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
The Better Man Project