Seeds.

I’ve been planting seeds for some time, and with patience, I have seen them flower.

I’ve seen them take root in the ground and spring up into the air. I’ve witnessed them open and I’ve begun to understand just how important it is to have faith in the process and understand the building of a garden. 

There are many more seeds that I have planted that will take more time to see through.

Some of those seeds will never make it.

Some of them will grow in ways I could have never expected.

But that the life of the patient gardener. He plants with faith and takes care of the land in order to see a beautiful result. Does he understand exactly what is going to come out of it? No. He has an idea…but that idea can run with interpretation.

In reflecting on what has happened this past year, I’ve come to understand that something has opened up in my life that had been covered up before.

Joy.

Interestingly enough, it was the intimate contact with the darker side of me that allowed me to return back to elation. It was being able to understand those darker times, emotions, and sides of myself that opened me up to being able to express deep amounts of joy even though I was at times in pain.

I also came to an understand of pieces of me.

That despite anything I was going through, those emotions, those pains…were only pieces of the entire story. I am far more complicated and unique than to have one piece of my life determined by a single event.

The more I took that on, the more I realized that I have so much more to offer in the moment than what is trying to take hold in me. Freedom came from this. Great amounts of freedom. Knowing this helped me go beyond my fear and truly examine my anxiety, nervousness, restlessness…and everything else in the playback.

Out of all of this…I became much softer.

My passions guided a dense solidification of my core through the bubbling up of encouragement and love…

And at the same time, everything else around me became much more fluid. I became so vulnerable that I couldn’t help but be impacted by my world. I became much more part of it than what I had spent years doing before – separating myself from others.

I became daring.

I started to express things, do things, and act in ways that I would not have dared to enact before. I wanted to to become more raw. I wanted to stand in the world naked and wiling to give myself more to others. This opened me up to wounding, but yet, interesting enough on the other side of that is the understanding of the world in a deeper way.

I learned to become more genuine.

That all started with not disowning myself for any reason. That started with accepting my thoughts and emotions as part of the process and a natural part of living. I didn’t suppress anything. I didn’t push aside anything. In fact, I started to feel and experience it all. The intensity of always trying to “get to that place where it all turned out” stopped…and in turn restored its focus to being right here in the moment. That liberated me in many ways.

I have a lifetime of understanding and experiencing left to go. That excites me. That gives me something to look forward to. I don’t ever want to stop learning about what life has to offer and I’m sure that I won’t even begin to scratch the surface even when I reach the end.

But isn’t that the point?

To take a journey of constant unfolding and to discover the layers within us?

That’s what I’m up to at least.

Maybe you will decide to take the journey as well.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project