This is a spark moment.

It’s amazing to start seeing things piece themselves together in the mind when you are looking back on what’s happened.

After my grandmother had passed away, I wasn’t exactly sure of my next steps on my path. A lot had been thrown up into the air. The first vacation I’ve taken since I got out of college was cut terribly short to 5 days and I had to rush back home. I could have never seen that coming. I didn’t expect that at al.

But as I’ve been here, some opportunities have arrived that also lived in the land of “man…I never saw that coming.”

I’ve had the chance to work with two brilliant healers.

I’ve developed a sense of clarity on moving forward with the next steps of my life and my business.

I’ve been able to make decisions and re-discipline myself in ways that are much healthier and have far better grounded intentions that before.

So coming back, well, it has been a gift. I’ve been offered an opportunity to move forward with a sense of “knowing” even though I’m still constantly heading into that grand place called the unknown. I have a “heading” but clearly have no clue what’s going to actually show up when I go along that journey.

I’ve had the chance to connect with my deepest sense of purpose.

What was once something that I doubted quickly became something that I have accepted wholeheartedly. This path with heart has brought the best out in me. And it comes down to this every single decision I make…

“Will I love or will I not love?”

When I ask myself those questions in even the most challenging of moments that face me, the answers become quite simple.

Love.

Because love has been the thing that has brought me farther out of the darkness than anything else in my life. It has illuminated even the toughest of circumstances, healed the deepest of wounds, and brought me closer to my truest sense of self.

This isn’t necessarily “romantic love” but rather just deep unconditional love for what is.

From that place?

Connection.

There’s this feeling of roots flying up through the bottom of my feet into my legs. They continue to crawl higher and higher up until I feel completely grounded and connected. The sensation coming in those moments is incredibly hard to describe. It’s like pieces of you are buried deep within the dirt and continuing to make their way farther and farther down into the earth.

Practice is like a roller coaster. Each new high is usually followed by a new low. Understanding this, it makes it a bit easier to ride with both phases…there is in addition to the up and down cycles an in and out cycle. That is, there are stages at which you feel pulled into inner work and all you seek is a quiet place to meditate and get on with it, and then there are times when you turn outward and seek to be involved in the marketplace. Both of these parts of the cycle are part of one’s practice, for what happens to you in the marketplace helps in your meditation, and what happens in your meditation helps you to participate in the marketplace without attachment. At first you will think of practice as a limited part of your life. In time you will realize that everything you do is part of your practice. (A Path With Heart – Jack Kornfield)

That passage brought me a lot of perspective. It opened me up to seeing that there are these in and out cycles that I truly wasn’t aware of. But it also made me start to see that there are these rhythms to the soul – the bouts of desiring quiet and peace and the moments for diving into the community. Both of these cycles are part of the practice. They are there to teach you how to be in the other fully.

As I have settled more and more into being here…I’ve seemed to let go of what’s going to happen down the line.

While I have the occasional moment of panic or backtrack into my old story, I’ve been much better about stepping into this version of myself that is far more accepting of everything that drawing lines.

The movement of the mind is to divide and conquer.

The language of the heart is to accept.

As I step into this place, everything feels much calmer. Much more at peace. Much healthier. It didn’t always feel that way. When I was in this place of trying to do things to prove my worthiness I always felt empty. There was always more to do. There was always more to be.

I think part of that lived in the title of this blog in the first place when I started all those years ago. But I also think there was this basic sense of goodness in it as well. It has always about becoming a better human being. Not better in the sense of “adding” things or being a better person that others…but in connecting more to myself and who I really am.

That spark…that spark keeps coming back.

It’s the spark of fearlessness. Commitment. Acceptance. Love.

My personality is shifting. There’s been some resistance from the old way…but truly I am letting go of that version of myself.

There’s so much more here for me.

It has always been here.

It will always be.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project