There have been so many lessons in passion.

It’s been said that the wild horse of fear can be handled two ways. You can stand in a cage with it and it will rear and buck and destroy you, or you can send it out into a pasture, watch it kick and prance…and then see it lay down in the grass after it has tired itself out.

This is one of the first lessons in passion that I have learned over this past year.

There is great power, beauty, and humility in learning the hardest lessons you are destined to learn. I knew these lessons were coming, and they showed up at my front door – and for the first time in my life, knowing how painful some of them were going to momentarily be, I said “Come on in, I know it’s been a while since we’ve done this.”

How freeing is that?

You have no idea. You have to court your pain, insecurities, uncomfortableness, doubts, anxieties, worries…all of it you have to welcome and fell through it. When you start trying to kick feelings or act out of accordance with your words, then things start swirling. You will feel it first in your stomach – that tight feeling throughout your abs. When you have a loose and breathing belly, you witness the world instead of feeling controlled by it.

Every single day I take 30 minutes to sit down and meditate, and by the recommendations of one of the books I am reading I do this naked (totally vulnerable, and yet powerful and connecting with consciousness itself) and detach myself from the part of myself that feels like it is detached from the world. I feel into my breath. Down into my belly, released up through my back. Whatever comes my way I watch as if it is part of a traveling show. Memories come in, sometimes happy, sometimes painful…and yet each of these I let go when it is their time and come back to my breath. I’m not grasping. I am no longer holding onto the great times and resistance the bad times. Another one of the lessons in passion.

I never understood this about myself before, but I have come to find that my always watching and observing what is going on in the world is actually me soaking up inspiration for my deepest purpose. Since I felt disconnected from that purpose, the watching and soaking everything in didn’t really make all that much sense to me. I’ve had a few of my very close friends tell me that even though others think I am tuning out to the world, they in fact know that I am tuning in and connecting deeply. This quietness, this complete state of relaxation, almost like a state of bliss in itself is me connecting down to my masculine core. The core of me that acts as a mirror to the world and literally functions from a place of love and light. This feeling is new, it’s powerful, and it has awoken vibrations within me that have never been felt before. I am now identifying with the thing that does not change. The energies that have been here before me for infinite amounts of time and the energies that will be here far after we are all gone. I am sitting as a representation of love – not having to necessarily speak it, think it, or write it…but just being it. 

How many lessons in passion have there been lately?

Many. Many. Many. Many. Everything around me has relaxed. Even tough situations that used to run my life are loosening. They are unknotting. When it is time for me to sit down and write, I start opening myself up to see the ever-changing and morphing nature of everything that is going on around me. This feminine energy is beautiful, it’s chaotic, it’s destructive, it’s happy…it’s…everything that the world represents in itself. Infinite possibilities and infinite combinations and permutations of what life could be. Ever changing. Ever morphing. This type of energy inspires me deeply and has been explained to me as the reason I have been able to write in the way that I do.

When I start feeling into emotions, into thoughts, into the changing nature of things (good and bad) that is that energy flowing through me. That is the nature of the feminine coming through me – and to me, that’s beautiful. But I never lose my core, I just allow my core to become inspired by this energy. What used to seem so disconnected is now so inspired, so full, and so open. I’ve talked about this as “the unfolding of things.”

About a month plus ago, I had a really interesting coaching conversation with one of my mentor coaches about ambition, goals, and dreams. Anyone who knows me and who knows The Better Man Project could probably nail it down as say that I was pretty ambitious in my striving towards things. That was exactly what she was trying to teach me to reconsider. There’s this massive narrative that we are involved in that tells us that we will be happy when. Happy when we achieve this goal, happy when we get that person, happy when we have the amazing car, happy when we eventually…in metaphorical terms, land on the island of “where it all pans out.”

The problem is…that island doesn’t exist. So we are constantly rowing towards an island that appears as visible, but isn’t tangible. As you can probably imagine, we go out and strive for more, more, more and when we get that, our thirst is never satisfied. We live our lives for the sake OF PROGRESS instead of deepening and development into who and what we already are. If you know anything about history, many atrocities have been committed for the sake of progress. The same attitude can be brought into our lives. My challenge was “who am I without goals?” What I found is that I am Evan Sanders without goals…but with goals, I have no idea who I am. I am a shapeshifter – always stressing, always focused on the future, always out of the present, and lacking that deep connection – the deep connection I feel now to everything.

Now that my mind has been stretched in that way, I can see the difference between going on a journey and being in one. 

My life, I realize now, is the most exciting and beautiful journey and story I will ever be in. I am the hero of this story, and with that everything will be thrown my way. That’s the point. That’s the beauty of it. I will be challenged, tested, courted, stretched, expanded, broken and all of the expressions of life will come my way.

How exciting would that be though?

To be in the story instead of always feeling like you have to get somewhere. Maybe right here and right now is the only place we are supposed to be? Well, I think it’s far from a maybe. I think it’s definitely. To be in the story and to be happy in your boat – not necessarily going “somewhere” but instead floating along and enjoying the opportunities of today’s life – would be a gift in itself.

This is a gift that I have been tapping into, and this is one of the final lessons in passion, for now, that I want to talk about today.

Life has an interesting way of bringing the best plot lines to your life. Let it unfold in front of you instead of always trying to force a change in the writer’s hand. What is going to happen is going to happen – and in truth, that’s perfect in itself.

Please feel free to contact me at thebettermanprojects@gmail.com to give me feedback, ask me a question, or simply open up and talk about something. I am never too busy to hear what’s going on with you.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project