Let it be Hard

“I want it to be easy!” – I’m punching my pillow.

“Let it be hard!” – An internal voice releases my vigor.

Recently I’ve made some tough decisions. And for a moment I fell for the panic, the doubt and the despair…

Until I remembered:

In order to live an exceptional life we get to make exceptional decisions. Decisions no one has ever made before, because no one has ever walked in our shoes…

Decisions that move our life path away from the “crowd”.

It is tough. It brings up fears of rejection, of loss or of poverty.

But you know what?

It’s part of the game!

This is what unleashes the wild self within!

This is what strengthens our resolve!

I want to encourage you:

DO the step you are so scared of but you kept pondering for years.

MOVE where destiny is calling you.

YOU know it. No one else.

No fortune teller can tell you what to do.

Only you are in charge.

And this is not a top-to-bottom advice of some sort.

I encourage myself too with a livin’ prayer. 😉

It’s easy to talk about it.

It is freakin’ hard to WALK it!!

The path no one has walked before.

Your path.

It’s easy to learn a lot of things but actually putting them into action: this is the hard part! Yes. It is hard and it is beautiful.

It’s, without a doubt, the most satisfying thing in the world.

 

Reversed Resolutions

I’m standing on Donnersbergerbrücke.

It’s the evening haze of a regular weekday in Munich and it dawns on me that I am EXACTLY where I am supposed to be.

I am not rushing to catch the bus I’m supposed to take.

The sun is painting its last colors on the sky.

I don’t remember the last time I was standing on this bridge.

But what I know is: It is not the same person standing here.

I have changed.
Something inside of me has changed fundamentally.

I felt strangely at home.

At this moment I realize that my shadow is comforting me.

It is my home.

“Just come as you are,” they say.

Okay, here I am.

All of a sudden it is there.
I under-stand.
I take pride in my path.
I own my story.

A rush of gratitude fills my eyes….

I grew from the inside and for the first time I really feel that.

I evolved – FROM the inside.

I have done the work. And now I am standing here.

“What’s next?,” my busy mind wants to ask.

Again, I gaze towards the setting sun….

“What if instead of moving forward, i’d move backwards?,” my busy mind itself countered with an open question.

I can’t sow endless seeds.

Now is the moment that I finally understand that rest is AS important as progress.

Digesting what is instead of preparing a new meal.
Clearing the debris instead of building anew.
Integrating what happened instead of initiating something else.

I can’t sow endless seeds, no, but I can praise the garden that is growing inside of me, in front of me, around me…

I don’t know how I could not get it earlier, but it does not matter.

On a random day, in stillness, I recovered the beauty of my life.

For too long I witnessed it within myself and in others…

We are pushing so hard to move forward. We are aiming for one dimensional progress. The thing is that progress is not one dimensional.

It’s expansive.
It’s round and whole.
It’s the yin and the yang. The animation and the integration are both equally important.

Growth is the integration of what is.
Growth is not only about harvesting the fruits, it’s about ploughing the land, fertilizing the dirt, and preparing for the upcoming season…

Personal growth is the care-taking of our internal motherland….

In some years maybe the harvest is not what we expected it to be. It is not as lush, as fruitful, or as delicious.

Some years we can only use it for compost. To fertilize the new ground in front of us.

Here we go 2023.

It’s the reversed resolutions…

 

Life Goes On

And sometimes life goes on in a way that we could not possibly foresee.
The work pays off when we least expect it.
Miracles happen that we could not imagine in our wildest dreams.
The puzzle is completing itself. We move on.
The darkest moments turn into our pivotal turning points of growth.

We know it deep down inside. We have done the work in a myriad of ways. And there she is: Life force. She was there all the way, but we could not receive her.

Alignment cracks us open. It happens. If we are ready or not. Things fall into place drastically.

We had no idea that it could be true.

What would your life look like if you’d remove the roadblocks NOW? Are you scared of the unknown? Scared of the light that is awaiting you on the other side of your fear?

Don’t be scared. Hit the road. It’s leading you home…

 

Approaching Life From a Yin Perspective

The yin gives up searching.

The yin is the full acceptance of the parts that still want to be transformed.
The yin is the knowing that there will always be parts that want to be transformed.

The yin comforts our discomfort.

She dresses the wounds.

She flares us open and yet she heals us.

The yin tells the long-forgotten stories. The stories that are still being lived through us.

The yin helps us to remember.

She nourishes the ground for us to stand on – and to eventually move on.

Text inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

 

Your Desire is Your Destiny or “Doing is The New Thinking”

Follow your desire. Follow your destiny. These thoughts entered my mind a couple of days ago…

Your Desire is Your Destiny.

There is a thing about “knowing what I want” that I always underestimated.

Recently I had been studying the hermetic teachings deeply – if there is such thing as studying hermetic teachings.

I did not grasp the power of “mentalism” through the lecture itself, but by connecting the dots of my own life experience.

We can read as much as we want and still be reluctant to the fundamental truths that direct our life.

So: There is a thing about “knowing what I want” – a thing I would call magic:

The secret is not knowing what I want. The secret is acting upon it. Step by step by step….

What is action? In a few words: It is guided energy.

I can know everything, still my life won’t change.

I can understand all the rules of the universe and not change a thing in my life… if I don’t make a move.

Learning more about energy, I am understanding more and more that I am the one directing my life by directing the energy that I use with every single step that I take.

I can always ask myself: What makes me take that action? Do I really want this?!

It is shocking, but I ALWAYS have a choice.

This is nothing really new…

”Your thoughts create your reality”

I’ve been working with this universal truth for quite some time. Nevertheless only now I grasp the full scope of it.

I’ve experienced it first hand by manifesting things I wanted and things I clearly did not want in my life. In any case my actions directed the energy in a certain way that manifested this reality.

“The part of you that loves you the most creates the roadblocks that you are facing to make you build something out of it,” Gabor Maté placed this beautiful reminder on my path.

This quote helped me to forgive myself for all the supposedly detours that I took. Everything we do in our lives serves us in one way or another to fulfill a certain need. When we are traumatized we might hold on to any straw, but hell yeah, we survived!

The task is to figure out what these needs truely are and respond to them in a healthy or constructive way.

I am always directing my life. I am making decisions.

Healing is one decision away and so is success.

To quote Bob Proctor freely here: “…success is not about reaching a goal. It is continuous movement in the direction of a specific goal by making one decision after another…”

It is not about the milestones reached.

It is not about the number of fallbacks counted.

It is about the continuous flow of energy moved in a certain direction.

I am the one who chooses to accept, to learn, to surrender to what is….

I am the one who is transforming this life…. energy from one aggregate state to another.

I am transmuting emotional conditionings.
I am releasing trauma from my system.
I am transforming energy.

What I witness is that things manifest in no time. We are enabled to take action now.

This is the new new age stuff…

The days of thinking are over.

Doing is the new thinking.

 

Remember to Breathe

“Change doesn’t happen overnight.”

This truth revealed itself to me several times.

Sure, I can comprehend that intellectually.

But incorporating the patience to bear that truth – that’s a different story….

I AM IMPATIENT. With myself. With the world around me. With the people who are “waking up” right now in this world. I don’t want to be impatient. I want to have compassion.

How do I want to have patience with other people if I am my hardest judge?

“You should be more confident.”
“You should be somewhere else in your life.”

Yeah, I’m claiming myself to be empathetic. But when it comes to my own development I bounce my head against the walls of my own resistance. “Resistance to what?,” you might ask… My resistance to feel what really wants to be felt in the very moment.

Writing this down raises a smile on my face. Warmth is softening my chest. “Take it easy,” an internal voice whispers into my awareness.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Mary Anne Radmacher

Honestly, this quote moved me.

How much time do I give myself? To evolve, to learn, to remember, to integrate?

How many times do I rush into a decision?

How many times do I not listen to my exhaustion?

What this whole pandemic thing (call it whatever you please) teaches me is: PATIENCE. And I am so freakin’ grateful for this – even if it’s the hardest lesson I have yet to learn.

What I learnt over and over again from my past is that life does not follow a chronological timeline.

I can manifest. I can picture my brightest future. As soon as I take steps new challenges arise. New insecurities show up.

Surprise, surprise – the body is striking. The mind is rebelling.

And here you are: “Wait a minute? I have asked for this, why is it that hard?”

Because we grow in sections.
Friction is a companion on our journey.
Challenge will never leave us.
Challenge comes when we least expect it and, surely, when we most need it in order to make our own decisions.
They are here to test us.

When universe asks: “Are you serious?”

Do you go all in?

All in often times means not to push hard. It means to pull back. To take rest. To cry. To sleep. To recover. To re-cover what you have buried beneath new layers of life experience.

Something you considered as healed may re-inflames.
And then it is up to you to open your eyes to reality. Will you take the time to heal? Or will you distract yourself again and not move on?

The best advice I can give myself these days (as a fire sign) is: SLOW THE F*ck DOWN. Do you. Keep clear. Don’t overdo. Move along, but do it in your own pace (or slightly slower.)

Is there something you have overlooked in your enthusiasm?
Is your body asking for something else than your busy mind does deliver?
Is there anything at all that needs to be done right now?


Do you remember to breathe?

Breeeeeaaaathe through discomfort.
Move through hardships with grace.
Accept the challenge.

 

Collective Shadow Work, The Fear of Change and The Paradox of “Surrender”

Change is here. Change is now. By now most of us seem to agree on this: Change is inevitable.

But how do we proceed on our journey?

The fear of change is creating a huge shadow overcasting the sky of opportunity.

It is our turn to step up and step right into this fog. Now is the time to shine, fellow lightworkers. Don’t be scared of this huge wall of darkness in front of you. It is only energy and you are able to transform it.

Give in and surrender to your feelings. This is how you let the wall dissolve. This is collective shadow work. Allow your cells to transmute.

Open up. Loose grip. Bow down. Give in, soul.

Devote yourself to the truth.

Melt into the moment. Accept the challenge that is being presented right in front of you.

Look through the veil. Open yourself up and step into reality.

Solve the problems that you are facing with the means that you have instead of blaming, blaming, blaming… the circumstances or everyone else who appears to be incapable of solving your problems, because they are your problems and not theirs.

You have the power to solve those problems if you are willing to see the resources you are given.

What are you fighting for? And what are you revolting?

Let go of your comfort and then let go of your discomfort. As simple as that.

“The great surrendering” is here. We have the chance to come back to our senses.

Confusion leads to expansion if we let it.

Chaos is the motor of our progress.

Challenge is the driving force of the evolution of consciousness.

Fear is our magical tool.

Why?

Fear vanishes the ego. Let it in.
Fear forces us to dive into the unknown.
The ego can’t persist and it will succumb to unity.

This is our unique opportunity to come back to life.

 

Sacrifice

Just now in the subway a word came into my head: Sacrifice.

I know the word, but am I familiar with it?

Years ago I met this martial arts athlete in New Zealand. He introduced me to his secrets of success: determination, loyalty and sacrifice.

I got it. He had to train hard in order to be a successful fighter and he doesn’t have time for much else – apart from his pals and family.

But honestly, for me it was always hard to grasp. ‘To sacrifice’ always sounded slightly pathetic to me.

This morning I took a shower and I knew my day would get better if I’d turned the tap on cold.

I did. And interestingly I felt nothing.

Well, not nothing. But I did not feel the need to control.

I didn’t control my breath. I didn’t tense up. I didn’t move around tipoeing.

Automatically my heart started pumping my blood a little bit more intensely. My breath speeded up. I inhaled deeply and exhaled strongly.

My body took over. Within a minute I was wide-awake and I had a smile on my face.

In this moment I realized that sacrifice had been a part of my life ever since. But it didn’t feel like it, because subconsciously I always knew that my thoughts, my perception of myself, my limitations and the world around me is just an illusion.

The image that I have of myself is not true. What I think I am capable of is not true. Or let’s phrase it differently: What I think I am not capable of is not true.

I realized how much I had been trying to control my body during these cold showers.

Why? Because I did not trust in my body. This morning I found out that it is completely unnecessary to distrust, because my body knows better than me.

The same thing happened to me the other day when I did over one hundred sun salutations for the first time in my life while during a yoga challenge I attended. I did not know that I was capable of such a physical task.

I set the intention in my mind to let go of control. I said it out loud: “Okay, body, it is your turn.” – and all of a sudden another intelligence took over. The intelligence of my body.

What does it have to do with sacrifice?

Everything. These experiences showed me what happens if I am willing to truly step out of my comfort zone. People who know me are aware of my ‘Aries’-nature: Avoiding challenges is not my thing.

Nevertheless there is a whole other layer of ‘control’ that I didn’t really grasp.

By sacrificing my need to control I am gaining self-confidence, trust in life, in my actions and in my body.

The more I am willing to let go of convenience the more I ‘prepare’ myself for… Yeah, for what?! I prepare myself for making uncomfortable decisions, for listening to my internal voice, for stepping up, saying ‘yes’ to things that scare the shit out of me….

One definition of the noun ‘sacrifice’ according to Merriam Webster dictionary is: “destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else” – as simple as that. In religious terms it means ‘to offer an innocent being to the gods’ (I could make a huuuge topic out of it, but I won’t.) What am I offering? I am offering my victim mentality, my hesitation and my self-doubt in exchange for self-responsibility and energy.

This morning I had a choice: Do I want to remain in the passive, supposedly ‘cozy’ state of the early morning or do I want to wake up fully, gain clarity and start my day active?

It is interesting, because my example shows how we can actually make use of our ego. Our ego is our means of transport. This is something a lot of people don’t speak about. At least I find that it is not emphasized enough. The ego is not only bad.

Our ego is our messenger. It transmits the spark. The idea is to catch fire, recognize it and carry it through – burning down our resistance – willingly.

How do we do it WITHOUT ego? We don’t. What we do is, we make use of our ego and then we shift gears and allow our subconscious or our body to take over.

This, again, requires trust. The willingness to cross that line. The desire to cross that line of self-pity, fear and anxiety and trust that the grass is greener on the other side.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a time to feel comfortable. There is a time for remaining still and hibernating in our cozy cocoon. But also there is a time to step up, step out, move ahead, go your own way, make an effort for the greater good (in the end).

Sometimes we have to sacrifice comfort, friends, relationships, jobs and even the connection to our family (is it responsibility or just the feeling of duty?) in order to become our own person.

Sometimes we have this deeper knowing that there is ‘something else out there’. In my experience it is well worth it to listen to that tiny voice and disregard ALL those voices telling you that you can’t – the external and the internal. YOU CAN! You can do whatever the f* you want.

What I found out over the course of the past years, especially the last year, is that there always is something else out there – as long as we have this slight feeling, this intuition, this quiet subtle voice of our heart, our soul, however you want to call it. Even if the voice is quiet, the voice is right! GO for it!

We are allowed to grief all the things that we sacrifice, but we are also allowed to welcome our new self. Our stronger self. Our real self?

Surf the wave of change.
Commit to your own growth.
Take your goals seriously.
It is your life and you choose what to dedicate your time to.

 

Manifestation Recap

If you are longing for connection, isolation won’t get you any closer. 
If you want to become rich, being greedy doesn’t expand your wealth. 
If you want to believe in yourself, questioning your worth is self-defeating.

Self-doubt zeroizes trust.
Negativity retains resistance.

As soon as you open up, things will change. 

Allow the impossible.