dive into that place…

Because I know that this version of myself, this version that I worked so hard to create…I’ll just never be able to go back. I’ll never be able to go back to the person I am right now because of the request.

The request to do it all differently.

What a strange feeling.

To know what you have right now is good but to be asked by something to drop that for something you cannot see, cannot even fathom or can hardly put into words…

And to run purely on faith that it’s the right thing to do?

It’s not even fear…

Fear doesn’t even come close to describing it.

It’s blind faith.

Yet…

It doesn’t feel unguided.

I’m here writing today, after days and days of thinking about all of this making a commitment to diving into all of it. My commitment goes beyond just writing these words…I’ve sealed it in many other ways.

But as I’m writing all of this right now, I know that there are going to be pieces of me that leave…

Pieces of me that have changed…and yet will never come back.

All the logical arguments could tell me otherwise, but this is all beyond logic. All beyond what my mind could possibly tell me. This is in the depths of my heart.

Far past a simple understanding.

I’m leaving my mind behind on this one.

And trusting I’m headed right where I belong.

-Evan Sanders

 

[NOTE: Time to make a change? I have created a FREE life coaching training program called the 9 Secrets To A Good Life that has officially launched! If you want to be part of this training please take a second to sign up by clicking here or on the picture below!]

Of Crashing Waves & Granite Blood

There’s constant shifting…

A fluidity to all of this. Ever changing. Ever morphing. The sand twists and turns as the waves crash upon it.

And here I sit, on my kitchen floor, looking at all that is going on right now with my eyes closed. I can see things that I never used to be able to see and feel things that would have eluded me only a year ago.

The man I am now is far from the man I once was. A year ago, I never knew such things really existed. I may have hinted at them throughout the years as a possibility but now there’s something far far different from that…

Certainty.

Certainty of watching the waves of energy move about and have their impact on the landscape. There are so many things underneath the surface that you cannot see if you don’t believe in them.

I never understood the waves in me.

I never understood that energy. I never understood that it was my mother’s artist blood that coursed through my veins and put my world in into vibrant color.

But that blood shifts and changes. It twists and turns. It’s everything that changes…like the ocean crashing onto the beach. It’s life itself.

It’s blissfully feminine.

You can’t put the ocean in a box. She will shift and change, ebb and flow at will. But you have to leave her wild and free. You have to let her kiss the sand and retreat back into the depths. And there you sit on the shore witnessing it just as it should be, always knowing that the waves will crash once again flowing back to your bare toes digging into the sand. Wild. Free.

Under Those Incandescent Lights

Shh.

Can you hear it?

Scribbles…

In the closing hours of the night, that sounds of the pen dancing its way across the paper continues to turn up the heat in our ever evolving love affair.

But these letters, these letters are something different.

Armed with new depths it’s hard to really tell you what has been coming out onto the paper. I’m not even sure I understand it quite yet. But what I can tell you, is that it’s coming from a completely different place that I’ve never been able to touch before.

The fundamental shifts and changes in my character have birthed something…something…

Unrestricted.

Fresh.

Free.

Dangerous.

Dangerous in the most perfect of ways. Because what has made its way onto the paper in these late nights has been as real, honest, and packed with simplicity and countless emotions all at the same time.

A paradox you may think it to be…

How could both of those things exist at the same time?

And yet, the do.

Both remaining true…and if you really continued to dive into it, you would find out that there is much more there at play as well.

These are strange and yet incredibly exciting times. I’ve shown up in a way that was always just out of my grasp. The people that I am attracting into my life…the adventures…the excitement…the boldness. All part of me, but never on this level. Never to this degree.

Whatever rules I had followed before…have somehow just disintegrated.

It’s as if I’ve lost myself in the moment.

And those moments have continued on and on, one by one, needling their way into this drunkenness with living.

Strange. Exciting. Addicting.

This post is going to be rather short. In a way I feel completely satiated with the words that have landed themselves here. They somehow seem to describe what is actually going on…despite how whimsical they may be.

I guess that’s the point. You have to know when to put down the pen and stop writing, because anything else would do it a complete disservice.

So here I am. Drunk with living again.

Evan Sanders

What Led To My Seduction

‘Never again.’

I looked into the mirror, one of those rare moments where I will speak to myself… looking directly into those eyes staring right back at me and said those words over and over again.

‘Never again. Never again will I allow for it to happen.’

I called my closest friends. I told them. I apologized to them although no apology was necessary and promised to never allow it to happen again. I thanked them for witnessing, for allowing me to grow through it, and even though there was no possible reason for them to be offended…

I took it personally.

I took it very personally.

And as I wandered throughout the day, I kept hearing those words ringing in my ears.

‘Never again…never again.’

Fundamentally, something in me changed that day.

Something altered drastically…down to my core. It was a permanent shift that came from a place of never wanting to experience any of it again.

Unlike the dog that lays on the nail and simply moans and groans because the pain is not bad enough yet to get up off of it…

I got off.

Vowing to never go back.

They say that most people will do more to avoid pain than seek pleasure. I agree. I’ve found this to be incredibly true with my own story. Yet, there’s an element to chasing your dreams that involves pain.

The sacrifices, the sudden changes in your situation, the unexpected twists and turns and the physical and emotional taxes you must pay. Pain comes with pleasure. And as I see it now, I would have it no other way.

In the accomplishing of something that drove my life for 15 years, I experienced a moment of unbelievable ecstasy…and yet tragic pain. A pain that skipped all layers of where it could manifest itself and went straight to the depths of my heart.

I was broken in that moment…and enchantingly enough…reborn.

Burned straight to ashes and like the phoenix…rising anew.

I did not understand this for a long time after. 

I remained perplex, completely baffled, and cast into a complete flux of unknown situations and events pouring into my life. It was like entering a completely new part of the house…

One with rooms I’ve never seen before and a decor that was splendidly adorned with bright and luxurious colors…and at the same time, mixed with slow moving and dark tones.

I stood perplexed in these new rooms.

There was outpouring of danger, a blissful smell of adventure and sense of madness combined with the sweet presence of poetry.

My life became art…

I became…seduced.

And I fell hard.

Never before had I seen it in these colors, these tragic and yet perfect tones that would be the paints that I would use to portray the next scenes of my life. Oh and the possibilities.

The possibilities of living uninhibited and without any sense of restriction.

No rules to follow. No judgements to worry about. No…just answering to my deepest hearts desires and to the wits and plans of the heavens above.

Like a man drunk in love with life. 

Never faking or restricting the natural joy that flowed through his veins…

But allowing for a new love affair with his darker side.

The stubborn, impatient, and insomnia stricken side that caused him to abandon his bed for walks in the dead of night.

The side that allowed him to bleed out his heart onto the pages. One that craved adventure and danger. A side that was enchanted by the moon and begged to handle the darker paints that he had prevented himself from using for many years.

Mixed…I became in that moment.

And whole.

All coming out of a moment that destroyed a piece of me…

But remade me.

Never to be the same man again…

But rather something much more whole…a man casted further into his depths…who you could see on the surface as one way, but you would never understand just how far the rabbit hole went.

Evan Sanders