Evan Sanders's Blog, page 50

What Is Also Seeking Us

It’s amazing what happens when you come back to being in this moment.

You connect.

You feel.

You are aware.

You deepen.

You breathe.

You thrive.

In fact, the more and more you keep coming back to what’s going on right now the more doors open for you. It’s hard to really understand what is possible for someone when they truly connect because there’s no predicting the future. The possibilities are really endless.

When I started this project 5 years ago, I was connecting with something deep inside of me at that time calling me to put forth my experiences and the things I was learning along this journey. I could not have predicted in the slightest anything that has happened because of all of this. Really, when I personally look back on it all, it’s extraordinary to me. It’s a bit strange as well because it’s my life that I’m writing…and when I feel compelled to explore, I can go back and read the pages of the past.

These pages when I dive back into the old stuff bring my mind back into old situations, old events, feelings, thoughts…and yet I learn every single time. I can see the way I thought back then and understand how I think now. I can understand how I’ve grown. One of the most interesting parts of all of this is that sometimes it’s hard for me to really comprehend just how much things have changed throughout all this time. This isn’t because I can’t logically think through all of this, but rather that little pieces have been morphing and shifting over years and sometimes it’s difficult to see those little tweaks in how I was and how I am now.

Outside of the massive breakthroughs and understandings that I’ve come across over the past 5 years, nothing really has really been able to compete with the power of “story.” When I say story, I really am talking about this concept of the story each of us are living in…and sometimes if we are lucky our ability to step into a completely new story.

I think after all this time writing, that’s what really sticks with me. Sure I’ve let it pour out onto the pages time and time again and it has released a lot from me, but there’s something about being able to understand where you are at in order to create something new for yourself that has more power than anything else I’ve experienced. Despite going through the worst of it, time and time again I came back – for one reason or another – to the table to write and see if I could create something out of that situation.

And I did.

But now more than ever, as my path has taken a turn for development instead of the land of A to B goal seeking and grasping, things are shifting quickly. I can feel this, but I can’t really understand it in many ways. I’m starting to get the impression that it’s something that I’m actually not supposed to understand, I’m just supposed to run with it.

What we are seeking in this life is also seeking us. But it’s only when we slow down and stop desperately grasping for it do we give ourselves the chance to bring it into our lives. It’s only when we show up right here and now do we have the opportunity to have it come knocking at our door.

If we are constantly in a world of trying to map out our future, we cut off what is really possible for us. To a degree, having goals and dreams are fantastic things, but when you start to paint the future in detail you’re actually constricting it. No one really has any clue of what is going to happen in the future. We may have an idea of what we would like to do but that is really about it. The good stuff, the really good stuff, is going on right now.

While that concept has changed my life, the reason why it hasn’t stuck with most people is because it’s not an incredibly sexy or marketable idea.

But it really does make a difference.

Keep coming back to the present moment and let everything you’ve always been grasping at finally come and find you. Show up right here and now. That’s the time that really matters. In reality, it’s the only time you have.

-Evan Sanders

If You Are Different

I always knew I was a little odd, a pinch of strange, a gallon of enthusiasm, a teaspoon of delight, a cup of darkness and a quart of love. I knew I could feel things I couldn’t explain. I almost let “them” take that from me when I was younger, but something inside held on. Through it all, I never lost that spark of madness. And now, that’s where my magic comes from.

Explore what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

Closing In On Dreams

I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for these moments that are arriving. I feel like I’m about to launch.

It was the 11 year old version of me that came up with the first significant vision I ever had (besides baseball) where I saw something for myself and decided that I was going to go get it. What I didn’t know back then is that I would have to become someone completely different than who I was to accomplish it. These past 15 years of having this vision in my mind and going after it in one way or another has been one of the most challenging, frustrating, and gratifying things I’ve ever done. What absolutely blows my mind is that I am officially 24 days away from making that vision come true, a moment of such magnitude for me I have no idea how it’s really going to effect me.

I have a gut instinct that it’s going to rock me down to my core and I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

This has been, outside of that single vision, a very challenging life. There have been many many incredible things that I’ve had in my life and many things that I have now, but it has been hard. I’ve been tested, knocked down, tripped up, stepped on, walked over, and everything else in the books. I’ve felt stresses you couldn’t imagine and pressures that felt like they were going to break me.

And yet despite all of this those dreams seemed to live on. They continued to whisper to me, no matter what I was going through or how far away I was from accomplishing them, that it was possible. That I was possible. That the life I was dreaming of was possible.

There have been a handful of decisions that I’ve made in my life that didn’t make much sense back then logically, but I ran with my gut and they make total sense now.

I can see that trusting in myself and those intuitive feelings inside always landed me right were I needed to be. That intuition came up against my mind so many times and yet whenever I really needed some help in figuring out which way to go, I trusted myself. That lesson has been invaluable lately. Recently, I’ve had to dive farther and farther into those gut feelings to really understand which way I should go and what I should do with myself. Those instincts haven’t always been easy to trust…but in the end they never let me down.

They are telling me many things right now. In fact, they are telling me more and more to “see what is here” instead of looking for what is missing. When I think about that, I realize that nothing is missing at all and I’m in such an incredible place. When I’m living in the world of gratitude my world itself changes. I have a lot of things to be grateful for and appreciative of and I’m reminding myself more and more that this is the case.

I’m closing in on a few dreams all at once.

This has been overwhelming at times and incredibly exciting at others. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the prospect of what could happen in the future, but I keep coming back to what’s going on right now and bringing myself into this moment.

Doing that keeps my feet on the floor. Doing that keeps me here. And that’s where I belong – in the trenches fighting the good fight.

The moments are coming.

I’ll be waiting, ready, able….willing to strike.

-Evan Sanders

Explore what life coaching could do for you – www.aykme.com

What If Your Entire Story Changed?

Life coaching can be a life changing experience for those who are willing to step out of their comfort zones and into the light. It takes a little bit of guts, a vision for yourself, and some desire to move forward into a dream that you’ve had for yourself but for some reason have never been able to achieve. Coaching brings out the best in people and also allows you to heal old wounds in order to move forward with your life.

But it even goes deeper than that.

Coaching is really about creating a vulnerable relationship between client and coach in order to cultivate stronger relationships with others, your body, your internal world, and your spirituality. It’s a process of deepening, not goal achieving.

Sometimes in life we get stuck in this story of rowing towards this island of “Where it all turns out.” You’ve probably heard something of the sort before when you overhear someone (or even yourself) saying, “When I this I’ll be happy. When I get that it will all be good.” The problem is, when we achieve those things that we have grasped for we end up not being happy. We end up wondering, “Maybe that wasn’t it? Maybe it’s the house? Ok I’ll strive for that.”

We can spend our entire lives grasping at things and not doing the real work that’s needed to show up as complete and whole human beings.

AYKME Life Coaching is about empowering you will the skills, abilities, support and program to help you create the live you’ve always dreamed of. That’s a pretty big statement, but it’s not a shallow one. Instead of looking at only one specific area of your life and offering “quick fixes” AYKME invests in you as a whole person and is designed to develop all aspects of your life – not just a specific few.

Why?

Because as great as very focused coaching can be, it also misses the fact that you have a body, you have relationships, you have a job and that your life is far more complex than one targeted area. There’s nothing wrong with getting coaching on one specific area of life, but when you are looking to make major tectonic shifts in your vision and purpose you actually need a complete view of your life and where you are at right now.

That’s why we dive deep into every aspect of your world and discover what’s there.

Ultimately, it’s about helping you uncover what you are truly capable of and giving your the opportunity to live a life that has you saying the words, “Are you kidding me?!”

It’s important to remember that development takes time.

In a world of ‘quick fixes’ and ‘simple solutions’ we go deeper and create a sustainable path to personal development and self-actualization.

Through consistent conversations, the presentation of a new story that will shift your perspective of how you see the world, properly focused outcomes, goals, and specific reflections, observation exercises, and practices you will start to create a world for yourself that you’ve only imagined.

That’s what I am up to here at AYKME. I want to help you create the life you’ve always imagined and eventually send you off into the world being able to create your own action plans, visions, and help other people.

There’s no greater gift to yourself than to face your fears and start moving on a journey that you’ve always known you should take. Like I said before, it takes some guts and there are going to be some defeats. But the amount of victories you will have makes the entire journey worth it.

It’s hard to tell you exactly what can be created without knowing your specific story, but in working with the clients I have currently I have seen incredibly transformations where people have showed up more fulfilled, connected, confident, determined, and everything else in the book.

It’s time to start your journey.

Time to step into what you’ve always wanted for yourself.

Take a minute to drop me an email in the contact section below and let’s start building your dreams with a free consultation call!

Don’t wait another second.

It’s time.

-Evan Sanders, Owner AYKME Life Coaching

Explore what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

Dive into my world of inspirational photos on Instagram

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The Way To Love Someone

Not only did I realize I could feel another’s emotions, but I could also feel all the cracks deep down in their soul. I ran around for years of my life confused about these “feelings” I had when I was with certain people, but then a healer opened my eyes to the reality. When you’re with me, I understand you in far deeper ways than anything you could ever say to me. I can feel you at your core. A curse turned into a blessing.

Explore what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

Dive into my world of inspirational photos on Instagram

Oars Out Of The Water

Every time I get off the phone with my coach everything settles. I wanted to share with you tonight the topic of our conversation because I think you might get something out of it. If you can start adopting what I have been taught I’m sure it will change your life just as much as it changed mine.

Tonight is about taking your oars out of the water.

There’s this tendency for us to live in a world of it “should look like this.” This place for me was my past. I lived there. I lived there forever actually. It was only until I was given some perspective, some new distinctions, that I began to understand that there was another place – “what’s actually here.”

When we live in a place of “it should look like this” we shut off everything that could ever surprise us. I’ve done this so many times I can’t tell you what piece of my life that didn’t effect back then. We fall into that type of thinking with our bodies, our relationships, our lifestyle, our goals, our internal world, our emotions…everything. But the damage that is done by this way of thinking is that you start to believe that life is a very linear way of living. You see things as A to B, as movement forwards or movement backwards, and as things to be checked off the list. This has gotten me into trouble so many times you would never believe. In fact, on the call today I said to her, “This way of thinking brings out the worst in me.” ‘What’s that look like? The worst.’ “I am filled with anxiety, I worry, I have so many doubts, I over analyze, I disconnect…” really the list went on and on. When I head into that way of thinking, my world because so black and white and it’s either that way or no way.

I don’t like living there.

But what’s life changing for me is that I’ve actually come to a place – I struggled like a son of a ***** to get to this place – where I can step into “what’s actually here.” It’s this place that brings the best out in me. My whole body relaxes, I connect, I love fearlessly, I am attentive, I watch things grow and change like an amoeba (I’ve actually coined this way of being as amoeba living haha) and everything that I have to give to this world. I’m happy in this place. I feel well taken care of, looked after, and loved.

I like living in this place, a lot.

When you take your oars out of the water and stop trying to get to this place of “how it should be and where it all turns out” you reel your mind back into being right here and now. You stop worrying about things. You stop thinking about things. You realize how little control you really have over the future, but the interesting thing is that you stop caring completely about that altogether. You come to a place of “what is here right now” and you rip your mind out of the future or out of the past and stay present. Your mind will continue to wander off and you just keep on bring it right back. Over, and over, and over again. Eventually, you find yourself staying more connected longer and longer.

There has been a whole lot of change going on with me lately and that has challenged me in many ways that I really didn’t ever anticipate. All of this has made me grow in ways that I couldn’t really see all too well until my coach pointed them out to me. I’m stepping into all of this with a doggedness that used to be so focused on goal attainment which essentially ran my entire life…but now that tenacity is actually showing up in completely different ways…it’s showing up right now…and it’s bringing the best out in me.

I’m connecting more. I’m feeling more. I can sense more than I used to. I trust myself. I trust which way to go. When I fall out of alignment and into the old story I know how to pull myself back. I’m learning how to let go of this “should look like this” thinking and just being happy with what I have right here and now. I know that my life will continue to be guided by this inner wisdom that has been uncovering itself in me over time and that I’m in good hands.

I’m learning how to pull my oars out of the water, and while that let in many things that terrified me at times, I stuck with it. I rolled with everything that came my way and interestingly enough, I feel that after todays conversation a lot settled down in me.

Here I am.

Here. 

-Evan Sanders

Explore what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

Dive into my world of inspirational photos on Instagram

Don’t Be Afraid To Speak From Your Heart

It’s not the easiest thing to do, but you really do have to slow down and take some time to really be “here.” Trust me, you can spend your whole life avoiding being there (the past) or trying to get there (the future). Well you can’t go back to the past and change it and if you start rowing towards this island of “where it all turns out” you’re never going to get there. It’s a lie. It’s one sexy mirage though. The only time you have is now and the only place you can ever go…is right here. You are this moment. That might sound hippy dippy but it’s actually the truth. When you let go of everything else and show up right now, you give yourself access to an incredible amount of power.

That power comes from presence…you’ve actually showed up as the hero in your life instead of trying to avoid being someone else or “being someone in the future.” What happens if you don’t make the choice? Well, you make the decision to continuously live a life where it’s all on fire and you are trying to juggle 20 things at once with the capacity to juggle 11, seeking and grasping at things that will never make you happy…and make it to the middle of your life… old…broken down, full of resentment and miserable because you’ve been chasing shadows your whole life. Doesn’t sound that great to me. Not gonna do that. So make the choice to start being “here.” You couldn’t believe how much things will change when you do.

Explore what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

& Yet You Haven’t Used Them Yet

“I see a man who has the largest wings in the world but hasn’t tried to use them.”

There are some things that people say to me that I know will stick with me forever. I’ll never forget these words. I’ll never forget them as I read them from someone who knows me incredibly well and who has seen me go through plenty. She has seen me in many different ways, but I’ve never heard words like that before. They made a dent in my life, one that I will never forget.

Tonight is about these wings.

To be completely honest with you tonight, today has been one of the most challenging days I’ve had so far. Challenging doesn’t even begin to describe it actually. That’s a massive falling short of words that could really describe what has been the roller coaster of everything that has gone down today. This is also going to be incredibly hard to describe in a way that really makes sense because it involves a lot of opaque thoughts and ideas that only really exist in crystal clear vision in my mind. What the hell…I’m giving it a shot.

This morning I felt massive, overwhelming, extreme amounts of pressure. If I’m going to be honest with you about all of this, I’d have to tell you that it brought me down to my hands and knees. I haven’t felt pressure like this in such a long time and I didn’t know really what to do with it at first. But oh I felt it – I felt it deeply.

I feel like I’m being pounded by lessons right now. Pounded really is the only word to get close to this feeling. There’s a barrage of lesson-based meteorites barraging the landscape of my life full bore and I am wearing them as if they were in fashion. Time after time, call after call, situation after situation here they come and bang, bang, bang, straight into the side of me. These aren’t small lessons. These are lessons in which I feel like I have always needed to learn and that are forging something positive out of me – while I can’t quite see that yet I can feel it to some extent – and teaching me things that I know I’ve really needed to grasp.

On one hand things are really fantastic, which only adds to a bit of the confusion here. There are many many good things in my life that are bringing me significant amounts of happiness. That’s undeniable. Those things are brilliant.

On the other hand, there is a feeling of something coming – not a bad thing – but of some big coming where I am getting the sense that I am going to be torn out of where I am right now and thrown into something I have absolutely no experience, capacity, or simple understanding of how to deal with the situations that are going to present themselves. I only know who I am…and I have faith that this will be enough – but it’s still a bit nerve-wracking.

Some may call this a place of being in anxiety about the future – I would have to agree. Something that I have spent so much time working on and invested more hours than I can imagine is coming into fruition and to call it a unknown would really be silly at this point. It’s known. It’s understood. It’s only a matter of time until it pops and when it does it’s not going to be a small crackle, it’s going to be a very very loud bang. For me to be in the place I am of understanding what that actually is is thrilling, exciting, a whole boatload of “who knows what’s going to happen” and a whole lot more nerves. I’ve built something that I’ve always dreamed of and there’s some nervousness around “Good lord what if it really happens?”

I’m watching it happen.

But what all of this really comes down to is living a life of what is going on right here and now and not living so much in the future itself. I know I just talked about something right around the bend but it’s hard to explain how I know that this is going to happen. I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it, and it’s running through my veins ready to pour itself out into the world. Like I said, can’t explain how…I just know. 

There’s this strange feeling that has been looming in my gut for 3 weeks now because of all of this…all of this that has been going on and it hasn’t been able to settle itself really. At times it relaxes but it comes back up again and I have to go back in and do the work that’s necessary to hear it out. I don’t shy away from that work anymore because I know it’s the “good work” but it can get a bit frustrating at times when you are having to breathe through this all the time.

This feeling…I thought was caused by a few different things but I’ve ended up realizing that this is a feeling of knowing something is right on the horizon and it’s about to reveal itself to me. The scale of this thing intimidates me and calls to me that I’m the one to make it happen. How wonderful is that? It scares the shit out of me…and yet…pulls something deeper within the depths of my heart to go to it.

That explains some anxiety. That explains some excitement. That explains a whole lot of things.

This world of uncertainty, I’m really starting to get a good idea of what that actually means. That means a whole lot more than just leaving the future out of the question. In fact, what I’ve started to realize is I actually have absolutely no control over anything but whatever I’m doing right now in this second…and the more and more I’ve started to see that the more I’m realizing how absolutely clueless I was when I was constantly living in “goals land.” (a name I’ve created for my past way of being)

With a majority of things, I actually have no idea what the hell is going to happen…and from time to time because this realization is so impossibly new it freaks me out. That’s the dead honest truth. This realization has been so powerful, so transformational, and so damn full of learning lessons that it has barraged my life time and time again with lessons that I am being forced to consider because they are good for me.

Life is uncertain.

This is the one thing that I’m really pulling out of all of this. Not like that’s a small lesson. Maybe it may sound like a small realization, but really grasping this is rocking my world. I can’t predict what anyone else is going to do, what is going to happen tomorrow, what people are thinking about, what is going to happen an hour from now. I may have some sort of general idea but the more and more I release from that the more I am getting my socks and shoes knocked off like it was some sort of game.

I’m alive.

Being really alive isn’t always easy. It’s not always a walk in the park where things are going to be full of cake and rainbows. This being alive is a challenge right now. I’m seeing and experiencing things that I’m not used to and being confronted with situations that are challenging me down to my core. I have things in my life that I’ve never had and the tradeoffs for those things are worth it but good heavens can they be thought provoking at times.

Breathe kid.

I’m working on that trust me. Breathing through all of this. Falling into meditation. Slowing it all down. I’m breathing. I’m feeling.

But most of all, these wings that I’ve been growing for years, I know they are ready to fly. I’ve been walking up to that little cliff for quite some time with the intention to dive off and I will when I get to that little spot. This knowing is  that same place of being in a place ready to jump. Ready to use those wings.

Those words will never leave my mind. Those words will never leave.

-Evan Sanders

Every Word Has Consequences

I love before, I love during and I love after. No conditions. This has been the biggest change in my life. I don’t grip things too tight, I let them come and go…and with that, I let things be free. I know full well it all comes back around in one way or another and that the good energy I put out there will find me. I let it leave when it needs to go and come back when it feels it’s right. But I do have positive boundaries, out of respect for myself. Those never used to exist and I spent a lot of time getting walked all over. Now, pieces of my life change every day…I am an explorer of my soul and things change every single day.

 Explore what life coaching could do for you – aykme.com

What-The-Hell Attitudes

What-the-hell right? Be honest with yourself about where you are at and accept what the current situation is. I’ve been suffering in the doldrums the past week or so and had to be pretty upfront with myself about taking that next step and daring to bet on myself and really go for it. So here’s to that…what the hell…amazing things could happen.