I think in many ways I’ve distrusted the possibilities of what lay before me.

It doesn’t matter what it is – career, job, love, relationships, passing of the bad.

It’s that fear. The fear dissolves all of the good and sends me back into the darkness. It’s the fear that tears the light away and makes me see with very clouded eyes.

As the darkness rolls in, I become a lesser version of myself. I’m not wise in that place. I’m not loving in that place. I keep people at a distance and look to isolate myself from the world. I understand now that I’m just scared. I’m afraid of getting hurt.

But that’s not the deepest wisest version of who I am.

Lately, I’ve come across those deeper connections. 

As I’ve sat down to meditate, started to change what I consume drastically, set better intentions throughout the day and create more and more, I have connected into something far more loving and caring within. I’ve walked through the trees and finally turned the phone on to video these thoughts and feelings that seem to come from deep within my belly.

Often, I don’t even remember what I said after. It’s only until later that evening when I start uploading my work that I really get to hear what I was putting out there from my heart.

These connections are feeding me energy. They are illuminating whatever I was scared of with light and everything has started to disappear in the face of that.

I used to be incredibly worried about many different things all the time and now those worries have also drifted away. They have either softened or retreated back into the ocean completely. I understand that this is only possible in the presence of light.

There’s no need to sabotage anything.

A long time ago, I struggled deeply with making big changes in my life and sabotaging them. I would cut them down, muster up the courage to start again, and then somewhere along the line cut them down again. When I look back, I can see the vicious patterns that kept me a slave to my own mind and I didn’t have much capacity to break them.

I didn’t ever sit down in silence.

I didn’t ever quiet my mind and understand that there were different ways of doing things.

My feeling disconnected with life, that feeling of being alone, drove me to do things that hurt me and made me even more alone. That’s the sick joke about stories that are manufactured in your head. They often fulfill their own prophecy and make it ten times worse than what you originally had thought.

There have been many people who have guided me along the path and have helped me become who I am today. They helped me look deep inside myself and understand the places where I needed to grow and what I had to do to let go of the things I was holding onto the tightest.

There was anxiety in this path.

But, in time, all of that quieted down. As the discovery of who I really was deepened the confidence arose as well.

When you really begin to believe in yourself, the future doesn’t make you as nervous. You know that no matter what, you will be able to face the moments that challenge you with your own wisdom. 

I believe in who I am.

I know that at the heart of me I am a good person. Are there things that get in the way of that sometimes? Absolutely. But at the core, I am good.

I am doing my best every day to become more and more in alignment with that.

That journey has and continues to be the most worthwhile path I have ever stepped foot on.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project