by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Learning to Enjoy Life and Find Meaning Whilst the World Seems to Crumble Around You
There’s a spiritual crisis in the West and you can feel it everywhere – the tension of the unreal being forced upon people, the collapse of trust, the angst bubbling under every opinion piece, comment section, podcast, or protest out in the streets.
We bought into the bullsh*t of postmodernism and instead of the utopia we thought it would lead us to, we’ve now found ourselves in a melting pot of ideologies with no moral anchor and a ship that seems to be drifting further and further away from anything true or REAL.
People are realising that most of the things they were taught to believe in aren’t delivering what was promised:
Politics, mainstream culture, higher education, therapy-speak, identity-driven ‘movements’, even modern spirituality (which is often just narcissism as a coping mechanism in disguise) – none of them are offering a real escape from the unnecessary friction, frustration, and misery that comes from being unreal.
So what’s left?
Maybe it’s time we tried reality.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Modern Spiritual Crisis: What We Cover in This Article
- Learning to Enjoy Life and Find Meaning Whilst the World Seems to Crumble Around You
- A Vacuum Where Truth Should Be
- Nature Doesn’t Lie
- Culture Was Never Meant to Be Permanent
- Returning to the Roots
- Dancing in the Flames
- The Spiritual Crisis Beyond Nihilism
- The Media Wants You Disempowered
- You’re Not Here to Save the World
- The World Isn’t Ending
- Be In the World, But Not Of It
A Vacuum Where Truth Should Be
Culture is always a fragmented interpretation of something more fundamental and whole – reality itself.
When a culture loses its alignment with reality, it starts to fracture and split into pieces and that’s what we’re living through now which is why things often seem to be getting crazier and more insane and people experience the modern spiritual crisis of meaning.
The problem is that modern culture is a moral vacuum and that people are starved of meaning even though human beings are meaning-seeking creatures…this is why things feel so fake and unreal sometimes (because we’re not aligned with our real nature).
One of the reasons behind this detachment from our real nature is that we’ve been taught to worship the wrong things: success, aesthetics, hyper-individuality, and external validation.
Though these things can all be ‘good’ things to some extent, when we treat them as being sacred or ultimate, then we lose reverence for what’s actually real (including ourselves).
And deep down, we know it.
That’s why everything feels so hollow:
It’s why modern men and women are either emotionally dissociated, overwhelmed, or burnt out from fighting ideological battles and trying to live according to real identities (A.K.A the ego) that don’t go anywhere.
We’re all trying to find our place in a story that no longer makes sense and – until we learn to let go – that just causes friction, frustration, and misery.
Nature Doesn’t Lie
When you step away from the noise of the media machine and back into nature, something shifts – you remember who you are.
You realise the seasons still change, birds still sing, trees still grow and none of them are confused about their role in the world. They just…get on with it.
The truth is that we belong to nature, not the other way around.
We’re governed by the same principles and nature doesn’t do chaos for the sake of chaos – it has a natural rhythm and drive towards wholeness that it sticks to without even thinking about.
Even forest fires have purpose – they clear the way for new growth.
So when you look at the ‘collapse’ of modern culture through the lens of nature, it starts to make more sense – the fire isn’t an accident: it’s the prelude to renewal.
What was built on illusions must burn so something real can take root…it’s just a natural law of nature like what goes up, must come down.
When you understand things in this way, you realise it’s not personal – it just is what it is and you either embrace it or you’re miserable.
Culture Was Never Meant to Be Permanent
If you look at human history, you’ll see that everything rises and falls and that includes civilisations:
Rome fell. The Ottoman Empire fell. Every dominant culture throughout history has eventually given way to something new or changed form.
This is because culture is not reality itself – it’s just an interpretation of it.
The more tightly a society clings to its interpretation, the more violently it tends to break when reality pushes back (just as happens in our individual lives when we cling to the ego and the shadow self eventually pushes back).
And right now, reality is pushing back.
The shift we’re living through is not just political or economic – it’s existential.
We’re not just facing an energy crisis, or a housing crisis, or a cost of living crisis.
We’re facing a crisis of REALNESS.
Returning to the Roots
Globalism is crumbling and people are returning to their cultural and national roots – not necessarily because they want to exclude others, but because they need something real to stand on.
For decades, we’ve been told that borders don’t matter, that identity is fluid, and that all belief systems are equally valid but when crisis hits, people don’t look for conceptual intellectual theories – they look for something rooted, something ancient, something that speaks to the soul and that they can actually experience (instead of just create an ideology around).
That’s why you’re seeing so much cultural conflict right now:
So many people are reaching for something solid in a world that feels like quicksand whilst so many others continue to fight for the identities and systems that keep them from this (because they’re scared to face themselves and life).
Despite what ‘they’ might have told you, not all returns to tradition are regressive, though – far from it, some are soulful re-alignments and the integration of individual and collective shadows.
The difference is whether people are seeking to dominate others or seeking to remember who they truly are in their realness.
Dancing in the Flames
So how do you stay centred when everything seems to be falling apart?
(Though what’s real is always real so you can’t lose anything that actually matters).
You dance in the flames.
You stop trying to avoid the fire (or acting like it’s not there) and you start learning how to move with it by refusing to play the the victim and participating in the transformation.
You accept that pain is part of the process and realise that it’s a TEST that will show you and grow you:
You stop asking, “Why is this happening?” and start asking, “What is this showing me?”
You stop asking, “Why aren’t I ready for this?” and start asking, “How do I need to grow through this?”
You understand that it’s not about not getting burned – it’s about becoming something else through the burning…a kind of baptism by fire where everything unreal melts away and all that remains is the gold of your realness.
This is what REALNESS is all about – not bypassing the world’s madness but meeting it head-on, rooted in reality, and rising anyway.
The Spiritual Crisis Beyond Nihilism
There’s a reason why so many people are becoming nihilistic:
When everything around you feels fake, the logical conclusion is that everything must be empty.
But nihilism is just another ego trap and the truth is that: everything isn’t empty.
Everything is full – if you have the eyes to see it.
Nihilism says everything is empty but real spirituality shows everything is full.
You don’t need to cling to belief systems; you don’t need to become a monk; you just need to stop lying to yourself and start listening to reality.
Real spirituality is not about escaping the world – it’s about becoming more present in it.
It’s found in devotion to truth in small, sacred moments – like in the way you clean your space, take care of your body, be honest with your partner, honour your gifts, and trust your pain.
The Media Wants You Disempowered
If you consume even a small amount of mainstream media, you’ll feel the overwhelm, fear, and the endless drip-feed of rage and hopelessness.
That’s not an accident.
The media exists to sell attention and attention is most easily captured when you’re in survival mode (which means the media is actively designed to deregulate your nervous system).
The more anxious, divided, and confused you are, the easier it is to sell you someone else’s narrative and to make you believe in it.
So it’s up to you to turn it off:
Reclaim your nervous system and top giving your power away to a machine that profits from your paralysis.
Try a media fast for 7 days and journal how you feel.
You’ll notice something miraculous: clarity starts to return and you start to feel REAL again because your not polluting your mind and messing up your nervous system (which affects your whole perception of life around you).
You’re Not Here to Save the World
Here’s something that might sting:
Trying to save the world is often an ego trip unless you’ve first saved yourself.
Most people who try to change the world haven’t yet changed their relationship with themselves and so they’re still driven by fear, shame, or superiority – trying to heal the planet as a way to avoid healing their own pain.
But healing yourself is healing the world:
When you reconnect to what’s real in you, you become a beacon of what’s possible for others and how things can actually be in REALITY (not ‘the World’) – that’s the ripple effect.
This is the foundation of the Awareness → Acceptance → Action model I use with my clients. Until you’ve faced your own fragmentation and faced your own ego, any action you take to fix the world will just recreate more fragmentation.
In short, if you’re crying for the world to be saved then you’re probably really crying out to the real ‘you’ to save you from the unreal you that got too invested in the world.
The World Isn’t Ending
Despite how it feels, the world is still statistically ‘safer’ than ever:
Global poverty has declined, life expectancy has increased, and war deaths are at historic lows but because the media and social platforms are engineered to highlight dysfunction, it feels worse.
So no – you’re not crazy for feeling overwhelmed but you’re also (probably) not doomed.
You’re being invited to grow real.
To stop relying on outer structures for your sense of safety and to become a participant in reality – not just a spectator.
Be In the World, But Not Of It
This is the real lesson:
Don’t withdraw, don’t despair, and don’t delude yourself with fantasy.
Engage with your heart open and intact because as long as you refuse to close it then you’re still real.
Let go of the need for certainty, approval, or safety from broken systems and stand in the only thing that was ever trustworthy: Reality.
That’s where God lives. That’s where love lives. That’s where you come back to yourself in TRUTH.
We don’t rise in the fantasy, but in the fire; we can’t avoid the flames but we dance in them.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you want to work on bringing more meaning to your life and building something real then book a free call with me and I’ll help you figure out your next steps.
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