Evan Sanders's Blog, page 61

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Last night, I drove home from school with my mind completely blown. I thought my life was going through transformations from our first session and over the next three months, but yesterday took things to a whole new level. Yesterday explained decades of this “feeling” I’ve had in me around people, situations, or just being in this life. Yesterday, I learned something that forever changed my perspective.

For years, I’ve been very in tune with the fact that I can pick up on other peoples emotions and really feel them. I’ve been able to tap into their emotions and really understand what they are feeling in the moment along with what I am feeling in the moment. But there was always this other set of inputs that I could never really grasp an understanding of. It’s like, there was something else in the room.

As I’ve gone throughout the years and years of this project, I’ve started to understand who I am deep down inside and what I stand for. Further, as I have stripped away the necessity for goals and seeking a “place where it all turns out” I’ve been able to understand who is Evan Sanders without goals and all of those things. I used to define myself by what I was doing or where I was headed instead of just being here as the person I am. I was unhappy with this place and thought that if I tried to escape to “that” place things would work out a whole lot better. So take all of that away and I received an entirely new level of depth and access to specific feelings. I was more in tune with myself and how I was feeling and really had the opportunity to feel what others were experiencing as well.

But still, that other thing in the room.

I didn’t realize…I could also pick up on how other people felt…as people down to their core – just as I have known about myself…in this world.

Click.

When this moment happened, so many things started flashing in front of my eyes. All of the times I have walked into someones space my happy enthusiastic self and felt this overwhelming energy from something…was their emotions and energies in the present moment, as well as who they felt they were deep down in this world. If this doesn’t make much sense, stay with me for a moment. You see, I know really deep down who I am and what really matters to me at a soul level…and yet how could I possibly feel these incredibly conflicting emotions that felt so impossibly foreign to me? I thought, or at least doubted for a little while, it was me being inauthentic or not really knowing what mattered to me…but I finally realized, it really wasn’t me at all. It was me picking up on them.

Baffling.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had these incredibly conflicting signals after having picked up on how they are feeling and how I am feeling. There were deeper forces at play, far far deeper forces at play. So I sat there having flashback after flashback of these situations and realized that all of those body sense feelings were trying to tell me something at a core level that I couldn’t actually pick up yet.

There are about a million other things I experienced, learned, etc. yesterday that made a substantial difference in the way I look at things, but that piece above there…that made some type of impact.

Doesn’t really stop there though. All those times that I walked into a place and felt this overwhelming energy and escaped from it…I have a different choice now. I know, within my abilities, that I have the chance to actually change that room. I have the ability to change the energy of that room in a few different ways and have simply never understood that was in my bag of capabilities in the past. But I do. I can fill up that room with something that is far less hostile or uncomfortable with something else entirely.

So, life just got a little bit more interesting…and a whole less hostile. That, is a gift from yesterday. A big gift.

– Evan Sanders

 

If I Can Just Do That…

There are multiple parts of my journey all coming together in this week…I wonder if that is a coincidence?

In two days, I will be publishing my thousandth post on The Better Man Project. That actually blows my mind so much I’m going to wait to even write about it until that time.
Tomorrow, I go back for another – what I am sure will be massively transformational – week long stint at my graduate coaching program.
Monday, I will be launching my Integral (Mind, Body, Soul) Life coaching business to the public.
Today I started a new program with my trainer and we are going to cut down as much as possible for the rest of this month.
Tomorrow, I have a major update to my other site which will tell me exactly how things are going (from what I see so far so good).

Honestly, and I am proud to say things, things are going very well right now. For the past few months, I was dealing with a significant amount of transformational change that caused some significant anxiety. However, through all of that, the best was brought out in me and continues to surface. My work life has improved drastically as I continue to develop upon a few different plans. But there’s one thing that is trumping everything else.

No old ways.

A couple of weeks back, I wrote a post about burning an entire life to the ground and setting sail and never looking back. While I’ve had my temptations, I haven’t looked back…and I’ve only moved forward. I’ve stated my intent, I’ve made declarations out into the world, and I’m really going for it…I mean really going for it. There isn’t a day in the week that doesn’t get touched by at least 8-11 hours of work. I’ve had a few interesting questions about this and my response has been something to the effect of…there’s a massive amount of front end work to be done, bugs to be found and fixed, ways of doing things and setting up things that need to be created, and I don’t intend to keep up this pace for more than a few months because I won’t have to…all of this work is going to pay off – I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think it was going to.

I’m not guessing right now with what I’m doing.

In fact, I’m creating something that has been, in other niches, proven to be successful and has worked for many others. What makes what I’m doing different is that I’m adding in my own secret sauce and experience from over 4 years of being in this space. I’m adding in my own elements into an equation that has worked before for many. Custom parts to a stock vehicle.

Something I’ve always dreamed of is having a massive audience, not for the sake of saying what the number is, but to see how much damage I can do with the ripples I want to make. This blog here, the community, the experience, the countless comments and the amazing support has been an incredible indicator of what could be possible. In fact, someone said something incredibly interesting to me the other day, she said, “Everything that you’ve done over the past 5 years is almost like a first draft for what is about to happen.”

Woah.

I really never thought of it like that before. To be honest, that got my brain going for a while. First draft…first draft….yes…yes that’s right actually. What an exercise it would be to go back through the entire blog and create a second draft of all of it. For me, it would help me understand how my thinking has changed and it would also bring back great content that has been missed by everyone. Of course, I would still produce new work – that’s what I love doing. But to bring some of the old stuff back in a new way, that would be fun.

When I first started all of this extra work, I was living in a sea of doubt. I didn’t know if it would actually work, I didn’t know if the extra things I thought I could make happen would actually turn out, and most of all…I was hoping that this wouldn’t turn out to be another fiasco like my time down south. But as the days have gone on and I’ve put my own sweat, blood, and tears into this project and seen it advance for no other reason but the strength of my own personal work ethic, I’m starting to really believe. I can see progress…and with that, my belief is getting stronger and stronger.

There are signs and indicators I’m paying attention to right now that are showing up in my day to day life. They have nothing to do with work and everything to do with being aware and mindful of what is going on. These signs are telling me to head in a direction and I’m following them with as much faith as I can.

What I find interesting is this continuous feeling of quiet before the storm. There’s a massive change on the horizon and it’s just crawling over the hills…taking its time…and I’m sitting there on my deck watching it from afar. I know my time will come…I know what is – for the most part – about to happen. I have my faults, I’m working on them…I have my passions, I’m exploring them…I have my lessons to learn, I am definitely learning them. I am here to show others that with some passion, a purpose, and some sweat…if you keep pounding away at it day after day, you can do something great. I’m here to give someone the reason to not give up. If I can touch hearts in that way, I’ve lived the happiest life I could ever live.

The rest, will take care of itself.

– Evan Sanders

Great Power From Boundaries

Great power comes from boundaries.

For the longest time, I created boundaries to protect myself from anything and everything. Everything that I thought I was effectively walling out prevented me from experiencing any depth with positive emotion. Therefore, my life functioned as a gigantic stress reaction to everything and I was pretty pissed off about being cut off from people. Little did I know, that was my fault despite any tragedy that occurred throughout my younger years.

There’s something liberating in tearing down walls…but without true vulnerability and actually exposing yourself to the world, you still hide behind one of the greatest masks there are. Being truly seen is a scary scary thing, but it’s also the source of great strength and will give you the ability to move forward in your relationships and in your life. Without this though, you will find yourself experiencing the same thing over and over again until you have a major life event that literally forces you to be seen. It’s the easiest thing in the world to fake it. Seriously. Anyone can do it. Hell, I was a master of disguise for the longest time. Oh boy was I good at it. But when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, you suffer more and more and more…the longer the mask stays on.

Your soul is convulsing every single second you put on your mask.

It doesn’t want that. In fact, you probably know better than anyone that you want that mask off. But it’s safe…so safe. It’s easy to slap on and you don’t have to worry about being seen for the not so great sides of yourself. You will continue to create shallow friendships with others because they only see what is on the surface. But once someone who is vulnerable starts to get deep with you – intimidation rises, you get nervous, you start to freak out and you push that person away hard because you know what is coming. In truth, what you fear has already happened…you’ve been seen…exposed…and yet still loved? There must be something wrong? How could that be? How could I still be loved as imperfectly perfect when I can’t even love myself this way?

I’ve been there…I’ve been on both ends and I can tell you that every single time it’s a pretty interesting experience.

This is where I change gears slightly.

Saying all of what I just did about vulnerability, there’s also incredible strength in producing positive boundaries for yourself. A long long time ago, someone once said to me…if you don’t know where you are going then any path will take you there. What that really means is…no idea of a direction…no destination. As time has gone on, my belief system about goals has changed significantly, but I have not stopped dreaming. In fact, I dream now more than ever. The only difference is, I spend a whole lot less time hashing out plans and ways to get there and spend a hell of a lot more time actually doing stuff. The place where I’m headed…I know deep down inside…will not be the source of my happiness. So that is me taking the oars out of my boat and just being happy in the present. The place where I am headed is a deep deep expression of my greatest purpose that just happens to exist in the future. It’s something I would really enjoy doing…that’s it.

So the boundaries start manifesting themselves around things that I know that are not good for me. However, they are also created when I know that there are things, people, and situations out there that do not have my best interest in mind and really cannot be part of this story. These boundaries exist not out of fear, but rather…out of a sense of gut…a knowing…that tells me I shouldn’t be spending my time in certain places. That’s a tough feeling to explain…but in the end it’s what I know is true within myself.

If you haven’t noticed lately, I’ve been saying (at least I’ve picked up on this) a lot of different things followed by “I can’t really explain this or it’s hard to put words to this idea” because I am getting into some feelings that have never been felt before. Maybe one day as my vocabulary expands I’ll be able to eloquently state what these feelings are, but that’s not today.

The point is, if you fail to have any boundaries for yourself, especially in this tricky world (often nasty) then you are going to get smacked around, thrown off course and rocked out of your boat constantly. I am all for being open, honest, and flexible in situations…but I do draw lines in the sand and when those boundaries are getting pushed up on…I am not afraid to speak my mind. It takes a lot for me to get pushed to that point…not because I have paper thin walls, but because I’ve gone through a lot of crap in my life and I have had my world expanded by what’s possible from people – so my reference points of “how bad is this?” really are put on a huge scale haha.

Boundaries are not a horrible thing to have. Create some positive ones for yourself and know what you are willing to take. If you aren’t willing to take something, stand up for yourself. Have no fear in speaking your mind and saying what you need to say. Don’t come from a place of hate…come from a place of compassion and love for yourself.

– Evan Sanders

Without My Eyes

Close your eyes kid. Close your eyes and begin to see.

What do you see? What colors are there? Where are you walking? Who is around you? What are you wearing? What are the smells? Where in the world are you? Are you in one place? Are you traveling to many? What language are you speaking? What do your hands look like? What is your body like? How are things moving around you? What……….

Close your eyes and begin to see.

Close your eyes and write what’s in your heart. Close your eyes and begin to feel. Take away your sight in order to truly experience everything that is going on around you. What do you feel?

As time goes on, I’m living less like a robot controlled by outside factors and more like a man who is surrounded completely by choice. I see more than I ever have before. I see peoples energies, their bodies reactions, their thoughts moving within them and how it all moves with me. When I close my eyes, these feelings arrive in their purest form…and in one way or another I can see a room and feel what is going on inside of it. I’m feeling the ripples these days…and now that I feel those for the first time as something that is truly real, I am working towards making larger and larger ones as the days pass.

Never underestimate the absolute tremendous amount of power you hold within you.

You are capable of much more than you could possibly imagine. If you asked me 5 years ago to predict what I would be doing today, it would not be this. I wouldn’t be doing anything close to this. Back then, I couldn’t really see what was possible for me. In fact, I was a stress reaction to just about everything in life. Then I got stuck in the land of goals and dreams…only to come out of it understanding that if it doesn’t fall in line with my deepest purpose – something I found when I actually exited the land of the future – then it had no place in my life.

It was a pretty surreal feeling as I tore up all the old goal sheets and washed the timelines off my chalkboard. I was literally erasing an old way of thinking and replaced it with living in the land of uncertainty and gaining depth instead of progress.

That wasn’t a small change for me. That was a monumental change.

When you are living on a timeline, you tend to see things as a straight line from A to B. If I do this, then I should get that. Life doesn’t work that way at all. Even if you can make some things work that way, it doesn’t mean that you should begin restricting your entire life to that process. That way of doing things only works for “those things it can work for.” When you start diving into relationships, spirituality, and mind work…those don’t function all that well with timelines. Trust me, I know…I’ve committed cardinal sins in this area and can speak from firsthand experience.

You have to allow things to fall together and fall apart at their own pace. I keep coming back to the analogy that you can’t yank on a flower to make it grow faster…which really is what we all want. But hell, you can certainly do many things to a flower to kill it off before it’s time. Why not just let it grow and die as it was meant to?

This brings me to attachment to situations going on in life.

There’s a fantastic tendency to try to hold onto the things that are going good when they are going well and to run like hell or literally sink into the mud when things are going poorly. We attach ourselves to these situations by overthinking them and literally yanking on the flower day in and day out. IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY! It doesn’t work that way with flowers and it certainly doesn’t work that way with life either. Once again, trust me, I’ve tried haha. The only thing you can do is really be present.

That’s it? You mean, I can’t do anything else to force myself out of a situation or prolong good things indefinitely?

Nope, you can’t. There are inherently many things that are out of your control and life just has a funny way of doing what it does best. Presence, and the ability to choose, are two things that you do have complete control over. When things are going incredible or horrible, remember to bring yourself back to this moment. This one right now. If you levitate for too long or sink low into the depths in similar fashion…you will get stuck there. Those places, both of them, are places where you are not living in the present.

Your mind is a wonderful thing but it can also be a gigantic pain in the ass.

Part of it being a major pain in the ass is that it wanders constantly. Here, there, the past, the future, ideas, complaints, inner critic, it really can go on and on and on. But it can also bring you back into pure presence…which despite the minds moodiness…is really a gift. It can take you from any place of judgement, fear, hatred, anger, pain…right to the other side to love, acceptance, courage, presence. Pretty miraculous how that works.

But…you have to made the mindful decisions to do this. You can’t beat yourself up because you are on the other side right now, but instead, make the decision to come back to where you need / want to be and act in accordance with that.

Sounds simple…it’s not…it takes some serious practice. But if you do practice, you are heading in an incredible direction.

There’s no telling you just how much you will discover when you actually start making decision for yourself that aren’t controlled heavily by emotion or scattered thought. You can dive into rabbit holes that never end and discover entire worlds that you never knew existed. That depth…is a gift in of itself. Use it. Cherish it. Go there…you never know what may happen.

– Evan Sanders

Understanding This Dead Silence

There have been many long days and long nights lately. But most of all, there’s been this dead silence. The type of silence where the faintest of whispers sound like someone is talking right next to you. The presence of this type of silence has caused some loneliness at times, and yet when that passes focus and continued work is left over. Recently, I have spent less and less time on my phone and more time focusing on what I need to do. I think, to be honest, my phone was one of the greatest distractions I had and now for almost the entire day it is put away or turned over out of reach. There’s just this…indescribably silence left over and it’s allowing me to produce like I never have before.

Loneliness is a pretty interesting thing to deal with when it comes up in your life. Most of the time we miss either someone or something and then focus on not having that right now. For me, when loneliness strikes, it is usually my mind entering into the past and overthinking things. I replay situations, go through things that were said…and pretty much strip myself from being present as I should be. So, I have to come back. I have to focus back again on what I am doing right now and bring myself to a place where I can come back to what I am capable of doing in this moment. It’s not the easiest thing to do because that feeling often sticks with you for a while…but you must come back.

The past is a place of reference but not a place where you should reside.

Neither is the future really. Yes, things are always exciting when we travel into the land of the unknown, but it can just as much stop you from living presently as living in the past does. I’ve lived in both placed…so you can trust me when I say that last statement.

This silence isn’t destroying my life – it’s directing it.

I guess, this is where my potential really lives…in the dead quiet. I never really discovered that until recently. Never before in my life have I been able to feel as un-stuck as I feel now, which in truth, is quite peculiar because I actually thought it was going to be the other way around. What I do know which is more based of a gut feeling more than anything, is that this silence – the ability to compete with my potential and be productive – is going to absolutely need to be an integral part of my life as time moves forward…because I feel that things are about to change.

I’m going to need time to turn everything off in my life and sit there with a pen and paper and get what needs to come out…out. I just feel that to be a truth that will exist – especially knowing what I know right now.

This to me isn’t a small basic discovery that simply covers up a topic on the day to day blog. This is a elemental reality that I was missing for a long time and now completely understand its importance. Funnily enough, I can’t believe I missed this lesson after doing hours upon hours of silent meditation…having my deep purpose pop out of that…and having the clearest mind I’ve ever had when I was done with it. But, I guess in due time all things come back around to you when you are ready to learn them.

So, as it stands right now, I’m going to continue enjoying how quiet it is and be patient with how things are developing. At times, it can be difficult to allow things to continue on at a snails pace…but I must be patient. I’ve waited my entire life for an opportunity like this and I have to spend each moment I have putting myself into it. There’s really no other option at this point. I guess we will just have to see how things pan out?

Back to work.

Back into the quiet.

And oh yes…I’m listening

– Evan Sanders

Two Wolves by Evan Sanders

thebettermanprojects:

An INCREDIBLE review of my latest book Two Wolves! Love for you to read this.

Originally posted on Tranquil Dreams:

Evan Sanders is a fellow blogger and writer who runs The Better Man Project, an extremely inspirational blog and also one of the first blogs I followed.  A few years ago, he launched his first book called The Better Man Project based on what he has learned and hoping to inspire others even a little bit.  If you haven’t read that book, its really worth your time.  I reviewed it right HERE!

I’m starting to think that I need little breaks between reading novels so Two Wolves have been launched a month or so (I can’t remember the exact time) but I’ve been wanting to read it.  If its anything as inspirational as the first one, this will be good.

Two Wolves

by: Evan Sanders

Two Wolves is a 64 page inspirational read.  What Evan does great is that he talks about what happens in his encounters that…

View original 719 more words

Sometimes You Have To Let It Cook

When I was first learning how to write, I received a pretty great piece of advice that hasn’t ever left me. My teacher told me that good writers know when to write, but great writers know when not to write.

For the past three months, I have been on a writing tear…probably the greatest writing streak I’ve ever had. It has been almost every single day for 90 days. And yet, the past three days, I knew it was time to take a few steps back and let this extraordinary feeling just fester inside of me for a bit. There are days when I know what I have to say, how to say it, and what stories I am going to tell. Then, there are days when I show up to the laptop and have absolutely no idea what is about to come out. But these past three days, I had a pretty unique feeling that only comes around once in a while – the feeling of : whatever is going on inside of you right now, let it cook a little bit longer, you are almost to the bottom of it. 

So I let that sucker cook. Tonight, I’m taking it out of the oven.

Humility.

That’s what has come out of the oven…this concept of being humble and what it really means to be humble in this world. We live in a day and age where boasting, bragging, social media posts and all sorts of attention seeking behavior is pumping up peoples superficially strong egos and setting them up for disaster when the criticisms come. While I have fallen in this trap before and still do from time to time, I try to avoid it as much as possible.

Because when you become a man or woman who is built on the compliments of others…you will be destroyed by their criticisms.

That’s the way a fragile ego works. The fragile mind screams for attention of others because it can’t even begin to comprehend its own self worth. Dangerous. Very dangerous. In fact, and I can personally attest to this from years ago, people will go to great lengths to fill up the holes in their soul.

Maybe a few of you who have been around for a long time remember my reference to having a soul of swiss cheese? Holes in it everywhere?

Well that was my life, and boy did I try to fill those with all sorts of things. I was incredibly successful at it too. But when life does what it does best – comes and goes – those holes reappear again and again and you can either make the decision to build yourself into a solid block of cheese – lets say provolone, or continue to play the same game over and over again.

Unfortunately, most people don’t choose the reinvention route because it’s hard. And honestly, it is at times. But worth it? You bet.

How can we maintain humility and grounding when the world rages around us with opinions – both traditionally positive and negative? How can we stay true to our course without becoming infatuated with the things that other people say? It’s a challenge…it really is.

Through all of this letting it cook concept something else really came to mind that struck me over and over again. Who could we become if we really dropped all of our fears? How big could you really dream…and not in the way of achieving material possessions, but in seeing our greatest potential as a human being? What would that person do, walk like, talk like, be like…simply ask all the questions about your future self and who would that person be? Could you even see it?

And if you did start to see it, would you be willing to start competing with that?

That, right there, is precisely what I’ve been thinking about for the past few days – competing with the man I see in the future…in this moment right now.

That pushes me. It pushes me hard. Because I have done a lot of peeking around the corner and trying to see the next steps and I have a belief in who and what I can become. But belief doesn’t cut it alone…you have to get into action. Because without actions…you’re dead in the water. Actions are the glue that hold each of those pieces of belief together. Without them…simply pieces.

So ask yourself, who could you really be? There’s a reason why you can dream it, because it’s mostly likely already inside of you in the first place. It’s possibly for you. Now just go out there and get it.

– Evan Sanders

Dare

I’m having visions. Very interesting visions of how things can be done – what can be created – how things can be said – what is to come. Right now I’m painting. I’m painting this vision that I keep having stroke by stroke. As the days go by, I guess my mothers artist blood continues to prominently run through my veins. During these type of nights, where things are so clear and undisturbed in my head, I’m thankful for having that blood in me…it makes writing down these feelings a whole lot easier.

It’s amazing how something that seemed to be stirring inside of you for such a long period of time can disappear in what seems like moments. One little thing changes, one piece of information, one action…and a complete turning of gears happens in your mind and then you are gone. It baffles me when I go through things like that because sometimes I can be so stuck on something and then in an instant, bam, it vanishes from any of my thoughts. Is this my processing just coming into play or is it something else entirely? Maybe I will never know.

It’s always taken me a lot longer to process things than many other people. But this has actually turned into a gift of some sorts. When I go through situations in life, I really have to take the time to dig through all of it and understand what it means to me, what happened, and where I go from there. As time has gone on and I have spent more and more hours writing, I feel that the mixture of needing to take extra time to process and the ability to more accurately put words to my feelings and emotions has created a type of mixture that is oddly unique. While this deficiency didn’t exactly work well in testing situations in school, it has granted me a separate benefit altogether in writing my heart out. I have a feeling that will take me a whole lot farther than getting ruined in my Statistics classes ever will.

There are no superheroes. No flying figures in the night that watch over us. No superhuman feats of strength, speed, and agility. No, there’s only us. Only what we are. Only who we are. We may not be able to deflect a bullet or leap from building to building, but that does not mean we aren’t capable of great things. That we aren’t capable of moving mountains out of faith or even destroying them in hate. I sit here writing this out to you a deeply flawed man. I am no hero, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never be heroic. I have seen myself cower in the face of fear and that has opened my world up to having courage. I have spent years as a emotionally impoverished beggar in the dirt, and yet, does that mean I will not have my day where I defeat my demons and rise as a common champion for the people? No. And this is what I am getting at. If we can humbly accept the truth that we are who we are, to embrace the inevitable fact of our imperfections and put them on display them for the world to see…in an act of honesty and truth… and without fear create through love and for something far bigger than just ourselves…we may never be a superhero…but we can be something extraordinary.

One minute something is there and the next…it’s gone.

I don’t know what it is about this part of life but it continues to rock my socks, rip the rug out from underneath me, and fascinate me all at the same time. Things change instantly sometimes. In other cases, things change over time and no matter how much you’d like to deny their morphing…you know…you always know. For me, as silly as I can be sometimes, I’m no idiot. I’m very perceptive of the changes that are occurring or have occurred in the past and I’m aware of…usually…where things are going.

I lead with my heart but I never forget my head.

Tonight though, I want to end by talking about taking risks. That may be risks with your heart, with your career, with personal stories etc. Taking big risks is one of the scariest things you can possibly do. It challenges you beyond belief and demands everything from you at the same time. Yesterday, I took an incredible risk for a lack of better wording (which I will get to in a second) in sharing hands down the most personal story I have in my life. I say risk, but in my mind there was really no risk because I trusted my gut and I also fully believe in really trusting others with big pieces of yourself. Have I been burned plenty of time in the past? Yes, I have those scars all over my body. But that was during a time when I was a fool in how I trusted others. I put myself in peoples hands without exemption and never really felt into them and who they were. I don’t do that anymore. If something is off about someone I am around and I am getting bad vibes from them…I share, but I stop short. I hold pieces back because something inside me knows better. Many will say whatever they want about that, but inherently I know deep down who to trust and who to not. These are positive boundaries I have created for myself and time and time again this gut feeling has proved to help me more than hurt me. But yesterday, there was no need for that. No boundary needed at all. It was just pure open honesty and a whole lot of “here it is…there’s not going back from this.”

In our lives, we can either play the game scared or we can dare greatly. I can tell you that I spent a lot of my life playing scared. But now, I dare. I dare people to ignore me and forget about me, I dare life to give me as much hell as it possibly can knowing that I will only get stronger, I dare myself to do things that make me very uncomfortable, and I will continue to dare myself to move forward throughout the rest of my life. There have been pages turned and chapters closed in my life that have sealed an ancient book of what could be titled “living in fear.” This book, is titled “Living In Fear, But Doing It Anyway.”

So let’s see how all of this pans out.

Dare

– Evan Sanders

The Faintest Of Whispers

Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable. | Stephen Russell

In the times to come, I will bleed. And I know, that when I do, they will come. They will come for me with those piercing eyes and sharpened teeth, ready to sink their jaws into the thick of me to finish me off. It’s a strange feeling to be walking through the forrest  feeling the presence of these wolves who do not yet sense me there. But in time, they will. They will have their time as they leave their past prey behind in search for tastier slabs of meat to shred to pieces. When they arrive, I’ll be waiting.

Once more into the fray,

Into the last good fight I’ll ever know

Live and die on this day

Live and die on this day

| Jon Treloar

Despite any uneasiness felt today about what  I know is to come, I felt a great relief in that I already face the greatest critic face on I will ever know – myself. If you even heard my inner critic speak you would be disgusted by how vicious it can be sometimes. It’s brutal and when it goes off, I feel like I just got out of an emotional boxing match with Mike Tyson.

It’s gotten the best of me many times throughout my life and I’ve learned how to quiet it down when it begins. But when I don’t, all sorts of bad things happen. I start tearing myself apart piece by piece and when it’s finished with me, I have to pick up all of the shards on the ground and put it all back together. I’m sure that there are many people out there reading this right now that can relate to me on this exact point.

I’m breathing.

Or at least, in many moments, trying to breathe. What I’ve found over these past couple of months was that there was an underlying stress under many surface level situations that was really getting to me. This stress, while anxiety inducing, is doing something to me that I’ve started to appreciate. It’s doing something that I’ve written about before and ironically enough, read about in a blog I was sent from someone who I’ve counseled on starting her own journey into writing – developing diamonds.

I’ve not asked for an easy life. This is contrary to what I’ve begged for in the past. In fact, every day as I jump out of bed I ask for the complete opposite. In one way or another, I’ve asked for whatever can be thrown at me to be thrown at me…and if it must be, give me a pounding that will drive me as close to as submission as possible. To some, this may sound a bit insane. Maybe it is a bit mad. But this has been a huge shift in my thinking over the past year as I have seen myself change drastically in front of my own eyes as a result of the decisions I have made. I’ve asked for this for one reason.

Blind spots.

When you are being tested, you very quickly find out where your weaknesses are and where your blind spots exist. When times are good, you are just functioning on a high. You just go, go, go. But when those challenges arise, from the depths arrive your cracked links and you become acutely aware of the things you need to work on.

I’ve asked for this for another reason. If I want to lead people out of the dark and into light, I must first deeply experience all that this world has to offer in the shadows. I lightly say this right now in my writing, but this is actually a very serious matter for me…one that I take very personally. I am aware of the fact that my world experience is not that developed yet and I am making arrangements to change that as well. But I have been privy to the depths of emotions that I’ve never really expressed here in their true depth. This isn’t a lack of vulnerability, it’s simply rooted in the fact that there are some things I keep close to my heart, and while I do express myself here in this place, it’s only a fraction of what is actually going on in my life.

I couldn’t really see the reason for all of the things that have happened over the past handful of years…the intensity of many of them and some unbelievable events that occurred…but I guess that’s changing. I’ve adapted, morphed, and changed into what sits here right now writing to you with the development of something that has never really been there in my life before – belief. Real belief. Not pseudo positive thinking belief. No, the type of stuff you can die for.

It’s slightly interesting that cut out and posted on my cork board for the past 4 years has been a quote that says “Find something worth dying for and then live for it.” I guess I’ve done that now. I’ve found something worth dying for…and if I go out doing this, it will be the most worthwhile journey I’ve ever gone on.

I’m not exactly sure I understand the consequences of what I’m about to do, what I’ve uncovered and come across, and what’s about to happen…but I will certainly find out. I will find out for better or for worse. All I do know is that the intent and the current running through all of this is for a good reason and for that…this journey is worthwhile.

I can’t accurately describe to you what’s going on with me right now. This really hasn’t been an issue in the past, but there’s something that’s happening that has developed…a new thing…that I’ve never had / or tapped into before. It isn’t an emotion, it isn’t a feeling…a thought…no, it’s something. It’s something else. Foreign. It’s quieted me down a lot…to the point of dead silence…and I’m listening for something it has to say. There’s a slight whisper so faint I can barely hear it at times…but that whisper is telling me something that has been keeping me going throughout these long days.

Passionately knowing and yet completely clueless walking into a bank of fog with only a indescribable certainty that something I’ve seen in my mind exists on the other side.

If that isn’t faith, then I don’t know what is.

– Evan Sanders

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Shh…Are You Listening?

Strange days these are.

Quiet days…very very quiet.

In fact, the only sound that fills the room for almost the entire day is the sound of my fingers pattering away on the keys. It reminds me of a dream I had back when I was about a year or two into writing every day…”What if I made this my living…like what I could do with my life every single day?” Not the 9 hours of building and writing part, but just the writing itself. What if I could do that with my life?

And when the pattering of the keys ends…silence. dead silence. Stillness.

Sometimes I take a few minutes to breathe into it. This silence is not the type of silence that your mind fears because it will begin to hear itself speak. This is the silence before something begins to happen. This is the silence that you hear on the mound right after you breathe and go into your motion. The silence in big moments…when you hear nothing because your mind is so focused on the mitt. I haven’t felt this in a long time, but it’s back again, and I know…I’m in a big moment.

Building. Building. Building.

Every day, knowing that the hours I put in now are going to be the foundation for something grand in the future…I continue to build. I am running purely on gallons and gallons of faith right now. There’s nothing else. You see, I’m up to something…scheming…plotting…planning, and only 2 know what I’m actually doing. I don’t know how it happened, but I had a moment where I was able to look around the corner into the future and saw something that didn’t exist yet, but only I could make.

And in that moment, I lost things that were dear to me, which made room for me to do what was necessary. I trust that those sacrifices and the losing of those things were all in for good reason and that they will not be empty pieces on my path. In my heart, I know that this is true…there’s a reason for everything and that I have to trust that I am being protected, guided, and brought to places I need to be taken.

I’ve rubbed shoulders with this feeling day by day…that everything is about to change drastically and will never be the same. In fact, ever since a year ago when I had my series of dreams…I stopped dreaming. When I do dream, I have vivid pictures painted in my mind and in time…they always happen. Recently, there has been one significant one and I realize that I may never actually live here again. This dream was tied up into what I’m doing right now and I truly did go on the grandest adventure of my life…one worth dying for. It’s a trip coming out of those dreams and knowing something. It’s hard to describe, but maybe I’ll just have to show you when this all happens.

I can’t help but see a path behind me that has forged everything up until this moment. I felt like I was blindly going into a lot of things but realize that my faith by sight was only blind…and my faith by heart knew exactly what it was doing. This is precisely where I stand in this moment and in fact know that there will be an outcome in this land of uncertainty and leaving it up to whatever may be to set it just how it’s supposed to look like.

More leaps of faith.

More building of my wings on the way down.

About to fly…

– Evan Sanders