There was this extraordinary feeling, like the moment your fingers slip out of someones hands for the last time. He was about to leave this place. Leave this moment. He was about to crack and shed a skin years in the making. In that moment, he knew nothing would ever be the same. In that moment, he fell in love with the uncertainty of it all.

There have been deep tectonic forces at play, shifting the sands of my foundation, pouring in the concrete as they settle and forming this density within me that has choked the air out of me a few times, and yet, dropped roots so deep into the ground I cannot accurately describe the feeling to you. If I had to take a shot at it, it’s that while I can bend and flex in the wind, there isn’t anything on this earth that can uproot me anymore. I’m too dug in.

These shifts, these changes, are not small. They are fundamental…meaningful…and they disrupt my life every single day in the finest of ways. The have shaken me to my core and started to bleed any insecurity or doubt from my veins. These changes have given me access to something I only understood before, but now i feel – the true power of being naked, vulnerable, and open to all things.

Does fear creep in…as well as every single thought and emotion available. Yes. However, I have been far from acting out of these places for a little while now, and today, I felt an indescribable tension release. It wasn’t a snap…just a slipping away.

I’m about to leave this place. It’s a feeling I don’t think anyone could really understand because they aren’t going through it specifically, but everything is about to change. My gut, which has always held me to the truth despite my best efforts to combat its wisdom, knows something. It knows mountains are about to move. It knows that I first had to have that feeling of the density of whatever there is in me…and then, shifting would change. Massive amounts of shifting.

I feel myself turning inside.

I feel myself detaching from things.

I feel myself seeing…even though I have my eyes closed. I’ve never been able to do this before, but I can feel the room now. I can close my eyes and peer into everything because I can feel this energy. Sounds a little bit funny, but I do this at my gym in the mornings where I will sit down on my legs and just breathe. That massive gap between me and others has quickly closed, as I have crossed the chasm and reached out to those around me with genuine love, interest, and compassion. To keep it simple, there are now 40 new people in my life. I can only imagine what the next few months will bring.

(I got pretty distracted right here for about 15 minutes – and these are the next thoughts that poured into my head)

My fascination and love for fishing (I told you this was going to be out of left field) began when I was very little and has continued to this day. Some of the best times of my life are when I go out into the mountains on my own or with a close friend and get to “the hole” where I excitedly set up my gear and cast my line into the water.

There’s this feeling that is understandable amongst fisherman and might be slightly mysterious to those who haven’t never experienced this…but there are these moments where you simply can feel where fish are in the water and when something is about to strike. You don’t feel a tapping on the hook or line…but it’s this stillness in the water – despite its currents – in which you can feel something change.

That feeling stays in your hands for the moments before you feel the strike, you set the hook hard and fast and the game is on. Then, the entire would could be burning down around you, but with a fish on the line, nothing else matters.

That feeling, the feeling of the “change in the waters”…the almost tingling in your hands…is in my hands right now. I’ve been trying to figure out for days what the hell was going on with my hands…but that 15 minute distraction brought it right to the front of my mind.

The tides are changing. Mountains are moving. What an extraordinary experience this all is.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project