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.

Overcoming Resentment: Letting Go of Control and Returning to What’s Real

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Overcoming Resentment

Resentment Can Hold You Back From Your REALNESS…Here’s How To Overcome It

One of the most difficult things to deal with when it comes to relationships with other human beings here on Planet Earth is resentment.

For the purpose of this article, resentment refers to the lingering feelings of anger, bitterness, or even hatred towards a person because of how they’ve shown up in the past and – perhaps more importantly – how they’ve made us feel about ourselves.

Resentment is the grudge we carry, often long after the moment has passed – a kind of sticky, emotional residue that refuses to dissolve.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth that not everybody is ready or willing to accept:

If you want to grow REAL, then you can’t just ‘manage’ resentment – you have to deeply understand it because resentment isn’t just about them…it’s also feedback about you.

I don’t mean this in a ‘blaming‘ sense but in a revealing one because resentment shows you where your ego has been threatened, where your sense of control has been challenged, and where reality has refused to bend to your expectations.

If you can learn to read this kind of feedback properly, then resentment stops being a burden and starts becoming a doorway back into flow, truth, and wholeness.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Resentment is slowly poisoning you and it's all because of the ego.

Where Resentment Really Comes From

Before we can talk about overcoming resentment, we need to understand the human condition a little more clearly so we can set the context of what’s going on:

At the risk of oversimplifying something complex, we can say that most people are operating with at least two versions of themselves:

1. The Ego

This is the version of you that you present to the world – it’s your identity, your self-image, and your story about who you are.

It’s the part of you that gives you a set of labels to live by that give you a sense of security in the world:

  • “I’m successful”

  • “I’m a good person”

  • “I’m strong”

  • “I’m in control”

  • Etc. etc. etc.

The ego isn’t inherently bad because it serves the function of helping you to navigate the world.

Unfortunately, it’s also selective, fragile, and heavily invested in maintaining a certain image instead of aligning you with actual REALITY.

2. The Shadow Self

This is name for all of the hidden ‘parts’ of you that don’t fit the ego’s narrative:

It contains everything that has been pushed out of awareness because it contradicts the identity/ego you’re trying to maintain and so it essentially includes anything you’ve labelled as ‘bad’ or ‘unacceptable’ – like insecurity, jealousy, fear, and shame – but also things that might actually be very ‘good’ but nevertheless inconvenient, like vulnerability, softness, or a desire for connection.

The shadow self isn’t unreal – in fact, it’s actually more real than the ego because it’s WHOLE and not FRAGMENTED…it’s just been exiled and doesn’t get to show up as often as it needs to.

The Cost of Maintaining the Ego & Suppressing the Shadow Self

Most people are unconsciously committed to maintaining their ego at all costs because underneath the surface, exist feelings they don’t want to face like shame, guilt, and/or trauma (the Unholy Trinity) along with fear and other unresolved emotional pain.

If these feelings were allowed into awareness, the current version of the ego wouldn’t be able to survive in the same way and so we suppress the shadow and double down on the ego.

We try to stay in control, we try to filter life through our identity/ego, and we try to make reality conform to our expectations – in doing so, we buy into three major illusions:

  • Control – the belief that we can dictate outcomes and always get the results we want when we want them.

  • Independence – the belief that we exist in isolation from everybody and everything else.

  • Separation – the belief that we are fundamentally disconnected from others and life itself.

In the short term, this can feel empowering because it makes us feel like a GOD in our own lives (in the sense of being omnipotent and omniscient) but – in the long-term – it juts creates friction because none of it is actually real.

When Control Meets Reality

Understanding everything we’ve just said can help us to start seeing where resentment begins to form and it all comes back to seeing how the EGO needs us to keep avoiding reality.

Basically, when you’re filtering your life through the ego, you only really feel ‘good’ when:

  • Things go your way.

  • People validate your identity.

  • Reality reflects the image you have of yourself.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

The unfortunate problem is that other people in the world around us are all doing the exact same thing because they also have egos to maintain, control systems to help them do it, and self-images they’re trying to get the world to buy into.

What this means is that, eventually, your system is going to collide with theirs – not because anything has gone ‘wrong’ but because you’re not actually independent and isolated like the ego needs you to believe… you’re actually INTERDEPENDENT.

“Interdependence” means that your life will inevitably include people and situations that:

  1. Show you that you’re not fully in control.

  2. Refuse to see you the way your ego needs to be seen.

When this happens, the ego feels threatened because the shadow self gets triggered, and so resentment starts to kick in.

The Ego & Resentment: A Simple Example

Let’s say your ego is built around being a high-performing, results-driven person – what they used to call a “Type A” identity (I used to be one of these people before I woke up so I’m writing from experience).

When you’re like this, you pride yourself on taking action for the sake of being busy (not because it’s REAL), getting results (as a way of filling the Void), and being ‘productive’ (as a distraction) and living like this as much as possible is how you maintain your sense of self.

Now imagine you’re in this ‘Type A’ state and then you meet someone like a parent, a colleague, or a partner who isn’t impressed with what you’re doing or doesn’t validate your achievements in the way you think you ‘deserve’ – they might even criticise you or dismiss what you’re doing.

Suddenly, something gets triggered – not just irritation but something MUCH deeper.

This is because what they’ve done is challenge your identity and shown shown you that:

  • You’re not in complete control of how you’re perceived.

  • Your achievements don’t guarantee validation.

  • Your sense of self is more fragile than you thought.

This shows you that your ego’s whole control strategy is actually flawed and this just brings the shadow closer to the surface (and all of the insecurity, doubt, and needs for approval that keep us in ego instead of integrating it and growing real).

Instead of seeing that this is what’s going on, the default human tendency is to externalise it and then RESENT them.

What Resentment Is Really Doing

Resentment, then, is ultimately a defence mechanism that allows you to avoid confronting what’s been triggered inside you by projecting the problem outward.

Instead of asking “What is this showing me about myself?”, you unconsciously decide “They’re the problem” and so – as long as you hold onto that story – you can keep your ego intact.

The cost of this is that resentment keeps you stuck, disconnected from your (real) self and lie, and keeps you in friction with reality.

In other words, it keeps you from growing and integrating the hidden ‘parts’ of yourself (in the shadow self) so you can become more whole.

The Role of “Idols” in Resentment

Another piece of the puzzle is that – if you look closely at your resentment(s) – you’ll often find something sitting on a pedestal.

This “something” is something that you believe will “save” you (from your own disconnection to yourself and life in the Void) and something your ego has decided is essential to your identity because it’s taken a ‘good’ thing and turned it into an ULTIMATE thing.

These are what they used to call idols (you can also call them unicorns) and they might include:

  • Money
  • Status
  • Power
  • Intelligence
  • Attractiveness
  • Being ‘right
  • Being admired or respected

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these things – like we said, they’re often ‘good’ things but the problem is when you attach your sense of self to them and treat them like the ULTIMATE then anyone who threatens those things…threatens you.

And that’s where resentment grows.

For example:

  • If your identity is built around being intelligent, you’ll resent people who make you feel stupid.

  • If your identity is built around being attractive, you’ll resent those who overlook or reject you.

  • If your identity is built around success, you’ll resent those who don’t acknowledge the things you think make you successful.

In each case, the resentment isn’t just about the other person but about your attachment to the ‘idol’ and what you think it can do for you (because you became detached from the things that can give you what you really want which are hidden in the shadow self).

Are There Actually ‘Bad’ People?

Let’s be clear, though: this doesn’t mean there aren’t people in the world who behave badly and that it’s always about you and your shadow ‘stuff’.

There are definitely (unfortunately) people who lie, manipulate, neglect, and harm others and, sometimes, anger is an appropriate reaction to these types of people (because anger is the “dignity emotion” that helps you protect yourself and the things you care about).

What this means is that boundaries are necessary in life and, sometimes, distance is the right choice…

…but resentment is something different because it LINGERS and so you carry it further down the path than you need to which just keeps you emotionally tied to a situation long after it’s over.

If you find yourself dealing with resentment, then it means you’re holding on when you don’t need to so it’s worth asking “What am I refusing to let go of?” because, often, it’s not just the person – it’s the identity that got threatened which is the problem.

Letting Go of Resentment: The Path Back to Realness

If resentment is rooted in ego and control, then overcoming it isn’t about forcing forgiveness or pretending everything is okay but simply about returning to reality by letting go of what isn’t real.

What this ultimately means is reintegrating what’s been pushed into the shadow so that you don’t get ‘triggered’ because of your self-image (ego) and idols.

Here’s how you can start doing this in a practical way:

1. Acknowledge the Resentment (Without Justifying It)

The first step is honesty with yourself about what you’re actually feeling (most of us have a gap between the ego and the shadow because we don’t feel our feelings).

Don’t dress it up, spiritualise it, or pretend you’re “above it” – that’s all EGO so just admit the raw facts of the situation so you can start moving on:

“I feel resentment towards this person”.

Acknowledging this alone creates space but the key is knowing that you don’t need to immediately justify it to yourself or make excuses about why you resent the person in question etc.

Justification keeps the focus externalised which is part of the problem so, instead, just stay with the feeling.

Let it be there.

2. Ask the Real Question

Once you’ve acknowledged the resentment, then you can start to dig a little deeper into what’s going on.

A great question at this stage is simply?

“What has this person shown me about myself?”

(Not in a self-blaming way but in a curious way)

Look for things like:

  • Where your sense of control was challenged.

  • Where your identity or self-image felt threatened.

  • What emotion got triggered underneath the anger.

3. Identify the Idol / Unicorn

“What did I need to be true in this situation in order to feel okay?”

The answer to this question will usually point to an idol which will be something like:

  • “I needed them to respect me”.

  • “I needed to be seen as successful”.

  • “I needed to be right”.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

Once you see it, you can question it and see if whatever it is is really the ‘thing’ that defines you or if it’s just something the ego has clung to.

(Hint: the only ULTIMATE is your relationship with life itself).

4. Feel What You’ve Been Avoiding

Underneath resentment, there’s almost always a more difficult emotion that we’ve been trying to avoid.

The most common ones are:

  • Shame
  • Guilt
  • Trauma
  • General hurt
  • Rejection
  • Fear

The ego resists these feelings because they threaten its structure but these feelings are part of your reality and if you don’t feel them, you can’t integrate them.

(“You gotta feel it to heal it”).

Instead of staying in the story about the other person, make the CHOICE to bring your attention back to your body and feel what’s there without trying to ‘fix’ it or to escape from it.

This is where real processing of emotions actually happens (“process your emotions” sounds complicated but it just means that you FEEL YOUR FEELINGS and let them move through you because emotions are “e-motion, energy in motion”).

5. Let the Identity/Ego Collapse (Where It Needs To Because It’s Holding Onto Something UNREAL)

This is the part most people avoid because it feels like losing something but what you’re actually losing is a false layer (and you can’t lose anything REAL anyway).

If your resentment is tied to an identity like being “the successful one”, “the smart one”, “the strong one”, or the “[whatever] one” then letting go of the resentment means letting that identity soften.

This doesn’t mean that it has to disappear completely (you probably have a lot of good qualities enshrined within this identity worth holding on to) but it does mean loosening the grip.

When you let go like this your FREEDOM becomes available to you again and you can act in a responsive and not reactive way.

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

If you’re ready to start facing your shadow self and growing into your realness then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

6. Re-enter the Flow

When you’re no longer trying to control how everything looks, feels, or turns out then you’re actually FREE to engage with life again without friction, force, or the constant need for validation.

You move from:

  • Control → Participation
  • Ego → Reality
  • Resistance → Flow

In this REAL state, resentment doesn’t have anything to hold onto and so you can just be whatever it is that you are.

Resentment is making you a prisoner to yourself (well...your ego).

The Final Word: Overcoming Resistance

Resentment feels powerful, justified, and even feel protective but – in reality – it’s a clear signal that something in your inner world is out of alignment with what’s real.

The short-version is that it’s showing you where you’ve:

  • Clung to control.

  • Attached to identity.

  • Avoided feeling something deeper.

If you’re willing to listen to this signal instead of fighting it or feeding it then it can guide you back to wholeness because – at the end of the day – realness isn’t about being in control but about being in truth.

And the truth doesn’t need resentment to survive.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to let go of your resentments and start growing REAL then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you shift gear and take real action.

Slow Down to Speed Up: The Paradox of Real Results

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Slow down to speed up

When Stay REAL You Can Slow Down to Speed Up Instead of Rushing and Causing Unnecessary Friction For Yourself

We live in a world that tends to worship doing things as quickly as possible and so many of us are running around chasing faster results, faster growth, faster ‘success‘, faster ‘healing‘, and faster…everything.

If you don’t believe me then just scroll through social media for five minutes and you’ll be hit with a barrage of ‘irresistible’ promises:

“10x your income in 90 days”, “Lose 10kg in a month”, “Manifest your dream life instantly”, etc. etc. etc. – it all feeds into the core idea that the faster you move, the quicker you’ll get where you want to go.

What’s interesting, though, is that – if you’ve lived long enough and paid attention – then you might’ve noticed something strange:

The more you rush, the more things seem to slow down because the energy of rushing just causes you to overthink, second-guess yourself, hesitate, burn out, make mistakes, lose clarity, and sabotage yourself.

(Then you wonder why it’s not working!?!).

This is where we need to introduce a deeper truth so we can align with reality instead of against it:

You don’t speed up your life by rushing through it; you speed it up by slowing down.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Slowing down to speed up allows you to work with life instead of against it.

The Real Problem: Emotional Attachment to Outcomes

One of the main things that stops us getting the results we want from life is that we’re too emotionally invested in the outcome.

At first glance, that sounds counterintuitive because surely caring about the outcome is a good thing, right?

Well, yeah, we need to care about what we’re aiming for and doing with our lives to a point but when your emotional state becomes dependent on achieving a specific result, you cause problems for yourself because you stop engaging with reality and start trying to force it instead.

When you’re caught up in this energy:

-You rush the process.

-You become impatient.

-You override your intuition with ego and old patterns.

-You ignore feedback from reality itself.

-You cling to control instead of allowing yourself to be spontaneous and responsive.

Essentially, when you force yourself to speed up and start rushing around in a compulsive way then you’ll just find that instead of working with life, you start working against it.

The hidden cost of this kind of outcome-dependence (investing your self-worth and ability to feel ‘good’ in outcomes alone) is that it distorts your perception and pulls you out of the very process required to actually make things happen.

Even if your goal is real – which means it’s aligned with your values, grounded in truth, and meaningful – then your attachment to it can still sabotage you because you’re not acting from clarity – instead you’re acting from unnecessary pressure.

Why We Get Stuck Here: Shame and Disconnection

If we go a level deeper, we find the real root of this pattern:

Shame.

This kind of shame is a disconnection from yourself in realness because you picked up and internalised judgement somewhere along the line and started living in the Void.

When you’re disconnected from yourself and life in this way, then you start to believe – consciously or unconsciously – that something “out there” will ‘fix’ it and heal the rift.

This is when you start to treat ‘good’ things as the absolute ULTIMATE thing that will finally help you to feel complete again (when the only real way to do this is to return to a connection to yourself in truth).

Common examples of ‘good’ things that get treated as the ULTIMATE might be:

-A relationship.

-A business result.

-A physical transformation.

-Recognition.

-Validation.

-Etc. etc. etc.

When you pursue these things in an outcome-dependent way, then at some level you end up telling yourself “When I achieve this, then I’ll finally feel whole” but this is where things start to go ‘wrong’ because now you’re not just moving towards a goal.

What you’re actually doing is outsourcing your self-worth to it and, once this happens, everything becomes distorted and unreal.

Through the lens of this (emotional and mental) distortion, the goal appears to be way bigger than it really is (the ‘Ultimate’), the stakes feel higher than they actually are, the pressure intensifies, your thinking narrows, and finally your behaviour becomes reactive instead of responsive.

All of this ironically makes the very thing you’re chasing becomes harder to attain and just ends up making you feel even worse about yourself.

This is why you need to learn to slow down to speed up.

The Shift: From Outcome-Dependence to Outcome-Independence

Before we talk about slowing down in practical terms, we need to understand the key internal shift that makes it possible in the first place and this is the shift from outcome-dependence to outcome-independence.

Outcome-dependence says “I need this to work so I can feel good about myself” but outcome-independence says “I’m going to give this my best, but my worth isn’t tied to the result.”

Being outcome-independent doesn’t mean you stop caring or that you become passive or indifferent – it just means you stop placing your self-image and identity inside the outcome.

You still aim, you still act in a real way, and you still commit but you don’t CLING or CHASE.

In other words:

You do your best and let go of the rest.

Do your best = trust yourself.

Let go of the rest = trust life.

From a REALNESS perspective, this isn’t just a ‘nice’ motivational quote but a practical way of aligning with reality because when you remove your emotional dependency on the outcome:

  • Your perception becomes clearer.

  • Your decisions become cleaner.

  • Your actions become more precise.

  • Your nervous system becomes more regulated.

You can finally engage with the actual process instead of a projection of it in your own mind.

How It’s Possible To Slow Down to Speed Up

Once you become outcome-independent, you naturally begin to slow down – not in a lazy or disengaged way but in a grounded, present, and responsive way.

You stop rushing ahead of reality, stop trying to force outcomes, and stop reacting from fear and begin to meet each moment as it is.

This is where the paradox of “slow down to speed up” reveals itself:

1. You Make Better Decisions

Rushed decisions are usually reactive because they’re driven by urgency, fear, or pressure and not clarity.

When you slow down, you create space between stimulus and response and – in that space – you can actually see what’s happening.

This is ‘good’ news because when you can see clearly, you can act effectively.

2. You Reduce Mistakes

Most mistakes don’t always come from a lack of ability (which we can learn in most cases, anyway) – they come from impatience.

This is because, when you’re rushing around like a headless chicken trying to fill the Void, you skip steps, overlook details, and act prematurely.

Slowing down allows you to engage fully with each part of the process and this reduces errors and ultimately saves time in the long-run.

3. You Stay Regulated

A dysregulated nervous system will always struggle to produce consistent, high-quality results because if you’re caught up in sympathetic dominance and anxious, overwhelmed, or pressured, your capacity narrows.

This is because when you’re nervous system is seeing ‘threat’s all over the place instead of allowing you to feel SAFE in your own life and the process of moving forward then you default to the survival patterns of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

These patterns always shift your focus away from what’s happening as a whole and cause you to focus on the ‘threat’ only.

Slowing down helps you regulate your system and from this place, your actions become more aligned and effective.

4. You Become Responsive Instead of Reactive

Reacting is automatic but responding is conscious.

When you’re rushing, you react based on past conditioning but when you slow down, you respond based on what’s actually in front of you.

This responsiveness is what allows you to adapt, pivot, and evolve in real time so you can get actual results.

5. You Actually Do the Work

When you’re overly attached to the outcome, you often avoid the process and so you procrastinate, overthink, get stuck in analysis, and chase shortcuts.

On the other hand when you can step back and let go of that attachment then:

You just do what needs to be done.

No drama, resistance, or avoidance – just real action (the only thing that actually changes anyting in a real way).

What “Slow Down to Speed Up” Really Means (In Practice)

Slowing down doesn’t mean doing less – it just means removing the internal friction that makes everything harder than it needs to be.

(That doesn’t mean it will all be easy – it just means you’re not adding an extra level of difficulty that’s actually unnecessary).

From a REALNESS perspective, we can say that slowing down involves three core elements:

1. Detaching Your Worth from Outcomes

The first step is to train yourself to stop measuring your value based on results – not just at the level of intellect or conceptually grasping the idea but experientially.

What this means is that you learn to recognise that when you’re real – grounded, present, integrated, and generally (not always) in the FLOW – your worth is already intact.

This removes the pressure to be something you’re not (ego) which is what usually causes us to try and rush our way through life and take ourselves out of flow in the first place.

Basically, without unnecessary and self-imposed pressure, you can engage more honestly with what’s in front of you and actually engage with what’s real instead of what’s only in your head.

2. Regulating Your Nervous System

If your system is constantly activated then slowing down will feel uncomfortable at first because your nervous system is stuck in sympathetic dominance.

This means that you’re going to perceive ‘threats’ that aren’t actually there but are just a projection of the lack of safety you’re experiencing within yourself:

-You might feel restless.

-You might feel like you’re “falling behind”.

-You might feel the urge to speed back up.

-Etc. etc. etc.

This is why regulation is essential because when your body feels safe, your mind becomes clearer and – when your mind is clear – your actions become more effective.

3. Focusing on the Process

This is where everything that we’re talking about in this article comes together:

When you slow down to speed up then instead of obsessing over the end result, you bring your attention to:

The next step, the current task, and the immediate reality.

This means that you shift your inner stance from “How do I get there as fast as possible?” to “What’s the most real thing I can do right now?“.

And then you do it.

Practical Ways to Slow Down to Speed Up

This theory behind all of this is pretty simple but it’s not always easy so here are some grounded ways to implement this in your daily life without unnecessary fuss:

1. Pause Before Acting

Before making a decision or taking action, pause for a moment (not for long – just enough to check in with yourself and your intentions at the level of real or unreal).

Ask yourself a question about the place you’re about to act from:

  • Am I acting from clarity or pressure?
  • Am I trying to force something?
  • What’s actually needed right now?

This small pause can completely change the quality of your actions because you choose to act in a real way before you even get going.

2. Bring Attention Back to the Body

Your body is always in the present even if your mind isn’t – this is ‘ good’ news because it means that if you feel rushed or overwhelmed, you can bring your attention back to physical sensations:

  • Your breath
  • Your posture
  • The feeling of your feet on the ground

This grounds you in reality which is the only place real action can happen.

3. Define the Process, Not Just the Outcome

Instead of only setting goals, define the process required to reach them because – like we’ve seen – the PROCESS is where you want to be spending most of your time anyway (not in your head or your emotions thinking about the goal).

For example:

Instead of saying to yourself over and over again “I want to grow my business” (or whatever) choose to focus on:

  • Creating content consistently.
  • Speaking to potential clients.
  • Refining your offer.

The outcome becomes a by-product of the process and by putting yourself IN the process you’re more likely to take yourself where you want to go.

4. Accept Where You Are

Resistance to your current reality just creates friction and friction slows everything down so choose ACCEPTANCE instead (acceptance is the opposite of resistance).

Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation – it means seeing things clearly so you can work with them effectively and BUILD on a solid foundation.

From acceptance, action becomes grounded in something real and you increase the odds of getting the results you want (as long as the goal is real and not ego-based).

5. Let Go (Repeatedly)

Letting go isn’t a one-time decision but an ongoing practice that allows you to stay grounded in the real over the unreal with greater frequency and depth.

It’s totally normal to notice yourself becoming attached to your goals (or anything else) again but all you need to do when it happens is to just recognise it and release it.

Come back to the process again and again.

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

If you want to go deeper into regulation and flow then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

The Simplicity of It All

At its core, the principle of slowing down to speed up isn’t complicated – it’s just uncommon because most people are trying to get somewhere else instead of working with where they are and building from there.

They’re trying to force outcomes instead of engaging with reality and trying to speed up by rushing…when the real path is to slow down.

When you slow down to speed up life can actually meet you where you are.

Final Thought: Slow Down to Speed Up & Get Out of Your Own Way

You don’t need more hacks, more urgency, or more pressure – what you actually need is less interference, less forcing, less rushing, and less attachment.

When you remove these obstacles, you can finally move move forward efficiently, effectively, and in alignment with reality – not because you pushed harder but because you stopped getting in your own way.

And that’s the real secret:

Slow down… so you can finally speed up.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re tired of rushing around like a headless chicken and never changing anything for yourself then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you find a real foundation to build on.

Getting to Giving: Blessed by Becoming a Blessing

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Getting to Giving

When You Shift from Getting to Giving Your Life Gets Way More REAL

A lot of people begin their ‘healing journey’ because life doesn’t feel like it is working or because something is ‘off’ in some way:

They’re haunted by the sense that something indescribable should feel ‘better’ than it does and so – even when they’ve attained ‘success‘ on paper, or make progress in the ‘right’ direction with temporary moments of relief, they can still feel a sense of ’emptiness’ underneath it all.

This restless feeling that follows people around and leaves them feeling as though something important is missing is what I call the Void:

The Void is simply a disconnection from the truth and it pushes people to start a process of endless searching and striving:

They begin reading books, listening to podcasts, trying new habits, going to therapy, exploring ‘spirituality‘, improving their fitness, building businesses, and chasing better relationships – all of which are ‘good’ things but they end up treating them as the ULTIMATE thing that’s going to finally make life feel like it is flowing instead being forced.

Whatever ‘ultimate’ vehicle they latch onto, most of the time, their endless search begins with one basic motivation:

The belief that they need to ‘GET‘ something.

Some people want to get more peace, others want to get more abundance, respect, love, attention, power, confidence, or certainty – whatever the specific thing they need to ‘GET’ may be, the underlying assumption is always the same:

If they can just get enough of this missing thing, then they will finally feel whole…but this where many people just end up becoming TRAPPED.

The sad truth is that the ‘healing journey’ – when approached through this lens of ‘getting’ – often becomes nothing more than another project for the ego (which is the thing that’s causing the problems in the first place):

Instead of becoming more REAL, people end up becoming more strategic about their fragmentation which means that they’re still trying to escape themselves (without realising), but now they’re doing it under the banner of self-development.

This article is about how the real shift happens when we stop asking what we can get from life and start asking how we can become a blessing to it by GIVING.

That is where actual transformation begins.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

When you shift from getting to giving you open up your whole life.

Why We Think We Need to ‘Get’ More in The First Place

The reason many people feel the need to work on themselves in the first place is because they feel like they are not getting what they really want from life and so there’s usually some external thing like money, love, status, security, peace, or recognition that they believe will finally make them feel ‘complete’.

The problem is that the thing itself is rarely the true issue and that the real issue is fragmentation (disconnection from oneself and life in wholeness).

The way we tend to pick up fragmentation is like this:

At some point in life, usually through pain, shame, fear, conditioning, or emotional wounds, we split within ourselves and then create a fragmented version of ourselves, which I call the ego, in order to survive.

The problem with this is that the ego is not who we truly are – it’s just a self-image we bought into and became so that we could cope with life when we felt disconnected from truth.

Ultimately, the ego is built around ideas of protection, performance, and control which means that it tries to keep us safe by helping us avoid pain and uncertainty, but in doing so it pulls us further away from reality (which is where we really want to be if we want to live our REAL lives).

In order for the ego to maintain its hold over us, the whole, real version of ourselves gets pushed into exile:

This is ‘exiled’ version is the shadow self: the hidden, rejected, and disowned parts of ourselves that still belong to our wholeness.

When we live from ego, everything becomes filtered through fragmentation which means that our goals become fragmented, our relationships become fragmented, and even our spirituality becomes fragmented and so we start chasing things not because they’re true, but because the ego believes they will make it feel safe.

This is why so much self-improvement leaves people exhausted – they’re trying to heal from the same place that created the wound they’re trying to overcome.

The Ego’s Favourite Strategy: Getting Instead of GIVING

When there is an inner split between ego (fragmentation) and realness (wholeness), we unconsciously spend our lives trying to prove to ourselves and others that the ego is real and so we look for ‘evidence’ to support the identity we have built around fear, shame, and separation.

Living like this, we waste all our time on defending the unreal stories we tell ourselves, protecting an unreal self-image, chasing outcomes like our self-worth depends on it, and seeking validation – all to collect ‘proof’ that the fragmented ego-version of ourselves deserves to survive.

Ultimately, the ego survives and keeps its hold over us by convincing us that stability will come from outside of us which is why it constantly tells us that if we can just get the ‘next thing’, then we’ll finally be okay.

This is why ‘getting’ can feel so addictive:

You get the relationship, the promotion, the praise, the attention, or the financial breakthrough, and for a moment the Void settles and you ‘get’ a brief feeling of relief – as though you have finally arrived.

Sadly, because the fundamental problem – disconnection from truth – has not been addressed, the silence never lasts and so the Void eventually returns.

This just creates the exhausting cycle that many people mistake for ‘normal’ life:

They keep chasing the ‘next thing’ and then the ‘next next thing’, hoping it will finally be enough to heal them – never realising that they’re trapped in a loop created by fragmentation itself.

In other words, it’s not life they’re experiencing but a repetition of ego.

Independence & Separation are Illusions

The deeper problem with the ‘getting’ mindset is that it’s built on the illusions of independence and separation:

It tells us that we’re here, life is over there, and our job is to somehow extract what we need from it.

This is one of the core assumptions of ego – that separation leads to control and control leads to force but reality does not work like that because real life is about INTERDEPENDENCE:

What this means is that we’re not ‘separate’ from life; we are participants in it.

We are not isolated observers trying to negotiate with reality from the outside; we’re already in relationship with life itself.

When we live according to assumptions of independence and separation, then there’ll always be distance distance between ourselves and ourselves, between ourselves and other people, and between ourselves and truth.

This creates unnecessary suffering because we place invisible barriers between ourselves and life:

We keep trying to ‘get’ more, but we’re just running on the spot because the problem isn’t that we lack things – the problem is that we’re disconnected from them.

The Shift: From Getting to Giving

The shift that puts us back into reality is simple – even if it is not always easy:

Stop focusing on ‘getting‘ and start focusing on GIVING.

This is where real healing begins:

Like we said, at first, most people think ‘healing’ is about getting peace, getting confidence, getting clarity, or getting [whatever else] – they believe transformation means finally receiving what they perceive has been missing.

If the ‘healing’ process is real, though, something changes within us:

Eventually, we realise that ‘healing’ is not about becoming somebody who needs ‘more’ but about becoming somebody who has more to give.

This generally happens through the three stages of transformation (I use these stages with my coaching clients):

1. Awareness – Deconstruct the Ego

The first step is Awareness which means we begin to notice the patterns that have been running our lives and to see how much of our behaviour has been driven by fear, shame, control, and performance over presence.

At this stage, we start to recognise how often we’re trying to get approval instead of living in truth and stop blindly obeying the ego and begin questioning the assumptions that have shaped our choices.

Ultimately, ‘Awareness’ allows us to see fragmentation for what it is.

2. Acceptance – Integrate the Shadow

The second step is Acceptance:

This means that instead of fighting and resisting ourselves in our REALNESS, we begin to meet the rejected parts of ourselves with honesty and truth.

When we start to CHOOSE acceptance, then we can stop pretending, stop hiding, and stop trying to perform our way into worthiness.

In other words, we allow what is true to be true.

This is where shame begins to dissolve, because healing only happens when we stop running from ourselves by judging ourselves.

(Judgement is the opposite of acceptance).

3. Action – Trust Self and Life

The final step is Action which – in the case of realness – means that we begin to move not from force, but from trust.

This means that we stop asking life to prove itself to us and start participating in it.

It also means that we take real action from a place of wholeness rather than from fear.

This is where giving becomes natural because – once we reconnect to what is real – we also reconnect to the gifts we actually have to offer.

Your Realness is a Gift

The truth is that (literally) every person has something REAL to offer the world:

I am not talking about a performance, a persona, or a carefully constructed strategy but about a genuine gift that exists underneath the noise of ego.

Sometimes this gift is obvious but sometimes it takes years to uncover because shame has buried it so deeply.

Either way, it’s always there beyond the distortions and the BS:

Maybe your gift is listening in a way that makes people feel truly ‘seen’; maybe your gift is making people laugh and helping them feel lighter; maybe it is your presence, your honesty, your discipline, your creativity, your courage, or your willingness to serve.

Maybe your gift is simply your ability to tell the truth when everybody else is pretending.

It doesn’t have to be dramatic because realness never is (drama is what happens when we step away from reality and hide behind a mask):

It simply means that instead of obsessing over yourself, you start showing up in the world with what is true about you by no longer asking what you can take from a moment and start asking what you can bring to it.

You become a blessing instead of looking for blessings and that changes everything.

Why Giving Heals the Void but ‘Getting’ Keeps You In It

When we focus on giving instead of ‘getting’, we step away from the selfish tendencies of the ego and stop reinforcing the illusion of independence and begin living from interdependence instead.

This means that a sense of inner and outer connection returns and life starts to flow again.

This isn’t because giving is some kind of moral performance where being nice earns rewards from the universe but simply because giving aligns us with reality.

Reality is relational, love is relational, and wholeness is relational (instead of transactional) and so when we live as though we are separate, we suffer but when we live in connection, we ‘heal’ (return to wholeness).

Giving is not unhealthy self-sacrifice or abandoning yourself in order to please other people – it’s simply self-expression from wholeness and the natural movement of somebody who is no longer trying to use life to fill an inner hole.

The blessing is not in what comes back to you but in becoming the kind of person who can participate in life without needing to manipulate it.

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 deeper into overcoming the Void and staying real.

Practical Steps: How to Shift from ‘Getting’ to Giving

This shift requires practice because it’s not just a mindset change but a way of living.

Here are some simple ways to get started:

1. Ask a Better Question

Each morning, instead of asking what you need from the day, ask how you can be useful and actually SHOW UP.

The simple question of “How can I be useful today?” shifts your focus from consumption to contribution and changes the energy you bring into your life and the relationships that form it.

2. Identify Your Real Gift

Ask yourself what people naturally receive from you when you are being most real – not when you’re performing or trying to impress but when you’re simply being yourself.

What do people trust you for? What creates a natural sense of connection?

That is often where your gift can be found.

3. Notice Your ‘Getting’ Patterns

Pay attention to the places where you are secretly trying to ‘get’ something like approval, control, validation, attention, and safety (or anything else).

Do not judge yourself for it – just notice it because Awareness weakens the pattern (like we said above).

4. Practise Small Acts of Service

Do not wait for some grand purpose or dramatic mission before you can start giving something real:

Start small by giving attention, honesty, patience, encouragement, time, or presence.

Most real transformation happens in ordinary moments where we can show up and choose to serve.

5. Trust the Process

At first, ‘healing’ feels like an attempt to get something – that’s normal in many ways but if you stay with the process and keep moving towards truth, the question eventually changes.

You stop asking how you can finally feel blessed and start asking how you can become one.

That is when life begins to get more REAL.

Your real life is about shifting from getting to giving so you can thrive instead of survive.

The Final Word: From Getting to Giving

Most people begin the journey because they want life to give them something like more peace, more love, more certainty, more abundance, and even more blessing.

There is nothing unusual about that because it’s often the pain of the Void that wakes us up in the first place.

The deeper truth, however, is this:

You feel blessed by becoming a blessing and you receive by giving not ‘getting’.

This isn’t because life rewards ‘good’ behaviour like some kind of cosmic transaction, but because giving returns you to reality by moving you from fragmentation to wholeness, from ego to realness, from independence to interdependence, and from force to flow.

At first, we think healing is about getting but, eventually, we realise that healing means we finally have something real to give.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to start showing up in your own life by growing real then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you start giving something real to yourself and the world.

The Shift: Two Things You Can Do to Start Growing and Staying Real

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The Shift

The Shift: How to Start Seeing What You’re Really Looking For

Most of us are searching for the same thing – whether we consciously realise it or not:

A REAL relationship with ourselves and with life.

Beneath all of our goals, distractions, ambitions, and desires, what we’re truly seeking is a sense of true connection which basically just means that we want to feel whole, we want to feel present, and we want to know – not just believe – that we’re actually here, participating in life instead of performing our way through it as something that we’re not.

The problem, of course, is that we often forget this and so we lose sight of what we’re really looking for and so start searching for that same sense of connection “out there” in the world:

This just leads to a situation where we begin treating ‘good’ things like money, sex, power, status, relationships, achievement, and approval as though they’re ULTIMATE things – these things are definitely not ‘bad’ in themselves but they were never meant to carry the weight of our deepest need for meaning and connection and so treating them like they can do just leads to friction, frustration, and then misery.

The moment we attempt to shape these things (or any other) into the ‘ultimate’, then we begin moving towards what I call the VOID: a state of restlessness and confusion caused by buying into fragmentation instead of wholeness.

Maybe you’ve felt the Void yourself?

It feels like restlessness, emptiness, and the frustration of being on the rollercoaster of constantly achieving things and still wondering why something is missing – the constant sense that there must be “more” but never quite being able to reach it.

What’s interesting is that there IS more but most people look for it in the wrong place:

They think it exists in the next relationship, the next success, the next level of validation, or the next external achievement but what they’re actually looking for isn’t something outside of themselves:

What they are aching for is their REALNESS.

They’re trying to solve an inner problem with outer substitutes and this always leads deeper into the Void.

This article is about two powerful and effective SHIFTS you can start making to put yourself back in reality and to take yourself out of the Void once and for all.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

When you shift away from fiction and into fact you can change your whole life.

The Fundamental Problem: Distortion and Resistance

Before we get into the two shifts that can help us return to realness, we first need to understand the context of the fundamental problem that keeps most people stuck in the Void in the first place:

DISTORTION and RESISTANCE.

These are the two main forces that stop us from perceiving ourselves, the world, and reality clearly because they create emotional blocks, unhealthy patterns, and mental confusion that keep us trapped in fragmentation instead of allowing us to return to wholeness.

Both distortion and resistance cause us to live in the Void because they stop us from being PRESENT in ourselves and our lives and cause us to become lost in our own projections.

What this means is that – instead of being able to respond to life according to who we actually are in relation to what life actually is – we end up reacting to stories/projections we’ve created about life instead and then just remain ‘stuck’.

This is where suffering multiplies.

Let’s look at each of these ‘forces’ in a bit more detail:

Distortion

Distortion means that we are unable to see clearly.

This usually happens because of underlying shame, guilt, and/or trauma that causes us to over-identify with the ego whilst keeping the shadow self buried and hidden.

When we live like this, we end up filtering life through our interpretations (extending from the ego) instead of actually experiencing life as life itself.

For example:

–We do not see what’s actually in front of us, we see what our wounds tell us is there (“We don’t see the world as it is but as we are”).

–Someone gives us feedback and we experience rejection (because of underlying shame).

–Someone offers us love and we expect abandonment (because of some unresolved ‘stuff’ from the past).

–An opportunity appears and we experience threat instead of possibility.

-Etc. etc. etc.

In all cases like this, reality becomes distorted through the lens of fragmentation (the inner split from self at the level of realness) and we stop living in truth and start living in interpretation.

Resistance

Resistance means that we are unable to ACT in ways that we know are real and true because doing so feels like a threat to the ego.

The ego values comfort, familiarity, and control more than growth, truth, or freedom so that it can remain in place and keep us from facing the unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma that fragmented us in the first place.

Some examples of resistance are things like:

-Knowing you need to have the difficult conversation but avoiding it.

-Knowing you need to rest but continuing to perform.

-Knowing you need to let go of something or somebody but being unable to because uncertainty feels too uncomfortable.

-Etc. etc. etc.

Resistance isn’t ignorance because we KNOW what we need to do – instead, it’s a refusal to ACT on what we know is real so that we can hold onto the familiar that no longer serves us (if it ever did in the first place).

It’s the friction between truth and fear and the CHOICE to let fear keep winning.

Living in the Void

When distortion and resistance dominate your life, you remain in the Void and so life feels hollow and unreal and you keep sensing there must be ‘more’ (and there is: your REAL life).

What’s unfortunate is that distortion convinces you that this ‘more’ is something outside of you and so you keep chasing more money, more attention, more control, more success, or more pleasure because you think that these ‘good’ things are the ULTIMATE.

In reality, what you are aching for is your own realness and so you don’t need more illusion – you need more TRUTH.

The Path Back: Awareness, Acceptance, and Action

Many people assume that living with distortion and resistance is simply the human condition and that suffering through fragmentation for the rest of their lives is unavoidable.

Actually, though, we can put ourselves back on the path to integration and return to wholeness and improve our quality of life by removing the symptoms and side effects of RESISTING life and reality.

(The symptoms and side-effects are all the things that come from living in the Void like friction and emptiness etc.).

Returning to the path happens through three stages:

Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.

(These are the stages I use with my coaching clients when working with them in dedicated containers for realness).

Awareness: Deconstructing the Ego

The first step in any transformational journey is always Awareness because if you’re not aware then you can’t change anything.

This means becoming conscious of your patterns, your projections, your emotional loops, your false identities, and the ways you inoculate yourself against the truth.

You cannot change what you refuse to see and so Awareness is the beginning of freedom.

Acceptance: Integrating the Shadow

The second step is Acceptance which means finally learning to stop the war against yourself and life:

Instead of pretending ‘parts’ of yourself do not exist and sending them into the shadow self, you begin to face them honestly and compassionately so that you can OWN them again (and then do something with them).

Instead of building your identity around avoiding shame which leads to ego, you allow truth to be true and build with it instead of against it (which removes that friction, frustration, and misery).

This is where real ‘healing’ begins because acceptance is the opposite of resistance and judgement which are the main things that cause us to deny ourselves and become fragmented instead of whole (“healing” = returning to wholeness or at least the path of moving into deeper wholeness).

Action: Trusting Yourself and Life

The third step is to take real Action which means moving in alignment with truth instead of waiting until you feel perfectly ‘ready’ or good ‘enough’ or [whatever].

This means trusting yourself enough to choose what is real over what’s merely comfortable and trusting life enough to know when to let go so you can stop forcing in an attempt to have everything conform to ego and start flowing instead.

This means you’ll be acting from a foundation of acceptance – again, the opposite of resistance and judgement – which is the only solid place from which to build a meaningful life.

The Two Shifts That Keep You Real

So having said all this, let’s get onto the two shifts you can start making from this day forth to start embodying your realness and working with life instead of against it:

There are many complicated ideas and systems out there about healing and transformation but these two shifts can serve you for the rest of your life because they always bring you back to truth.

They are simple but that doesn’t mean that they’re ‘easy’ – but if you’re going to get started, there’s no better time than today.

Let’s dive in:

Shift One: Learn to Discern the Real from the Unreal

One of the most important skills you can develop is the ability to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s unreal.

This is because most (not all) suffering comes from confusing fiction for fact and believing in thoughts that quite simply aren’t true but are just an extension of the ego (itself and extension of shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

It’s also about learning to see that we often are hypnotised by and obey conditioning that was never ours in the first place because we mistake social programming for reality.

Growing real means learning to ask one of the most important questions possible:

“What is actually true here?“

Not what is convenient, not what protects your ego, not what helps you maintain an image but the truth.

To become effective at this first shift, discernment needs to happen at three levels: the Self, the World, and Reality.

At the Level of the Self

At the level of the self, this means looking honestly at anything within you that is holding you back from deeper wholeness:

-Your distortions.

-Your resistance.

-Your shame.

-Your compulsions and addictions (same thing in many cases)

-Your emotional avoidance.

-Your need for validation.

-Your attachment to a self-image that no longer serves you but is ruling your life.

-Etc. etc. etc.

Essentially, discernment means choosing the real over the unreal and so, sometimes, this means admitting that you are hurt instead of pretending you are fine; sometimes, it means recognising that what looks like confidence is actually fear.

Sometimes, it means realising that what you need is not more motivation but more honesty with ourselves and discipline to act in a real way and overcome resistance.

The real path is rarely glamorous but it is always liberating because the truth will set you free (but first it will piss you off and make you miserable as you let go of your illusions).

At the Level of the World

At the level of the world, discernment means understanding that the world is not reality:

This means understanding that the world is full of social conditioning, inherited beliefs, and cultural programming that tell you who to be and what to value but much of this is unreal.

For example:

Messages like “you’re only valuable if you are productive“, “you must be good-looking to matter” or “your worth depends on your success” are not truths – they’re SCRIPTS and PROGRAMS.

If you don’t question this kind of social programming, then you’ll unconsciously build your life around them and wonder why achievement still feels ’empty’.

Discernment means refusing to let the unreal define your worth and knowing that your realness is valuable in itself.

At the Level of Reality

At the level of reality, discernment means accepting how life actually works by embracing the natural laws that apply to all of us.

For example:

Reality ‘includes ‘works’ around cause and effect, time, consequence, responsibility, and limitation which means that you can’t negotiate with reality – you can only align with it (or resist and then end up on the path to misery)

This means accepting what can’t be changed while working wisely with what can.

It also means understanding that healing takes time, resistance creates suffering, and actions have consequences.

In short, the more you stop fighting reality, the more peace you experience in the long-run.

Shift Two: Learn to Witness

The second shift is learning to witness:

Witnessing means training yourself to come from a place of AWARENESS first and foremost rather than automatic identification – it means stepping back from your mental and emotional fluctuations so that you can allow them to pass without becoming them.

This means embracing the FACT that you’re not every thought you think, you’re not every feeling you feel, and you’re not not every fear your nervous system produces in moments of stress (or most of the time if you’re stuck in sympathetic dominance).

Without witnessing, thought and emotion become identity; with witnessing, thought and emotion become a CHOICE.

This changes everything.

Responsive Instead of Reactive

The more you learn to stand back and witness before making a choice, the more you become responsive instead of reactive which means that you can act from your realness instead of your ego.

For example:

–If somebody criticises you, instead of instantly becoming defensive, you can pause and ask why it affected you so strongly.

–If anxiety rises, instead of panicking and acting compulsively, you can recognise that your body is activated and stay present with it.

–If rejection appears, instead of collapsing into self-abandonment, you can remain with yourself and meet the pain consciously.

This is how we actually show up in life – not by becoming emotionless but by becoming aware.

Check out this article about Urge Surfing if you want to go deeper into witnessing: Urge Surfing Desires: Staying REAL and Controlling Desire the Urge and Stay Real

A Simple Practice for Witnessing

A simple way to practise witnessing is to pause, observe, name, allow, and choose:

Pause before reacting.

Observe what is happening within you.

Name it honestly (“I feel shame” etc).

Allow these experiences to exist without judgement.

Then:

Choose your response from awareness rather than reactive habit.

This gives you your power back because it interrupts unconscious patterns and creates the freedom of choice.

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 deeper into building your real life in a real way.

The Main Shift: From Fiction to Fact

These two shifts support each other because discernment helps you recognise what is real and witnessing helps you stay present enough to live from it.

Together, they move you from FICTION to FACT, from projection to presence, from fragmentation to wholeness, and from the Void back into real life.

This is the work of growing in REALNESS – it’s not about being perfect or impressive but simply being TRUE and REAL to yourself and life.

When you learn to discern the real from the unreal and to shift into witness consciousness then you are free to align with truth.

The REAL Shift: Start Now

Don’t wait for the perfect moment to start changing your life or wait until life feels ‘easier’ to get started – you’re never going to feel completely ‘ready’ but you can always be real by standing wherever you find yourself.

Start by asking yourself one simple question right now (journal out your answer if you need to):

What in my life is real and what is unreal?

Then follow this up with a second question:

What next step does the truth require of me?

That is the SHIFT and it begins with small, repeated acts of ACCEPTANCE instead of RESISTANCE.

Over time, these choices rebuild trust:

Trust in yourself and Trust in life.

Eventually, you stop chasing connection because you realise you were never supposed to chase it in the first place – instead you just needed to RETURN to it.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to start shifting from unreal to real and creating an active sense of flow in your life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you start showing up.

“Nobody Understands Me”: The Hidden Meaning Behind That Feeling (And What To Do About It)

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Nobody Understands Me

How to Deal With That “Nobody Understands Me” Feeling In a REAL Way

If you’ve landed on this page by searching for it, then there’s a good chance you’ve either felt – or are currently feeling – that “Nobody understands me” feeling and you’re trying to figure out how you ended up in such a situation and what to do about it.

Let me start by saying that I get it – it can feel isolating, frustrating, and even a bit hopeless to experience feelings of being misunderstood, and you might even catch yourself wondering if there’s something ‘wrong’ with you.

Maybe you keep questioning yourself:

“Why you don’t I “click” with people the way others do?“

“Why do all my conversations feel shallow and unreal?“

“Why do I tend to walk away from interactions feeling unseen?“

Let’s address this straight away:

There’s (probably) nothing ‘wrong’ with you at all and what you’re experiencing is just a normal reaction to a messed up situation.

The truth is that human beings share a lot in common but we’re also wildly different:

The idea of “normal” is a bit of a joke when you really think about it because if you were somehow the ‘normal’ one then everyone else would just be comparing themselves to you and that would get old very quickly.

The issue isn’t that you’re broken, then, but there is a very REAL question that needs to be answered:

“What’s actually going on underneath that feeling of being misunderstood?”

Let’s dig a little deeper:

If you feel like "nobody understands me" then it's because you accept this at some level (because you don't understand yourself).

The Real Question: Why Do You Want To Be Understood?

Before we go any further, there’s a deeper question that’s worth asking:

Why do you want to be ‘understood‘ in the first place?

This isn’t about judging yourself or anything like that because wanting to be understood is a deeply rooted human need and we’re all wired for connection.

If you slow down and really sit with this question, though, then something interesting tends to emerge which is that, usually, what we’re really looking for isn’t just “understanding” but something much deeper that sits beneath the surface of it.

For example:

  • A sense of belonging.

  • Validation.

  • Acceptance.

  • Feeling ‘seen’ or valued.

  • Emotional safety.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

At first glance, it can seem like these are things you can only get from the outside world – i.e. from other people or society as a whole in some way (although “society” is just other people when you think about it).

The truth, though is that – if you dig a little deeper – you’ll often find something uncomfortable but very powerful unfolding in your life:

What you’re seeking from others is something you haven’t fully given to yourself yet.

Perception Is Projection

There’s a saying that’s a famous paraphrasing of Carl Jung ideas on projection:

“Perception is projection.”

What it basically means is that the way we see the world is shaped by what’s going on inside us – especially the parts we haven’t fully faced.

Another famous way to say it is:

“We don’t see the world as it is but as we are”.

All of this is to say that when you feel misunderstood, it’s worth asking yourself a few questions:

  • Is there a part of me I haven’t fully accepted yet?

  • Am I hiding something about myself (even from myself)?

  • Am I expecting others to validate something I’m unsure about internally?

Often, in answer to questions like these, you’ll find that there’s a ‘part’ of you that hasn’t been fully owned or integrated because it’s been sent into hiding in the shadow self because it doesn’t fit your self-image and challenges how you want to be seen.

This happens because your ego has pushed your REALNESS into the shadows and when parts of you are hidden – even unconsciously – people can’t fully “see” you… because you’re not fully showing yourself to yourself in the first place.

Four Real Reasons You Might Feel Misunderstood

If you’re feeling like nobody understands you, it’s usually not random and there are patterns behind it – let’s break down the most common ones:

1. You’re Wearing a Mask (Even If You Don’t Realise It)

This is the biggest one:

You might think you’re being ‘yourself’ but if you’re filtering what you say, how you act, or how you express yourself to maintain a certain (unreal) image then people aren’t actually seeing you but a VERSION of ‘You’.

This ‘version’ isn’t REAL but is a curated, safe, and socially acceptable version which leads to a problem:

If you don’t show anything real, nobody can understand anything real.

This opens up a negative a loop that a lot of people who feel like “Nobody understands me” are stuck in:

  • You hide very real ‘parts’ of yourself.

  • People respond to the unreal version you show.

  • You feel misunderstood.

  • You hide even more.

Breaking that loop requires honesty with yourself and then others – not dramatic, reckless honesty but grounded, real expression of what’s actually REAL.

2. You’re Going Deeper Than the People Around You

Sometimes, the issue isn’t that you’re hiding but that you’ve changed or transformed over the years:

For example, maybe you’ve been doing inner work of reflecting, questioning things, and letting go of old patterns which means you’ve started going deeper into life.

This leads us to another fact about reality:

People can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.

If someone hasn’t explored their own emotions, fears, or beliefs, then when you speak from the level of having done so then it can confuse them or even trigger them – not because you’re doing anything ‘wrong’ but because your realness reflects something unreal they haven’t faced yet (i.e. you’ve triggered their shadow self because their realness is still hidden in the Shadow Territory).

This can create a gap between where you’re capable of meeting each other and this gap can feel like being misunderstood.

Saying that, there is a trap to watch out for if you find yourself in this situation which is that the ego can latch onto this and say, “I’m just more aware than everyone else”.

This just leads to judgement (which is always unreal) that shows up as a feeling of superiority which is really just a compensation for old, unresolved SHAME.

The real way forward is compassion which just means understanding that different people are at different stages and that’s just the way it is.

3. You’ve Chosen a Different Path

Not everyone feels misunderstood because of inner work – sometimes, it’s simply because you’ve stepped off the “default” path.

What this means is that you CHOSE not to follow the typical script that our society encourages us to follow:

  • The standard career route.

  • The conventional lifestyle.

  • The expected milestones.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

When you live differently, it can challenge the assumptions of the people around you which makes them question themselves (which is something that many people are actively avoiding doing).

When people feel challenged like this – even if you’re not doing it on purpose – they often respond by:

  • Deflecting it away from themselves and questioning you.

  • Dismissing your choices in order to justify their own.

  • Misunderstanding your intentions in order to feel like their own are the ‘right’ ones.

They don’t do this because they’re ‘bad’ people but because your life reflects possibilities they haven’t chosen and that feels uncomfortable.

So again, it’s not about something being ‘wrong’ – it’s about being different and either OWNING it or not owning it.

4. You’re Simply in the Wrong Environment

Sometimes, it’s much simpler than all of this and it can boil down to something very simple:

You’re just not around your people because you haven’t found your ‘tribe’ yet.

Basically, if your values, interests, or way of seeing the world don’t align with those around you, then connection will always feel forced and you’ll feel out of place – not because you’re flawed but because you’re mismatched.

Living like this is a bit like trying to have a deep conversation in a room where everyone’s speaking a different language – no amount of effort will fix it and so, at some point, you have to move on and find somebody who speaks your language.

The Core Shift: From Outside-In to Inside-Out

No matter which of these applies to you, the solution is always based on the same principle:

Stop trying to be understood from the outside-in and start understanding yourself from the inside-out.

The truth is that when you rely on others to validate you, you’re constantly at their mercy but when you understand and accept yourself, then you no longer need to be understood.

Paradoxically, this is when people start to understand you more because you actually start SHOWING UP in your own life and giving clearer signals about who you are and what you’re all about.

Practical Steps to Overcome the Problem of “Nobody Understands Me” (By Starting With Yourself)

Let’s make this practical so you can actually start implementing this ‘stuff’ and start making real changes in your life.

Here are some grounded steps you can start taking today:

1. Get Honest About What You’re Really Feeling

Take time to sit with yourself and ask some questions about the core problem and where it stems from:

  • What exactly do I feel when I say “nobody understands me”?

  • Is it loneliness? Frustration? Rejection?

  • When do I feel it most strongly?

Write it down and understand that clarity reduces confusion and shows you the way forward.

2. Identify What You’re Seeking From Others

Now that you’ve started to raise awareness of some of the ‘stuff’ going under the hood it’s time to ask yourself a simple but very penetrating question:

“What do you actually want?“

For example, maybe you’re looking for something like:

  • Approval?
  • Emotional connection?
  • Recognition?
  • Etc. etc. etc.

Once you identify whatever it is, you can start to make the shift from outside-in to inside-out:

“How can I start giving this to myself?”

3. Drop One Layer of the Mask

You don’t need to reveal everything to everyone but you can start small and start showing up in a way that’s a little more real day-after-day.

In your next interaction with somebody that you care about, challenge yourself to:

  • Say what you actually think (respectfully).

  • Share something slightly more real than usual.

  • Express an honest opinion.

Watch what happens because authenticity creates the possibility of real connection.

4. Stop Over-Explaining Yourself

If you constantly feel the need to justify your choices, it’s a sign you’re seeking external validation so try this instead:

  • Make your choices.

  • Own them.

  • Let people react however they react

You don’t need to convince everyone and you don’t need to explain yourself as long as you’re doing something REAL.

5. Develop Compassion for Others

If people don’t understand you, it doesn’t mean they’re against you (though your ego and unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ might make you think this is the case).

Often, they’re just coming at life from a totally different set of choices and things to deal with so they might not have the same experiences, have done the same inner work, or see the world the same way.

That’s okay – just remember that understanding goes both ways.

6. Find (or Build) a REAL Environment

Actively start to seek out spaces where:

  • People share your values.

  • Conversations feel natural.

  • You don’t have to shrink yourself.

This could be:

  • Communities
  • Groups
  • Friendships
  • Even online spaces

You don’t need everyone to understand you – you just need to find the right people.

7. Fully Own Your Path

This is the big one:

OWN whatever path you’re on without apology and without needing approval.

As long as you’re not harming anyone, you don’t need to justify your existence but when you truly own yourself:

  • You understand yourself.

  • You accept yourself.

  • You express yourself naturally.

Whether others understand you or not stops being the main concern because you’re just DOING what you need to do.

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

If you want to understand yourself first and learn to grow into realness then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

The Paradox of Being Understood

Here’s the twist in the tale:

The more you chase being understood, the more it slips away and the more you understand yourself, the more naturally it happens.

Not with everyone but definitely with the people who matter.

The Final Word: People Don’t Understand Me

Feeling like nobody understands you can be painful but it can also be a sign that you’re growing, transforming, and that you’re being invited to go deeper – not into the ‘outer’ world but into yourself.

Ultimately:

The moment you fully understand and accept yourself, you stop needing the world to do it for you.

From this place, connection becomes REAL –no forced or performed but rooted in something true.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to start living from the inside-out and to build a foundation of acceptance within yourself then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you take real action.

The Workaholic & Realness: Why Working More Isn’t Living More (And What to Do About It)

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The Workaholic & Realness

Workaholics are Often Using Work as a Substitute for What They’re Really Seeking

There’s a belief that’s deeply rooted in the modern human experience that rarely gets questioned and it goes like this:

“Work is the main source of meaning in our lives“.

You see this belief absolutely everywhere:

People introducing themselves by their job title as if it’s their core essence, endless conversations orbiting around productivity, promotions, and performance, and weekends treated as recovery zones rather than actual life itself – beneath all of this is the sense that no matter how much gets done, there’s always ‘more’ waiting and soon as we’re ready to pick up again.

For some, this goes beyond ambition or diligence and becomes workaholism (an addiction to work and being a human doing instead of a human being).

If you’re reading this, then there’s a chance you’ve started to feel it yourself (which is why you landed on this page about being a workaholic) and so you have at least a subtle suspicion that work is taking up too much space in your life – not just in your schedule, but in your mind, your identity, your emotional world.

This isn’t an article about demonising work, though – work is a good thing and can be creative, purposeful, and deeply satisfying but when a good thing becomes an ultimate thing then we start to experience distortion that pulls us away from what’s REAL.

This article is about returning to your REALNESS so you can have a healthier relationship with whatever it is that you’re doing and live a life where you’re only ‘ultimate’ is your life itself.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

The workaholic works so hard that they become detached from their own soul.

When Work Becomes Who You Are

At first, working all the time feels productive and even empowering – you put in more time, think more deeply, and care more than others.

Your have higher standards, increased output, more recognition, and endless progress but – if you’re not careful – this can just lead to a shift that consumes you over time:

Work stops being something you DO …and becomes something you ARE.

In other words, you reach the state of being a workaholic which means that your identity fuses with your output and that your sense of self-worth starts rising and falling with outcomes.

Eventually, you begin to orient your whole life around work:

  • Your time is dominated by it.

  • Your energy is consumed by it.

  • Your thoughts are focused on it more than anything else.

Over time, you find that even when you’re not working, you’re still working in the form of mentally rehearsing, planning, problem-solving, and living in anticipation and dread.

Ironically, because this level of focus often produces results, it gets reinforced and so you keep it up even though it’s taking you away from actual presence in yourself and your life.

The main cost of living like this is that other areas of life start slipping out of balance:

  • Relationships become secondary.

  • Family time becomes fragmented.

  • Social life shrinks.

  • Rest feels undeserved and so you start to burn out.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

Slowly and almost imperceptibly your world narrows because everything is being filtered in comparison to the ultimate God in your life called “Work”.

This is where anxiety creeps in, burnout follows, and you start to question yourself and your life (despite things often looking good on the surface):

“Why does this still not feel like ‘enough‘?“

The Hidden Engine: Addiction

To understand what’s really going on with all this ‘stuff’, we need to zoom out because workaholism isn’t actually about work – it’s about addiction.

This may be surprising to some people to read because when people hear “addiction”, they often think of substances like alcohol, drugs, and nicotine or whatever but the truth is much broader than this which can be quite uncomfortable.

Here it is:

Human beings can get addicted to ANYTHING.

This isn’t just because of whatever the ‘thing’ is in itself but because of what the function it provides at the level of internal experience because – at its core – addiction isn’t primarily chemical but psychological and emotional.

It follows a pattern that’s common to nearly all of us to some degree or another which is that at some point, usually early in life, a person picks up shame, guilt, or unresolved emotional pain.

Shame is the big one for most people and probably the most common problem in the world (in my opinion).

When people internalised shame then it creates an inner split and so – instead of accepting themselves as they are – they begin to judge parts of themselves and then attempt to reject them.

In doing so, they disconnect from their own wholeness and become a fragmented version of themselves.

What these means in practical terms is that – in order to function in the world – they build a mask which is a version of themselves that feels more acceptable, more in control, more “good enough”.

This is what we call the ego.

Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), the ‘parts’ they’ve rejected don’t just disappear – instead, they get pushed into the shadow self where they remain unchanged but exiled and hidden from view.

This creates a sense of inner restlessness and TENSION that caused from from the ego trying to maintain control and identity and the shadow holding everything that’s been denied

This tension doesn’t go away because we ignore it – in fact, it continues to build and because it’s uncomfortable, the person looks for ways to relieve it.

This is where addiction enters because addiction provides two things:

  1. Temporary release from inner tension.

  2. Distraction from real feelings.

Work provides both of these things too – especially in achievement-driven cultures – which is why it’s one of the most socially acceptable addictions there is.

Workaholism as Emotional Avoidance

Through this lens, a workaholic isn’t just “driven” or “disciplined” (though it will certainly look like they are) – they’re someone using work to try and SOOTHE something deeper.

They might not realise it (because a lot of this ‘stuff’ is unconscious) but they’re using work as a kind of tool to:

  • Escape uncomfortable feelings.

  • Compensate for a sense of not being ‘enough’.

  • Maintain a controlled identity.

  • Avoid facing what’s unresolved in themselves.

It’s not random that many workaholics are successful – in fact, their success often depends on the very mechanism that’s keeping them stuck because work gives them structure, validation, and a measurable sense of worth (based on how they achieve certain work-related targets etc.).

What can lead to more difficulties is that it also quietly reinforces the underlying problem because instead of resolving the original disconnection (the shame), it builds a life around avoiding it.

This is why the feeling of “not enough” never fully goes away – no matter how much is achieved, there’s always another goal, another milestone, or another level.

It literally never ends because the thing work is being used to replace – a connection to truth and wholeness again – can’t actually be replaced.

The Symptoms of Being a Workaholic People Rarely Talk About

When work becomes an addiction, the effects show up everywhere – not just in your calendar, but in your nervous system, your relationships, your sense of self.

You might notice:

  • Constant mental occupation with work: Even at ‘rest’, your mind is running scenarios, solving problems, and planning next steps.

  • Anxiety tied to performance: Your emotional state fluctuates based on outcomes and productivity because you’re not rooted in your core.

  • Burnout: Too much “doing” (yang energy) and not enough receiving or being (yin energy) leads to becoming overly stressed and burning out.

  • Neglected relationships: People close to you feel secondary, even if you don’t intend it, and over time this affects the quality of your relationships.

  • Secondary addictions: Substances or habits used to cope with the stress work creates can cause even more problems in your life and cause you to create new addictions.

  • Restlessness: A persistent feeling that something is missing, even when things are going well (because you’re living in the Void).

  • Misalignment with values: Living in a way that looks successful but doesn’t feel true can lead to you feeling inauthentic and that you’re going through the motions instead of actually living your life.

  • Externalised self-worth: Needing results to feel okay about yourself instead of just feeling good for being yourself and then building on that foundation.

  • Sympathetic dominance: Living in a chronic fight-or-flight state frazzles your nervous system and leaves you feeling ‘flat’ and worked up at the same time.

All of these are symptoms but they all point back to the same root:

A disconnection from your REALNESS.

The Way Back Home: Realness Over Role

If being a workaholic is driven by disconnection from your real self and your real life, then the solution isn’t just “work less” but to RECONNECT.

This means learning to return to what’s real and it unfolds in three main stages:

1. Awareness (Deconstruct the Ego)

You can’t change what you don’t see and so the first step is to raise awareness by becoming brutally honest about your relationship with work.

You can begin by asking yourself a few probing questions:

  • How much of my identity is tied to what I do instead of my being?

  • Do I feel uneasy or empty when I’m not working?

  • What areas of my life have I neglected?

  • What am I actually avoiding when I stay busy?

This isn’t about judgement but about seeing clearly because once you see that work has become your foundation rather than just a part of your life you begin to question it and it loosens its grip.

2. Acceptance (Integrate the Shadow)

This is the part most people try to skip but, really, it’s the core because the tension driving workaholism doesn’t disappear just because you decide to “have better balance” but when you feel what you’ve been avoiding.

This essentially means:

Remember that emotions are “e-motion, energy in motion” and so if they’re not felt, they don’t disappear – they get stored in your emotional reservoir and then they drive behaviour from the background.

Acceptance is about letting that energy move again – not analysing it or ‘fixing it but actually just feeling it.

This is where real integration begins and you can start to shift from fragmentation to wholeness again.

3. Action (Trust Self & Life)

Once you’re more aware and more integrated, your actions naturally start to change an you’ll no longer feel the need to force everything and can start flowing again.

When you’re in a state of alignment like this, you’ll begin to:

  • Make decisions based on truth, not resistance.

  • Work because it’s meaningful, not because it’s necessary for identity.

  • Trust that you don’t need to overcompensate to be enough.

From here, practical changes become sustainable and you can shift into a REAL life over an unreal one.

Some More Practical Ways to Break the Workaholic Addiction

To support this shift, there are some grounded, actionable steps you can take within the framework listed above (Awareness, Acceptance, and Action):

1. Take Real Breaks

Not “scrolling while thinking about work” but actual breaks where you step away, breathe, and get back into your body instead of just your mind.

Even short pauses throughout the day can start to break the compulsive loop.

2. Delegate More

Workaholics often carry everything themselves – not because they have to but because letting go feels ‘unsafe’ for whatever reason (this is why a lot of workaholics are control freaks).

Start trusting others and let things be imperfect – this weakens the identity that says, “It all depends on me” (it doesn’t!).

3. Focus on Quality, Not Quantity

More hours doesn’t mean more value – in fact, it often means less clarity so train yourself to work smarter instead of just harder.

This means introducing things like:

  • Clear priorities
  • Deep focus
  • Defined stopping points

Then stop when you say you will instead of just ‘working’ for the sake of it.

4. Rebalance Your Life

Intentionally invest in other areas besides just ‘work’:

  • Relationships
  • Family
  • Friendships
  • Hobbies
  • Etc. etc. etc.

Not as “extras” but as essential parts of a whole life (because they are).

5. Practise Presence

Presence is the antidote to distraction so instead of constantly escaping into work, practise being where you are:

Feel what you feel, and notice what’s happening internally because this builds your capacity to stay with reality instead of avoiding it and getting lost in old cycles.

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

If you want to start switching up your relationship with the things you use as a substitute for the truth, then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

Workaholic to REALNESS – The Real Shift

The goal isn’t to stop working hard but to stop using work as a substitute for something deeper because work can never give you what only truth can.

When you reconnect with your REALNESS:

  • Work becomes an expression, not an escape.

  • Success becomes enjoyable, not necessary in order to feel ‘worthy’ or whatever.

  • Rest becomes natural, not earned.

  • Life expands beyond a single dimension and you become a deeper expression of yourself.

Perhaps most importantly – you can finally stop running (not because there’s nothing to achieve but because you’re no longer trying to escape yourself).

There is a difference between being busy for the sake of it and working on one's real purpose.

The Final Word: The Workaholic & Realness

Being a workaholic isn’t about loving work too much but about being disconnected from yourself and using work to fill that gap.

What you need to know is that the gap isn’t real – it’s just an illusion created by judgement, shame, and fragmentation.

You can close it the moment you return to what’s true – not by doing more but by allowing yourself to be REAL again.

Stay real outh there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to start bringing more balance into your life and growing real then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you start shifting gear.

Synchronicity vs. Projection: Synchronicity, Signs, or…Spiritual Bulls*ttery?

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Synchronicity vs. Projection

Synchronicity is Very REAL but Sometimes It’s Just a Projection of Our Unconscious ‘Stuff’ that Needs Integrating

Do you ever feel like the universe, God, life, or [whatever you wanna call higher TRUTH] is guiding you with signs and synchronicities but something still feels…off?

Perhaps on the surface of things, everything looks very much aligned and so the patterns, connections, and meaningful ‘coincidences’ you see and feel start to give you the sense that something bigger is at play.

Despite this, though, there’s still a tension or tightness in your relationship with yourself and life – a sense that you’re trying to force meaning out of things rather than flowing with them.

If you’ve experienced this phenomenon and can’t decide if you’re experiencing a genuine synchronicity or actually going mad then this article is for you because here’s the truth:

Synchronicity is real but it can also be hijacked by the ego.

This is important to know because – if you don’t understand the difference – you can end up stuck in illusion rather than growing into something REAL.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Synchronicity is about living the truth - not just thinking about it.

What Is a Synchronicity Anyway?

The term synchronicity was coined by Carl Jung, who described it as:

“An acausal connecting principle”.

In simple terms, it’s when your inner world and outer world collide in a way that feels deeply meaningful and way beyond what could reasonably be explained as mere “coincidence”.

One of Jung’s most famous examples involved a patient who was describing a dream about a scarab beetle and, as she spoke, a beetle resembling a scarab tapped against the window behind Jung whereupon he opened the window, caught the insect, and presented it to her.

The timing was uncanny and so something ‘clicked‘ in them both that made them feel they were clearly in the right place at the REAL time.

A Real-Life Example

I actually experienced something very similar myself.

I was coaching a client at my house and we were talking about the importance of real action in the sense of not just thinking or planning, but actually moving.

I used the metaphor of being in a train station vs. being on the actual train:

The basic idea is that you can stand on the platform all day thinking, analysing, and hesitating but at some point, you have to step onto the train so that things can actually move.

(There’s an article about this here: The Train: A Metaphor for the Good Life and Growing Real).

As soon as we said this an Italian moka coffee pot sitting on the hob suddenly started whistling incredibly loudly – just like a steam train about to leave the station.

We both froze and then looked at each other because we just knew that this was a special moment and that it was way more than just “good timing” or a coincidence” – it meant the client was on their REAL path again.

Basically, the moment wasn’t random because it carried meaning and reinforced the exact truth we were pointing at – that’s synchronicity!

You’ve probably had moments like this too?

I’m sharing all of this to be clear about one simple fact:

Synchronicity is a REAL phenomenon and so, even if science doesn’t fully explain it, it happens.

Here’s where things get interesting, though:

Why Doesn’t It Always Lead Anywhere?

If synchronicity is real then why does following it sometimes lead to confusion, stagnation, or even delusion?

Why do some ‘sign’s feel profound and truly meaningful while others just keep you going in circles?

The answer – as far as I can tell is simple, but not always comfortable:

Not everything that feels like synchronicity is synchronicity – sometimes…it’s ‘just’ a projection.

The Three Levels of Mind: Conscious, Unconscious, & Superconscious

To understand this properly, it helps to see the mind in three layers or levels:

1. The Conscious Mind

Your everyday awareness like your thoughts, interpretations, and the decisions you make about things.

2. The Unconscious Mind

Where your unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ lives like shame, fear, trauma, repressed desires and intentions.

3. The Superconscious Mind

Wholeness itself – a.k.a. Truth or the deeper intelligence of life itself.

In an ideal state these three levels are aligned (which most of us will never attain completely – though we’ll all have moments which is when REAL synchronicity is often experience):

  • The unconscious becomes conscious (you face your ‘stuff’).

  • The superconscious flows through the unconscious (truth integrates your emotional world).

  • The conscious mind acts in alignment with reality.

This is what it means to be integrated and to tap into your REALNESS.

The Problem: We Block the Flow

The thing to understand that there is a natural drive towards wholeness that is always unfolding which means that life is constantly trying to bring you back into alignment with your realness.

The problem is that we block it by getting in our own way at two main levels:

1. Mental Blocks

Like unreal beliefs, narratives, and familiar ego structures.

2. Emotional Blocks

Like repressed shame, guilt, and/or trauma that create fragmentation in our inner world and causes us to hold back and hesitate in life.

This fragmentation is always a sign that we’re living the Void instead of reality:

The Void

The short-version of all this is that when you’re disconnected from truth, then you end up living in what we can call the Void.

The Void is experienced as a kind of tension and inner pressure that comes from not being aligned with reality and bringing constant friction into our lives.

When we’re living in the Void, two important things start to happen:

1. You Feel Constant Inner Tension

Something feels ‘off’, even when things look ‘good’ on the surface of things.

2. You Project Your Unconscious Onto the World

As Jung put it:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it God/fate”.

Or, in the language we’re using in this article:

You’ll call it synchronicity.

How Projection Masquerades as Synchronicity

When you’re in the Void, you’re desperate (often without ‘knowing’ it at a conscious level) to resolve that inner tension.

The only REAL way to resolve this tension is start returning to an alignment with truth by shifting into acceptance over judgement and taking REAL action.

The ego literally CAN’T face the truth because “the ego is the opposite of reality” and so – instead – it looks for something in the external world to fix it.

This external thing will probably be a ‘good’ thing like a person, a path, an opportunity, or [whatever] else but the ego distorts it into being elevated as an ULTIMATE THING (instead of just a ‘good one).

This is because the ego believes something along the lines of “If I get this… I’ll finally feel whole” – not realising that only truth – your REAL relationship with life itself – can restore wholeness (i.e. life is the only ULTIMATE and the other ‘stuff’ is just gravy at the very best).

In relation to synchronicity, the ego will start looking for ‘signs’ in the world that whatever this supposed ‘ultimate’ thing is is coming our way and this is what starts causing problems:

Unreal Synchronicity: The Ego’s Version

When synchronicity is hijacked by the ego like this it feels INTENSE, charged, and almost addictive.

Essentially, there’s a longing behind it – a kind of existential ACHE which means that we end up chasing signs because we NEED them (to release the tension of being in the Void) and not because they’re a reflection of how we’re just walking our own real path.

A Simple Example: The Crush Illusion

Think about someone with a crush:

When somebody’s deep in a crush but haven’t expressed this to the person they’re crushing on (because of a fear of rejection etc.) then every little thing the other person does gets interpreted as a ‘sign’ that they feel the same way.

Fore example:

  • They smiled → “They must like me”.

  • They texted → “It’s meant to be”.

  • They looked over → “There’s something here for sure”.

This doesn’t mean the crush is REAL, though – it’s just a reminder that PERCEPTION IS PROJECTION (in many cases) and so what they’re seeing is just a projection of their own DESIRE.

(They could actually be right but until they talk to their crush it’s just a projection – we do the same with life when we go looking for signs because of that inner tension of the Void).

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A Common Example: Angel Numbers (and Similar Patterns)

A perfect modern example of this kinda thing going on is “angel numbers”:

What normally happens is that people see repeating numbers like 11, 22, 33, etc. and interpret them as messages from some divine force.

This doesn’t mean that the divine can’t speak to us (I’m certainly not the person to say one way or the other) but the FACT is that you can see multiple repeating number patterns on a clock every single hour and so often the only reason they stand out is because you’re looking for them (because you told your unconscious mind to look for signs to remove that tension of the Void).

More evidence of this is the fact that:

Most people don’t actually change anything after seeing them.

They just get a small hit of relief, a temporary easing of the Void, and then carry on with business as usual (usually being unreal if they’re stuck in this cycle).

This isn’t growth but resistance to reality.

The Key Indicator: Tension vs Flow

So all of this begs an obvious question:

How do you tell the difference between real synchronicity and projection?

The answer is that it all comes down to one thing:

Inner Tension.

We can break it down a bit like this:

Unreal Synchronicity (Projection)

  • Feels urgent.

  • Feels addictive.

  • Has an emotional charge (longing, craving, desperation).

  • Keeps you stuck or looping.

  • Comes from seeking signs instead of receiving them.

Real Synchronicity (Alignment)

  • Feels calm.

  • Feels natural.

  • Reinforces something you’re already doing.

  • Moves you forward.

  • Comes when you’re not looking for it or chasing things.

Real synchronicity doesn’t pull you out of yourself – it meets you in your REALNESS and the REAL ACTION you take as an expression of it.

God’s Synchronicity: The “Wink”

When you’re aligned which means that you’re grounded, present, and taking real action then synchronicity shows up in a way that’s subtle, almost playful, and like a ‘wink’ from life itself.

This wink doesn’t tell you what to do – it simply confirms that what you’re already doing is REAL (like with my coaching client and the coffee pot, for example).

That’s the difference.

The Trap: Looking for Signs Instead of Living

The main place where people get lost is that they start chasing synchronicity instead of living in a REAL way.

In other words, the synchronicity and the quest to receive more of it becomes another ‘ultimate’ that’s supposed to fill the Void.

This just leads to looking for signs instead of taking action, interpreting everything in the same old ways (ego) instead of integrating anything and learning from it, and staying in their heads instead of engaging with life

In doing so, they drift further from realness and cause more friction, frustration, and misery in their lives.

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

If you want to go deeper into all this then check out the synchronicity ‘stuff’ in my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

The Way Back: The GODWAVE

If you want to step out of projection and into real synchronicity, you need to stop chasing signs and start building alignment:

This means putting yourself into what we can call the GODWAVE which is just a state of deep flow where all levels of your being are working together.

Here’s some practical tips for starting to move in this direction:

Step 1: Regulate Your Nervous System

If your body is in a constant stress response (sympathetic dominance), then everything will feel urgent and distorted and you’ll eventually get burned out.

This is why it’s always good to take a policy of REGULATION FIRST so that the actions you take aren’t unreal and reinforcing ego.

Simple practices that can help are things like:

  • Nose breathing (inhales and exhales)
  • Walking in nature
  • Reducing overstimulation

Regulation creates space and space allows truth to emerge (which is what real change is all about).

Step 2: Integrate Your Emotions

Your unconscious ‘stuff’ doesn’t disappear because you ignore it – it gets stored in your emotional reservoir and then gets projected out into the world.

The way forward is to learn to:

  • Notice emotional reactions.

  • Sit with discomfort without escaping.

  • Be honest about what you’re resisting and shift into acceptance.

Integration turns projection into awareness so you can grow from it.

Step 3: Take Real Action

This is where everything ‘clicks’ into place because the truth is that you don’t think your way into alignment and flow – you act your way into it.

Start looking at how you can take more REAL ACTION in your life:

  • What’s one real step I can take today?

  • What am I avoiding that I know is true?

Then do it without overthinking or waiting for a sign – the more you move, the more the next steps will become clear.

Synchronicity is everywhere when you step up and grow real - you don't need to seek it out.

Final Thought: Stop Looking, Start Living

You don’t need more ‘signs’ – you need more alignment with your own REALNESS.

You don’t need confirmation from the universe (or whatever) – you need connection to reality because when you’re truly in it – grounded, integrated, moving forward – life will meet you.

You won’t have to question it because there won’t be any tension – just real FLOW.

If you take anything from this, let it be this:

Don’t ask whether something is a sign – ask whether you’re aligned because when you are, you won’t need to look for synchronicity. It will find you.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to put yourself in the flow and to overcome the mental and emotional blocks in yourself then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you take real action.

Small Daily Actions Can Transform Your Life and Help You Overcome Fear

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Small Daily Actions

Small Daily Actions Can Change Your Life If Done Consistently Over Time

There’s a bit of a myth in modern personal development that change has to be dramatic:

People imagine they need to take “massive action” and do things like quit their job, move country, start a business, overhaul their entire identity, wake up at 5am after going to bed at 4am, meditate for two hours until enlightenment is achieved, run a marathon, and completely reconstruct their life in one sweeping act of transformation.

It can be…draining, to say the least.

Of course, it’s true that big decisions do sometimes happen here-and-there in our lives, but they’re not responsible for the day-to-day sustainable changes that keep us REAL.

This is because, in reality, most life transformation is far less cinematic and far more subtle which means that it happens through small daily actions repeated consistently and that compound over time.

Perhaps even more important to our growth is that a lot of these small daily actions are often sitting right on the edge of fear and so if we can push through and take them then we can end up going deeper into our own realness.

The truth is that your life doesn’t change when you become someone new but when you start acting like who you actually are underneath the fear.

This article will help you to figure out what small daily actions can help you make the biggest difference in your own life.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Small daily action can lead to excellence over time (or REALNESS at the very least)!

The Illusion of Big Change

One of the most common patterns I’ve seen over years of coaching people is that many believe they need a “big shift” before they can start living in a way that actually feels good.

This actually just leaves them ‘stuck’ because they spend all their time preparing, thinking, and planning instead of actually taking small daily actions will put them in the flow and start changing things right away.

This tendency to overthink and over-plan is usually because they’re still living according to an unreal image of themselves which is a shame-driven ego-based identity built from past experiences, conditioning, and self-judgement.

This creates hesitation and holding back which always comes with a cost because when you consistently hold back from acting like your REAL self – even in small ways – then it leads to friction, frustration, and misery.

This friction usually starts to build internally and shows up with some of the following symptoms:

  • Stress accumulates.

  • Self-judgement increases.

  • Confidence erodes.

  • The gap between “where I am” and “where I should be” feels bigger.

  • The need to control life instead of living life takes over (to keep the ego in place and avoid underlying shame).

Living under the weight of these symptoms just opens up a negative spiral:

You feel stuck → You think more → This creates more pressure → This makes you act even less → This makes you feel even more ‘stuck’.

This isn’t a motivation problem but a REALNESS problem and it’s a sign that you’re not acting in alignment with reality but according to an image of yourself (ego) that may have once served you – or at least helped you to survive – but no longer fits.

The Real Work: Finding Direction Again

If you can relate to this and you want to start getting out of this negative spiral then you need to start thinking about how you can connect with three simple things in an active way:

1. Vision

A real vision isn’t a fantasy or a way for the ego to compensate for underlying shame but a direction that feels TRUE.

The basic version is that a real vision is grounded in your core values and reflects what actually matters to you when you strip away performance, comparison, and all of those ‘shoulds’ that have been causing you to hesitate and hold back.

2. Goals

Your goals are the real-world milestones that move you towards your vision and are ultimately concrete, tangible markers on the way to where you’re going that show progress in reality itself.

3. Habits

This is where everything changes and the main focus of this article:

Habits are the small, repeatable actions you take almost daily that begin to dissolve the old identity that no longer serves you and to build a new, REAL relationship with yourself.

The key point here is pretty simple but often missed:

You don’t think your way into a new life – you act your way into it.

Why Small Daily Actions Change Everything

The most underrated truth in transformation is this:

Small daily actions eventually create EVIDENCE and evidence destroys unnecessary fear and shame.

When you take real action – even ‘small’ ones – then you begin to prove something to yourself that no amount of thinking can provide and so you’ll start to see that fears are not absolute truth but just misperceptions or incorrect mental interpretations (usually, they’re just F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real).

Seeing and living this over time, creates a shift where old, unreal beliefs lose authority over your life and a REAL identity becomes embodied so you can stop holding back and hesitating.

This opens up a positive spiral instead of a negative one and so life starts to feel different because you’re actually showing up different in practice – not just theory.

This is the essence of REALNESS in the sense that reality starts responding to real action and you can put yourself back in the flow.

The Power of Compounding Change

Most people underestimate what happens when small actions compound over time but let’s make it practical for a second.

Here’s a simple example:

If you write 500 words a day:

  • That’s 3,500 words a week
  • Around 15,000 words a month
  • Roughly 182,000 words a year

That’s more than most books – not from sitting around and waiting for a burst of inspiration but from consistency.

Here’s another example that’s even simpler – 10 push-ups a day:

  • That’s 70 a week
  • 3,650 a year

If you did this then you’d definitely see RESULTS that would compound on each other so your strength, muscle definition, etc. would see big results from a small daily action over time.

The point is that these kind of small daily actions don’t feel sweeping and huge in the moment but life is not built in moments – it’s built in the accumulation of whatever you consistently DO.

The Hidden Block: Fear of Small Action

Here’s the plot twist most people don’t see coming:

The reason small daily actions don’t happen isn’t because they’re difficult but because they’re hidden behind the fear of having to let go of an outdated self-image (a.k.a. the ego).

In coaching, I see this constantly (an outdated identity rooted in shame is probably the most common cause of people being held back in life):

People don’t avoid big actions – they avoid small actions that would expose them to reality because small actions are where truth shows up quickly and truth can feel threatening when you’re identified with an unreal version of yourself.

This leads to people overthinking, delaying, and ultimately holding back and hesitating on moving towards their own real lives.

This is ‘bad’ news because hesitation always comes with the price of reinforcing the identity you’re trying to outgrow.

The Stretch Zone: Where Real Change Happens

There’s a simple model that helps here and is worth memorising if you can because it applies in all areas of our lives:

  • Comfort Zone: What feels safe but stagnant.

  • Stretch Zone: What feels uncomfortable but alive.

  • Panic Zone: What overwhelms you and shuts you down.

Real transformation happens in the Stretch Zone and so you want to find ways to spend as much of your time as possible in this place.

Here’s the key insight that’s relevant to everything we’ve said so far:

Most of the “small things” that can change your life are actually just slightly uncomfortable actions you’ve been avoiding – not massive leaps but aligned steps forward into your own realness.

When you take these small steps then you you realise it wasn’t actually dangerous (which is what your dysregulated nervous system might’ve been telling you) – it was just unfamiliar.

When you realise this, your ‘Gremlins‘ – the internal voices saying you can’t, shouldn’t, or aren’t enough, etc – start to lose credibility because reality contradicts them and you have EVIDENCE of who you really are and what you’re really capable of.

Real Examples of Small Actions Creating Big Change

Sometimes, there might be one relatively ‘small’ thing in your life that you have been holding back on that can get some big results if you move forward with it (this doesn’t have to be a ‘daily’ thing but it will still unlock something for you).

This isn’t an abstract theory that sounds nice – it’s something that shows up in real lives all the time.

Here are some real life examples I’ve seen recently:

1. Adventure and Family Connection

One client wanted more adventure in her life which for her meant to to go on bike rides with her kids.

The problem was that she had a persistent fear that something might go ‘wrong’ and someone could get hurt so she held back, hesitated, and avoided it.

On paper, it seemed like caution and a healthy sense of protective fear but, in reality, it was hesitation shaped by the unreal fear of her not trusting herself and life.

When she eventually stepped past this and hopped on the bike with her kids, nothing catastrophic happened but, instead, something REAL emerged – more connection, more joy, and more shared experiences with her children.

In other words, this small shift unlocked a new layer of family life which was a BIG result for her.

2. Motorway Driving and Freedom

Another client had passed her driving test but avoided motorways – not because she had a skills issue but because she had F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real” – i.e. projecting fear into the future).

This fear kept her dependent on trains, limited her mobility, and reduced her sense of freedom but – once she worked through it and began driving on motorways – the shift was immediate:

She could access new places, she saved time, and she gained independence but more than anything, she proved to herself that she was capable.

This internal proof mattered more than the driving itself and carried into other areas of her life so she could build more flow.

3. YouTube Expression and Business Growth

Another client wanted to make YouTube videos for a long time but he was held back by judgement and an internalised identity saying: “That’s not me” or “I’m not ready”.

Once he began anyway, something changed quickly in the sense that his F.E.A.R didn’t just reduce but dissolved through exposure.

What replaced it wasn’t just confidence (though he definitely got some of that) – it was expression from showing up in a real way.

This allowed his business began to start growing as a by-product of authenticity rather than performance.

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

If you want to learn more about overcoming F.E.A.R and growing real then check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace.

The Core Pattern: F.E.A.R is Not Reality

Across all of these examples, it becomes clear that the thing holding people back isn’t reality itself but fear.

Like we’ve said a few times now, fear is often best understood as F.E.A.R:

“False Evidence Appearing Real“

When you step out of mental distortion and into action, reality responds differently than your imagination predicted and it’s in this gap between fear and reality is where transformation lives.

Finding the right small daily actions and small actions that can make a big difference overall can push you through the edge and into your real life.

Practical Steps: How to Find Your “Small Daily Actions”

If you want to all apply this ‘stuff’ we’re talking about then here’s a simple way to start working with it in your own life.

Step 1: Identify Your Current “Edge”

Ask yourself some questions to help you find your own F.E.A.R

  • Where am I hesitating repeatedly?

  • What action keeps appearing in my mind but not in my behaviour?

  • Where do I feel a subtle sense of resistance?

This is your edge and when you cross over it you can actually change your life.

Step 2: Shrink the Action Until It’s Almost Too Easy

Most people fail because they make the action too ‘big’ but a more real approach can actually be to reduce it.

For example:

If you want to start running, don’t aim for 5K as soon as you get started but put on your trainers and walk outside for a day or two.

If you want to create content, don’t aim for perfection – write 100 words a day and keep building until you’re ready to move onto 200 words and then 300 words etc.

If you want to socialise more, don’t overhaul your personality – send one message out to somebody at a time and take it from there.

The key is to find something small but impactful enough that your nervous system doesn’t resist.

Step 3: Repeat Before You Refine

Consistency beats optimisation so get into the rhythm and flow of doing the the small action repeatedly before you try to improve it.

Let evidence build and watch your identity shift naturally into something more REAL.

Step 4: Track What Changes in You (Not Just What You Achieve)

Notice the deeper changes that take place as you consistently take the right (real) small daily actions for you:

  • Do I feel lighter or heavier after acting?

  • Does my self-talk change?

  • Does fear reduce over time?

  • Do I feel more “me”?

This is the real metric because the only point in making changes is that they make you more REAL.

Step 5: Expand Gradually Into the Stretch Zone

Once something as things become ‘easier’ you can slightly increase the challenge.

This, again, doesn’t have to be a massive change – just enough to stay alive in the Stretch Zone as it keeps moving to a new level.

This keeps you growing without overwhelming yourself.

Small daily actions are the way out of fear and into realness.

Final Thought: Real Life is Built in Small Steps

The biggest misconception people have about transformation is that it requires becoming someone else but it doesn’t – it just required small acts over time that are aligned with your realness.

When you repeat these types of action often enough then F.E.A.R loses its power over you because – in the end – your life is not changed by grand declarations but by tiny moments where you either hesitate or act.

Every time you choose real action, even in small ways, then you step closer to realness – not at the level of mere idea or theory but as an actual EXPERIENCE.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to start changing your own life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you get in the flow of things.

Frustration is Feedback: How Reality Tries to Bring You Back Into Flow

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Frustration is Feedback

Chronic Frustration With Yourself & Life is Often Just Feedback From Reality that Something Needs to Change

Let me know if you know this feeling:

You’ve decided you’re going to change something in your life – it might be your health, your career, your relationships, your business, or even a creative project that’s been sitting in the background of your mind for too long.

There’s a moment of inspiration, a sudden sense of direction, and you can even start to a see vague picture of who you’ll become on the other side of all the effort.

At first, it feels good because you’re moving, learning, and trying but then you hit the EDGE:

The edge of your comfort zone, the edge of your current skill level, and the edge where things stop being smooth and start becoming awkward, slow, confusing, or uncertain.

At this stage, something happens in your nervous system:

Your blood starts to boil, you feel irritation creeping in, then resistance, and finally full blown frustration until, eventually, you rage quit, stop what you’re doing, and find yourself walking away from the very thing you said mattered to you the most.

You tell yourself you’ll come back to it later but “later” often doesn’t come and so – over time – you begin to form a pattern which is that every time you quit at the edge of discomfort, you don’t just stay where you are – you reinforce a gap between who you think you could become and what your lived reality actually reflects.

This gap doesn’t stay neutral because it accumulates even more emotional charge and becomes a kind of existential pressure that becomes stress and then, eventually, chronic frustration.

This is how people slowly drift into cycles of tension, avoidance, self-judgement, and what often ends up as sudden emotional blow-ups or “rage quitting” their own REAL lives.

This article is here to tell you that frustration isn’t the enemy – it’s actually feedback from reality and if you learn to listen properly, it becomes one of the most honest teachers you’ll ever have.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Frustration often means that we're ignoring feedback about how reality wants us to grow real.

Frustration as a Signal from Reality

At the core of this kind of work is a simple idea:

Frustration is always a sign that you have been ignoring feedback from reality for too long.

Reality is constantly giving you information in the form of outcomes, the levels of resistance that you feel, automatic emotional reactions, and through and repeated breakdowns and points of ‘failure’.

The interesting thing is that most people don’t treat these as feedback but instead see them as PROBLEMS which means that instead of listening, they override, push against, force, or avoid them entirely (until reality comes crashing back in).

It’s at the point that avoidance and force both fail – which they always do on a long enough timeline- that frustration appears.

This is because frustration is what happens when your system is saying:

“Something isn’t aligned here”.

The ‘good’ news is that there are only ever two real types of feedback that this sort of frustration is giving us:

  1. You need to grow into a new skill or quality.

  2. You need to let go of something that is no longer true.

That’s it – everything else is noise and so when you’re stuck in frustration, you’re almost always ignoring one – or both – of those new directions to be taking yourself in.

What this means in practical terms is that the question isn’t “How do I get rid of frustration?” but:

“What is reality asking me to see that I’ve been avoiding?”

The Emotional Reservoir: Why Some People Explode But Others Stay Calm

One of the most useful ways to understand frustration is through the concept of the emotional reservoir.

You can think of it like this:

We all carry an internal reservoir of unresolved emotional material like old stresses, unprocessed feelings, suppressed anger, unacknowledged fear, accumulated disappointment, and shame, guilt, and/or trauma that leads to internal pressure we’ve never fully discharged.

The emotional reservoir doesn’t disappear just because we ignore it – instead, it waits until life ‘squeezes‘ us and then it gets released as ‘juice’.

When we do get ‘squeezed’, the ‘juice’ that comes out isn’t just about the present moment but about everything already inside us – this is why two people can experience the exact same situation and react in completely different ways.

Take driving in traffic, for example:

Person A gets cut off and laughs, shrugs it off, and maybe even finds it mildly amusing.

Person B, on the other hand, gets cut off and turns into the Incredible Hulk and starts shouting, gripping the wheel with their heart racing and their nervous system fully activated.

It’s the EXACT SAME stimulus but a completely different reaction because the traffic isn’t the cause of the reaction – it’s just the TRIGGER.

The reaction itself is coming from the reservoir and this is why we can say that the “juice” that comes out when we get squeezed is always a reflection to what is already inside us waiting to be processed.

This actually applies in all areas of your life:

You are not just reacting to your website breaking, for example – you’re reacting to every moment you’ve felt powerless, confused, or left behind in life and haven’t ACCEPTED where you are in reality yet.

You are not just reacting to learning a new skill and being ‘bad’ at it – you’re reacting to the pressure of how you believe you “should already be further along” in life (or something along those lines).

The lesson you need to take away to start stepping away from frustration is clear:

The situation reveals what’s in your emotional reservoir – it doesn’t create it.

Perception is Projection

This leads to a deeper principle which is also really helpful to understand and builds on what we just said about the emotional reservoir:

Perception is projection.

What this means is that what we experience in the world is often a reflection of what is happening internally and so when frustration appears in external tasks – learning, building, or fixing something – then it’s rarely about the task itself.

We can say it like this:

If you get frustrated with an inanimate object – like a website, a tool, or a system – then you’re not actually frustrated with the object itself but with what the internal state it is revealing about your relationship with yourself and life.

This is why the same task can feel easy one day and unbearable the next – nothing in the system change but you did.

(Or, more precisely, what’s inside you did).

This is where self-awareness can start to set you free of unnecessary frustration because instead of trying to ‘fix’ the world to stop the feeling, you start asking questions that can help you flip the script on yourself:

  • What stress am I carrying that I haven’t acknowledged?

  • What emotional pressure is sitting in me unprocessed and waiting to be faced?

  • What mental story am I believing about where I ‘should’ be?

Stress, Emotional Blocks, and Mental Blocks

Unnecessary frustration can be broken down into three main layers so let’s talk about them each briefly:

1. Stress (Unresolved load)

The first layer is stress that builds up over time when we avoid facing things that need our attention:

Some simple examples are mental clutter, unfinished actions, ignored responsibilities, or simply too much internal pressure that doesn’t get a release because we’re ignoring our nervous system telling us to slow down (i.e. we’re being too ‘Yang’ and not enough ‘Yin’).

Basically stress is either saying to you “Here’s some ‘stuff’ that you need to deal with” or “It’s time to take a break“.

If you don’t listen, then tension builds up and turns to chronic frustration.

2. Emotional blocks (Unprocessed experience)

Emotional blocks are just feelings we haven’t fully allowed ourselves to feel yet (emotions are e-motion, “energy in motion”).

When we keep ignoring or suppressing them then it just creates a sense of urgency, impatience, and restlessness within us that leads to frustration.

Basically, they make us want results quickly because sitting in the process feels uncomfortable and so we just get frustrated when things aren’t happening quickly enough or we’re not where we think we ‘should’ be etc.

Emotional blocks are ultimately feedback from reality that you’re trying to outrun something you haven’t felt yet.

3. Mental blocks (Identity and belief)

Finally, we have mental blocks which are comprised of self-limiting beliefs and rigid self-images.

You might already know the script:

“I’m not good at this”.

“I should already know this”.

“I’m behind”.

“I’m not the kind of person who can do this”.

Etc. etc. etc.

All of these types of belief are based on a judgement of yourself as a ‘fixed’ being instead of an acceptance of yourself as a being that can keep learning and evolving.

The feedback you’re getting from reality is that you’re trying to act beyond the identity you are currently holding onto and scared to let go of (even though if it’s ‘fixed’ it’s not real anyway).

When these three layers combine, then frustration becomes almost inevitable but the point isn’t to eliminate them but to see them clearly because once you see them, you can begin to work with them.

Body, Mind, Vision: The Three-Level Reset

To move out of frustration in a REAL and practical way then you need to work at the three basic levels of the Body, the Mind, and your Vision.

Let’s take a quick look at these:

Body: Regulate the system

If your nervous system is overloaded, then everything feels harder than it actually is because you see ‘threats’ everywhere instead of feeling safe and being able to respond from a place of presence.

Breathwork, moving your body, rest, cold exposure, walking, and slowing down are just a few examples of things that can help the body return to regulation first so that clarity can return and frustration can be alleviated.

Ultimately, the key lesson is that a dysregulated system can’t learn – it can only react (which is unfortunate because unnecessary frustration means you stopped learning at some level).

Mind: Reframe and release beliefs

Noticing the (unreal) stories you’re telling yourself, challenging your old identity (ego), and replacing judgement with curiosity will all keep you in a state of continuous learning so you can work with reality instead of against it.

(Frustration always means you’re going against reality at some level).

Vision: Reconnect to direction

Knowing your vision is about knowing who you’re becoming and the direction you need to move in.

This can really help you to overcome frustration because it keeps you a focus for your learning and also allows you to start thinking about the SKILLS and QUALITIES you need to develop to reach your goals and the next level of yourself.

When you know your vision you don’t have to let your feelings guide everything you do – instead you can transcend them and act according to your principles instead.

(This is a better policy because your feelings often change and contradict each other but your principles and vision remain the same).

The Ego and the Breakdown of Flow

At a deeper level, frustration is almost always an ego phenomenon because the ego is just a fragmented identity system that filters experience through judgement, comparison, and self-protection instead of an ACCEPTANCE of reality.

This is really important to know because the ego ultimately deflects feedback from reality (to keep the shadow self at bay) and this creates friction.

Friction becomes frustration and – if ignored – frustration becomes misery.

What this means is that the progression looks like this:

Flow → Friction → Frustration → Misery

So the return path back to REALNESS is the reverse:

Misery → Frustration → Friction → Flow

We can reverse this journey into frustration and misery by doing two things simultaneously to return to the flow:

Letting go

Releasing unreal beliefs, a rigid and outdated sense of identity (ego), and the need to control outcomes.

Growing

Developing the real skills we need to align with our goals and developing real patience and a sense of trust in the process.

Essentially, letting go removes ego distortion and growth builds capability – together, they restore flow.

The Return to Continuous Learning & Overcoming Frustration

At its core, chronic frustration is what happens when we step away from the process of continuous learning and think that we’re somehow ‘finished’ or know everything that we’re ever capable of knowing already.

It’s what happens when we stop being learners and start being judges, when we stop being participants and start being critics of our own progress, and when we stop engaging with reality and start fighting against it (a battle we can never win).

The truth is that reality doesn’t respond well to arguments because it can’t be changed (“it is what it is”).

What it does respond to is engagement and so the way back is simple, but not always easy:

Listen to the feedback, return to learning, and live in the process instead of in your ideas about it.

You’ll always hit edges, will always reach limits, and will always encounter moments where you feel like quitting but that’s not failure – it’s the REAL curriculum.

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 step into flow instead of frustration.

Practical Steps to Transform Frustration Back Into Flow

Here are a few simple, quick practices to apply everything we’ve talked about in this article today:

1. The “Pause and Name It” rule

When frustration arises, stop for 10–30 seconds and name what is happening:

  • “I’m feeling resistance”.

  • “I’m overwhelmed”.

  • “I’m comparing myself”.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

Naming creates space and space creates a CHOICE to change the way you’re showing up.

2. Ask the two questions

In any moment of frustration, ask yourself some questions about the direction you need to either grow in or start letting go of things:

  • What skill or quality am I being asked to develop here?

  • What am I being asked to let go of?

3. Body reset before problem-solving

Before trying to ‘fix’ anything get back into your body and out of the mind:

  • Stand up
  • Breathe slowly for 60–90 seconds
  • Relax the jaw and shoulders
  • Walk around a bit if possible

Only allow yourself to return to the task once your system has softened and you’re back in the present.

4. Separate identity from process

Replace “I’m bad at this” (fixed identity) with “I’m learning how to do this” (process) .

This removes ego pressure and allows you to keep learning in the process itself.

5. Track emotional residue

At the end of each day, ask yourself some questions that can help you to start draining the reservoir:

  • What did I react strongly to today?

  • What might that reaction really belong to?

  • How can I feel into it?
Overcoming frustration is about learning to learn.

The Final Word: Frustration is Feedback

Frustration is not a sign that something is ‘wrong’ with you but a sign that something in you is asking to evolve or be released.

When you learn to listen instead of resist, life stops feeling like a battle against yourself and starts becoming what it actually is:

A continuous conversation with reality, guiding you back into flow.

If you learn to listen, you’ll keep growing and feeling ALIVE instead of frustrated.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re sick of being frustrated with yourself and life and you’re ready to grow real then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you start building flow.

Life Won’t Help You Become Something You’re Not

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Life will never help you to be something you're not

If You Try to Be Something You’re Not Life Will Never Be Able to Work With You

There’s a strange frustration that a lot of people carry when they find themselves on a ‘healing’ journey or attempt to transform themselves and their lives:

They try self-help, therapy, ‘spirituality‘, or the ‘healing’ work of journalling, meditation, retreats, courses, podcasts, breathwork, plant medicine, and [whatever else] and, yet – despite all of it – something still doesn’t quite click.

In fact, they often just find themselves in the same emotional place they’ve been tyring to escape with all this activity:

“Why am I still not ‘there‘ yet?”

Beneath this question is usually something deeper and more painful that it may first appear on the surface:

“Why is life not helping me become who I want to be?”

The answer is an uncomfortable truth that almost nobody wants to hear:

Life will not help you become something you’re not but it will absolutely help you become more of what you already are.

If you don’t understand the distinction, then you can spend years – or even decades – turning your life into a subtle form of self-rejection disguised as “growth”.

This article will help you to avoid this trap so you can step into your REALNESS and start flowing with life instead of actively moving against it.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

You don't need to be something you're not - you need to let go and be what you are so you can build something real.

The Hidden Mistake: Growth vs Escape

Most people think they’re growing but very often, they’re actually trying to escape themselves and life and the difference between these two things changes everything.

To really grow you have to have a foundation to grow on – you don’t just grow from nothing but as an extension of what’s already there.

What this means is that:

Growth is rooted in essence but escape is rooted in shame (a denial of one’s essence).

We fall into the trap of not knowing this because somewhere along the line – often in childhood, but not always – many of us develop an internal split which shows up as a sense that what we are is not quite enough, not quite right, not quite acceptable.

This creates a subtle but powerful emotional undertow:

Shame (a disconnection from the truth because of a judgement of the truth instead of an acceptance of it).

Shame does something very specific to your psychology which his that it creates a sense that you must become someone else in order to be “okay”.

This leads to a life build around all kinds of unreal and unhelpful scripts:

  • “I need to ‘fix’ myself”.

  • “I need to improve myself”.

  • “I need to heal everything wrong with me”.

  • “I need to become the version of me that is finally acceptable”.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

None of these scripts can ever lead to real growth because they’re all actually an escape from self via self-improvement.

Essentially, it doesn’t matter how many tools you use – if the motivation underneath is shame, the entire system is distorted and you’ll never get anywhere REAL.

The Ache of the Void & Being Something You’re Not

When you are disconnected from your essence (your realness), you’ll start to experience a felt sense of lack that’s hard to describe but easy to recognise.

It’s a kind of emotional emptiness that whispers “Something is missing and I need to fix it” – this is what we can call the Ache of the Void and it becomes the engine behind almost all compulsive self-work.

When you filter your ‘healing’ journey through the Void, then you don’t actually want to ‘grow’ into more of yourself – you actually just want to stop feeling the way you do and and so it becomes about running away from things instead of running towards something real and true.

In this state, the idea of healing becomes urgent and so self-improvement becomes desperate and ‘spirituality’ becomes another attempt to get out of yourself.

Here’s the paradox, though:

The more you try to escape yourself, the more separated you feel from yourself and so the cycle just deepens and you open up a negative spiral to nowhere.

Why Self-Help Stops Working

This is why so many people eventually hit a wall with self-help or spirituality – not because the tools are ‘wrong’ but because the position they are being used from is unreal.

If you are trying to use ‘healing’ to become something you’re not, then even the most profound method will eventually turn into another form of friction, frustration, and misery.

This creates very predictable patterns that are seen time and time again in people who are filtering their healing through their shame:

  • You try to force the process instead of allowing it.

  • You become perfectionistic about your healing (“I need to fix everything”).

  • You start excavating more pain than is actually necessary because you think you need to get every single bit of it ‘out’ (which actually just causes more pain so the cycle never ends).

  • You rush because you believe you should be ‘there’ by now.

All of this can look like commitment to healing but underneath it’s just a refusal to accept where you currently are and this refusal keeps the split alive so you remain fragmented instead of whole.

The Illusion of “More Healing”

One of the biggest traps in modern self-development culture is the idea that more healing is always better or that more pain means you’ll get more results.

The truth is that if you are filtering your entire experience through shame, then “more healing” just becomes:

  • More self-analysis.

  • More digging.

  • More identification with what is ‘wrong’ and unresolved emotions.

  • More obsession with ‘fixing’ yourself instead of accepting yourself.

At some point, then, this type of ‘healing’ becomes indistinguishable from self-rejection which leads us to a key insight:

You can’t heal a split from yourself by deepening the obsession with the split.

Essentially, if you are constantly looking for something wrong with you, you’ll always find something – not because there’s anything objectively ‘there ‘wrong’ with you in the way you think but because attention shaped by shame is selective which means that it highlights defects and ignores REALNESS.

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What Real Healing Actually Is

Real healing is not the excavation of all your pain because that’s impossible as there’s no end to what the mind can find wrong with itself if it is motivated to look.

Instead, real healing is something pretty simple in comparison:

It’s alignment with who you are and where you find yourself (despite whatever you’ve been through).

It means:

  • Accepting your past as it is.

  • Accepting your present as it is.

  • Accepting your real direction forward.

When you know and embody these three things then you can act from clarity instead of from desperation, self-punishment, or from an imagined “future self” you’re trying to chase in order to compensate for your shame.

Essentially, it means you’re finally accepting the TRUTH (because what else can you actually accept except what is real?)

You Don’t Need More ‘Fixing’ – You Need More TRUTH

If you are filtering your healing through shame, then you’re still operating under the assumption that life is supposed to help you become something you’re not but it won’t because it simply can’t:

Life is not ‘designed’ to validate your escape from yourself – it’s designed to deepen your expression of your essence.

In very practical terms this means that, sometimes, the most healing thing you can do is STOP:

Stop analysing.

Stop attempting to ‘improve’ yourself.

Stop forcing insight.

Stop trying to solve yourself like a problem.

Instead, just return to being here because when you stop running from yourself, you realise you were never actually lost – just distracted.

Essence vs Ego: The Real Split

To understand this properly, you need to be able to recognise two different modes of being that we all experience throughout our lives to differing degrees (real healing is about spending as much time as possible in REALNESS over ego).

Here’s a quick breakdown:

Ego (Disconnection & Shame)

  • Driven by comparison
  • Driven by shame
  • Driven by urgency
  • Driven by “not enoughness”
  • Always trying to become something else

Essence (Realness & Acceptance)

  • Naturally present
  • Clear and with direction
  • Not rushed
  • Not trying to escape anything
  • Moves from truth, not fear

The ego says: “I need to fix this so I can be okay” but essence says: “What’s real here and what action flows from it?”

Life only really works with one of these ways of being in the world and, really, this is the key point of this whole article:

Life can’t support ego-driven becoming because the ego is the opposite of reality – all life can support is essence-driven expression which means being REAL.

When you act from essence, things might still be challenging but they’ll FLOW.

When you act from ego, even success feels unstable (because it’s not grounded in anything REAL).

Awareness, Acceptance, Action

The way to actually work with this in real life isn’t to try harder or to analyse more but to simplify everything into three movements:

1. Awareness (Deconstruct the Ego)

Notice what state you’re in in terms of either working on growth or trying to escape the inescapable:

Are you trying to escape yourself or are you actually responding to what’s real?

2. Acceptance (Integrate the Shadow)

Stop arguing with reality and try to find a real foundation of ACCEPTANCE on which you can start building something real.

This doesn’t mean ‘liking’ everything that happens to you – it just means recognising “I am what I am and it is what it is”.

Without this, you’re always split from the present and so won’t be able to get real results. .

3. Action (Trust Yourself and Life)

Basically, you want to start taking action that matches truth instead of fantasy – not “who you think you should be” or “who you’re trying to become to make your ego feel better” but what actually needs doing from here.

This is where life starts to respond differently because now you’re not resisting it – you’re participating in it.

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

Check out Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go deeper into accepting your essence of realness and flowing with life instead of against it.

Fate vs Destiny: The Missing Piece

There is another important distinction here that can help to clarify everything:

Fate is what you are given but Destiny is what you do with it.

Fate is your starting conditions which means you don’t choose them but your response and the CHOICES you make affect the results you get (Destiny).

Another way to say it is that FATE is the cards you’ve been dealt and DESTINY is how you decide to play with these cards.

When people are trapped in shame, they often rebel against fate which just causes them to get stuck and/or lost:

  • “This shouldn’t have happened”.

  • “I shouldn’t be like this”.

  • “I need to become someone else entirely”.

  • Etc. etc. etc.

This rebellion against the “is what it is” of life just creates fragmentation that pulls you out of reality which is ‘bad’ news because – when you’re out of reality – you lose influence over it.

On the other hand, when you accept your fate fully, honestly, and without resignation then you regain contact with your power and so destiny becomes available again – not as fantasy but as movement.

Healing isn't about becoming something you're not but being what you are.

The Final Truth: Life Only Works When You Stop Fighting It

Here’s what all of this comes down to:

Life won’t help you become something you’re not but it will absolutely support you becoming more of what you are.

The moment you stop trying to escape yourself, you stop rushing, forcing, and trying to ‘fix’ everything before you allow yourself to LIVE and – instead – you begin to live as you are.

You’re no longer living as an (unreal) idea of yourself but as reality itself expressing through you.

This is when things begin to move again – not because you finally became someone ‘better’ but because you finally stopped rejecting what was already REAL.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to get in touch with your REALNESS so you can start taking real action then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you get in the zone.

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