Oli Anderson

Hi, I'm Oli Anderson - a Transformational Coach for REALNESS and author who helps people to tap into their REALNESS by increasing Awareness of their real values and intentions, to Accept themselves and reality, and to take inspired ACTION that will change their lives forever and help them find purpose. Click here to read my story about how I died, lost it all, and then found reality.

Realness: A Practical Guide to Living in Truth

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Realness: A Practical Guide

The Hunger for What’s Real: Real Always Works & Your Realness is the Key

Everywhere you look, people are searching for something REAL:

So many of us have had enough of filters, fakery, and the endless games that ask us to pretend everything’s fine when it clearly isn’t; we can sense that something’s off and that the life we’ve been told to chase can never be capable of scratching that ‘itch’ and helping us leave the Void.

I talk about “Realness” all the time in my books and on this site but what does that even mean, really?

It’s not just about being ‘authentic’ in the trendy, Instagrammable sense of the word – instead, realness is about coming home to truth and meeting life as it actually is rather than how we want it to be.

It’s the state of being where we accept ourselves, others, and the world without distortion, and where we can build a foundation for ourselves that allows us to act with coherence and flow.

This isn’t an just an abstract ideal because this kind of realness has practical, measurable consequences:

When you live in truth, you move with reality instead of against it and so you can stop wasting energy fighting what is and start creating from a place of wholeness. In this state, life starts working with you instead of feeling like it’s always working against you.

That’s what this guide is about: how to live in truth so that you can grow real.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Realness is about embracing the facts about yourself, the world, and reality.

1. The Core of Realness: Acceptance Without Conditions

Realness is impossible with a foundation of Acceptance:

This doesn’t mean rolling over and doing nothing but what it does mean is seeing things clearly before we act by removing the ego’s filters of “shoulds” “musts”, “if onlys“, and [anything else that takes us out of presence and gets us lost in our minds].

To live in realness, we need to accept:

  • Ourselves: As we truly are and without clinging to rigid identities or beating ourselves up for being ‘imperfect’.
  • The World: As it operates in a way that is messy, unpredictable, and driven by both beauty and chaos.
  • Reality: As it functions in practical terms based on the results we do or don’t get – all of which is governed by cause and effect, not our fantasies, fictions, or feelings.

When we do this, we create an inner state that allows us to exist without unnecessary friction:

We stop resisting truth and start flowing with it and this becomes a rock solid foundation for everything else we do because, without acceptance, every action we take is subtly built on denial or distortion.

When you accept reality on it’s own terms, you always step out of ego because – as it says in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness – the ego is the opposite of reality.

The short version is that Ego is the voice that says, “I should be more”, “Life should be different”, or “They should treat me better”.

Realness says, “It is what it is – now what will I do with it?”

2. Wholeness vs Fragmentation

At its heart, realness is about wholeness versus fragmentation:

We all start off whole – open, trusting, and connected to life – but, over time, as we encounter pain, shame, or conditioning, we start to fragment and very real ‘parts’ of us shut down and go into hiding in the Shadow Territory (the domain of the Shadow Self).

Once this has happened, we become divided within ourselves at every conceivable level: between what we feel and what we show, what we want and what we do, and, ultimately, between who we are and who we pretend to be.

This fragmentation is the breeding ground of ego and everything the ego ‘does’ for us is about keeping us fragmented and avoiding wholeness:

To do this, the ego tries to protect us from pain by building walls in the form of identities, defences, and stories but these walls come with the price of also cutting us off from truth and leaving us to live our lives in the Void.

Wholeness is the opposite movement:

It’s the process of re-integrating what’s been cut off and becoming more real.

This doesn’t mean we’ll ever be perfect (we’re in fragmented bodies, after all), but it means we can live in alignment with the deeper truth of who we are and build a sense of flow and purpose into the fabric of our lives.

Essentially, then, every moment in life gives us a choice:

Move towards wholeness or towards fragmentation; move towards realness, or away from it.

3. The Pathway of Realness: Awareness, Acceptance, and Action

Realness isn’t something you ‘achieve’ – it’s a path you walk so that you can RECEIVE what’s already yours (a healthy relationship with reality that takes you deeper into wholeness):

There are three main stages of what I call The Road to Realness:

  1. Awareness – Deconstruct Ego

    We start by seeing where we’ve been living in distortion and unreality:

    This means noticing our patterns, triggers, and projections and asking ourselves, “Is this real or is this ego?”

    This kind of Awareness shines a light on the lies we’ve believed about ourselves and the world.

  2. Acceptance – Integrate the Shadow

    Once we’re aware, we need to Accept what we see – even all of the ugly, uncomfortable parts that go against our familiar way of being and identifying in the world.

    This is about integrating the shadow – the aspects of ourselves we’ve repressed or denied.

    When we bring those fragments into the light, we become more whole.

  3. Action – Do Your Best and Let Go of the Rest

    Realness isn’t just an inner experience; it shows up in how we Act:

    This means that once we’ve accepted what’s real, we take action aligned with truth and that we do our best – not from fear or control, but from trust – so that we can let go of the outcome and find real life in the process.

Walking this path is the practical route to freedom:

It’s not about having no ego (that’s impossible) but about learning to see through ego so it stops running the show.

4. The Three Levels of Realness

To grow more real, we need to test our assumptions against truth on three interconnected levels: Ourselves, the World, and Reality itself.

Here’s how it breaks down:

a) The Level of Ourselves

This is the inner layer and it’s ultimately about knowing who we are without the stories we create to survive life.

Ask yourself:

  • Are my goals and actions coming from ego or from truth?

  • Am I trying to prove something or express something real?

  • Do I have the humility to admit that I can’t control the uncontrollable?

When we live from ego, we cling to a fixed identity and wear a mask – for example, “the successful one” “the spiritual one”, “the victim”, or “the tough guy.” These roles might feel safe but they’re cages that stop us from growing into the full potential of our wholeness.

When we live from realness, we’re humble enough to accept that we’re works in progress and so we grow and let life shape us instead of only ever trying to shape life (we still take real action and move towards the things that are real and important but with flow instead of force).

b) The Level of the World

Most people aren’t seeing the world because they’re too busy seeing their their projections of it.

A key way to see what’s going on here is to remember that perception is projection and so – unless we step back into awareness and acceptance – we’re probably seeing the world as we are, not as it is.

When we’re fragmented, we project our inner chaos outward and so we see things like enemies, rejection, and unfairness but often this is just our own ego reflected back at us.

Realness helps us pierce through this because it reminds us that the world isn’t personal:

People act from their own fragmentation and ego – just as we sometimes do and, when we truly see this, we stop taking things personally and become free to respond instead of react.

Understanding the world at this level also means seeing through its collective illusions:

Most systems – advertising, politics, even some self-help – exploit ego fragmentation because they endlessly sell us back our own disconnection.

Realness cuts through that by asking a simple question:

“Is this true?”

c) The Level of Reality

This is the deepest level – the fabric of existence itself (jeez!):

Reality operates according to truth which means that it’s not personal or emotional; it simply is.

The ‘easiest’ way to understand this is to learn how reality follows the law of cause and effect – basically meaning that what we reap what we sow. If we act from fragmentation, we create more fragmentation; if we act from wholeness, we create more wholeness – or, as I like to say it:

Real in, real out; unreal in, unreal out.

Reality is also inherently whole which means that everything is interconnected:

This means that the Illusion of Separation – that we’re cut off from life or each other is the ego’s biggest lie. When we see through this, then we can (re)align with the natural flow of things.

In practice, this means working with reality instead of against it:

Instead of fighting what we can’t control, we adapt, trust, and create within the truth of the moment.

5. Living in the Stretch Zone

Realness isn’t comfortable and it’s not supposed to be because real growth always happens at the edge of what we know: the Stretch Zone.

The Stretch Zone is that space between comfort and panic where you’re pushing yourself, but not breaking yourself. It’s where you confront the ego’s (perceived) limits, integrate fear, and evolve into more of who you really are.

Each time you enter the Stretch Zone, you expand your wholeness because you stop running from discomfort and start using it as fuel.

In this state, life stops being something that happens to you and becomes something that happens through you.

6. Practical Steps to Grow in Realness

Let’s make this tangible so that you can actually do something with this information – here are some daily practices for living more real:

  1. Truth Checks

    Take a moment each day to ask: “Is this thought real or unreal?” or “Is this reaction based on ego or realness?” These micro-reflections strengthen your awareness muscle.

    Check out this article for a daily ‘Truth Check’ ritual so you can keep yourself on this real path: Build a Daily “Truth Check” Ritual (How To)
  2. Radical Acceptance Practice

    Choose one thing you’ve been resisting like a situation, person, or part of yourself and practice accepting it without trying to change it. Notice how much energy that frees up.

  3. Shadow Integration

    Journal about the parts of yourself you’re ashamed of or hide from others. What’s the truth beneath them? What need or fear are they trying to protect?

    This page has 100 Shadow Work exercises to take you even deeper: 100 Shadow Work Exercises: Making the Unconscious Conscious & Growing Real

  4. Aligned Action
    Before making a decision, ask: “Is this aligned with truth?” and then act and let go of the outcome. Realness is about effort that eventually becomes effortless, not control.
  5. Stay in the Stretch Zone
    Do something each week that challenges your ego: have a difficult conversation, take a creative risk, or perform an act of vulnerability. That’s where growth lives.
Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

My book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace will take you even deeper into your own realness and help you improve your relationship with yourself and life.

Why Realness Matters

When you live in realness, life gets simpler (not easier but clearer) and you waste less energy fighting reality and allow yourself to unleash energy flowing with it.

You stop pretending to be someone else and that frees others to do the same.

You begin to trust yourself – not because you’re perfect, but because you’re honest.

Realness heals because it reconnects us to life, to each other, and to something greater – call it truth, God, or simply the deeper intelligence of reality…it’s not a philosophy that asks for belief, but one that invites experience.

You’ll know you’re living real when there’s less noise inside; when your actions feel natural, and when you’re at peace even in the storm because you’re not resisting truth anymore and you can know you can handle whatever comes next.

Realness is about becoming who you already are (when you step away from ego).

Conclusion: Realness is The Way Home

Realness is the way home to who we’ve always been beneath the masks:

It’s not glamorous, it’s not easy, and it’s not always quick (though it’s quicker than most methods because most methods are focused on symptoms, not fundamental problems) but it’s worth it because everything that’s real works.

When you walk the Pathway of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action, you return to wholeness one step at a time and you stop fighting reality and start flowing with it – seeing that, in the end, realness isn’t something you find because it’s something you become and it’s what remains when everything false falls away.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you could use some guidance and accountability support when it comes to growing real and taking real action then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you out.

Build a Daily “Truth Check” Ritual (How To)

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Daily truth check ritual

Learning to Discern The Real From The Unreal & Stay On Track With A Daily “Truth Check” Ritual

One of the most important skills you can ever learn in life is the ability to discern the REAL from the UNREAL so that you can tap back into your own realness.

This is because of the simple fact that if we want to live our best lives then we need to be aligned with reality because it’s the only place we can ever get results.

Hence why I like to continually remind you over and over again of a simple truth:

REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

Unfortunately, most of us spend way too much time out there in fantasy land:

Caught up in our thoughts, assumptions, fears, and unresolved emotional baggage where – instead of being grounded in what’s actually happening – we get swept away by old wounds, social programming, and a sneaky inner voice that pretends to be ‘us’ but is really just shame in disguise.

The ‘good’ news is that you don’t need to spend your life drifting between false starts and mental detours and you can develop a simple daily habit that keeps you on track which is a quick Truth Check ritual that takes no more than ten minutes a day.

Done consistently, this will help you separate what’s real from what’s imagined in your mind, so you can stay aligned with truth instead of getting side-lined by ego, avoidance, and resistance.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Your daily truth check is one of the most valuable things you can give yourself.

Why We Stray from the Real in the First Place

Before we dive into the daily ritual itself, it’s worth pointing out the four main culprits that pull us away from what’s real in the first place:

  1. Emotional ‘Stuff’: Unresolved feelings that we judge, suppress, or ignore.

  2. Biological Wiring: The way our body, energy levels, and instincts shape our choices.

  3. Social Programming: Inherited beliefs and assumptions we never question.

  4. Self-Hypnosis: Those sneaky ‘gremlins‘ in our head whispering shame, guilt, or trauma-induced commands to us.

Each of these can create distortions that stop us seeing clearly and cause us to filter reality through our wounds, conditioning, or fear of change.

The Truth Check ritual is about shining a light through the fog and moving in a real direction again:

Truth Check Ritual Step 1: Emotional Clarity (2 minutes)

The first step is to check in with your emotional state:

This isn’t about wallowing or over-analysing but about training yourself to notice and become fully AWARE of what you’re feeling without judgement.

It’s pretty simple but effective:

  • Ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now?”

  • Don’t add stories to whatever you’re experiencing or label it ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – just give it a name so you can distance your real, observing self from whatever it is: tired, anxious, peaceful, irritated, grateful, lonely, excited.

  • Take a breath and let the feeling be there.

Here’s why this is so important:

As soon as you judge a feeling (“I shouldn’t feel this way”), you step out of reality because you’ve created resistance to it.

On the other hand, when you accept it (the opposite of resistance), you allow the emotion to move, teach you whatever it has to show you, and then release it.

The key lesson here is simple but powerful:

Reality can only be accessed through acceptance because to accept something means to embrace the truth about it fully.

Practical tip: Keep a small notebook and make a point each morning or evening to write down three words that describe your emotional state (no more, no less than three).

This keeps you real with yourself and stops emotional denial and distortion that makes you resist reality.

Truth Check Ritual Step 2: Biological Scan (2 minutes)

Next up is to tune into your body:

This is important because our biological wiring is constantly shaping how we experience reality but most of us only pay attention when something goes wrong.

If we make it a regular habit to pay attention before something goes wrong then we can become better equipped to be resilient in the moment and respond in a real way.

Again, the process is simple:

  • Ask yourself: “What is my body telling me right now?”
  • Scan from head to toe and pay attention to where do you feel tension:

    Do you have a tight jaw? Stiff shoulders? Gut in knots?

    Feel whatever you’re feeling and just be AWARE of it.
  • Finally, pay attention to your energy levels:

    Do you feel vital and alert or sluggish and drained?

Your body is always connected to the present moment even if your mind isn’t but if you’re carrying hidden tension or running on fumes because of where your mind has led you, then you won’t be able to show up in a real way.

By checking in with your body daily, you can start noticing patterns:

Maybe caffeine crashes are messing with your clarity or maybe unexpressed anger shows up as shoulder tightness, for example.

Practical tip: After your scan, release one area of tension by stretching, shaking, breathing, or simply exhaling deeply. Let your body know you’re listening and it will get better at ‘speaking’ to you.

Truth Check Ritual Step 3: Mental Debrief (3 minutes)

Now comes the big one: your thinking.

Our social programming and ego-driven assumptions are the biggest culprits for pulling us away from reality and so it’s really important to constantly check in and make sure we know WHY we think what we think (as opposed to thinking we know WHAT we think).

Here’s how you can do it:

  • Ask yourself: “Do I actually know this or do I just believe it because it feels safe?”

  • Reality is not about what you want to believe but about what you can actually verify.

  • Catch the slippery unstated assumptions that you carry and start to notice where your mind fills in the blanks with comforting stories instead of the truth.

The harsh reality is that of what the average person thinks is just recycled programming from parents, long lost peers, media, and culture and so – without a daily check in – we can end up mistaking our assumptions for truth.

If those assumptions are actually aligned with reality, then no problem, but – if they’re not – then we end up taking ourselves away from a real path and not getting the results we truly want and need from life.

Practical tip: Pick one thought that’s been bugging you (“They don’t like me”, “I’ll never get ahead”, “This will never work”) and then write it down and ask yourself:

“Is this based on evidence or am I hypnotising myself with fear?”

A related article that can help you here is about a powerful question that can help you break through the BS: According to Who? The Question That Cuts Through Illusion

Truth Check Ritual Step 4: Gremlin Spotting (3 minutes)

Finally, we deal with the sneakiest enemy of all: your own self-hypnosis.

This kind of self-hypnosis appears as the inner gremlins – the voices of shame, guilt, or fear – that whisper in your head in a tone that sounds like your own voice but that’s actually totally unreal.

To start waking yourself up do this:

  • Ask yourself: “Whose voice is this really?”

  • If the thought is limiting, static, or shaming in any way, it’s not truth but ego.

  • Reality always invites growth, expansion, and wholeness whereas unreal thoughts trap you in fear and stagnation.

The more you practise spotting gremlins, the quicker you’ll learn to detach from them – the best way to do this is, learning to label them instead of wrestling with them.

It’s really simple but “That’s a gremlin, not me” raises your awareness and cuts off their power.

Practical tip: Each time you catch a gremlin thought, imagine writing it on a piece of paper and throwing it in the bin. This symbolic act trains your brain to drop the unreal and replace it with the real.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want build a sense of absolute flow in your own life.

The Full Truth Check Ritual (Review)

Put all the steps together and you’ve got a 10-minute daily practice:

  1. Emotional Clarity (2 mins): Name your feelings without judgement.

  2. Biological Scan (2 mins): Notice your body, energy, and tension and choose one area to release.

  3. Mental Debrief (3 mins): Question your assumptions and distinguish truth from mere belief.

  4. Gremlin Spotting (3 mins): Identify the shame-voices, detach from them, and switch your focus to something real.

That’s it – ten minutes, once a day to keep you on track.

Why This “Truth Check” Works

This ritual works because it creates a daily alignment between your mind, body, and emotions and puts you back in contact with what’s actually happening, rather than what your ego wants to believe is happening.

Think of it in a similar way to how you might see brushing your teeth: if you don’t, gunk builds up and your health deteriorates.

If you skip the Truth Check, mental gunk builds up and so do unprocessed feelings, bodily tension, unquestioned assumptions, and unreal gremlin chatter….which means that, before you know it, you’re living in fantasy instead of reality and bringing friction, frustration, and misery into your life.

When you commit to this kind of work, you develop a kind of inner compass that allows you to notice when you’re drifting off course sooner.

This means that you’ll stop wasting energy on illusions and that you’ll start living from a place of clarity, flow, and real power.

The daily truth check helps you tap into what's real and unchanging.

Truth Check Ritual – The Final Word: Stay on the Real Track

Your ego will always try to side-line you – that’s it’s job (in a weird way) but you don’t have to fall for it and a simple daily ritual is enough to keep you grounded in truth and moving in the right direction.

The Truth Check doesn’t need to be dramatic or time consuming- it just needs to be consistent and ten minutes a day is all it takes to stop living from in an unreal way and to remember the fundamental truth:

REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you want to go even deeper into transforming your life and growing real then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you start taking real action and stay accountable.

How To Change Your Life Fast (Really)

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Change your life fast

The Real Path to Real Transformation & The Best Way to Change Your Life Fast

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably tried the usual advice like “Be patient, work hard, and it’ll all come in time”.

You might even have meditated, journalled, or read a stack of self-help books and yet…still, you find yourself stuck, frustrated, and like you’re running on a hamster wheel that never seems to end.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth that can eventually set you free of all this running around and getting nowhere:

Most people never truly change because they’re chasing abstractions like ‘success’, ‘happiness’, ‘self-love’, or whatever else without ever asking the real question:

What’s actually REAL for me right now and how can I ACT on it?

The bottom line is that changing your life fast isn’t about shortcuts, affirmations, or motivational quotes:

It’s about working deeply, honestly, and directly with yourself and, yes – it’s totally possible.

I know because I’ve seen it happen loads now – most recently with a client that I’ll call Art (because he figured out the art of living).

Let’s dig a little deeper:

You change your life fast by taking a good look at yourself, accepting what you see, and then acting on it.

The Moment That Proves REAL ALWAYS WORKS

Art has been working with me for about four months – initially, his focus was on gaining clarity about his direction in life but as we worked together, deeper emotional ‘stuff’ started surfacing that was at the core of everything he felt he needed to deal with in life:

Distractions, frustrations, and unresolved tension that was quietly hijacking his day-to-day life and his time, energy, and attention.

During a recent session, we reviewed a simple “Life Visioning” exercise we’d done in the early stages of the process; this is a simple tool I use to get a snapshot of where clients want to go, the goals they’re harbouring without necessarily committing to (yet!), and the person they’re trying to become.

Returning to it after those short four months had passed and viewing Art’s answers from his perspective today was revealing to say the least.

The short-version goes as follows:

  • Some goals had been completely smashed and ticked off once and for all.
  • Others, he now realised he didn’t even want – they were just things his ego had imagined he should want back when he was a less REAL version of himself.

This moment was huge….

Not only was it validating but it also illustrated a key principle I teach in my books and coaching:

REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

When you stop chasing an unreal path and start acting in alignment with what is real for you, change can happen fast and that’s what the rest of this article is for:

To show you how to start doing this for yourself.

How to Change Your Life Fast Stage 1: AWARENESS – Deconstruct the Ego

The first stage of real change and any transformational journey is always AWARENESS which is ultimately about acquiring new wisdom that can help us deconstruct the ego (our current way of identifying that led to us being where we’ve currently found ourselves).

With Art, this meant looking at the ways he was holding himself back through his current identity/ego – in particular the beliefs and stories he had about himself that were no longer serving him.

We also began uncovering his real values:

These aren’t the things you say you care about on social media or the ideals you think you should have (they’re your espoused values) but the core truths that actually move you.

Once we identified these real values, we translated them into actionable steps – essentially small daily habits, behaviours, and choices that aligned with the person he truly wanted to be.

Just taking small actions that are more real at the start of this transformation can end up revealing a lot about the work you really need to do because it shakes up and helps you break away from old patterns whilst also revealing your dependency on them.

We also started to clarify his vision:

Even though Art didn’t yet know exactly what this looked like, we had enough information to break it down into concrete goals and habits based on the kind of person he wanted to become at that stage.

Much of this awareness was raised through two key exercises:

  1. Extremely Personal Questions – These are designed to pierce through egoic thinking and get at the heart of what you really want. They’re uncomfortable, but necessary (you can download them here if you’d like to try them out for size: Extremely Personal Questions
  2. Probing Coaching Sessions – In these sessions, we excavated unhelpful beliefs and shadows hiding under the surface. This is where the real digging happens: identifying patterns, behaviours, and thoughts that are holding you back (you can book a free coaching session with me via this page on site or use the embedded booking form on this page).

By the end of this stage, Art had a clearer sense of what was real for him, and what wasn’t and was more equipped to discern real from unreal in general; he knew which parts of his life were aligned with his true self and which were distortions created by ego.

Reader Takeaways – Awareness Stage:

  • Write down your current goals and ask yourself: Do I truly want this or is this ego-driven?
  • Identify your top 3 values and start one small habit this week that reflects each (values are qualities like freedom, truth, health, flow, etc.)
  • Track recurring frustrations, sources of friction, or distractions in your life as they often highlight where your ego is in control.

How to Change Your Life Fast Stage 2: ACCEPTANCE – Integrate the Shadow

Awareness alone isn’t enough because we have to embrace what we’ve become aware of… This brings us on to the second stage of ACCEPTANCE – facing the parts of yourself that you’ve been avoiding or denying and learning to integrate them.

With Art, this involved exploring some unconscious intentions and fears that had been holding him back and – once these came to light – he could start making aligned actions by doing things that were not only goal-oriented but real.

We continued working on discerning the real from the unreal at three levels: self, world, and reality and Art began to see how his ‘worldly’ identity – concerned with performance, external validation, and the promptings of “The Matrix” – was draining his energy and attention. In other words, he was learning to stop performing and start being present.

We also went deeper into focusing on three foundational practices to reinforce this stage:

  1. Nervous System Regulation & Emotional Ownership – Art learned to notice tension, frustration, and emotional discomfort in his body, rather than suppressing it and this allowed him to respond instead of react when his emotional ‘stuff’ kicked in or got activated.
  2. Limiting Beliefs & Thought Awareness – He trained himself to ‘catch’ unreal thoughts in their tracks so he could stay focused on his real vision – for example, recognising when fear or anxiety was ego-driven, not reality-driven.

  3. Vision Clarification & Focus – By continuously refining his vision, Art could focus on what was truly real for him and ignore distractions from moment-to-moment and from one day to the next.

The results were profound (as they always are when people shift from unreal to real being):

Art became calmer, less reactive, and more embodied, he could face emotions he’d been avoiding, release control, and experience equanimity in relationships and daily life. Frustrations that used to hijack his day simply didn’t have the same power over him.

Reader Takeaways – Acceptance Stage:

  • Notice when you’re reacting versus responding by learning to identify the root emotion in your body through somatic experiencing.
  • Track limiting beliefs in a journal by regularly asking yourself: Is this real or is it ego talking? – my Flow Builder journal really helped Art on his journey.
  • Pick one area of life where you try to overcontrol things and practice letting go and observing outcomes without interference.

How to Change Your Life Fast Stage 3: ACTION – Trust Self and Life

The final stage is all about ACTION (because if you take Action before you raise Awareness and Acceptance then your actions aren’t going to be real).

The kind of action we’re talking about isn’t just any old action – it’s the kind that comes from trusting yourself and life, rather than forcing outcomes.

By this stage, Art had enough evidence that many of his frustrations came from beliefs, unresolved emotional ‘stuff’, and projections. He also had enough evidence that when he acted in a real way that all of this ‘stuff’ would dissolve and stop being a problem.

Knowing this deeply allowed him to let go of trying to control the uncontrollable and to start acting in alignment with his vision for the person he was becoming and what he would express in the world through this version of himself.

Every action he took became more real and opened up a positive spiral in his life as the RESULTS kept compounding on themselves:

  • Daily habits aligned with his true values.
  • Decisions reflecting his clarified vision.
  • Interactions guided by presence rather than egoic reaction and old software.

The ACTION stage is also about embracing the “Stretch Zone” – pushing yourself just beyond comfort but from a place of trust, not fear (which means that you’ve gone too far and into the “Panic Zone”).

In short, Art moved deeper into his vision by working with reality instead of against it, letting go of the need to force outcomes, and seeing results quickly.

Reader Takeaways – Action Stage:

  • Identify one small action today that aligns with your values and then go do it fully.
  • Notice when you’re forcing an outcome and pause, reassess, and act from presence instead of unnecessary pressure.
  • Commit to weekly reflection: Which actions were real? Which were ego-driven? Adjust accordingly and keep moving forward.

Why This Approach Works Fast

Many people think transformation takes years but the speed of change isn’t about time but about depth and alignment:

With Art, four months of committed work produced profound results because it was the only thing he focused on and the container we created together gave him both the space and accountability to do this by cultivating clarity of direction, emotional integration, calmer presence, and faster progress toward real goals.

These kind of coaching containers work for some very simple reasons and Art was a good example of why:

  1. He worked honestly with himself.
  2. He focused on what was real instead of on abstract ideas or social expectations.
  3. He combined awareness, acceptance, and action in a systematic way and kept experimenting and refining as he moved forward.
  4. He integrated body, mind, and daily life through micro-actions, rather than just thinking or visualising about things.

The result?

Rapid transformation that isn’t superficial but that sticks.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go even deeper into your own realness and taking aligned action.

Getting Started: Your Fast-Track to Changing Your Life Fast

You don’t necessarily need a coach like me to begin this process (though obviously it helps and can take you deeper) but you do need commitment, honesty, and action.

Here’s a practical roadmap you can start today:

Step 1: Awareness (Deconstruct Ego)

  • Journal your current goals and assess which are truly yours.
  • List your top 3–5 core values then identify or create habits that reflect them.
  • Ask yourself: What stories am I telling myself that aren’t real?

Step 2: Acceptance (Integrate Shadow)

  • Identify fears, limiting beliefs, or unconscious patterns and stop hiding from yourself.
  • Practice nervous system regulation: breathwork, mindful pauses, or body scanning and somatic experiencing.
  • Face small uncomfortable truths in daily life by feeling them, acknowledging them, then acting anyway in alignment with your principles and vision.

Step 3: Action

  • Take small, aligned actions daily and prioritise quality over quantity.
  • Reflect weekly: Which actions felt real? Which were ego-driven? Adjust whatever you’re doing so you can keep refining, experimenting, and growing.
  • Step into the Stretch Zone intentionally, from a place of trust, not fear.
You change your life fast by refusing to stay where you don't want to be but somehow believe you need to be.

A Final Word: REALNESS Always Works

Art’s journey is proof that you can change your life fast…but only if you do the deeper work.

Awareness alone isn’t enough, Acceptance without action is incomplete, and Action without alignment is futile.

The key is a simple but powerful formula:

Awareness → Acceptance → Action → Trust → Flow

When you follow this pathway, you move from frustration, distraction, and ego-driven behaviour to clarity, equanimity, and aligned action.

Change doesn’t have to be slow and it doesn’t have to be painful but it does require honesty, courage, and commitment.

As long as you remember that REAL ALWAYS WORKS you can trust the process and when you start choosing what is real for you, the results can be astonishingly fast.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to do this kind of work in your own life and you think you can benefit from some guidance and support then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you shift trajectory.

Things That Don’t Matter (And Why We Think They Do)

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things that don't matter

Why We Make Things That Don’t Matter Seem More Meaningful Than They Really Are

Recently, I was talking to a younger guy about music…he’s from a younger generation to me, but he’s already disillusioned with the state of modern music and so has discovered a lot of bands that I used to listen to when I was younger.

As I listened to him, I couldn’t help but notice that was buzzing with excitement, telling me how much better these bands were compared to the manufactured noise pumped out today but – at the same time – the more I listened, the more I realised that it wasn’t just about the music:

It was also about how identifying with something ‘different’ to most of the people in his generation gave him a badge of superiority and so his ego had become wrapped up in being associated with this music as some kind of force field for his personality.

Either way, I got involved in the conversation and suggested a few other bands he hadn’t heard of and would probably like but then, afterwards, when I reflected on this exchange, I realised something strange:

I literally just don’t care anymore.

This was notable because back in the day I was exactly like him – identifying with bands, movies, and whatever else could give me a sense of belonging and help me to carve out a place for myself in the world.

Compare that to these days and it barely even registers:

What I once thought really ‘mattered’ actually didn’t matter at all…it was just a complicated way of channelling my emotional ‘stuff’ – the shame and insecurity I hadn’t faced back then – into something that felt like ‘meaning’ and gave me a (temporary) foundation on which to stand myself.

There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with this, of course – it’s part of growing up but, in the grand scheme of things, it made no difference to my life whatsoever.

This got me thinking…If the things I thought mattered back then actually didn’t then what about the things I think matter today?

Let’s dig a little deeper:

The things that don't matter are the ones you cling to despite them being unreal.

The Aura of Meaning & Things That Don’t Matter

When we’re disconnected from our realness – our sense of wholeness and an awareness of the truth about ourselves – we tend to outsource our self-worth:

This essentially means that we look for something “out there” that carries an aura we can feed off – it can literally be anything but common examples are things like bands, fashion, politics, subcultures, or obscure hobbies.

The thing itself isn’t the problem, of course – in fact, many of these things are ‘good’ things…

The problems occur because we tend to treat them as the ‘ultimate’ things which means we end up giving them a weight they don’t deserve and inflating whatever it is until it feels like the centre of the world, even though – in reality – it’s just a projection and what we’re really trying to do is soothe the shame of disconnection.

Often, we gravitate to things that are esoteric or niche because they give us a sense of standing out which helps us to control the gnawing sense of isolation or alienation we feel (“Look at me – I’m special because I know this special thing”).

Underneath, though, it’s just shame in disguise.

From Wholeness to Fragments

Here’s the real issue and something that can change your life if you need it:

When we become obsessed with these things and identify with them, it’s always because we’ve detached from truth at some level.

Truth is wholeness and, when we’re whole, we don’t need substitutes.

Unfortunately, when we lose sight of this, we latch onto fragments like music, movies, careers, identities or anything other fragmented thing that we hope will serve as a substitute for the thing we’re really looking for (a return to wholeness and a dissolution of the void).

What’s interesting is that fragments always fade because they’re always temporary and so their power to give us meaning never lasts:

The band you once lived and breathed loses its edge as you outgrow it mentally or emotionally; the trend you thought defined you becomes yesterday’s joke. Even your career – if you’ve glued your self-worth to it – can leave you stranded if it collapses and you don’t know who you really are away from it all.

What’s whole, though, is always whole, truth doesn’t lose its power, and what’s real is always real.

Catching Myself in the Present

It’s easy to look back and laugh at how seriously I took music or films back in my own younger days but here’s the uncomfortable bit:

I’m probably still doing it right now.

I can sometimes see it in things like my coaching business, my books, even my YouTube channel (which I’ve been slightly obsessed with lately).

Don’t get me wrong, I have real goals for these things in the sense that they matter as an expression of my values and vision but, if I identify with them too much, I fall straight back into the substitution trap and they can easily become less about what I do and more about who I think I am.

And when that happens, I’ve lost perspective again.

The lesson is humbling:

None of these things actually ‘matter’ that much – not in the grand scheme of things anyway.

Not as ends-in-themselves anyway – all they can ever be is what they are:

Stepping stones in the process of growing into wholeness but never wholeness itself.

The Freedom of Perspective

The beauty of getting older – or simply becoming more aware if you wanna put a positive spin on it – is that you start to see through the illusions (including your own bs) and so you can recognise that the things you once pedestalised were just projections of your own inner struggles.

That doesn’t mean they were useless – of course, they had a role in your journey but they weren’t the point of the journey (which is what we treat them as being when we use them as substitutes for the truth).

Really, the lesson is this:

Freedom is what happens when you stop needing the fragment to define you.

You can still enjoy music, love your work, pursue your passions but you don’t outsource your worth to them and so you start to live from the inside out, rather than the outside in.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

Dive into my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go even deeper into the flow of building a real relationship with yourself and life.

How to Spot Your Substitutes (and Step Back from Them)

So how do you actually apply this in a practical way?

Here are some basic ideas:

1. Look Back Honestly

Think about what you obsessed over when you were younger – bands, sports teams, relationships, ideologies. What did you pedestalise and why?

  • Ask yourself: What emotional need was I outsourcing to this thing?
  • If you’re honest, it was probably shame, insecurity, or loneliness.

2. Look Around Right Now

What are you currently treating as the ultimate instead of just a good thing? Your job? Your partner? Your social media profile?

  • Ask yourself: How might I be using this as a substitute for my own wholeness?
  • Remember: there’s nothing wrong with passion and drive…the issue is identification.

3. Test the Fragility

Imagine if you lost that thing tomorrow: Would you crumble and collapse or would you still feel whole? That’s the acid test of whether you’re leaning on a substitute too much. If you can’t live without it then there’s some ego over-identification going on.

4. Return to Realness

Bring yourself back to the truth of the matter which is that you are already whole and you don’t need an external fragment to make you ‘enough’.

  • Simple practices like breathwork, journaling, meditation, or simply naming your feelings honestly can help you to see what’s actually going on inside yourself.
  • The aim isn’t to deny passions but to hold them lightly by staying in the process and not some mental concept or idea.

5. Enjoy Without Attachment

Music, careers, hobbies – they can all be great and are amazing things that make life more enjoyable but they’re best when enjoyed without making them your identity.

  • Let them add colour to your life – not define the canvas.
The things that don't matter cause you to crave more of what you don't even need.

Things That Don’t Matter: The Final Word

When you look back, you can see how much energy you once poured into things that didn’t really matter:

This perspective is a gift because it reminds you that, even now, you might be doing the same thing with something else.

That’s not a reason to despair but an invitation to step back and to enjoy life’s beautiful fragments without mistaking them for the whole.

When you stop trying to be made whole by external things, you start to live from your REALNESS and, from there, you finally have the freedom to enjoy life as it is – without the pedestal, without the shame, and without the illusion that anything out there can ever define who you are.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to build a solid foundation of wholeness in your life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you start taking real action right away.

The Endless Search: Stop Chasing Shadows

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The endless search

The Endless Searching & Seeking is Just a Feeling Like Any Other

Human beings love to tell themselves stories to justify the way that they show up in the world:

Some of these stories serve us well and help us to cooperate, evolve, and thrive; others trap us in cycles of frustration, dissatisfaction, and exhaustion.

When it comes to the most destructive of these stories, one of the most persistent of all is the idea that life is an endless search: a perpetual striving to fill some mysterious void within us.

In general, we are told through the behaviours of others and the cultural stories that are shown to us in movies and in the heroes that we worship that the human condition is about endlessly chasing “something more”:

More money. More love. More recognition. More spirituality. More experience. More of [whatever else you might think of]…and if we’re not seeking, we’re supposedly stagnating, failing, or even betraying our very humanity.

It sounds compelling and it even feels true – after all, who hasn’t experienced the restlessness of wanting something more at some stage in their lifetime?

But what if this entire cultural meme – the myth of the endless search – isn’t an eternal truth, but just another illusion we’ve bought into?

What if that endless searching and seeking impulse is not the essence of being human at all but merely a feeling like any other that can be dealt with in the same way?

Let’s dig a little deeper:

The endless search is what happens when you try to avoid your own pain instead of letting it dissolve.

The Meme of the Void and the Endless Search to Fill It

Think about the last time you desperately wanted something – maybe it was a new partner, a promotion, a gadget, or even a spiritual breakthrough:

You convinced yourself – often with great conviction – that this thing would finally complete the puzzle and that once you had it in your hands (so to speak) you’d finally feel whole.

That was…until you actually got it.

What probably happened next no doubt followed a time-tested pattern:

You felt a short-lived rush – days, maybe even weeks – but then the same familiar restlessness returned and you find yourself back in the void as it hummed quietly in the background of your life prompting to to start the endless search all over again.

This cycle is so common that we’ve mythologised it – in fact, we’ve turned it into a story about the human condition itself:

“This is just how life is. We’re seekers by nature and we’ll never really be satisfied as long as we’re here on Planet Earth”.

It’s a neat explanation and it even gives us something to do.

But, unfortunately, it isn’t true.

The False Solutions of Ideology

Throughout history, religions, philosophies, and modern-day “life systems” (or whatever you wanna call them) have stepped in to tame this restless energy – they prescribe rituals, disciplines, or ‘works’ (as Christianity might call it) to channel all of that endless seeking into structured activity.

In fairness, many of these practices can be useful because they provide guardrails, soothe the restless beast within us, an distract us from all sorts of existential dread and terror…but unless they’re grounded in a genuine connection to realness – the unfragmented core of who we are in our awareness – these systems ultimately amount to glorified busywork.

They give us things to do in order to cope with the boredom and pain of life (as Schopenhauer said: “Life is a pendulum that swings between pain and boredom”) but they can’t and don’t address the underlying problem:

Our mistaken belief that the search is real in the first place (it’s not).

The Restlessness & Endless Searching is Just a Feeling Like Any Other

Here’s a turning point that has the capacity to change your life:

The void, the restlessness that stems from it, and the ‘need’ to put yourself on the path of endless searching isn’t some deep existential reality. It’s just a feeling.

Like anger, sadness, joy – or literally any other feeling (emotion or bodily sensation) – it follows the same natural pattern as a wave:

It rises, peaks, and subsides. That’s it.

Because this “endless search” feeling is so widespread, however, we’ve mythologised over time it into something bigger than it really is and ending up mistaking a passing internal sensation for a profound truth about life.

In doing so, we’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy:

Believing that the search is eternal, we act as though it is, endlessly chasing shadows that can never complete us (and then wondering why we always feel like we need ‘more’).

Fragmentation and Projection

The real reason the restlessness feels so compelling is fragmentation:

When we are disconnected from our own wholeness – because of underlying shame, guilt, and or trauma (the Unholy Trinity) – our perception itself becomes fragmented as an extension of this.

Perception is projection and so when we look out at the world, we see fragmented pieces that reflect our own inner fragmentation, missing parts, gaps, etc. that show up as “something out there” that we need to chase.

This projection tricks us into believing that wholeness is external (when it’s literally already within us but we’re blocking access to it with our limiting beliefs etc.) – we think it lies in the arms of a new partner, in the prestige of a job title, in the purchase of the next shiny thing, or whatever else floats your boat in a given moment.

The truth, however, is that wholeness doesn’t come from outside – it is always already within us.

The endless chase is nothing more than an avoidance of the truth which is that we feel disconnected from ourselves but instead of addressing that disconnection, we distract ourselves with fragmented substitutes for something true or whole.

Wild Goose Chases

Because we believe the myth that seeking will ‘complete’ us – despite already being whole – we end up on wild goose chases that give us something to do but never lead anywhere.

Some chase career ladders, others chase relationships, experiences, or chemical highs, but it’s all the same and the end and all leads to the exact same place in the long-run: back to Square One.

While the chase is on, we feel alive – energised, purposeful, or “on track” – but sooner or later the prize is in hand, and we’re right back where we started: restless, fragmented, disconnected.

Until we face the disconnection itself, the cycle repeats endlessly.

YouTube player

Facing the Shadow Self and Growing Real

So what’s the alternative to the endless search and the ensuing chase?

Well, the only real way forward is to turn inward and face what we’ve been avoiding all along: the shadow self.

This is all of the parts of us we don’t want to look at, the uncomfortable truths, the repressed feelings, the shame, the guilt, and the trauma, and even all of the ‘good’ things about us that have been sent into exile for whatever reason.

By integrating the shadow, we begin to reconfigure the ego – transforming it from a tyrant demanding endless distraction into a functional tool in service of our wholeness. From there, we can take real action: action rooted not in endless searching, but in grounded reality.

This is the path of realness – it isn’t glamorous but it’s liberating and it always works (because reality is the only place you can get actual results).

Observing the Wave

A practical key to stepping off the treadmill of endless searching is to recognise the restlessness for what it is: a feeling.

When it arises, you don’t need to suppress it and you don’t need to obey it, either.

You simply observe it and watch it like a wave as it rises, peaks, and then falls from consciousness.

The moment you refuse to engage with it as ‘truth’ is the moment you break the cycle.

You no longer need to distract yourself with meaningless activity and, instead, you allow the wave to pass (and, with it, the illusion that life is an endless search).

Here’s the radical truth that you need to take away from this article:

There is no search and there never was. In fact, the only thing keeping the illusion alive is the belief that there must be.

Right here, right now, everything is already whole – this doesn’t mean you stop growing, stop creating, or stop acting but it does mean you stop doing those things as desperate attempts to fill a void.

Instead, you take real action which is simply action that grows out of wholeness rather than fragmentation.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you’re ready to start facing the void and becoming your real self.

So how do you live this truth out in daily life and overcome all of the endless searching and associated restlessness?

Here are some practical steps:

1. Recognise the Search as a Feeling

The next time you feel restless, pause and ask yourself: “Is this really a deep truth about my life or just a wave of feeling?” Name it for what it is and treat it accordingly: a sensation that will pass.

2. Ride the Wave

Don’t suppress it and don’t indulge it – just observe it and imagine it as a wave rising and falling. Breathe into it and let it move through you without needing to ‘do’ anything at all.

3. Journal the Substitutes

Notice what you usually chase when the restlessness strikes: Do you default to shopping, scrolling, flirting, working overtime, or something else? Write these down because awareness turns unconscious patterns into choices.

4. Face the Shadow

Instead of running from the void, sit with it and explore the deeper feelings you might be avoiding. Shame? Fear? Grief? Shadow work isn’t comfortable but it’s the doorway back to wholeness which is the only thing anybody is really looking for.

5. Take Real Action

Once the wave has passed and you’ve grounded yourself, ask yourself: “What action would be real right now?” Real action is rooted in truth instead of avoiding discomfort. It might be as small as resting, as bold as starting a project, or as relational as having an honest conversation.

6. Build Trust in the Process

The more you practise this, the more you see that the restlessness is nothing to fear – it’s just another wave that will pass if you let it. Over time, you develop trust – not in the endless search, but in the deeper flow of yourself and life itself.

The endless search comes to an end when you simply let yourself be.

The Endless Search: The Final Word

The myth of the endless search has kept humanity spinning its wheels for centuries but the truth is simpler, lighter, freer than you might expect:

The search isn’t some eternal, existential thing – it isn’t even real. It’s just a feeling like any other.

Once we see this, we no longer need to live as seekers chasing phantoms:

Instead, we can live as whole beings, rooted in realness, taking real action, and finally at peace with the simple reality that right here, right now, nothing is missing.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to give up the endless search and to start living your real life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you take real action and keep you accountable.

Emotional Resilience: How To Tame Your Emotions and Grow Real

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How to develop emotional resilience

The Real Secret to Emotional Resilience

“Emotional resilience” – it sounds like some kind of superpower, doesn’t it?

Like the ability to walk through fire without getting burned or to stroll into the storm without being swept away.

That might be nice but – in reality – resilience isn’t about never feeling the fire or rain (in our dramatic metaphorical examples) but about knowing how to walk through them without letting the flames consume you or the flood carry you away to places you don’t wanna go.

We all face difficult emotions sooner or later – that’s just part of the human condition:

Grief, anger, sadness, shame, fear, guilt, or anything else you can think of – the full spectrum of human emotions visits us all at different times in our lives and so you can’t out-think, out-run, or out-smart them forever.

What you can learn to do, though, is learn to flow with them in a way that keeps you whole – and maintaining this state of wholeness as much as possible is what true resilience is about.

In this article, I’ll share the real secret to emotional resilience and it’s not about building walls or numbing yourself but about learning how to trust the natural flow of your emotions, face the truth without resistance, and give up making life harder than it needs to be forever.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Emotional resilience is about learning that you don't have to suffer pain more than necessary (if you can let go).

What Emotional Resilience Is Not

Let’s start with what emotional resilience isn’t:

  • It isn’t the ability to “not feel” – you’re not supposed to be a robot and it’s unhealthy to be one.

  • It isn’t suppressing or avoiding emotions until they vanish (spoiler alert: they don’t vanish, anyway – they just wait for you in the shadow territory).

  • It isn’t forcing yourself into fake positivity while ignoring the reality of your inner life.

In short, developing emotional resilience doesn’t mean you won’t feel sadness, anger, or fear – it just means you won’t make those emotions more difficult than they need to be.

Instead of dragging them around like baggage, you let them move through you, then you let them teach you what they need to teach, and then you let them go.

Step One: Accept What Emotions Really Are

Before you can work with your emotions, you need to accept them for what they actually are – not what your ego or social conditioning tells you they are.

Here are three real facts about emotions that we all need to know (seeing as we’re all human and have to deal with this ‘stuff’):

  1. Emotions are temporary.

    No matter how intense an emotion seems in the moment, it will always pass. In fact, the only reason emotions seem to stick around longer than we’d like is because we resist them and resistance glues emotions in place (whereas acceptance dissolves the glue and gets you unstuck).

  2. Emotions are “e-motion, energy in motion”.

    Emotions aren’t meant to sit still: they’re designed to flow through your body, release, and resolve. If you don’t interfere, they’ll naturally move and you’re experience will improve.

  3. Emotions are not the truth.
    Truth is permanent and unified but emotions are fleeting and often conflicting. They can sometimes point you towards the truth, but they aren’t the truth themselves and, so, believing they are the truth is like mistaking the weather for the climate – it’s a distortion.

If you take nothing else from this article, take this: your emotions aren’t ‘You’ – they’re just visitors:

Sometimes they bring gifts, sometimes they make a mess, but they’re never permanent residents unless you make them so.

Step Two: Face and Embrace the Truth

This is where the secret of emotional resilience lives – once you’ve accepted what emotions are, the path forward is simple (though not always easy):

Face and embrace the truth no matter what.

That’s it. That’s the whole game.

Every time you resist the truth of what you feel, you make life harder than it needs to be because you block the natural flow of your emotions, which causes unnecessary friction, frustration, and then misery (the longer we keep blocking).

When you stop running and allow yourself to stop hiding and let yourself see things as they are – including your emotions – then you find yourself standing on solid ground again.

That’s resilience.

Why We Struggle to Face the Truth

If it’s so simple, why doesn’t everyone do it?

Well, there are two main reasons:

1. We become enmeshed with our emotions.

When you’re enmeshed, you mistake your feelings for your identity and so you start to think things like: “I am depressed”, “I am angry”, “I am anxious”, or I AM whatever else. This is just a case of the ego clinging to a feeling and making it part of “me” that it doesn’t need to be.

But feelings are never who you are – they’re just a reflection of what you’re experiencing:

For example, there’s a world of difference between “I am angry” and “anger is moving through me” – the first traps you but he second frees you.

2. We resist emotions.

On the flip side, sometimes we push emotions away because they don’t fit with the ego’s self-image:

Maybe your ego wants to be ‘though’ so it resists sadness; maybe it wants you to be seen as ‘good’ and so it resists anger.

The problem with this approach is that what you resist doesn’t just disappear – instead, it grows stronger beneath the surface.

Both enmeshment and resistance come from the same root: avoiding the truth.

Enmeshment clings to emotions as identity and resistance rejects emotions to protect identity. Either way, the ego stands in the way of realness and you become emotionally weaker instead of more emotionally resilient.

The Workaround: Feel Without Story

So how do we escape these traps of enmeshment and resistance?

The workaround is surprisingly compassionate:

  • Be kind to yourself.
  • Allow yourself to feel.
  • Drop the story.

When you let emotions move without attaching them to your identity and without building stories around them, then you return to your natural foundation of realness – you feel what you need to feel, and then it passes. Always.

Think of it like a storm passing through the sky:

If the sky identifies with the storm, it forgets its own vastness.

If the sky resists the storm, it creates tension.

But when the sky allows the storm to pass, it clears naturally, and the sky remains whole no matter what.

Why This Makes You Resilient

True resilience isn’t armour and it’s not about being completely unshakable or untouchable – i’s about being open enough to let life flow through you without breaking you.

When you train yourself to face the truth, emotions can’t trap you anymore:

You’ll still feel them, but you won’t get stuck – instead, you’ll flow, you’ll learn, and you’ll grow.

This doesn’t just make you more resilient in the moment – it also builds long-term confidence as you start to trust yourself.

You know you can handle whatever life throws at you, because you’re no longer fighting yourself.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

If you want to go deeper into trusting yourself and life in the realest possible way then read my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

Practical Steps to Build Emotional Resilience

You don’t build resilience in a single sitting – it’s a practice that needs to be done from day-to-day so you can create stronger emotional ‘muscles’.

Here are some simple but powerful steps you can start using today to get started:

1. Awareness: Notice and name the emotion.

Pause and ask yourself “What am I feeling right now?” Anger, sadness, fear? Naming it helps create distance and reminds you that you’re not the emotion – you’re the witness of it.

2. Acceptance: Allow the feeling without judgement.

Tell yourself “It’s okay to feel this” and sit with the sensation in your body without rushing to ‘fix’ it or explain it. Just breathe into it and give it space to do what it needs to do (even if it’s a ‘bad’ emotion – you’re not going to hurt yourself feeling it (it only hurts when you resist)).

3. Action: Face the truth and let it move.

Ask “What is this emotion showing me about reality?” and, instead of clinging or resisting, let it point you towards truth. Often, it’s a sign that something matters to you and you need to DO something about it.

4. Drop the story.

Notice when your mind starts spinning narratives like “This always happens to me”, “I’m such a failure”, “They shouldn’t treat me this way”, or whatever else (usually self-limiting beliefs). Let those stories go by reminding yourself that the feeling is something you need to experience but the story is optional.

5. Ground yourself.

Simple grounding techniques help emotions move:

  • Take three slow, deep breaths through your nose.
  • Put your hand on your chest or stomach and feel your body.
  • Go for a walk and notice your senses.

6. Reflect afterwards.

Once the emotion has passed, ask “What did I learn?” – every emotion has a message but you can usually only hear it after the storm has cleared.

Emotional resilience is about allowing your experiences to pass through instead of blocking them with ego.

The Elevation: Realness as Emotional Resilience

The real secret to emotional resilience isn’t about becoming someone else but about refusing to buy into numbing, denying, or pretending.

It’s about becoming more REAL.

When you stop resisting what’s true, when you stop identifying with illusions, and when you let yourself feel without story, you return to the wholeness you were always meant to live from. That’s resilience.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re dealing with difficult emotions and you’re ready to work on becoming more resilient in a real way then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you get moving

How to Regulate Your Nervous System in Under 10 Minutes

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How to regulate your nervous system in ten minutes

How To Regulate Your Nervous System for REALNESS

Regulating your nervous system is one of the ‘secret’ ingredients for getting what you want out of life:

You can have the best intentions in the world, set goals, visualise success, and tell yourself affirmations until your mirror begs for mercy but if your nervous system isn’t regulated, life is always going to feel like you’re pushing a boulder uphill (only for it to roll all the way back down again once you get to the top).

That’s because your nervous system is the ultimate filter between you, the world, and life itself:

It’s the control centre of your body – the unseen ‘boss’ deciding whether you feel safe and grounded or wired and frazzled – and most of us don’t even realise we’re letting this invisible filter run the show (because we think we’re whatever the filter happens to be showing us).

The good news is that you can bring your system back into balance in less time than it takes to scroll through Instagram and that ten minutes of the right practice can mean the difference between reacting from fear and stress or responding from realness.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Learning how to regulate your nervous system will change your life.

Your Nervous System: The Control Centre of Your Mind-Body

Your nervous system is essentially two gears working together inside the same engine:

  • Your sympathetic nervous system is the “fight or flight” state that you’ve probably heard about. It’s your body’s survival mode designed to pump out adrenaline and cortisol to get your body ready for action so that you outrun lions or stressful work emails.

  • Your parasympathetic nervous system is the “rest and digest” state where your body can repair, heal, and connect to itself and life. It’s the place of safety and realness.

(These two parts of the nervous system are parts of the autonomic nervous system which is responsible for involuntary behaviours like breathing etc. – you don’t have to ‘think’ about doing it).

Both of these ‘gears’ of the nervous system are vital (which is why we have them):

You need the sympathetic to get up in the morning, train at the gym, or stand up for yourself and you need the parasympathetic to relax, digest your food, and allow your immune system to do its work.

Here’s the thing, though:

Most of us live in a world where our sympathetic nervous system is overclocked and so we only ever find ourselves in a world of threat, stress, and the confusing experience of the void.

Sympathetic Dominance: Why We’re Stuck in Stress Mode

Think about it:

Every ping from your phone, every unresolved argument, every suppressed emotion you’ve shoved down because you “don’t have time to deal with it” all become things that your nervous system perceives as a potential threat.

Unfortunately, instead of bouncing between action (sympathetic) and recovery (parasympathetic) and allowing natural stress cycles to pass, many of us get trapped in a state of sympathetic dominance which means that we’re always ‘on’ and scanning for danger, even if the only danger is a passive-aggressive email from your boss.

If we never break out of this sympathetic dominance and start to regulate then:

  • We burn out.

  • Our bodies flip into freeze mode (a prolonged shutdown – a.k.a. depression, in the most extreme cases).
  • Anxiety and depression creep in.

  • We mistake our nervous system state for our actual personality (“I’m just an anxious person” – no, that’s your dysregulated system speaking).

  • Most tragically: we block our realness and so we never quite land in the safety we need to express who we really are and to do what we really want to do with our lives.

The Power of Nervous System Regulation

Regulating your nervous system isn’t about floating away on a cloud of Zen cliches:

It’s about returning to safety – the physiological state where your body knows it isn’t under constant threat.

When you feel safe, your parasympathetic system kicks in:

That’s when digestion works, immunity strengthens, creativity sparks, and you stop snapping at your loved ones for leaving the cupboard door open.

Safety is the foundation of real living because, without it, everything is distorted by survival mode.

With it, on the other hand, you get to experience life as it is – not as your fear interprets it to be (remember that F.E.A.R stands for “False Evidence Appearing Real”).

The Most Powerful 10-Minute Nervous System Regulation Process (Backed by Science)

There are dozens of tools out there to help you learn how to regulate your nervous system (examples are yoga, meditation, breathwork, and cold exposure) but if you want a no-nonsense, science-backed process that reliably shifts your system in ten minutes, then keep reading.

This sequence combines breathwork, somatic release, and grounding – three of the most effective, research-backed levers for nervous system regulation.

Here we go (all you need is a timer and your body):

Step 1: Coherent Breathing (3 minutes)

Breath is the remote control for your nervous system and by slowing your breathing to around 5–6 breaths per minute, you signal safety to your body.

Here’s a simple practice:

  • Inhale through the nose for 5.5 seconds.
  • Exhale through the nose for 5.5 seconds.
  • Keep your belly soft and rising as you breathe (a good technique is to put your hand on your belly as it rises and falls).

Research from the HeartMath Institute and multiple clinical studies have shown that coherent breathing activates the vagus nerve, boosting parasympathetic activity and balancing heart rate variability.

Step 2: Somatic Shake (2 minutes)

Animals in the wild shake after a stressful event to discharge adrenaline but, unfortunately, humans have learned to suppress this natural impulse and end up storing unnatural tension in their muscles.

Somatic shaking helps you get rid of it:

  • Stand up, loosen your knees, and shake out your whole body as if you’re a wet dog trying to get rid of all the water on itself.
  • Let your arms, shoulders, and jaw go ‘floppy’.
  • Make sound if it helps – sighs, hums, even laughter…basically whatever your body needs to do in the moment (try to let your body move you, not your mind).

Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, notes that shaking helps release stored stress and resets the system back to baseline.

Step 3: Grounding with the 5-4-3-2-1 Method (3 minutes)

Now that you’ve calmed the body, anchor yourself in the present moment which prevents your mind from dragging you back into sympathetic overdrive.

To do this you need to get fully into your sense by focusing on:

  • 5 things you can see – colours, shapes, light.
  • 4 things you can feel – your feet on the ground, clothes on skin.
  • 3 things you can hear – subtle sounds around you.
  • 2 things you can smell – or imagine a scent you love.
  • 1 thing you can taste – sip water, notice your tongue.

This practice pulls attention out of mental loops and roots you in reality, where you are already safe and so the nervous system can relax.

Step 4: Heart Focus (2 minutes)

Close with this simple heart coherence practice to reinforce the parasympathetic shift:

  • Place a hand on your chest.
  • Breathe as if the breath is flowing in and out of your heart.
  • Recall something or someone you genuinely appreciate and let the gratitude expand throughout your body.

Studies show heart-focused breathing increases vagal tone, boosts emotional stability, and improves resilience under stress. Gratitude has also been proven to improve mood and feelings of safety.

Why This Works

This is a simple but very powerful process for regulating your nervous system and bringing yourself back to safety – in just ten minutes, you’ve:

  • Regulated breathing rhythms → activated your parasympathetic nervous system.
  • Discharged stored tension → freed your body from holding stress.
  • Anchored your awareness → stopped the spiral of anxious thoughts.
  • Activated appreciation → reconnected with the felt sense of safety.

This combination is like hitting ‘reset’ button on your entire system, allowing you to move from threat mode into safety mode – from survival into realness.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

My book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace will take you deeper into nervous system regulation and building a solid foundation of realness within yourself and life.

Making It a Daily Ritual

You don’t need to wait until you’re overwhelmed to practise this – just like brushing your teeth, nervous system regulation works best when done daily.

  • Do it before a big meeting.
  • Do it after your commute.
  • Do it in bed before sleep.

The more consistently you practise, the more flexible and resilient your nervous system becomes and the stronger the foundation of realness within you becomes as you’re coming from a place of regulation instead of restlessness – of course, stress still happens in life, but instead of hijacking you for hours (or days), it passes through and you can stay focused on your real life.

Learning how to regulate your nervous system saves you from unnecessary stress.

How to Regulate Your Nervous System – The Final Word: From Surviving to Living REAL

Your nervous system is not your enemy – it’s your ally – but if you let it get stuck in stress mode, it will convince you that the world is more dangerous than it really is.

In under ten minutes, you can flip the script and can return to safety, balance your system, and show up in the world as who you really are.

Realness doesn’t happen in fight-or-flight – happens in rest-and-digest.

So the next time you catch yourself spiralling, remember that you don’t need a retreat in Bali or a three-hour meditation marathon. You just need ten minutes.

Your nervous system – and your real self – will do the rest and then thank you for it.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you want to start building a foundation of realness within yourself so you can live your REAL life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll guide and support you as you start taking real action in your life.

Realness vs. Unreal (Fake): How to Spot the Difference in Your Life

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Escaping reality (Realness vs. Unreality (Fake))

The Quality of Your Life Always Comes Back To REAL Over Unreal

Most of us live caught between two currents in life:

One moves us forward, deeper into truth, growth, and wholeness whereas the other is constantly trying to pull us backwards into illusion, stagnation, and fragmentation – in short: realness vs. unreality.

At first glance this might sound overly simple – of course we’d all like to live our realest possible lives but the truth is most of us spend far more time in the unreal and fake than we realise.

Why?

Because our conditioning, fears, and ego-driven self-images constantly blur the line and distort our view of the path that we’re walking.

What all of this means in practical terms is that learning to discern the real from the unreal is one of the most powerful skills you can ever develop because it changes how you relate to yourself, the world, and to reality itself.

More importantly, it stops you from fighting life and allows you to flow with it.

In this article, we’ll unpack what “real” really means, why “unreal” causes so much unnecessary suffering, and how to spot the difference in your own life.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Psychological patterns show you how to find reality. Growing real is about facing reality and avoiding unreality.

What Does It Mean to Be REAL?

When I say “real” on this site or in my books, I don’t just mean “authentic” in the pop-psychology sense of being quirky or unfiltered all the time.

No, realness here means alignment with truth at the levels of yourself, the world, and reality itself.

That might sound complicated but it doesn’t have to be if we break it down into the basic building blocks of human experience:

We can understand it by seeing that reality, if you look closely, is a whole – it’s not just a collection of random fragments but a system of systems within systems, each interacting with and feeding into the others.

In fact, science consistently shows that human beings are not isolated units but parts of interconnected systems:

Biology reveals the body itself is a complex system of organs, cells, and microbes; psychology shows we exist within family and cultural systems; ecology demonstrates that we rely on ecosystems for air, food, and climate balance; and systems theory ties it all together by describing life as nested “wholes within wholes”.

In short, your body is a system within a family system, within a cultural system, within an ecosystem, and so on until everything is connected to everything else.

We can say that to be real, then, is to move towards wholeness which basically means to participate fully in this interconnected flow without adding unnecessary resistance. In a practical sense, this means constantly letting go of false ideas, outdated self-images, and inner blockages that stop us moving with life.

When you are real, you grow, you flow, you get results, and you feel alive.

The Nature of the Unreal: Fragmentation and Resistance

If being real means wholeness, then being unreal means fragmentation:

Unreal living is when your ego creates stories, masks, and illusions that cut you off from the flow of reality – these false identities promise safety, control, or validation, but they actually create more friction than freedom in our lives in the long term.

This unreal and unnecessary friction shows up in two major ways (which are becoming more prevalent in our societies by the day as the world becomes more unreal):

  • Anxiety: Which shows up when your self-image (ego) is out-of-date and clashes with reality. It’s like trying to run new software on an obsolete operating system with error messages everywhere caused by constantly smashing up against the truth. The result is constant tension (which we call “anxiety”).

  • Depression: Which shows up when you’ve stopped growing entirely because – instead of flowing with reality – you’ve dropped out of the current. In this state, stagnation sets in and with it the heavy weight of disconnection from life itself.

The ego might promise comfort but all it ever delivers friction and so – the more unreal you are with yourself – the more unnecessary resistance you create.

Friction: The Great Indicator

Here’s the good news: the difference between real and unreal is not abstract and so you can be actually feel it:

The simplest way to discern the real from the unreal is to pay attention to FRICTION in your life.

There are two types of friction to pay attention to:

  • Necessary friction is growth friction. It’s like the resistance you feel in the gym that strengthens your muscles and feels challenging but also energising. With necessary friction, you’re stretched beyond your comfort zone in a way that expands you. This is the friction of flow.
  • Unnecessary friction is resistance friction and it feels draining, suffocating, and pointless. It’s the inner war of ego fighting reality and nothing grows from it except frustration and eventual misery (if you keep resisting reality instead of growing through ego).

If you want to know whether something in your life is real or unreal then you can ask yourself:

  • Am I growing into more of myself here or shrinking away from myself?

  • Do I feel stretched in a way that energises me or stuck in a way that drains me?

  • Am I seeing tangible results – in my wellbeing, relationships, or projects I’ m working on etc. – or just repeated cycles of disappointment?

When it’s real, growth, flow, and results will eventually follow but when it’s unreal, stagnation, misery, and emptiness are the default.

Signs You’re Living in the REAL

So how do you know you’re living real?

Well, three things tend to happen consistently over time:

  1. You’re Growing
    Your relationship with yourself deepens as you keep learning, evolving, shedding old skin, and becoming more whole.

  2. You’re Flowing
    Life feels like it has a rhythm. You’re being stretched just beyond your comfort zone and there’s a natural high that comes from living in the “stretch zone”.

  3. You’re Getting Results
    Because you’re in touch with reality – the only place where results can ever actually exist – your actions bear fruit. Progress happens – even if gradually.

Signs You’re Living in the UNREAL

On the flip side, unreal living usually looks like this:

  1. You’re Stagnating
    No growth, no expansion, just repetition of old cycles. The past weighs heavier than the future and you never take any steps forward.

  2. You’re Low or Numb
    Instead of the stretch of flow, you feel either anxious, depressed, or completely flat. Life feels like it’s happening elsewhere and to somebody else.

  3. You’re Stuck Without Results
    You either keep trying, but nothing shifts – or, even worse, you don’t even try because some part of you already ‘knows’ it’s pointless (that part of you is your ego…not the real you which is hidden in the shadows).

Applying Realness to Everyday Life

You can use this real-vs-unreal lens in every area of life and improve things for yourself (and by extension the people you care about):

  • Business or Career: If you’re constantly exhausted, battling drama, and never moving forward, chances are you’re forcing something in an unreal way. If you’re energised by challenges and seeing results, then you’re in the real.

  • Relationships: A real relationship will challenge you but also help you grow even more real as you go into deeper intimacy. An unreal one will trap you in cycles of anxiety, avoidance, or misery.

  • Health: Real health practices bring gradual, sustainable results but the unreal ones promise quick fixes but create more imbalance. This is because the real ones are aligning you with the laws of nature (not the laws of the ego)

  • Spirituality or Personal Growth: Real paths, purposes, and visions deepen your trust in life and expand your wholeness but the unreal ones inflate the ego with things like superiority or magical thinking.

In short: Wherever there’s unnecessary friction, there’s unreality. That’s just the way it is.

Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness

If you’re bold enough to start facing reality and growing into wholeness then check out Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness.

The Way Out: Awareness, Acceptance, Action

So how do you escape the unreal and return to the real?

The process is simple, though not always easy and unfolds in three stages (which I use with my coaching clients when working with them):

1. Awareness – Deconstruct Ego

You start by noticing where you’re being unreal:

Where’s the friction in your life?

Where are you lying to yourself?

What outdated masks are you clinging to?

Shine the light of awareness on the unreal and start to dissolve it.

2. Acceptance – Integrate Shadow

Once you’ve seen the unreal, don’t resist it but accept that it’s there for a reason:

Often, the unreal is rooted in fear, shame, or the unhealed parts of ourselves that we’ve disowned.

Facing the shadow self with compassion dissolves the unreal grip of ego and allows you to start becoming whole again.

3. Action – Trust Self and Life

Finally, you act in a more real way which means that you can trust the process of life, let go of control, and flow forward no matter what arises on the way to wherever you’re going.

Realness is not static (that’s ego again) – it’s lived through action.

Your mental health will always be haunted by something if you don't face reality and live in unreality.

Final Thoughts: Choosing Realness Over Unreality

Life is constantly inviting us to choose between the real and the unreal:

The real path asks for courage, honesty, and trust but it rewards us with growth, flow, and results; the unreal path offers comfort and control but delivers friction, stagnation, and misery.

The choice is always yours and it starts with the choices you make within yourself:

Start small by noticing where you feel alive versus where you feel unnecessary friction that leaves you feeling drained and then follow the aliveness, let go of the unreal, and step into the flow of wholeness.

Because the truth is simple:

Real always works.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to grow real and you’re ready for some structured guidance then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you to start changing your own life.

Self Somatic Experiencing: A Practical Guide to Coming Home to Yourself

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Self somatic experiencing

How To Unite the Mind-Body and Grow Real With Somatic Experiencing

Most of us, at some point in our lives, get the sense that something just isn’t quite ‘right’:

Maybe you feel stuck, like you’re spinning your wheels no matter what you try; maybe you’ve noticed that you can’t quite express yourself the way you want to, that you hold yourself back, or that you’re restless and never satisfied.

Maybe some of your most familiar companions are anxiety, depression, or the nagging sense that “something is missing” and you’re living in a kind of void.

What you need to know if you’re dealing with any of these things is that they aren’t random quirks of personality or some inherent fact of life that we all just have to deal with as long as we’re here.

No, they’re not even the real problem – they’re symptoms and, like any symptom, they’re the body’s way of pointing to something deeper.

This is worth knowing because most people try to ‘fix’ their lives at the level of symptom management and so they chase productivity hacks to fix restlessness, use positive affirmations to counter low moods, or hide behind quick distractions to plaster over anxiety.

These may provide temporary relief, but if the underlying issue remains untouched, then the symptoms will always return.

What actually needs to be faced is the fundamental problem and this is the one that most of us spend years (if not whole lifetimes) avoiding:

The state of DISCONNECTION – disconnection from the body, disconnection from the truth of our emotions, and disconnection from the natural drive towards wholeness.

The cause of this disconnection is often rooted in shame, guilt, or trauma (the Unholy Trinity) which cause inner blocks that force us to live in our heads and creating narratives and beliefs to protect us from pain but also cutting us off from our real selves.

When you address this deeper layer and start to reconnect to your REALNESS then you stop merely patching over cracks and allow real integration.

This is where somatic experiencing comes in.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Somatic experiencing helps you let go in the absence of closure.

What Is Somatic Experiencing?

Somatic experiencing (SE) is a body-based approach to healing developed by Dr Peter Levine:

It’s used clinically to resolve trauma and stress disorders but its principles can also be applied in everyday life to help us unblock ourselves and get moving in a more real way again.

At its core, somatic experiencing is about listening to the wisdom of the body by refusing to push emotions away or explain them with endless mental chatter so that you can tune into the raw sensations in your body – for example, the tightness in your chest, the heaviness in your stomach, or the buzzing in your arms – and allowing them to move.

What’s the point of doing something like this?

Because unprocessed experiences often get ‘stuck’ in the nervous system and so the body holds on to them as tension, stress, or frozen energy and so – instead of flowing through your system (which is what they’re supposed to do – they loop in the background of your life and keep you locked in fight, flight, or freeze.

Once you learn how to regulate yourself and to stop confusing emotional discomfort with actual physical danger, you’re able to free this stuck energy and return to safety.

This is important because, from a place of inner safety, you can access the deeper wisdom within you – in other words, your realness.

Why the Body Holds the Key

Think of it like this might make it easier to apply this to your own life:

  • The mind creates narratives and defences, often shaped by shame, guilt, or the ego’s need to control life.

  • The body, on the other hand, doesn’t lie – it records everything we experience and holds unspoken truths and unresolved emotions.

Trauma researchers like Bessel van der Kolk (author of The Body Keeps the Score) have shown that unprocessed trauma is stored physiologically – not just mentally. This means that things like muscle tension, shallow breathing, and racing heartbeats can all be the echoes of unresolved stress.

By working to engage the body directly, you bypass the ego’s tricks and access the deeper integration system built into your biology:

This is why self-somatic experiencing is such a powerful process – it helps you resolve symptoms at their root and come home to yourself.

A Simple Self-Somatic Experiencing Process

Now we’ll get into a basic but very powerful five-step process you can use anytime you feel stuck, anxious, overwhelmed, or just disconnected.

Think of it as a way to stop firefighting any symptoms of disconnection you might be experiencing and instead to tap into the fundamental safety and wholeness that’s already within you.

Here we go:

Step 1: Get into a Place of Regulation and Safety

Safety always needs to come first when we’re doing this kind of work.

This is because the nervous system can only process and release emotions when it feels safe and so if you’re running on adrenaline, no amount of ‘thinking’ will get you unstuck.

The first step, then, is to find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed:

Sit or lie down comfortably, close your eyes, and begin breathing slowly and deeply through your nose. Don’t force it – just settle into a rhythm that feels natural and calming.

Keep breathing in this way until you feel a subtle ‘shift’ – it might feel like your shoulders dropping, your breath deepening, or a sense of warmth spreading through you.

Whatever it is, this is your body moving from sympathetic arousal (fight or flight) into parasympathetic regulation (rest and digest) which means that your body knows that your safe in the moment.

Tip: If deep breathing feels difficult, try lengthening the exhale slightly longer than the inhale – this also signals safety to the nervous system.

Step 2: Feel Your Feelings

Now that you’ve created a safe container for yourself, it’s time to let something in and hold space:

This is where it’s time to bring to mind a feeling you’ve been struggling with – maybe it’s sadness, anger, fear, or just that vague ‘stuckness’ that haunts so many of us.

The really important part here is that you don’t analyse it:

In other words, don’t ask why you feel it -just let it be there and allow it to expand fully inside the container of safety you’ve created.

You may want to remind yourself if you feel the urge to resist:

This is just an emotion – it is not physical danger. The container of safety is bigger than the feeling will ever be.

Now tune into your body and ask yourself where you feel whatever you’re feeling as a bodily sensation:

Is it a tightness in your chest? A knot in your stomach? A buzzing in your jaw? Be precise by naming the location and describing the sensations with words like sharp, dull, heavy, fluttery, hot, or cold etc. etc. etc.

Stay with it whatever you’re feeling and let it be there without resistance – be brave enough even to allow it to EXPAND:

More often than not, when you stop fighting, the feeling begins to move and – even though it might grow stronger for a moment – it will eventually dissolve or shift into a new sensation entirely.

This is the body finally processing and releasing what was once being held in the nervous system.

Step 3: Zoom Out and Change Perspective

Once the emotion has moved or softened, imagine zooming out:

See yourself from a higher perspective – what I call your realness.

From here, notice how the emotion looks:

Is it still a threat in this real state or can you see it with compassion or even gratitude?

Most people find that from this wider perspective, emotions lose their bite and they appear as signals rather than dangers – a simple part of the human experience, not something to fear.

This step is crucial because it rewires the nervous system to understand: I can feel big feelings and still be safe – it also allows you to drop any unreal stories that have been associated with your feelings because of your familiar ways of identifying (as opposed to reality itself).

Step 4: Ask for Guidance

Now, ask your higher self – your realness – for guidance:

What does this part of you want you to know about the emotion? What action, if any, should you take next?

Sometimes the answer will be practical: “Have that difficult conversation”.

Other times it will be gentle: “Rest”.

And sometimes it will be simple: “Let it go”.

Whatever comes, trust it because it came from a very REAL part of you and not all of the stories you tell yourself day-to-day when you get caught up in your head (you can even turn it into a short affirmation or note it down as a reminder of your inner wisdom).

Step 5: Ground Yourself

Finally, return to the safety you created at the beginning.

Take a few slow breaths. wiggle your fingers and toes and feel the contact of your body with the chair or floor.

Open your eyes when you’re ready and notice how you feel.

Often you will feel lighter, calmer, clearer – in other words, simply more real.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

My book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace will help you to create a deeper relationship with your own realness so you can from a foundation of safety.

Why This Works

You might be wondering: why is such a simple process so effective?

(Of course, you won’t know for sure until you stop reading and actually try it yourself).

Here’s the evidence:

  1. Neurobiology of Safety: When you intentionally regulate your breath and environment, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system which reduces cortisol and adrenaline. This shifts the body out of survival mode (where healing isn’t even possible).

  2. Completion of Stress Cycles: Emotions are biological events with a beginning, middle, and end. When you stop resisting them, they run their course and resolve. Studies on stress cycles show that physical expression and awareness help “complete” them which reduces long-term effects of resistance.

  3. Bottom-Up Processing: Trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk highlights that body-based practices bypass the rational mind and work directly with the limbic system and brainstem – the areas where trauma and stress are stored.

  4. Rewiring Perception of Threat: By repeatedly proving to your nervous system that emotions are safe to feel, you weaken the false link between emotional discomfort and physical danger. Over time, this builds resilience and emotional flexibility and you can face yourself, the world, and reality head-on (instead of getting lost in your head).

  5. Integration of Realness: From a psychological and spiritual perspective, the process helps you reconnect with the “higher” wisdom within – the part of you that sees the whole picture. This shifts you from ego-driven narratives to truth-driven action (which is good because real action is the only thing that will ever really change your life).

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Try not to do any of these things:

  • Forcing it: If a feeling doesn’t shift, don’t push – remember that simply being present with it is enough to get it moving and so keep chipping away at it over time.

  • Overthinking: The goal isn’t to analyse but to feel. If you catch yourself spiralling in thought, gently return to the sensations and remove whatever ‘meaning’ you’re putting onto things.

  • Skipping regulation: Without safety, the process won’t work so always start by calming the nervous system otherwise you’re kinda wasting your time.

  • Expecting instant transformation: Sometimes release is dramatic, other times subtle – both of these are valid but the real change happens over time as you repeat the process.

Living Your Real Life

Self somatic experiencing is more than just a technique – it’s a very real practice of returning to yourself and each time you do it, you weaken the grip of old shame, guilt, and trauma and the patterns that have arisen within you because of these feelings.

It allows you to loosen the narratives of ego and free up energy that was once locked in symptoms like restlessness, anxiety, or disconnection.

Most importantly, you remember that there is a place of safety and realness within you that is always bigger than whatever comes up – this is the foundation of wholeness and where real healing begins.

Self Somatic Experiencing: The Final Word

If you’ve been chasing quick fixes or fighting symptoms for a prolonged period of time, then consider this article your invitation to stop looking for a magic bullet and to start reconnecting in a deep way.

Your body knows what it needs and your realness is always waiting – all you have to do is slow down, listen, and allow.

Self-somatic experiencing isn’t complicated and it’s not about doing something new – it’s just about letting go of resistance so that the natural process of integration can unfold.

When it does, you’ll find that the symptoms you’ve been fighting for years dissolve not because you forced them away, but because you reconnected with the part of you that was whole all along.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’d like to go deeper into your own realness and you’d like some guidance as you go through the process then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you find a real foundation within yourself.

How to Abolish Intrusive Thoughts & Feelings

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Abolish intrusive thoughts and feelings

Unreal or Chronic Negative Thoughts Always Mean It’s Time To Get More REAL

Here’s a potential shocker for you:

Most of the thoughts that run through your head on any given day are completely unreal.

Though they might seem like they have something to offer, most of them are just the mental static of old programming, echoes of past shame, guilt, and/or trauma and fear that block you from taking the real action that would actually help you grow.

If you’ve ever been paralysed by an intrusive thought, you’ll know how convincing they can feel but here’s the truth that can start to set you free:

Thoughts are not facts.

If you identify with every single one that pops up, you’ll soon find yourself derailed, stuck in friction, frustration, and then eventual misery because you’ve stopped living in alignment with reality.

The ‘good’ news is that unreal thoughts dissolve when you act in a REAL way:

This is because by taking real action, you gather evidence that they’re not true and so – over time – this evidence rewires your brain, calms your body, and strengthens your trust in life.

That’s what realness is all about:

Stepping out of illusion and associated negative thoughts so we can step into truth and wholeness.

This article will show you how to eliminate unreal and intrusive thoughts from your life by covering three levels you can work on – mind, body, and vision – with practical steps for each. The more you combine them, the faster you’ll see change.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Unreal and intrusive thoughts dissolve and disappear when you step back from them.

Why Unreal & Intrusive Thoughts Take Hold

First, let’s understand what’s happening and why you’re dealing with these kind of unreal and intrusive thoughts in the first place.

They usually arise for two basic reasons:

  1. Old programming: Your brain is trying to protect you from past pain – shame, guilt, or trauma (the Unholy Trinity) and it thinks “If I scare you enough, you won’t risk being hurt again.”

    Unfortunately, this protection mechanism stops you from living fully and just causes you to hold back and hesitate instead of acting on your realness.

  2. Blocked emotions: Emotions are “e-motion, energy in motion” and just need to move to dissolve and be integrated. Unfortunately, when they’re repressed, they stagnate and then the mind creates thoughts to justify why you’re avoiding feeling them (this is the EGO).

When you work directly with both of these – by creating distance from thoughts and by moving with and through emotions – then the unreal loses its grip and you can become free.

When you add the final magic ingredient of a clear vision for realness to move towards, then you have a practical framework for dissolving intrusive thoughts naturally and effectively.

Let’s look at these three levels – mind, body, and vision – in more detail:

Level One: Working with the Mind

At the level of the mind, the key is pretty straight-forward (though it will take EFFORT to train yourself to do this):

Stop identifying with every thought.

When you see thoughts as passing mental events rather than commands, they lose their sting and this frees you to stay focused on your real life and what you want to do with it.

Practical tools:

  • Thought log: Use the free one on my site or make your own. What this basically entails is writing down intrusive thoughts as they arise and then whether they’re real (based on evidence and aligned with your vision) or unreal (fear, assumption, projection). Over time, this builds awareness and strengthens your ability to discern the real from unreal.

    You can download the free one (and watch a video about using it) here: Hamster Wheel Thought Log
  • Mindfulness and meditation: Practise stepping into the role of the observer by watching thoughts arise, linger, and pass. The more you train this muscle, the less you’ll get caught in identification. A five-minute daily sit is a great start.

  • Test assumptions: Journaling is powerful here. For each recurring thought or trigger that you notice in yourself, ask: “Is this true? What evidence do I actually have? What emotion is fuelling it?” Often, you’ll discover that the thought is just a reflection of an old emotional trigger rather than present reality.

    Check out this article about learning from your triggers: Trigger Work: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Emotional Pain for Growth

Level Two: Working with the Body

Unreal thoughts don’t only live in the head – they’re also deeply tied to the nervous system:

When your body is stuck in fight-or-flight mode, you’ll interpret almost everything as a threat and then your brain creates thoughts to match that state.

By regulating your body and letting emotions move, you train yourself to respond from reality instead of from fear and to ensure that you’re thinking from a place of safety instead of threat.

Practical tools:

  • Daily body scans: Pause once or twice a day then close your eyes and slowly move your attention through your body, noticing sensations without judgement. This builds somatic awareness, which helps you separate “emotional discomfort” from “actual danger” and show up with more presence and safety in your life.

  • Nervous system regulation: Simple practices like breathwork (ujjayi breathing through the nose), yin yoga, or mindful walks in nature activate the parasympathetic nervous system (which is known as the “rest and digest” mode – the opposite of fight-or-flight). This calms intrusive thought patterns at their root.

  • Face negative emotions: When you’re regulated, gently allow difficult emotions to be felt which means naming them, noticing where they live in your body, and then letting them pass through. The more you practise, the less you’ll resist them which is really powerful because resistance is what fuels intrusive thoughts and keeps them going whereas acceptance dissolves them.

Level Three: Working with Vision

Even with all the mind and body tools, you still need a direction to move in which is why you need a real vision pulls you forward. Without it, your focus will drift back to whatever intrusive thought is shouting loudest and you’ll just end up being ‘stuck’ in the same old patterns.

When you know where you’re going and keep moving towards it then you create hard evidence that unreal thoughts are lies.

What this means in a practical sense is that when you learn to act despite them then, over time, they lose their grip on you.

Practical tools:

  • Clarify your values: Ask yourself: “What really matters to me, beyond what the world tells me should matter?” Write these values down and then translate them into action. If one of your values is honesty, for example, how would your daily choices look if you embodied it fully?

    This article can help you go deeper into your values: Unlocking Your Core Values: A Guide to Living Your REAL Life

  • Listen to the shadow self: Often, unreal thoughts are the ego’s way of blocking something real that’s trying to emerge from the hidden parts of yourself (a.k.a the shadow). Acting on this real ‘stuff’ will remove a lot of the negative and intrusive thoughts because you will be more integrated. To get started, ask yourself: “What part of me am I suppressing? What truth wants to be expressed?” The more you act on this, the less need the ego has to create distractions.

  • Take action daily: Unreal thoughts usually thrive in inaction but action dissolves them. This means a good strategy is to create simple goals and habits that reflect your vision because every step you take in alignment with reality builds trust in yourself and so, eventually, action itself becomes your antidote to intrusive thoughts.

Bringing It All Together

Here’s the formula:

  1. Mind: Catch the thought, step back from it, and question it to discern unreal from real (then switch focus to that real ‘stuff’).

  2. Body: Notice the underlying emotion and then regulate yourself and feel it instead of hiding from it.

  3. Vision: Redirect your energy towards real action and gather evidence that the thought is unreal.

Repeat this loop daily.

It might not be glamorous but it’s transformational and, over time, the unreal loses its stickiness – instead of being hijacked by thoughts, you’ll find yourself grounded, calm, and free to live in realness.

Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to trust yourself and life deeply and remove unreal and intrusive thoughts from your life.

Intrusive thoughts pass if you let them.

Unreal and Intrusive Thoughts Final Word: Evidence is Everything

Remember this and you’ll be fine:

You don’t need to fight unreal thoughts – you just need to stop feeding them.

Every time you act in a real way – stepping back from identifying with every thought , grounded in your body, and focused on your vision – you prove those unreal and intrusive thoughts wrong, the evidence stacks up, and fear loses its power over you.

It’s a bit like shining a torch in a dark room where the shadows don’t need to be fought and simply vanish in the presence of light.

Next time an intrusive thought shows up, don’t panic:

Catch it, breathe, and ask yourself: What’s the next real action I can take right now?

Then go do it.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S If you’re serious about freeing yourself from unreal and intrusive thoughts then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you make real progress. Guaranteed.

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