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Creative Status Episode 1: Flow, Freedom, Chaos, and Creativity With Sabrina Lindner

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Creative Status is a podcast about using your creativity to increase your status and improve your health, wealth, and relationships.

In this episode of Creative Status,  life coach Sabrina Lindner and I discuss the ins-and-outs of the creative FREE FLOW state and how we can tweak our lives and mindsets to spend more time in this amazingly creative place to improve our lives and get the kind of results we really want.

Along the way, we also explore creative ways to figure out our real values, how to walk the fine line between order and chaos, how people have misconceptions that give reality a ‘bad’ reputation and hold themselves back from life, the relationship between creativity and the shadow self and a load more insights that you can start implementing right away.

If you want to understand the practical side of ‘unblocking’ yourself creatively then this episode will definitely get you on the right track.

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The Faces of Humanity:  How We’re All Made Up of Different Versions of the Same Person

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Live Without Your Mask

There’s a (pretty) famous Japanese proverb that talks about how we all have 3 faces.  It goes like this:

“The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and your family. The third face, you never show anyone.”

I think it’s true, but – actually – we can take it a little deeper by exploring how there are more than three faces that the average person ‘has’ and also where they  come from and why.

Perhaps even more importantly than raising our AWARENESS of this ‘stuff’, we can also ask ourselves what we need to ACCEPT, in the face of these faces, as well as what ACTION we can take to improve our lives and grow more real accordingly.

(Awareness -> Acceptance -> Action – it works every time: see ‘Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World’ if you wanna apply this to your life as a whole).

If you read this article, it will help you to make sense of the MECHANICS of your relationships with yourself and the world and to start unblocking yourself and moving forward towards the only thing that really matters: an experience of WHOLENESS (or ‘connection’) to yourself, the world, and reality.

The ‘problem’ with all of these faces we each have is that we either think they don’t ‘exist’ or we think that only one of them ‘exists’ and try to ignore other parts of ourselves.

Actually, it’s completely normal and healthy to have multiple versions of ourselves in different contexts and situations because different contexts and situations allow us to express certain REAL qualities about ourselves that we might not otherwise be able to express.

Everything real about us is always within us – sometimes, it just needs a little bit of help to express itself.

The ‘FACES’ we show the world aren’t necessarily the same as masks (which mean that we’re ‘hiding’) – although, of course, they sometimes can be if we have an unreal relationship with our own emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and trauma in the shadow or fear, pride, and desire of the ego, etc.).

All of us are FLUID because reality is in FLUX – sometimes, we just forget that and this can cause confusion if we think that we’re supposed to be ‘static’ (which is just UNREAL).

These are the most common faces of the ‘average’ human being (if such a thing exists). As usual, they fit into the only three levels that anything can fit into: The Self, the World, and Reality.

How many do you recognise in yourself?

Self-Facing Faces

At the level of our relationship with our ‘Self’ we have four faces (at least). Whatever it is that we really are is what EMERGES in the interplay between the four of them.

 

Face 1: Who You Wanna Be (To Yourself)

The first face we all have is the ‘Future Facing Face’ (or whatever you wanna call it). This is basically the face we carry of the person we want to BECOME.

This is comprised of all kinds of things that are related to the desired future we have for ourselves and we have to constantly SHOW ourselves this face in order to remind ourselves of where we want or even INTEND to be going.

It is comprised of things like:

-Our standards

-Our goals

-Our ambitions

-Our vision

-Etc.

Some people show themselves this face more than others and – indeed – you have to keep showing yourself this face in order to BECOME this face.

The reason that a lot of people become stuck or stagnate in life is because they haven’t cultivated this ‘face’ and given themselves a direction to move in.

That’s when other less ‘positive’ (or – at least – future facing faces) faces tend to get a hold of them and weigh their sense of identity down in an unreal direction.

The only ‘problem’ with this ‘Future Facing Face’ is that if we have an unhealthy relationship with our own emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and trauma etc.) then the future becomes a projection of our EGO, rather than anything REAL (because we are creating goals and a vision of ourselves based on the fundamental assumptions of denying who we really are as a way of avoiding facing our shadow ‘stuff’ etc.)

Face 2: Who You Think You  Are Now (To Yourself)

The second ‘face’ that most of us have is the face of who we think we are NOW (i.e. in current reality). The keyword there is ‘think’ because it’s a product of our thoughts and mindset, not who we necessarily are in TRUTH.

Some of our thoughts might be ‘real’ or accurate (i.e. aligned with actual, valid truth) but often they aren’t because we get caught up in our INTERPRETATIONS of life, rather than life itself.

Anyway, this is the ‘Now Face’ and it’s a product of all of our self-assessments and conclusions about ourselves based on where we’ve been, where we think we’re going (based on the Future Facing Face), and the ways in which we JUDGE ourselves in the present to varying degrees of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (which is what all judgements deal with).

It’s ultimately, a product of the STORY we tell ourselves about who we happen to be right now.

The interesting thing (imo) – and the thing that makes the biggest difference to the quality of our lives – is not necessarily the STORY itself, but the WAY IN WHICH WE TELL THIS STORY.

If we tell the story in a way that is fixed as a FINAL DRAFT then we will stop ourselves moving and take ourselves out of reality (and be less likely to show ourselves a real Future Facing Face because we have conditioned ourselves to be PASSIVE).

If we tell ourselves the story in way where it is constantly being written and updated then we will be more likely to keep learning and move into real life (whatever that is in the context of our own lives).

Face 3: Who You Fear You Might Be

The third face is the ‘Fear Face’ – this is the face of who you FEAR you might be. This is usually shown to us when our emotional ‘stuff’ gets a hold of us and distorts our view of ourselves by our SHAME, GUILT, or TRAUMA (or a combination of the three).

When shame distorts our vision of yourself, it will affect your view of both your ‘Future Facing Face’ and your ‘Now Face’ because it will take unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ from the PAST and cause you to stop trusting and believing in yourself (so these three faces are ultimately about the Future, the Present, and the Past and your real or unreal relationship with each).

This SHAME will tell you that you aren’t the type of person to be able to get the future that you want.

It will tell you that who you are right NOW is no good.

This is just your FEAR talking and the unresolved emotions you carry within yourself that make you feel like you’re not good enough. The FEAR FACE is the one that you show yourself when you start to believe that this shame is the truth about you (because you haven’t started to DISSOLVE the shame by facing REALITY and have instead become driven by it).

It’s the same with GUILT and TRAUMA:

When guilt distorts your vision, you convince yourself that you’re a ‘bad’ person in the present and that you ‘don’t deserve’ the future that you want. This is just your emotional ‘stuff’ showing you your FEAR FACE.

Trauma – which makes us feel powerless – will  distort your ability to tap into your own power and will make you feel that you can’t CREATE the real future that your (real) ‘Future Facing Face’ wants to you to move towards (because it will distort your view and tell you that you’re passive).

There is more variation and complexity here but  – ultimately – you have a face you show yourself in your weaker moments that is purely comprised of your FEARS about yourself.

This is ‘normal’ and part of the human experience but the more overpowering your emotions are the more you will show yourself this face and start to believe that it’s who ‘you’ really are.

If you listen enough and believe it, that’s when you stop moving and stop growing REAL and hide behind ego instead (which is just a mental box you put yourself in to keep all your emotions and ‘shadow’ stuff at bay).

Face 4:  Your Shadow Face / The Unknown

Beneath the surface of all of the faces we do show ourselves from time to time, there is another UNKNOWN FACE that bubbles away beneath the conscious experience of ourselves and that drives the course of our lives without us even knowing (not consciously at least).

This is our SHADOW FACE and it’s comprised of all the different things about ourselves (qualities, goals, ideas, ‘parts’, etc.) that we have at some stage in our lives cast aside and disowned as being ‘unacceptable’.

This usually happens because the World CONDITIONED us to believe that certain things shouldn’t exist and then we hypnotised ourselves to live as though they don’t – this being the case, over the course of our lives we try and act like these things don’t exist or suppress them (with socially unacceptable emotions like ‘rage’, for example).

The TRUTH of the matter, however, is that these ‘hidden’ parts of ourselves are just as REAL as the parts that we do face and – as what’s real is always real – these parts never go anywhere.

In fact, they’re not even ‘parts’, they’re just certain EXPRESSIONS of what we are as a WHOLE. We just conditioned ourselves not to EXPRESS them.

Even though we try and hide this ‘Unknown Face’ from ourselves, the ‘parts’ that comprise it never go anywhere and continue to call for our attention (so we can integrate them) from beneath the surface of ourselves.

One of the most common ways that these parts ‘call out’ to us is through PROJECTION.

All that means – at the simplest level – is that we try and hide these parts behind the CONSCIOUS FACES we show ourselves but UNCONSCIOUSLY we project them onto the world outside of us.

A classic way of determining this kind of thing is to look at what annoys us in other people.  For example, if somebody’s RAGE annoys you – it’s probably because you haven’t ACCEPTED your own rage that’s bubbling beneath the surface of your conscious faces.

What this means in the context of this article is that we all have a FOURTH FACE: the Shadow Face that is shown to us as a reflection of ourselves in the world or as a projection reflected back from others (if we can decode the matrix).

Facing this ‘Unknown’ face is the best chance we have at growing more WHOLE (instead of just being fragmented by only facing the fragmented, surface level faces created as a response to keep the shadow ‘stuff’ at bay).

World-Facing Faces

There are two main types of World-Facing Faces that we show the world (and which are affected by our relationships with ourselves and our ‘Self-Facing Faces’):

Face 1: The Character You  Play In MOST Social Situations To Survive Them (Who You  Show To Strangers/People You Just Met or Want to Keep at A Distance).

The first face that we have for the WORLD is the default face that we want to show other people. This is influenced by all of the SELF-FACING FACES and how we ‘feel’ about ourselves but it’s also inspired by two other things:

  1. How we need others to see us (because of our emotional ‘stuff’).
  2. How we have LEARNED to survive social situations in the past

This ‘DEFAULT’ FACE is just the one that we use to make sure we can get through life on a daily basis and to interact with people we might come across like strangers we have to talk to (people that work in coffee shops, taxi drivers, people we meet for the first time at networking events, etc. etc.).

We will try and COME ACROSS in a certain light in order to reinforce the stories we tell ourselves because of our Self-Facing Faces and the ‘Shadow Stuff’ we want to keep at bay but we will also put on a strategic way of being based on how we survived social situations in the past.

This might involve using strategies like ‘being polite’ or maybe even something like trying to be ‘humorous’ and making jokes. Whatever strategy you use, it’s ultimately about gaining CONTROL of the interaction so that you show the face you want to show.

Everybody does the same thing and it’s something we have to do to keep ‘society’ going.  Depending on how REAL you are with yourself will affect how much of your real self can shine through(the most whole version of yourself possible in a given moment).

Even if you’re relatively REAL, there will still be a slight warming up period around new people whilst you figure them out – whatever strategy you use to ‘warm up’ is just your DEFAULT FACE for the world. It’s not ‘You’ – it’s something that you CHOSE based on your conditioning and expectations of yourself and others.

Face 2: The Face You Show The World In Different Partnerships or Groups (E.G. Might Be Different Among Friends That Parents).

This is where things get (more) complicated.  There are multiple versions of this face which is the face that you show different PARTNERSHIPS or GROUPS that you’re involved in based on your own relationship with yourself (and your ‘Self-Facing Faces’) and the EXPECTATIONS that whatever group you’re in has for you (and what you think about these expectations and whether or not you care about modifying the way you come across because of them).

Here are some simple examples of your CONTEXTUAL FACES:

You might have a face that you show your parents that you wouldn’t show your friends.

You might have a face that you show your friends that you wouldn’t show your parents.

You might have a face that you show your boss that you wouldn’t show your wife/husband.

You might have a face that you show your wife/husband that you wouldn’t show your friends.

You might have a face that you show yourself (one of your Self-Facing Faces) that you wouldn’t show any of these people (not a group, just here to demonstrate the point).

The short-version of all this is that each one of these partnerships or groups forms a new SYSTEM and you need different faces to SURVIVE them because of the roles you’re asked to play and the EXPECTATIONS that come with that role.

You can still be REAL in each of these context but how much realness is able to creep out depends on the DEPTH OF INTIMACY in each of these relationships and whether or not you’re allowing expectations to be more main motivation or realness.

The number of these CONTEXTUAL FACES changes and varies over the course of our lifetimes depending on how many different groups we’re engaged in or how big our network is (or isn’t) etc.

Reality-Facing Faces

Even though in reality we are ultimately WHOLE (i.e. not divided into all of the different categories and labels that we use to make sense of the world – which we’re doing in this article too because it’s just how we make ‘sense’ of the world), we have at least two faces that show us a reflection of REALITY.

Face 1: The OBSERVER making sense of all this .

The first of our Reality-Facing Faces is the OBSERVING FACE.  This is just the version of ourselves that occasionally (for most) is able to STEP BACK from the complexity and confusion of the interplay between all of the Self-Facing and World-Facing faces and to watch things unfold.

This Observing Face is important because it is a version of ourselves  that we are able to show ourselves BEYOND JUDGEMENT.

All of the other faces mentioned so far – apart from the SHADOW FACE (which contains who we would be if we stopped judging ourselves)- are ultimately unreal because they involve JUDGEMENT at some level (which is always unreal because all you can do with reality is ACCEPT it – the opposite of judgement).

The OBSERVING FACE is an AWARENESS of what we have observed or are observing and allows us to hold space so that we can start to respond instead of just reacting to the promptings and conditionings of the other faces.

This comes from the place of WHOLENESS that is within us at all times (in fact, is what we are) and allows us to come from a place that’s REAL instead of being a fragmented consequence of our outdated biological wiring, emotional ‘stuff’, or social conditioning and programming (like the other faces mentioned at the levels of self-and world).

The FACT that you can OBSERVE all of the other faces is proof that they are not ‘You’. They are just survival tools that form the foundation of the EGO (which is fragmented, not the bigger which is an EXPERIENCE of being alive which always comes back to AWARENESS).

Face 2: The REAL self (who knows what to do with all this Awareness and to ACCEPT it and to take Action)

The final Reality-Facing Face that’s relevant here is the one (which is really part of the same process) that you show yourself when you ACCEPT what the OBSERVING FACE has become AWARE of and decide to take ACTION based on this (Awareness -> Acceptance -> Action, it works every time).

When you take this kind of REAL ACTION it allows you to stop holding yourself back based on the limitations of your Self-Facing and World-Facing Faces and to put yourself back on track towards a natural DRIVE towards wholeness that we all have.

By taking action you always learn more about reality and you always  become more whole because you  will eventually end up having to bring your SHADOW ‘stuff’ to the surface (as you find the EDGE – i.e. where all your ideas about yourself meet reality and you can grow more REAL).

In short, the realest faces you can show yourself are the ones that EMERGE when you are able to step back from the ‘other’ faces (Self-Facing and World-Facing) and to put yourself on the path of growing real.

When you do this, you realise that you have NO faces – you’re just FACING THE TRUTH and constantly moving forward and experiencing life as a WHOLE.

 

 

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

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The Cost: Are You Prepared to Pay the Price for Your Real Life?

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If you’re trying to grow more REAL in an unreal world then you’re always going to have to pay a PRICE for your own REALNESS.

This is just the way that things are: if you want something then you have to pay the COST.  This is just a part of the human experience and it’s something that applies to ALL of us.

Our tendency of thinking about these things is that there’s only ever really a ‘cost’ for the ‘bad’ things that happen to us – actually, though, we often find ourselves paying a price just as much, if not more (as we initially perceive it), for the ‘good’ – or REAL – stuff too.

In other words: If you really want something then you’re going to have to pay for it. That’s “the Cost”.

This article will help you in two main ways:

  1. It’s going to help you understand this concept of THE COST so that you can pre-empt it and ready yourself to pay it without becoming disappointed or disillusioned.
  2. It’s going to help you stay motivated and COMMITTED to growing real by showing you that the cost is always worth it so you should always keep growing real no matter what(despite what the world might tell you along the way).

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself and the world is to know what’s REAL about you so that you can add more value to the world as an extension of acting on that AWARENESS (because the only thing that’s actually of any value is the REAL stuff and what you choose to DO with it).

Getting to the stage where you know enough about yourself, the world, and reality to be able to tap into this value and share it is a difficult road in itself – especially when the world is designed to condition us to be pliable and conformist so that we’ll be easier to control.

If you lack awareness of the extra COSTS of walking the REAL path then you might falter (which just means that the world has convinced you to be something and/or somebody that you’re not).

If you’re ready to pay the price and get something REAL then keep reading.

There’s always a price to pay. Especially when you’re shifting from unreal to real life.

“The best things in life are free”, that’s what we’re told but even these “best” things like ‘love’ or ‘kindness’ or ‘friendship’ almost always come with a COST of some kind. It might not be a monetary cost, but it’s always a cost nevertheless.

Maybe that sounds extreme but when you dig into it, you’ll see what I mean:

The COST of love is that you have to let go of your ego and learn not to at least think about other people and their needs(that’s a good thing once you learn how to do it but to the ego it’s a cost which is why so many people find it hard to fall and STAY in love).

The COST of being kind is that sometimes you’ll have to say “Yes” when it might have been easier to say “No” or that you might have to give up the time you could’ve spent on yourself to dedicate to somebody else (and your time, energy, and attention are the most precious things you have).

The COST of friendship is a combination of the two but also that you need to be able to at least offer some kind of VALUE to the relationship (in exchange for value as that’s how real friendship works).

That means that you can’t only TAKE from the relationship and that you have to GIVE something – whatever that is in the context of the relationship is the COST.

Sometimes the cost is worth it, sometimes it isn’t.  Either way, there’s always a cost and that’s just the way it is.

We can say that this is just a principle of being alive as a human being and it basically boils down to the fact that whenever we make a CHOICE then the cost of one thing is always something else (that’s just what a ‘choice’ is by definition).

Sometimes, we CHOOSE things that come with unexpected costs but there’s ALWAYS a cost. Always (just to drill the point home).

You need to understand this so you can get prepare yourself to pay when the time comes.

If you don’t understand this basic REALITY about life then when the costs of your CHOICES do creep in further down the line (as ‘consequences’) then you’ll be disappointed and disillusioned.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make the choices that have a risk of such negative emotions – it just means that you need to weigh the costs up before you get started (as much as is possible – nobody can predict the future with 100% accuracy).

As a simple example, let’s take two different paths that you might take in life: either stepping up and changing your life by doing that ‘thing’ you want to do (but are afraid of because doing so will disrupt your life), or NOT doing that thing and just leaving things as they are.

Two very different options – 1) doing that ‘thing’ and changing your life or 2) doing nothing and sweeping it under the carpet.

Different paths but both with a COST.

To decide which one to take you need to figure out the BENEFITS or PAYOFF of each one – maybe figuring out your true values and how aligned they are with the goals in question, figuring out how you might benefit financially, in terms of health, emotionally, etc.

A step that a lot of people tend to skip, though, is figuring out ‘THE COST’ (though they might think about their fears or reasons not to get started which are usually just EXCUSES – see below).

In the first case, of going out there and just doing that ‘thing’ whatever it is, the costs might be:

-Having to give up your ‘current’ thing.

-Having people be jealous of you or hate on you for being ‘successful’.

-Having to spend some time learning new skills instead of watching Netflix or whatever.

-Having people think that you’re crazy/weird/unusual or whatever because you’re doing something unconventional.

-Having to listen to people try and persuade you not to do that thing whatever it is.

-Having to RISK failure and the emotional ‘stuff’ that comes with it.

Etc.

Depending on whatever the ‘thing’ is in your own life you could probably come up with a list of costs that’s longer than your arm – and this is just for the ‘good’ things that you want to be doing with your life.

I guess the basic rule is that you can’t have the sweet without the sour – it probably all balances out in the end but you need to know it so you’re not just floating through life with your rose-tinted glasses on setting yourself up for disappointment and disillusionment.

Ask yourself about that ‘thing’ that you think you want: Can you pay the COST(s)? If you can’t then maybe you don’t really want it.

To complicate matters, there’s also the other option: doing NOTHING and trying to forget about that ‘thing’ and just going through the motions of living in the same old way and getting the same old results.

That might seem like a simple way of AVOIDING the costs of going to get that ‘thing’ (which you may have some fear about which has stopped you going for it in the first place), but because EVERYTHING in life comes with an OPPORTUNITY COST, inaction will cost you just as much – or even more – than just getting up and doing that ‘thing’ in the first place.

Let’s say you do decide to do nothing and just leave your life as it is, even though that ‘thing’ (whatever it is) is calling out to you and life will continue to change around you anyway.

The costs might be things like:

-Having to get to the end of your life and REGRETTING never stepping up and doing what you realise you were called for.

-Having to watch other people who have stepped up to do their ‘thing’ doing it and getting RESULTS that you can’t even get close  to (and having to live with jealousy because of it).

-Having to PUT UP with whatever you’re currently putting up with and forcing yourself to tolerate.

-Having to have the people in your life just see you as being somebody who never did that ‘thing’ and never will.

-Having to always wonder if there’s ‘more’ to life or wondering what your real potential might look like (hint: there is more and your real potential looks like freedom).

-Etc.

Again, in the case of your own ‘thing’ it might be a longer list or it might be a shorter one. The point is, though, that – whether you make changes or you don’t – then there’s a COST to pay.

If you’re undecided about taking some action in your life or stepping up and being more REAL or not then you need to ask yourself what the COST of each path is and if you can HANDLE it.

If you can’t handle it then you know that:

  • It’s either not YOUR path and so you can forget about it

Or:

  • You have some kind of mindset issue that needs tweaking because you don’t TRUST in yourself and your ability to handle whatever might arise (and, trust me, when you’re being REAL you’ll be able to handle just about anything).

Basically, it comes down to this: Whether you DO or you DON’T there’s gonna be a COST so the only question is which one do you wanna pay? Do you wanna pay the cost of being UNREAL or do you want to pay the cost of being REAL?

I know what I’d choose every time.

The cost of being unreal is that you’ll always wonder if there’s more, never know your true potential, and probably spend the end of your life regretting all the things you didn’t do but could’ve done if you got over yourself.

Assuming that the ‘thing’ you want to do is actually REAL – i.e. it’s aligned with your TRUE values and intentions and the process of moving towards it will make you more WHOLE, not FRAGMENTED – then the main cost of NOT making the choice and going for it is that you’ll never KNOW yourself, you’ll never know the world, and you’ll never know reality.

This is because the PAYOFF of taking the REAL path is that you will connect with what’s real about you and find a way (that ‘thing’) of expressing it in the world. As you’ll have to do the work to make it happen then you’ll have to BECOME a more real version of yourself to get there. If that payoff is worth more than the regret of not even trying then it’s worth it.

The cost of being real is that when you’re making changes to go from unreal to real you have to let go of a lot of things and when you’re real you’ll have to deal with being hated by unreal people that can’t (currently) do what you’ve done.

The COST of taking the real path is having to LET GO of your ego and the things that are asking you to keep living out an UNREAL version of yourself and your life.

More than that, you’ll also have to pay the price of having to deal with people who haven’t stepped onto the REAL path trying to pull you off course by causing drama, hating, or projecting their own ‘stuff’ onto you (though if other people are constantly causing problems in your life you need to ask yourself if you’re the ‘UNREAL’ one seeing as you’re the common denominator).

The point is that – no matter what you choose – you’re “darned if you do, darned if you don’t”.  That’s just LIFE.

If you want to be REAL, though, you might as well make a CHOICE about what that looks like and the PAYOFF you get rather than just passively letting life happen and paying the costs for something you don’t want instead of something you DO.

In general, as you grow real, you’ll see that ALL COSTS are unreal because what’s real about you can never be taken away from (we’ll talk about that a little further below).

If you’re on a crossroads in life then what that basically means is that your choice is between:

  • An UNREAL life with unreal costs you can’t do anything about because you’re unreal (e.g living a life that’s a consequence of you hiding and paying costs you CAN’T handle because you’re UNREAL).
  • A REAL life with unreal costs that you can do something about because you’re real(e.g. living a life that’s a consequence of you not hiding and paying the costs that you CAN handle because you’re REAL).

In both cases, the costs are ultimately unreal – because you’re always real no matter what and it’s just your perception and interpretations (filtered through your identity) stopping you from seeing it.

On your way into your REAL life, though, you’ll have to grow through the things that make the costs seem real – your choice about how you handle this will affect how far you get.

Examples of the kinds of price you’ll have to pay if you focus on your REAL intentions and values.

Though there are no hard and fast rules, these are the kind of costs that you can expect to pay as you step up and start moving towards that ‘thing’ and your REAL life.

In all cases you haven’t really lost anything ‘real’ – you just STOPPED BUYING INTO unreality:

Letting go of unreal relationships that are holding you back.

The real relationships in your life will support your growth and movement towards the goals that are real to you.  The unreal ones won’t.

As you wake up to your realness and start moving forwards then the COST will be to set healthy boundaries and say “No” to the people that need you to be unreal (for the protection of their own unreal ego ‘stuff’).

The reason that you don’t really lose anything real here despite the ‘cost’ is that the only thing keeping you in such relationships in the first place was your own UNREALITY.

Not being able to watch Netflix as much.

Committing to growing real comes with the ‘COST’ of having to say “No” to unreal activities and distractions like spending all night watching Netflix or playing video games or whatever (obviously, this is a matter of degree based on the context of your own life).

As you start to CHOOSE the real stuff over the unreal distractions like this then you probably won’t have time to waste on such things because you’ll have found your REAL purpose.

Again, the ‘cost’ isn’t really a cost because all that’s happened is you’ve stopped acting out an unreal story in your head and replaced it with a real one. You simply changed your focus and it changed your life.

Having people hate on you or be jealous because you’re doing your ‘thing’ and they’re not.

If you think that everybody around you is going to be happy for your ‘success’ as you step up and grow real then you’re going to have a bad time.

It’s a harsh reality about life but some of your closest friends and family don’t actually want you to be ‘more’ successful than them or to even just start doing things that are important to you (usually because they never had the balls to step up and do what’s important to themselves).

If you’re going to put yourself on a real path, then this is something that you need to prepare for – it’s a COST that you’ll be asked to pay and if you’re not real about it then it can make your life miserable.

Actually, even  though this may look like a COST, it’s actually not a REAL one. The reason for this is that the only reason these people are hating on you is because they’re being UNREAL (because when you’re being real you know your own capacity to succeed at your ‘thing’ and know that others can succeed at theirs too – what’s more you want them to!).

If something is UNREAL then you don’t need to worry about it or concern yourself with it – the only reason that you would is because there’s some unreal, emotional thing going on inside you that makes you interpret this unreal hate (etc.) as being real.

When you learn to say “Gimme something real or GTFO” then you can either walk away from these people or simply stay real and learn to ignore their BS. Either way, it nullifies the cost and you’ve grown REAL.

Having to work hard and change things.

Going out there and getting that ‘thing’ that you want comes with the COST of hard work.  That may seem like a lot of unnecessary effort when you haven’t even got started yet but look at it like this:

You can either work to get to where you want to be or you can work to have to try and live with yourself for never trying.

When you look at it like that the ‘hard work’ isn’t really a cost as much as it is an opportunity.

Having to let go of your current way of identifying as you grow real through experience.

No matter what you’re trying to do or where you’re trying to get to, as you grow more REAL, you will inevitably change as a person and the way that you see yourself will change too.

For some of us,  this is a price worth paying for our goals because we know that we’ve chosen to aim for something real and so – even though we may change – that change will be for the better (because we shaved away layers of unreality to reveal the REAL stuff).

The ‘problem’ for a lot of people is that they’re scared to change because the sense of identity they’ve created for themselves is actually a box that keeps a lot of their unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ at bay.

This is actually the main reason that certain people DON’T want to choose the real path – they’re not ready to pay the cost of letting go of their cherished ideas (and illusions, tbh) about themselves (and the world and reality by extension).

When you start growing REAL, however, you’ll see that this sense of identity is actually completely UNREAL – yes, we need it to function in the world and it acts as a representation of whatever we’ve been through and survived but it’s not who we really ‘are’ (just an interpretation we created).

When you realise this, you realise that losing one form of it is not really a COST, it’s another opportunity to replace it with something more real so you can go deeper into life.

Having to deal with the consequences of being real in an unreal world (i.e. dealing with people who are ‘asleep’, NPCs, etc.).

If you decide to grow real in an unreal world (i.e. a world that just needs you to conform so you can be controlled) then you’re going to have to pay the price of STANDING OUT which will bring unwanted attention and disagreement (if you let it).

The problem here is often caused by projection – if you’ve started to put yourself on the path of growing real then, eventually, you’re going to have to face some of your own ‘SHADOW’ stuff (the previously disowned parts of you that were deemed ‘unacceptable’ by your own shame and the guilt that society conditioned you with in the first place).

These can be both ‘good’ or ‘bad’ qualities but for whatever reason, society has decided that it would be better if they’re not part of the human experience.

An example might be ‘creativity’, for example, which may take you to some places that the majority of people aren’t willing to go (because they’ve disowned this side of themselves in order to be more productive employees or whatever).

If you become real and trigger some of the hidden ‘Shadow’ stuff of the people around you then it can lead to all kinds of drama and conflict.

You need to be ready for it because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll do the work of growing more real, doing more authentic things and expressing your true thoughts, feelings, etc. without upsetting somebody.

The costs here actually can be pretty high if you come across an actual nutcase who’s completely repressed and sees something in you that they’re trying to hide from themselves.

You can usually avoid such people as you start focusing on your own real ‘thing’ and start meeting other Real Ones but you need to know that this is a price you’ll possibly have to pay.

Again, even though it can be costly in some cases, the core source of the problem is still the same: whoever is getting triggered by your ‘Real’ stuff is only that way because they have an unreal relationship with themselves.

That makes it easier to ignore and move on (“Gimme something real or GTFO”) but you need to be real enough not to poke the fires and push these people over the edge (although that’s actually what they want deep down as by sabotaging themselves they can eventually destroy themselves and allow the real version of who they are to creep through).

Everybody is constantly moving towards wholeness – even those who are locked inside themselves – that’s just a natural drive we have but you don’t really need to get involved and ‘save’ anybody from themselves as the only person with that power is them.

The more real you become the more you’ll see how most people are unreal. You’ll have to learn not to JUDGE and slip back into unreality.

In short, the more real you become, you will have to live with the COST of being surrounded by people who are living unreal lives in an unreal relationship with themselves.

You need to be careful not to judge here as judgement is always unreal and will just cause you to end up back on the unreal path you’re trying to avoid.

The final cost to yourself is that you will have to work to cultivate better emotional control and self-regulation and to learn to be patient.

If people are ‘unreal’ it’s not their fault, it’s just a product of their conditioning and you basically just have to let them get on with it until the time comes for them to find something real to hold onto (assuming that time ever comes).

There’s always a choice. No excuses.

Sometimes, you convince yourself you don’t have a choice which stops you moving towards your goals.  The truth isn’t that you “don’t have a choice” but that you “don’t want to pay the cost”.  Ask yourself why because a lot of the time it’s just fear, pride, or other ego ‘stuff’ that you’ve CHOSEN to keep in place so you can hide from your unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma.

When you want to do something but you’re scared of the cost you make EXCUSES – this is just the ego’s way of trying to resist paying whatever cost needs to be paid.

If you find yourself stuck on a crossroads where you don’t know if you have the courage to move forward or not and you start making EXCUSES to explain away what you really want to do (that ‘thing’, whatever it is), then you need to remind yourself that you can only lose things that are UNREAL because reality never goes anywhere (and even then you don’t really ‘lose’ anything because it was never there in the first place – it was just a product of the way you chose to perceive things).

This means that the price you’re afraid to pay usually has something to do with your attachment to your illusions about yourself, the world, and reality and that you’ve DISTORTED your view of things through the lens of your ego in order to try and stay the ‘same’ and refuse to take action.

At the end of the day, there is no real cost – there’s just a process of deconditioning and learning to understand reality.

In short, the price never costs as much as your ego will try and convince you it does before you’ve paid it and when you understand the reality of life you’ll see that the costs are never as bad as you think (because it’s usually unreal).

You need to be ready to pay the price but you also need to be ready to see that in REALITY it’s always worth it:

You can either choose the unreal life you might already be living or step up and grow real?

There’s always a cost but there’s always a CHOICE. Which one are you going to make?

 

 

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

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The Label Trap: Is Attaching to Labels Holding You Back from Real Life and Your True Potential?

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Stop Holding Back

One of the biggest barriers to getting the life we want and becoming the person we need to be to get there is labelling ourselves.

This is for two simple reasons:

  1. In order to make the most of our own REAL lives, we need to step up and be the real version of ourselves.
  2. Labels cause us to identify as PART of a group instead of being the WHOLE of whoever it is that we really are.

Being part of a group is obviously an important part of being a human being – “no man is an island”, after all –  but if being part of a group effaces who we really are because the group is based around static limitations rather than GROWING REAL then it can do more harm than ‘good’.

In the way that we’re using it here, ‘labels’ are catch-all terms that we use to describe ourselves to others that just end up erasing our own individuality (and the strengths and weaknesses that come with that which is totally normal when we’re being REAL).

Examples of labels might be:

-Mental and physical health conditions that we’ve been labelled with.

For example in my own experience: I have some health problems and could easily use these as a reason to focus on what I can’t do instead of what I can (and, thus, never do anything) because I’ve labelled myself as an “X Patient”.

-Stuff to do with our cultural background that we think we need to adhere to rigidly.

For example in my own experience: I might decide to fall into the stereotype of a typical reserved ‘Englishman’ and never really express what I truly think, feel, or want to do in order to keep a “stiff upper lip” (not that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with that if it’s what you want to do).

-Political or subcultural labels like identifying with a certain political party (and feeling cognitive dissonance when you go outside of the boundaries of what they say you’re ‘allowed’ to believe in) or even something as simple as overly-identifying with a certain subculture and being a ‘rocker’ or a ‘hippy’ (or whatever) and never experiencing life outside of what those kinds of people are ‘supposed’ to do.

For example, from my own experience: I really love rocking out and listening to rock and metal. If I needed a sense of identity then I could easily pluck an identify off  the shelf and start growing my hair out even more, wearing more black than I already do, and hating any sell-outs that listen to deep house (which I also love) or doing anything ‘mainstream’ (in order to strengthen my own sense of identity and the LABELS I’ve arbitrarily decided to attach to).

-Ideas about what it means to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ and how these things might limit us or mean we need to behave in certain ways.

For example from my own experience: I might decide that I’ll define myself by certain outcomes that are supposed to make life ‘meaningful’ for guys like how many women I sleep with every week, how many steaks I eat on the weekend, and how often I get in a fight when I go to the pub (not that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with that if it’s what you want to do).

-Being obsessed with certain superficial qualities of our physical bodies like the colour of our skin or how much we might weigh etc.

For example from my own experience: I might think that being a ‘white’ guy instead of being a human being actually means anything or think that because I work out and can do however many push-ups means anything in the scheme of things as a whole (when it just ‘means’ I like working out and have enough energy to do the things I need to do from one-day-to-the-next).

Sometimes, these labels might help us feel a sense of belonging – which is part of their appeal – but they can also cause us to be distanced from ourselves and to take ourselves out of reality.

Taking ourselves out of reality might feel good in the short-term – especially if we have a lot of emotional ‘stuff’ or unanswered questions and confusion we want to avoid – but in the long-term it only screws our lives up and causes unnecessary problems.

This is why you need to be aware of how the labels you’re applying to yourself might be screwing your life up and why you should maybe think about flipping the script on some of them if you want to feel better about yourself and your life.

When we’re REAL, we keep growing and we’re always works in progress; giving ourselves labels can stop us growing by making us feel like we’ve reached the end of the line (even if we don’t even LIKE where that end of the line might be).

This is something that we’re not really ‘supposed’ to talk about because – even though the labels we attach our identities to can hold us back – labels are something that we become EMOTIONALLY INVESTED in and often need to be true (to protect our own insanity).

When people have an emotional need for something to be true about themselves, the world and reality – i.e. WANTING for something to be true, rather than actually figuring out if it’s true or not – then it just increases the odds of conflict and disagreement when we question these things or try to think outside of the box that such labelling has put us in.

If you look at much of the insanity around you in the world today, it can be attributed to the WARS people are fighting over the labels they’ve CHOSEN to give themselves (and others) and a battle with reality and the rest of the  world to try and prove to themselves and others that certain labels are true.

Actually, in reality, if something is TRUE, then you don’t need to fight or lapse into CONTROL FREAKERY to try and defend it – it will just speak for itself because that’s what the truth does: exist in self-evident way (it doesn’t need people to argue about it because it’s beyond conflict and just THE TRUTH regardless of any arguments).

If you find that you have a lot of UNNECESSARY conflict and dramatic BS in your life, then there’s a good chance that you’ve labelled yourself in some way and it’s causing you more harm than good.

This article will help you determine if that’s the case.

Labels are a map, not the territory (reality).

Like with many things at the level of our thoughts and beliefs about our lives, the labels we use to make ‘sense’ of ourselves, the world, and reality are not the TRUTH about any of these things themselves but our interpretations and points of view based on how ready we are to face the actual truth.

Because these labels are ultimately about trying to make sense of a chaotic and indifferent universe – where human beings are incapable of knowing and understanding everything because of our limited perception and then limited interpretations about what we perceive – then a good analogy is to see these ‘labels’ as maps that we’ve DECIDED to try and use to NAVIGATE life.

Like any tool, however, these ‘maps’ (labels) are always only ever a way of working with (or against, depending how much BS we’ve picked up) reality, not reality itself.

If you treat the map itself as the reality – which is what many of us do with the labels we’ve become attracted to – then we’ll never really get anywhere and we’ll never learn anything in our EXPERIENCE that can help us grow real in the way that we want to.

Treating the labels you’ve picked up as being the end of the line – instead of going out and EXPERIENCING LIFE and seeing what you’re capable of – is the same as looking at the Disney Land brochure online, familiarising yourself with the map of the theme park, and telling yourself that you now know everything there is to know about Disney Land.

Yes, maybe CONCEPTUALLY, you can tell yourself and others where certain things are in relation to other things at Disney Land – you might even have a loose understanding of what each ride is like because of the blurbs you read in that same brochure.

Here’s the rub, though: if you only have the MAP in your head, then you just have a BELIEF SYSTEM comprised of conceptual knowledge and information.  Unless you actually go to Disney Land and USE the map to get from one place to another and enjoy the rides (etc.) then you don’t actually KNOW anything real – you just have ideas that you picked up and CONDITIONED yourself with.

When you LABEL yourself without GOING OUT and actually finding out the truth about yourself for real – by taking action – then you’re just living in the COMFORT ZONE of your mind and stopping yourself from experiencing something that’s actually REAL.

This applies even if the ‘map’ you have does point to something that exists out there in ‘reality’ (like in the Disney Land example): if you don’t go out there and EXPERIENCE life for yourself then you’re just living in your own head and telling yourself it’s all life has to offer.

Labels help you to make sense of something difficult you’ve been through.

Essentially, the main attraction of labels is that they give us something to HOLD ONTO that gives us a feeling of certainty. Unfortunately, life itself is UNCERTAIN which means that clinging to labels just creates a sense of unnecessary friction between the way that we see ourselves and interact with the world and REALITY itself.

The appeal of labels, especially if we’ve been through a difficult period in our lives – or if we have a lot of unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ like shame, guilt, or even trauma – is that the sense of ‘certainty’ they provide can give us a stepping stone towards finding a sense of direction or purpose again (in an uncertain reality they give us a taste of something certain).

In this sense, as a short-term solution to the problem of dealing with ‘life’, then it’s understandable why people find labelling themselves to be a useful COPING DEVICE for dealing with things.

In my opinion, this is why a lot of people who have a lot of emotional turbulence or who have been through difficult periods in their lives are more likely to attach to labels than people whose lives may have been a little ‘easier’ or where they have had less intense emotional ‘stuff’ to deal with.

When we have a lot of emotional ‘stuff’ to deal with, our natural tendency can be to try and hide from the uncertainty that comes with it by finding something to be certain about that can explain why we’ve found ourselves in whatever situation we’ve found ourselves in and explain away a lot of the associated negative emotions we have from being in a difficult situation.

A harsh fact about life that a lot of us try to avoid is that the current state of our lives is often a CONSEQUENCE of our relationship with ourselves and how much responsibility we’re willing to take for our own lives.

Even in situations that weren’t necessarily our ‘fault’, once things are done and dusted, it’s up to US and us alone to deal with the emotional fallout and to learn to forgive ourselves for whatever choices we might have made and  to learn to REGULATE our own emotional ‘stuff’ so we can MOTIVATE OURSELVES to move in the REAL direction we want to move towards here in the present moment.

Because facing this ‘stuff’ can be painful and may lead to us reconfiguring the way that we live our lives, it’s often easier to find a label that explains a lot of our own responsibility for our lives away and gives us a convenient excuse to keep wallowing in self-pity or to – at the very least – set us up for justifying the failure that will come from not acting to change our lives in the way that we really want.

When we have this kind of ‘stuff’ going on then labels can help us to make ‘sense’ of a past we can’t let go of, a present we don’t want to face, and a future we don’t want to take any ownership over.

The problem with making ‘sense’ is that a lot of things that aren’t REAL or even TRUE still ‘make sense’ to us if we want them to. That’s fine as a short-term way of avoiding some of our pain but – in the long-term – it’s only going to bring friction, frustration, and misery to our lives as we distance ourselves more and more from reality.

 

Labels are like armbands – eventually you need to swim without them.

All this is to say that labels are like armbands (stick with me here) – when we’re first learning to ‘swim’ in life’s great ocean of chaos and uncertainty then they can keep us afloat and stop us from drowning.

Maybe you get diagnosed with a physical or mental health condition, for example:

In those early stages of your relationship with your ‘illness’, then you probably don’t know that much about it or what to expect; your skills at dealing with the condition won’t have been refined yet, your conceptual and experiential knowledge of the condition will both be at low levels, and your confidence in your ability to ‘deal’ with it will be almost non-existent too because you’re probably scared (because you haven’t accepted things yet as you haven’t had a chance to learn) and you don’t know what you’re capable of.

A label in these early stages can actually help you learn to ‘swim’ within the context of whatever you’ve got going on because it will give you a frame of reference for how to deal with things and a direction to move in.

There’s nothing stopping you from living according to the label for the rest of your life – in this analogy we’ve got going though that would just be the same as never taking your armbands off.

If you’re afraid of drowning without them then maybe that’s a good idea; if you really want to know who you ARE and what you’re capable of then – when you’re ready – you need to learn to swim without the armbands so that your life is really yours, not just some idea that you picked up about it so that you could SURVIVE whatever you’re dealing with and not actually THRIVE in life.

People are scared they’ll drown without the label (because they only have the label to deal with shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

This fear of ‘drowning’ helps us to understand why some of us become so attached to the labels that have helped us stay afloat: we do it because we’re actually afraid of life and by fighting for our labels we’re actually fighting for the devices that have helped us to survive whatever we’ve been through.

Obviously, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with that – if something is helping us to stay afloat in life then it’s not up to anybody else to tell us whether or not what we’re doing makes sense or not.

The ironic thing, though, in my view, is that these labels may help us to survive in the short-term but the longer we cling to them and stop facing actual reality – i.e. looking at the ‘truth’ we may be blocking from view because of these labels – then the more harmful these labels become because they just cause us to be disconnected from ourselves, the world, and reality.

This is true of not just labels but our sense of identity as a whole: it’s a short-term survival mechanism that screws our lives up the more we keep trying to keep it in place without learning or growing through it.

In general, it seems as  though people are scared of drowning without their labels, comfortable points of view, ‘ego’, etc. etc., but actually what’s happening when they cling to these things is that they’re just scared of letting these things go because they’re attempting to keep their shame, guilt, and trauma at bay (which made them create a box for themselves to live in in the first place).

The actual fact is that when you let go of these COPING MECHANISMS then you realise that a lot of the emotional ‘stuff’ you’re trying to hide from is actually unreal and that when you hit the ocean of reality you can’t drown – you can only RIDE the reality waves to wherever it is that you want to be (as long as you choose a real vision for yourself and dedicate yourself to action with consistency, discipline, and focus).

Labels just erase our individuality which is actually what will ‘save’ us.

No real human being ever saved themselves or created a REAL life by trying to be just like everybody else.  Sure, we can learn from other people and see what’s worked for them in certain contexts, but – at the end of the day – no other human being has ever lived the life that we’re living and gone through the same things in the same way.

Sometimes, we might think that other people have the answers or can ‘save’ us but actually – even in the very best cases – all anybody else can really do is help us to better understand ourselves so that we can start listening to our OWN VOICE and then doing something with it as our ‘own’ man or woman.

This is because – no matter who you are – the only thing that will really help you to get where you want to be in life is your own INDIVIUALITY.

This doesn’t mean that you fall into the trap of trying to “THINK DIFFERENT” just for the sake of it (that’s EGO).

It just means that you walk your own path based on what you’ve learned for yourself by using your own CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE to weigh up all of the options and make a decision about what you need to do to be the real version of yourself.

Whenever you become overly-invested in a group (something you can only become overly-invested in as an attempt to hide from  yourself and reality) then you just end up erasing your true identity and all of the amazing things about you that will allow you to actually thrive in the way that will make you feel truly alive.

In my opinion (again), this is why so many people in the world get carried away with groups, causes, and movements without really caring what they stand for or are trying to change in the world – it’s not because they necessarily believe in the ‘cause’ but because it gives them a sense of identity that they don’t have to worry about choosing or creating for themselves (through the hard work of action and experience).

In other words, they might not know who they really are because they’re not willing to face their own emotional ‘stuff’ and so by getting carried away with a ‘movement’ it does two things for them: 1) it gives them a distraction from having to face anything real, 2) it gives them something to believe in that fills the void of not knowing themselves.

You’ll know if this makes sense to you or not when you think about the world and the various movements people are getting carried away over.

To get back to the main point, though, when people give themselves to ‘groups’ either directly or by applying labels to themselves, they just end up limiting their own options for growth and erasing their own individuality to become one of the faceless members of the group or label in question.

This might offer psychological comfort if you have a screwed up relationship with yourself but in the long-term it just prevents you from facing your ‘Shadow’ stuff and growing real.

By choosing a ‘label’ to give yourself you’re just lumping yourself with all of the other people that have that same label.  You’ll know how this applies in your own life or in the lives of people that you know but ask yourself this: “How am I different from everybody else with the label of [X]?”  – somewhere in the answer to that question is your way to true salvation (or whatever word you wanna use).

Labels give you a convenient excuse by telling you what you CAN’T do which stops you focusing on what you CAN do.

By labelling yourself in a certain way, you only end up holding yourself back because you just give yourself a bunch of reasons to focus on what you CAN’T do rather than what you CAN.

This gives you a sense of certainty (as we saw above) but the PRICE you pay for this feeling of certainty is that you can no longer express yourself because you’re locked behind a bunch of limitations and unhealthy beliefs at the same time.

Normally, when we focus on the “CAN’T DO” because of the label we either forget about or minimise the “CAN DO”. This is just the EGO’s way of stopping us from taking action and growing real.

For example:

You CAN’T climb a mountain because you’re a X PATIENT(but maybe you CAN still walk around the park and – actually – maybe you CAN climb that mountain but you don’t know unless you go find out).

You CAN’T listen to rock music you like because you’re a DEEP HOUSE HEAD (when actually you CAN listen to whatever you want).

You CAN’T wear a pink shirt because you’re a MANLY MAN (when actually you CAN).

You CAN’T express your true opinion because you don’t want to rock the boat as a RESERVED ENGLISH MAN (when actually you CAN say whatever you want if you’re willing to live with the consequences).

Etc.

The point is that most labels only focus your attention on the actions you “shouldn’t” take rather than the ones that you actually CAN and want to take to be authentic.

Labels keep you in the past when actually you can only find solutions in the present by moving towards the future.

Because labels are really just MENTAL CONCEPTS that you’ve picked up on your life journey, they’re just a summation of whatever STORY you’re telling yourself about where you think you’ve been.

This is fine as we all need to make ‘sense’ of our lives (understanding the limitations of ‘sense’ pointed out above) but the point needs to be made that every time you try and ACT OUT according to a label you’ve identified with then you’re just repeating the past.

In this sense, then, labels just reinforce the story you’re telling yourself about how you got where you currently happen to be.

If you’re HAPPY with where you are and you don’t have any desire to change or improve anything then that’s fine: keep telling yourself the same old story because it’s obviously working.

If you do have a desire to change or improve your life then that means you need to REWRITE the story and that means assessing your relationship with whatever ‘labels’ you’re giving yourself and identifying with.

Here’s something that can help you as you try to change and improve your life:

You can only find solutions in the PRESENT and they’re only really ‘solutions’ if they move you towards a FUTURE that you want to be living in.

In this context, the past isn’t really as impactful as you might have been led to believe. That doesn’t mean that you forget about the past or that you brush it aside – it just means that you need to work on ACCEPTING it so that you can focus on wherever you are now in a realistic way and then make a CHOICE about what you want to do with it.

If you’re too attached to labels that aren’t serving you and that are just reinforcing a story that’s holding you back, then you’re just DISTORTING your vision of what’s available to you here and now in the present; you’re also limiting your capacity to achieve something real and to ACT on the story of WHO YOU WANT TO BECOME IN THE FUTURE, not who your labels tell you that you’ve ‘been’ and still happen to ‘be’.

That might sound like an oversimplification but all it means is this: as long as you have a REAL VISION for the life you want to be living and the person you need to become to make that happen then the labels and stories you’ve told yourself about the past aren’t really that important.

Instead of labels you’re better off focusing on the skills and qualities you’re trying to develop to live the life you want to live.

A lot of people won’t like to read what I just said about the past not mattering that much in the scheme of things. It really doesn’t, though: what’s done is done and you either accept it and decide what you’re gonna do about it based on where you’ve currently found yourself or you just keep dwelling on it and don’t get anywhere.

When we ‘dwell’ on things it doesn’t mean that we’re actually growing, learning, or moving forward – it just means that we’re repeating the same old thoughts in our heads again and again like a hamster running around on a wheel.  Nothing ever changes and we never make ourselves any happier by doing this.

The main thing that keeps us on this ‘hamster wheel’ is the story we keep telling ourselves about who we are based on where we think we’ve been and the labels that we’ve attached to ourselves because of this. Every time we identify with those labels we’re just feeding into that BS story and greasing that hamster wheel so it can keep going.

To break free of the labels you need to ACCEPT where you’ve been and learn what you can from it and then follow this three-step process:

  1. Create a vision for where you want to be in the FUTURE.
  2. Be REAL with yourself about where you are in relation to that vision in the PRESENT.
  3. Start to become the person who can make that vision a reality by cultivating the SKILLS and QUALITIES you need to make it happen.

This process allows you to become the person you want to become whilst also embracing who you currently happen to be (based on the CHOICES you’ve made and what you’ve been through).

More importantly, it helps you to LEARN from the past without putting yourself in a box and limiting yourself because of the labels you’ve given yourself.

In this context, ‘Skills’ are just practical things you’ll need to be able to do to make your vision a reality (so let’s say you want to start a production company – you might need to learn videography, editing, marketing, etc.).

‘Qualities’ are just the personal traits you’ll need to tap into like ‘assertiveness’, ‘creativity’, ‘acceptance’, or whatever else.

In relation to your own life and vision these things will be unique to you alone and the experience you already have – what’s for sure though is that if you label yourself as just being whatever it is that you are right now then you won’t take the actions needed to grow REAL and you’ll just keep getting the same old story you already have.

Stop letting ‘labels’ hold you back and go and live the life you really want.

 

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

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You might be interested in

The Secrets of Extreme Creativity (How to Unblock and then Nurture your Creativity Whilst Keeping it Real).

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If you find yourself suffering from creative ‘blocks’, lacking creative motivation, or wanting to reawaken a slumbering creative drive then this article is for you.

Perhaps you’re frustrated because your creative work has become stale? Or maybe it hasn’t become…anything because it simply hasn’t even got started?

Maybe you’re starting to doubt yourself and wonder if you’ve ‘lost’ whatever creative talent you might have had? Or maybe you’re just starting to get bored of your own work because it’s all the ‘same old, same old’ and nothing new ever seems to emerges (just the same old themes and patterns with a little variation here and there)?

Don’t worry! This is totally normal and is just what happens when your RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF has stagnated and starts to reflect itself back at you in your relationship with your creative work (because your work is an EXTENSION of the thoughts and beliefs you carried when you first set out making it).

If you have this problem then what you need to do is: 1) Reframe your views of ‘creativity’ itself and, 2) learn how to understand the mechanics of how your relationship with yourself affects what’s creatively possible for you in one moment to the next.

If you improve your relationship with yourself so that it’s more closely aligned with REALITY and then ‘tweak’ your perspective on creativity a little then you’ll probably be fine.

This article will help you to get a fresh perspective on what creativity is and how you can change your relationship with yourself to ensure that you don’t prevent yourself from accessing your own natural creative drive because of false assumptions or BS that you’ve picked up somewhere down the line.

If you can understand what’s said here and – more importantly – make changes to your life and ACT on what you read, then the quality and quantity of your creative output will quite likely increase because you will have removed the main obstacle to both: YOURSELF.

Here’s what you need to know:

Anybody can be creative

Perhaps the first thing that you need to know about creativity is that EVERYBODY is creative when they’re being REAL.

Creativity is the natural state of a real human being because it’s the state that we evolved over millions of years to help us solve problems and to handle limitations.

If you find yourself telling yourself that “I’m just not a creative person” or anything similar then you need to put a STOP to that right now and realise that this is a self-limiting belief that you’ve picked up from outside of yourself somewhere (probably because you’re being outcome-dependent because the work you’ve done in the past didn’t get whatever results your ego needed).

We are ALL creative because we’re all human (I assume if you’re reading this). The ‘part’ or side of yourself that might be telling you that you’re not creative is actually just a false idea that you have picked up and identified with because of your unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and/or trauma almost always).

The first step to unblocking your creativity is to start reframing and embracing creativity as something that’s natural and refusing to pay attention to any thoughts you have that tell you that creativity is somehow ‘beyond’ whatever it is that you think you are.

If you can’t do that then you’re always going to have creative blocks because you’re blocking your ‘self’ from doing what it needs to do as part of your nature.

Creativity and growing real are inherently linked

In the language that I use on this site and in my books, GROWING REAL just means going through the process of removing some of your illusions about yourself, the world, and reality and developing a healthier relationship that is aligned with REALITY (not just your ideas or assumptions about it).

A lot of people out there tend to believe that ‘reality’ is somehow a ‘bad’ thing but actually uncovering and working with reality is one of the best things that can ever happen to you because it gives you a solid foundation to build your life on and to get better RESULTS (because at the end of the day the only thing that ‘works’ is reality and so if you don’t align with it you can’t get any results at all which just leads to friction, frustration, and then misery).

From this point of view, growing real (i.e. becoming a more authentic human being) and the creative process are inherently linked.

This is because – just as in life – in the creative process, you can’t get the results you want without getting out of your head (in terms of our assumptions, limiting beliefs, or distortions, etc.) and allowing something REAL to emerge as your ideas about your creative projects are refined in the furnace of creativity itself (the process of moving beyond ideas and actually doing the work).

Perhaps the most interesting thing in both cases – life and creative work – is that the main thing that stops us going with the process and allowing reality to take us where we need to go is our relationship with ourselves: in particular, our underlying emotional ‘stuff’ in the form of shame, guilt, and/or trauma.

When we have this unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ then we end up creating a FALSE relationship with ourselves so that we can try and distance ourselves from these emotions and to live without facing them. This might work as a short-term ‘solution’ but in the long-run it causes us to become further and further distanced from reality (and, thus, stop ourselves from getting the results that we want in life, creativity, or anywhere else).

The creative process, then, doesn’t just show us what reality is as we allow it to take us on a process of exploration; it also shows us who WE are.

If we’re not prepared to face ourselves and our emotional ‘stuff’ (and grow real) then we’ll be incapable of riding those creative waves all the way to shore in the form of whatever results our work is trying to bring us.

This is why we can say that growing real and creativity are inherently linked: if you’re not prepared to let your work show you your own blind spots or to help you work through your ‘stuff’ then you’ll always be creatively blocked.

The solution is to see your work as a testing ground for your own relationship with yourself and to be committed to learning about – and facing – the sides of yourself that your work may bring to the surface. This is your unconscious becoming conscious and taking you home. Go with it, not against it. You want to be REAL and your creative work is helping you get there (but only if you ‘let’ it).

Don’t block your natural drive to wholeness (this is creative synthesis)

The main difference between a REAL and UNREAL approach to life and creativity is that the real approach will always lead you towards WHOLENESS and the unreal approach will always lead you towards FRAGMENTATION.

The simplest way of understanding this is that ‘wholeness’ just means being involved in the process of moving towards CONNECTION in yourself, the world, and reality, whereas ‘fragmentation’ means moving towards DISCONNECTION or separation.

In PRACTICAL terms this shows up in the following ways:

At the level of the SELF wholeness (connection) means that we’re making choices that allows us to face and accept as many parts of ourselves as possible (embracing our Shadow ‘stuff’ that we might have been conditioned to disown or label as ‘unacceptable’ and try to hide).

This means that we’re attempting to be as honest with ourselves as possible at all times, embrace the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ things about ourselves, and to refuse to hide behind the mask of EGO or false personality because we have internalised shame or allowed the world to make us feel guilty for being whatever it is that we are.

At the level of the WORLD, wholeness means that we’re making choices that allow us to use our lives and creative work to SERVE others in a way that also serves our growth and our highest values.

This means that we are open to asking the world what it WANTS or NEEDS in relation to what we can OFFER when we’re being real with ourselves instead of only asking the world to want from us what we want it to want so we can keep our EGO in place (and keep hiding from ourselves and reality).

At the level of REALITY, wholeness means that we embrace the truth of life and creativity which is that both are VEHICLES FOR CHANGE.  This means that we know we will go into a creative project or process as one thing and come out another. This is because ourselves and our work end up becoming a living system and we will GROW and learn from our work as we create it (if we’re being REAL about it and with it).

This process of change through the living system of creativity is called CREATIVE SYNTHESIS.  It’s a ‘synthesis’ because the process takes all of the FRAGMENTED parts of us that we have at the start of the project and unifies them through the ebb of tension and release as we work our way through the project and carry ourselves to the finished results (whatever it is that we’re creating: a book, a business, a service, a life, whatever).

The most common way this process unfolds is as follows:

-We go into a project with certain ideas of who we are and what the finished project will look like.

-We start the work and face certain challenges because we realise that our expectations and assumptions are different to the reality (this means we’re finding our creative EDGE).

-We either RESIST learning and adapting because we want to keep our EGO in place (because we’re not ready to face our emotional and shadow ‘stuff’) or we ACCEPT and change and grow with the work until we get the final product.

If we take the path of RESISTANCE then we just end up being more fragmented in ourselves or staying the same. If we take the path of ACCEPTANCE then we grow more real and become more WHOLE  (and our work is a reflection of this in the form of transmuting our emotional ‘stuff’ into insight and getting RESULTS).

Actually, this movement towards WHOLENESS is natural and we all have a constant drive towards wholeness unfolding inside ourselves at all times (because we are systems and all systems are constantly striving towards balance and HOMEOSTASIS).

The problem is that we put blocks in the way of this natural drive with unnatural fragmented thoughts and beliefs that we picked up or hypnotised ourselves with.

To allow your drive towards wholeness/creativity to take you where you need to go (so your unconscious and conscious minds can BALANCE out through Creative Synthesis) then you need to detach from your thoughts and expectations and let the WORK teach you what you need to learn about who you really are (“The truth will set you free (but first it will piss you off and make you miserable” – Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness).

Take yourself out of the equation.

In relation to what we’ve said so far, the biggest BLOCKAGE to letting the creative process take you where you need to go is your SELF-IMAGE or ideas about yourself.

If you’re suffering from creative  blocks or you’re not being as ‘open’ as you need to be in order to get results and move forward with whatever you’re working on then your self-image is probably causing you to be more FRAGMENTED than you need to be (thus CLOSING the system that exists between you and your work and causing it to break down – i.e. not get results).

This is because your self-image/ego/whatever causes you to try and CONTROL your work instead of to COLLABORATE with it and to learn and GROW REAL as a result of this collaborative relationship.

This might show up in a number of ways but the most common are:

-Not being able to get started because of PERFECTIONISTIC ideas about the work because of how you want to see yourself(and so you keep deleting and starting again instead of letting the work be good enough and then refining).

-Needing the work to REFLECT ON you in  a certain way (instead of being reflected IN your work) and so skewing or distorting the process in an attempt to uphold your ego (instead of helping you grow through it). The most obvious sign here is that your work seems PRETENTIOUS/too try hard to others.

-Your work being an attempt to JUSTIFY or uphold the points of view that you’ve created to keep hiding behind EGO (instead of being an exploration of these views so you can find out what’s actually true and GROW REAL). Work like this just ends up being a reflection of AGENDAS, not truth (because we’re attached to the premises those agendas are founded on because of ego ‘stuff’).

-Etc.

In all  cases like this, using your work as an EXTENSION or AUGMENTATION of your self-image instead of a way to understand and grow through your self-image is holding you back.

The solution is to reframe the way that you see your creative work and  the creative process so that it’s not about ‘You’ but about what you can BECOME if you stay on a REAL path by collaborating with the work instead of fruitlessly attempting to control it.

Learn to keep learning.

Like we’ve said, creativity is ultimately about GROWING REAL and you can’t grow real if you don’t keep LEARNING (because growing real means testing your assumptions (etc.) about yourself, your world, and reality in the light of TRUTH and you can’t do that if you think you already know everything).

If you find that your creativity is blocked, then it means that you have taken yourself out of the natural flow of learning by only ever acting on things that you already think you know or want to believe and not living in such a way where you’re constantly having new experiences and acquiring new INSIGHTS that help you to grow in yourself and have more to SHARE with your work.

What this means in practical terms is that you need to keep pushing through the EDGE of yourself (your ideas about what you already know) and to live in a way that constantly brings new insight into your life.

This might mean ‘learning’ in more traditional sense like reading, doing courses, picking up new skills and qualities, getting coaching and uncovering AWARENESS about yourself, etc. – or it might mean learning in an experiential sense where you get out of your COMFORT ZONE and STRETCH yourself every week and “LEARN BY DOING”: this might involve starting a new hobby, meeting new people, trying a new project in a totally new way,  etc. etc.

The POINT is that if you only stay in your intellectual, emotional, and experiential comfort zones then you will just be living in a way that reinforces the self-image you already have instead of allowing you to get new INSIGHTS and have more to say in the creative work that you’re doing.

Short-version: If you’re struggling to express yourself creatively then you need to EXPAND your horizons and learn from life more.

Understand the natural flow of tension and release.

Real life works in natural cycles of tension and release (for example, the ebb and flow of the oceans, night and day, stress and relaxation, etc. etc. etc.).

In relation to our creativity, the tension is added by our attachment to CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE and IDEAS and release comes from EXPERIENTIAL UNDERSTANDING and ACTION.

This is clear in what we said earlier in this article about CREATIVE SYNTHESIS – our ideas about a project add the tension and this is released as we go through the creative process.  The end result is something new – or at least some RESULT – because these CYCLES of tension and release always end with something being CREATED.

That might sound a bit airy-fairy, but what it means in PRACTICAL terms for your own creative work is that if you’re struggling to get off-the-ground or you’re not getting results then your relationship with tension and release is out of balance.

Here’s what this can look like:

-If you find yourself being too TENSE then you just end up being a CONTROL FREAK who is caught up in Ego. This just leads to a lack of REAL action and the problems of perfectionism (etc.) mentioned above. You might also ACT a lot in this tense state but it’s not REAL ACTION, it’s just EGO ACTION that doesn’t take you through the process of CREATIVE SYNTHESIS (being ‘busy’ but not getting anywhere because you’re acting to AVOID or RESIST, no LEARN and face yourself and life).

-If you find yourself trying to rid your life of all tension and resistance then end up being not TENSE ENOUGH and being “so open minded your brains fall out”. In this state, you might have a lot of creative ideas but you never ACT on them (and so don’t get results in reality or you only act on the ideas that are in your COMFORT ZONE (and so don’t grow more REAL through creative tension).

When you’re being REAL, you have a balance of TENSION and RELEASE.

This means that you have a VISION for your creative work (or whatever else you’re using your creativity towards) and this adds a kind of TENSION as it directs where you’re going from one moment to the next. As you release this tension, you grow through your IDEAS about yourself and your expectations by taking consistent, focused ACTION towards the vision.

This combination of the TENSION between your future vision and where you are now, plus the RELEASE of creative ACTION allows you to build CREATIVE MOMENTUM that will allow you to grow real and to allow the project to emerge in a balanced way.

You need to understand the mechanics of this so you can work with it, not against it.

Realise that originality just refers to anything that comes from within.

Sometimes, you might stop yourself from moving forward with the creative process because you want to create something that’s completely ‘new’ or that’s never been seen before.

This actually just ends up stopping you from moving forward in any way, shape, or form because it’s a form of EGO and perfectionism and is setting you up for a very difficult task.

As the old saying says: “There’s nothing new under the sun”

This is actually very true and just about everything that could’ve been said about life and the human experience has pretty much been said already.

On top of that, it’s quite hard to CREATE something new from scratch because most of the things that are ‘created’ are just various combinations of things that already exist in life or nature (and you can’t bring something new into being in that sense).

The solution here is to realise that TRUE ORIGINALITY isn’t about appeasing your ego but about taking yourself on the journey of REAL GROWTH and uncovering INTERNAL INSIGHT as a natural consequence of this process.

When you keep moving forward and pushing into your EDGE through your comfort zone then you will be able to uncover new INSIGHTS that are original to you.

They’re original to you because they came from within and this will allow you to put them in a context that nobody else can or to express them in a voice that belongs to YOU and you alone.

You need to understand this so you live for this kind of ORIGINALITY and  become the original source of your own WORK and whatever it’s expressing (or, more accurately, the JOURNEY you’re on as you grow real is the source because you got out of your own head and allowed reality to show you something REAL).

Creativity is about working with our limitations, not being limitless (this is why it’s a very ‘human’ thing).

Another pitfall that a lot of people make – because of the ‘EGO’ stuff – is thinking that creativity somehow makes them LIMITLESS.

Actually, because creativity is just something that we evolved to be able to handle the challenges and limitations that come with being a  human being on a FRAGMENTED PLANET, then having limitations is actually a way to make you MORE CREATIVE.

This is because having some kind of limits on what you’re doing prevents ‘Analysis Paralysis’ and FORCES your mind/brain to come up with new solutions that help you grow THROUGH the limits by using the limits as a way to get there (“What stands in the way becomes the way”, as Marcus Aurelius said).

As an example, imagine that somebody has got a gun to your head and they’re telling you to “write a book” – this is far too LIMITLESS of a command and your brain would probably struggle to know what to write. Bang! Now you’re dead!

Now imagine that somebody holds a gun to your head and tells you to “write a sci-fi/cowboy/comedy/self-help book”. Having those generic limitations in place would allow your brain to make CREATIVE DECISIONS much more quickly and to get better results because having a box to start with allows you to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX (i.e. you can only do that if you have a box in the first place – the box adds TENSION that you can RELEASE).

It’s the same when you apply your creativity to your life and limit your choices to being aligned with your values and principles (for example).

What this means in a practical sense is that if you’re struggling to get off the ground with your creative work then you might not have enough (relevant) limitations that you’ve set to force your brain into action.  Find a way to add some and your brain will figure out the rest for you.

You need to be outcome-independent to allow your creativity to keep coming.

There are two ways to go about life and creativity (as an extension of living): either being outcome-dependent or outcome-independent.

In short, being outcome-dependent means that our levels of self-worth and self-acceptance are DEPENDENT on the outcome (or results) we get. For example, setting ourselves the creative goal of writing a bestselling novel and telling ourselves our work (and we, by extension) are worthless if we don’t achieve that goal.

Being outcome-dependent in this way is UNREAL because it stops us from moving forward  and adds UNNECESSARY friction or pressure to the creative process.

A better approach – in life and creativity – is to be outcome-independent. All this really means is that we know our own worth and accept ourselves regardless of whether or not we get certain results (so in the example given, we’d still feel AMAZING about ourselves and known we’d done our best work even if it wasn’t a bestseller).

Again, this goes back to our emotional ‘stuff’ and our relationships with ourselves: if we have a load of unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma then we’re more likely to be outcome-dependent and to outsource the good feelings we have about ourselves to the results we get.

This just means that the creative work we produce ends up being done in the service of the ego and not of our journey into GROWING REAL (which, ironically, means we’re more likely to produce work that less people relate to).

What you need to do to FREE and UNBLOCK yourself is to take an outcome-independent attitude to your work (and life).

In practical terms, this means that you have a general vision for where you’re going and what you’re trying to achieve but you allow yourself to EXPLORE and EXPERIMENT and  to learn what you can as you go about attaining the vision.

Essentially, you allow yourself to “DO YOUR BEST AND FORGET THE REST” which actually opens you up to be MORE CREATIVE because you increase the odds of allowing your work to help you grow real.

If you’re outcome-dependent, you will have invested your feelings about yourself in the work (and the desires and beliefs that come with these feelings) and so you probably won’t even get started because you’ve distorted your view of the work and DISTANCED yourself from it from the outset.

If you have writer’s block (or any other creative block) it’s usually because you haven’t done your research (and the greatest research is always living).

Essentially, what we’re talking about here is that if you have a creative block then you’re not LIVING in a REAL way.

The only way you can live in an unreal way is to act like you’ve got it all figured out, have experienced all there is to experience, and decide that the version of yourself that currently exists is the ‘final’ version (when in reality we’re all works in progress our whole lives long – you can always go deeper into the truth about life).

If you have block then it means that you haven’t done enough ‘research’ and therefore haven’t collected enough INSIGHT to be able to make the kind of connections you need to make intellectually, emotionally, and (even) spiritually about your life and what it’s showing you.

You need to learn to see life as a RESEARCH project:

-If you’re writing a novel, life will teach you the lessons that can serve as its creative themes.

-If you’re painting a painting, life will show you the metaphors that need to be expressed.

-If you’re designing a business, life will show you what people NEED and how you can solve their problems.

-If you’re writing a piece of music, life will teach you about the context of your own FEELINGS and how you can make them move (emotions are energy in motion as somebody once said).

The point is that if you have a BLOCK then you’re probably not seeing life in the realest possible way (usually because of that ‘ego’ thing).

Instead of acting like you’ve got it all figured out and then staring at a blank screen/canvas/whatever go out and find out – life will always give you SOMETHING that you can work with.

Don’t be scared to find your edge (that’s just your ego blocking your creative drives).

In short, the ‘secret’ of extreme creativity is about knowing where your EDGE is. This means doing some of the things that scare you by stretching yourself and PUTTING YOURSELF in situations that show you the edge of your comfort zone and help you to play with TENSION and RELEASE in the momentum you can build there.

If you’re reading this and you have some kind of creative block then there’s a very high chance that there’s something in your life that you’re NOT FACING. This may seem like some ‘external’ thing but actually you’re not facing it because of whatever is going on INSIDE you.

In these kind of situations, you need to ask yourself what QUALITIES in yourself are begging to come to the light of your consciousness – almost always, these qualities will be something that you’ve been forced to hide in the Shadow of yourself because it somehow got labelled as ‘unacceptable’ (by others and  then you).

Your EDGE is just the place where you’re close to finding and befriending these qualities again – your work is the perfect vessel for exploring them safely but your EGO won’t like it because what you learn in these explorations will change your ego forever.

Embrace this process and ride through the EDGE. There’s nothing to fear but it will help you to ride that natural drive towards wholeness and produce the work you need to produce in that moment.

Real creativity will always ‘change’ you by taking you deeper into yourself and life.

Essentially, what all of this boils down to is that REAL CREATIVITY WILL SHOW YOU YOUR REAL SELF AND WHAT REAL LIFE IS.

If you have consistent blocks that you just can’t seem to push through then you need to ask yourself what you’re RESISTING about who you really are and what life really is.

Your relationship to your own creativity is a microcosm of your relationship to LIFE as a whole.  The real question isn’t how creative are you but how ALIVE can you be if you let yourself?

Whatever blocks you have are within you and you can clear them out of the way by using your work to do two things (this applies in life too):

  1. Uncover the truth.
  2. Live the truth.

These two things are intertwined as part of the same process and the only thing stopping you from working it is: ‘YOU’.

Once your work is ‘out there’ it will still have things to teach you. Listen (that’s how you know where the next project will be found).

Finally, once your work is out in the world, you relationship with it will continue to deepen and to develop.

This will be most clear in the way that the INTERPRETATIONS that the world makes of what you’ve created are different to your own interpretations.

For example, maybe you’ll write a novel and think it ‘means’ a certain thing – what you’ll find is that other people will read your novel and think it means something totally different (for example).

When this kind of thing happens, you need to resist the urge to CLING to your own meaning and to allow new meaning to emerge between all of the COLLECTIVE interpretations of the work.

This is how you find out what your next project will be and where you need to go in yourself next (because in the gap between expectation and result is reality). Learn to listen and you will see that the process never ends and you can always go deeper.

That’s just ‘life’ and your creativity is your way into it.

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You might be interested in

How to know if you need a Personality Transplant (if you suffer these symptoms then here’s a guaranteed solution):

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Is it time for a Personality Transplant? Read on to find out!

The most important relationship in your life is your relationship with YOURSELF.

To some people reading this that sounds ‘selfish’ but, really, it’s just a matter of being REAL.

If your relationship with yourself is as good as it can possibly be then it has a number of incredible benefits that cascade into the rest of your life:

-You have better relationships with other people because accepting yourself makes it easier to accept them.

-You know what your true INTENTIONS and VALUES are and so you’re able to build a life with purpose that allows you to better SERVE other people.

-You’re happier because you’re getting authentic results from life and so you have less DRAMA with other people.

-You’re getting more DONE because when you improve your relationships with yourself you know what you really think and feel and know what to DO with this information.

-You’re more likely to take calculated RISKS that will allow you to get out of your comfort zone and actually reward yourself with experiences that you want (because you no longer allow a fear of failure to hold you back because you know that even if you do ‘fail’ your self-worth doesn’t need to be affected).

–Etc.

Unfortunately, for a lot of people in the world – and you may be one of them – we get CONDITIONED to stop trusting and believing in ourselves and to try and conform to standards, values, and intentions that have nothing to do with who we really are.

When this happens, we end up convincing ourselves that we need to change something that can never really be changed – the REAL version of ourselves – and this just ends up causing our lives to go into a state of disarray and for us to feel the chronic call of the VOID as we disown important parts of ourselves.

We disown these life-enhancing parts because society/the world/matrix/whatever makes us self-hypnotise ourselves into thinking that these ‘parts’ (really part of the WHOLE) are “unacceptable” and so we try to hide them in the Shadows of ourselves – see the book Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World which you can get for free elsewhere on this site.

These collective, “unacceptable” parts are actually our key to salvation because they contain the TRUTH about us and will allow us to rise again and to live a REAL life instead of the life we’ve created as an extension of the cage we’ve caused ourselves to live in because of the denial of all this Shadow ‘stuff’ and who we really are and can become.

If what you’re reading here, makes sense to you, then don’t worry because there is something you can do – no matter what your situation – you have to ACT, though, and the price of inaction will just be the consequences of staying on whatever path you’re currently on and to keep building on whatever results you’re currently getting (you know what that means in the context of your own life – just ask yourself: “IF I don’t do anything now where will I be in five or ten years from now?”).

What you need to do is to start looking at how your relationship with yourself at present is HOLDING YOU BACK from the life you really want and how the way you IDENTIFY with yourself is keeping some of the real parts of you at bay (or attempting to – these ‘parts’ are always showing up in our lives but that’s a story for another day).

What you probably need to do is give yourself what I have recently been calling a PERSONALITY TRANSPLANT.

That might sound painful or difficult but it’s actually a relatively pain free procedure that can allow you to make a lot of ‘internal’ progress in a relatively short amount of time (usually 7-Days if you’re ready to commit and actually start changing your own life).

What a Personality Transplant involves is just looking at the personality (aka Ego in the language we use here) that you’ve CHOSEN and CREATED for yourself and seeing where it’s holding you back from taking the kind of ACTION that you need and want to be taking to get where you need to be in life.

Here’s a list of some of the most common symptoms that people suffer unnecessarily from (‘unnecessary’ because it’s quite ‘easy’ to do something about it) when they might be ready to go through the ‘Personality Transplant’ procedure for themselves:

You need a Personality Transplant because you never get anything real DONE.

The clearest sign that you might be ready for a Personality Transplant is that you never get anything REAL done.

Yeah, you might spend your days ‘doing’ things but this doesn’t necessarily mean that these activities are fulfilling or that they help you build any momentum or move forward in life in the way that you want to (like the REAL stuff you could be doing).

Normally, when this happens it’s because you have developed an unreal personality that is out-of-sync with both the nature of life and reality themselves but also the nature of who you are in your REALNESS.

This happens for a number of reasons:

  1. You don’t appreciate life as what it really is and you think that you have all of the time in the world (hint: you don’t because you’re going to die one day).This leads to a problem where you don’t value your time, energy, and attention and so you give them to DISTRACTIONS that don’t deserve them.These distractions can be ANYTHING – depending on your underlying intention – but the most common distractions are things like:

    Meaningless activities like video games, Netflix, dramatic relationships, pointless jobs, trying to escape from boredom (you’re only bored because you haven’t figured out your purpose), etc. etc.

     

  2. You have been conditioned to become DETACHED from your true values and intentions and you are listening to EXTERNAL SOURCES of ‘authority’ about how you should live your life and what you should do with it.This external conditioning eventually turns into an internal monologue that we hypnotise ourselves with that causes us to feel shame or guilt around the actions we really want to be taking.Eventually, this shame and guilt turns into NEGATIVE THINKING or SELF-JUDGEMENT that causes us to start making excuses about why we can’t act in the way we want to act.

This way of RELATING TO OURSELVES just ends up turning into an unreal PASSIVE mindset that prevents us from acting in the world.

When we are operating and attempting to design our lives with these two driving forces in our lives – 1) giving into distraction because we don’t value our time, energy, and attention, and 2) hynotising ourselves to be passive – then we just end up ensuring that everything we do is motivated by something UNREAL.

A simple truth about life is this:

Unreal in, unreal out; real in, real out.

All that means is that if you are motivated to act (or not) from an unreal place (because of your conditioning, etc.) then then end result will also be unreal (and vice versa: a real intention leads to real actions and therefore real results).

If you’re not getting anything real ‘done’ then it means that you’re starting off from an unreal place and so you need to switch things up and change your relationship with yourself (with a ‘Personality Transplant’).

You need a Personality Transplant because you keep getting frustrated and that frustration will eventually turn into misery if you don’t do anything.

Naturally, if you keep failing to get the RESULTS that you want from life then you will eventually become frustrated. This is normal.

The problem for a lot of frustrated people is that they try and convince themselves that the source of their frustration is outside of themselves.

Instead of changing their approach to life – by changing the way they relate to themselves first and foremost – they will say things to themselves that attempt to deny reality and to keep their (unreal) personality in place.

Examples of what they might say:

“Life is so unfair.”

“I’m just not supposed to succeed.”

“I’m so unlucky.”

Or maybe – instead of changing themselves and their approach to life – they will start to try and  trick themselves into thinking they have control over the uncontrollable (reality) with all kinds of magical devices or philosophies:

-Hororscopes and astrology

-Crystals or other things that can explain away PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for our lives.

-Trying to ‘manifest’ things instead of taking action and REALISING things.

The point is that when we have unreal beliefs or use unreal systems to try and control life (instead of working with it) then we just end up distancing ourselves more and more from reality and prevent ourselves from getting RESULTS.*

This just leads to more frustration because of the friction between what we want and what we get from life.

If we don’t change our approach at a FUNDAMENTAL level (the most fundamental being our relationship with ourselves) then we just fall into the INSANE trap of “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Unless we WAKE UP and see the truth – which means changing something – then we become more and more frustrated and then this frustration just turns to MISERY.

The SOLUTION is to start looking at where your relationship with yourself is BLOCKING your view and stopping you from ACCEPTING the reality of yourself – when you can do that you will start moving with reality again (instead of against it) and your levels of frustration (and potential misery) will dissipate.

*This is why so many ‘spiritual’ people (etc.) are actually quite miserable – because they’re not using their spirituality to face reality (which might mean changing) but to keep hiding and to try and force reality to their will (which is impossible and thus brings friction, frustration, and misery).

You have problems with yourself, the world, and reality that you just can’t seem to solve. You need a Personality Transplant.

When we have (unconsciously) CHOSEN a personality for ourselves that is designed to keep the truth about ourselves and the world at bay then we constantly find ourselves with ‘problems’ that can never be solved.

The variation and complexity of such problems is myriad but the thing that they all have in common is that they linger and NO SOLUTION can ever be found.

The reason for this is that these problems only exist in your head because you’re unconsciously trying to hide the TRUTH about reality and life behind your personality (which you don’t want to change).

If you could let the TRUTH in then one of two things would happen:

  1. You’d realise that you didn’t have a problem – you just had something you needed to accept about life or were thinking in a way that caused you to DISTORT reality.
  2. You’d find a solution to the problem and then you’d DO something about it (and so no longer have a problem).

The point here is that if you find yourself having a lot of existential or other problems that never go away  then the actual ‘problem’ is with how you’re relating to yourself and how this is BLOCKING YOUR VIEW of things.

Normally, the only reason we want to block our view in this way is because we have some unresolved ‘emotional’ stuff (shame, guilt, trauma) that the view will involve looking at.

The ‘cure’ is to learn to look in such a way that it doesn’t hurt and you can grow through it and find a stronger foundation to stand on. This is the end result of the Personality Transplant.

You have a restless feeling that there’s ‘more’  to life.

When you’re being unreal with yourself you’ll constantly feel like there’s ‘more’ to life and that you can express more of your potential or do more with your life.

Some people feel like this for years and years (sometimes even their whole lives) because they never wake up and smell the coffee.

The reason you feel like there’s ‘more’ to life is because there is more to life – you’re just not experiencing it because you’re holding yourself back with an unreal personality and the cage of beliefs it’s locked you within.

When you have these unreal beliefs that make you PASSIVE, then you don’t go out and get the things that you want from life. This manifests as a feeling that there’s ‘more’.

Sometimes, we’ll try and trick ourselves into not GROWING REAL by saying that we should just be grateful for what we already have (which is often not very much if you have these mindset issues).

This is an example of ‘toxic gratitude’ and is just your ego’s way of ensuring you continue not to take action (and therefore grow in the process).

The other reason you might feel like there’s ‘more’ is because as well as denying yourself external experiences (etc.) you’re also hiding all those internal ‘parts’ of yourself in the ‘Shadow Territory.  Your craving for ‘more’ is a craving to be RECONNECTED to your REAL SELF and to become whole again.

You need a Personality Transplant because you constantly judge or criticise yourself which stops you moving forward.

When you take onboard all of the external conditioning of the world that we talked about and start hypnotising yourself into believing it then you pick up a  metric-f-ton of unreal standards according to which you can judge yourself by.

This shows up as:

-Negative self-talk

-Imposter syndrome

-Hypercritciality

-Outcome-dependence

-Etc.

This stops you from taking action and makes you feel ASHAMED to be/feel/think/do the things that you really want to be doing.

What you need to do in these kind of cases is realise that when you’re being REAL you can never judge yourself because reality is beyond the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of judgements.

You need to learn to stop listening to this unreal internalised voice and to start acting on a foundation of acceptance instead.

You can TRAIN yourself to do this and to start moving forward again.

You need a Personality Transplant because you feel like you’re stuck in a rut, just wasting your life doing the same old same old.

A clear symptom of having an unreal personality (that needs to be ‘transplanted’) is that you feel stuck in a rut, nothing ever changes, and you just keep going through the motions of doing the same old, same old.

You feel like you’re WASTING your life then the reason for this is that you are wasting your life because you don’t understand what life is (like we said above) and so you’re wasting your time, energy, and attention on distractions instead of DIRECTION.

Luckily, when you start getting back in touch with the real version of yourself by going through the Personality Transplant procedure then you will have a better understanding of your DIRECTION in the form of purpose and so things will start moving again.

Being stuck in a ‘rut’ just means that you have no VISION for the future or who you’re becoming on the way there.

Once you’ve started to look at what’s real about you, you will understand your true values and intentions, how you can create a vision around these things, and what skills and qualities you need to develop to MAKE IT HAPPEN.

When you’re armed with this information, it’s a lot easier to move – even if only a little every day – and to stop wasting your life on the same old, same old of the comfortable but familiar.

You need a Personality Transplant because you suffer from anxiety and depression that you can’t quite explain.

In many many cases, anxiety and depression are not fundamental problems but SYMPTOMS of the deeper issue of having an UNREAL relationship with yourself and allowing this relationship to remove you from reality.

Before you smash the REALITY RESET BUTTON and give yourself a Personality Transplant, you can just end up causing problems for yourself that lead to mental health issues:

Anxiety is often caused by engaging with yourself in an unreal way because you have created a false image of yourself based on false assumptions about who you are, what the world is, and how reality works.

When you interact with the world from the vantage point of this false image then you are constantly getting NEGATIVE FEEDBACK from reality in the form of unmet expectations and a lack of results.  This constant friction would cause anybody to be anxious.

Depression is often caused by not listening to the FEEDBACK you get from your anxiety and so clinging to our false self-image instead of changing it: this just causes frustration that turns to misery (depression).

The other fundamental problem that causes depression is that you have lost touch with your PURPOSE because you have picked up a PASSIVE BELIEF SYSTEM that caused you to stop moving.  All human beings need to keep moving to be fulfilled – if we lack purpose our emotional life reflects this.

If you suffer from anxiety and depression then it’s probably a result of the lifestyle choices you are making based on your relationship with yourself.

Medication (etc.) may mask these symptoms in the short-term but to solve the fundamental problem you might just need to give yourself a Personality Transplant and start moving again.

You need a Personality Transplant because you don’t trust and believe in yourself enough to build the relationships you want and get the results you need.

Our unreal personalities are always caused by underlying SHAME, GUILT, and/or TRAUMA that we are not prepared to face.

When you don’t face these emotions you end up blocking them behind an unreal version of yourself and spend your whole life engaged in CONTROL FREAKERY in order to support this false version.

Living in this manner stops you from building real relationship and getting real results.

This is because – at some level – you end up doubting yourself and failing to trust and believe in your CAPACITY to do the things you need to do and to relate to people in a way where you recognise your own VALUE and serve people in an appropriate way.

If you don’t have the kind of relationships in your life that you want to have then you need to learn to push through the underlying emotional ‘stuff’ and to learn to accept yourself UNCONDITIONALLY (which can be done).

When you can do that you’ll have a better relationship with the world and will get the results you want from life as an extension of that.

You want your life to change for the better but it never does.

In short, if you’ve been trying to change your life for a while but never get anywhere then you need to try and change your personality from an unreal one to a real one.

This means getting out of your comfort zone – which is an extension of your current identity, not reality – and to find your EDGE.

This means stepping up and giving yourself a Personality Transplant – if you don’t then things are going to continue to never change and before you know it your life will nearly be over and you’ll be battling regrets.

Giving yourself a Personality Transplant isn’t that ‘hard’ but takes a little commitment (to yourself and the life that you want).

It involves things like:

-Creating a REAL vision for yourself.

-Deconditioning yourself from all of the external things that have made you hide from yourself.

-Looking at your self-limiting beliefs.

-Seeing where you’re being too PASSIVE or NEGATIVE in your thinking.

-Exploring what parts of yourself you’re denying and what GIFTS they have to offer you.

-Looking at how you can STRETCH yourself and find your EDGE.

-Learning to understand how you might be causing yourself to be FRAGMENTED.

-What you’re not accepting about yourself and life.

-How you can use your time, energy, and attention more effectively.

-Plus a load more.

If you’ve already waited long enough to start making changes then you can get started right NOW by signing up below– this will give you access to a 7-Day course that will allow you to figure this stuff out in the context of your own life and to start getting results and moving again FAST (if you don’t want to leave this site, check out the Personality Transplant intro video below).

This is a donation-based course so anybody who is in the small group of people that are ACTUALLY ready to work on themselves can have access to these life changing ideas and be rewarded for their commitment to life itself (‘donation-based’ means pay what you want even nothing – this is an incredibly valuable course though so if this article resonates and you don’t take it then you need to ask yourself what’s blocking you).

Real life is just around the corner but you gotta step up and TAKE IT.

Many thanks for reading and I hope you get where you need to be,

 ————-

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Unicorns (from Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World)

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This is a sample chapter from the book Shadow Life: Freedom From BS in an Unreal World:

When we send our soul into hiding because of our fears about ourselves, the world, and reality and the perceived threat (to the Ego) of facing the Shadow Territory then our soul will keep screaming to us from beneath the surface of our unreal faces in an attempt to get our attention and wake us up again.

That’s all fine and dandy but we need to discuss another element of this unwholesome process of hiding ourselves from ourselves:

This element is the Unicorn.

In the terms of what we’ve been talking about in this book, a ‘unicorn’ is really just a vessel for all of the hidden qualities in ourselves – ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ – that allows us to gain a sort of unconscious control over the externalisation of our Shadow and its hidden messages.

It’s a way of experiencing our hidden qualities but without having to face the Shadow Territory and all of the uncomfortable work and the ego-reconfiguration that comes with it.

In short, a unicorn is a kind of ego protection device that allows you to deflect the whispers from the Shadow Territory so that you can remain the same. It’s another, more subtle, form of Control Freakery.

Our consumerist society is basically fuelled by unicorns and, with the rise of social media and the ability it gives us to fine-tune and tailor our image of ourselves and the way that we share with the world, we can even make unicorns of ourselves.

It’s all bullshit, though.

You need to be aware of unicorns and how they have a hold over you if you want to free yourself and forget about the hopelessness of being a fragmented version of who you are in your wholeness.

The most terrifying part of all this is that a unicorn can be literally anything: another person, an object, an intangible concept or idea, or even something that doesn’t even exist.

To make a unicorn of something, all we have to do is project a bunch of heightened symbolic meaning onto it and convince ourselves that it has certain qualities and attributes that we feel we lack in ourselves because of our conditioning and the BULLSHIT we believe about who we are.

In a sense, these unicorns are just an external manifestation of some image that our ego carries. They’re the bullshit belief that the conceptual or interpretational can be real but – as we’ve said in earlier sections of this book – no concept can ever be real and no interpretation is the truth.  Maybe some point more closely towards ‘the truth’ than others but the concept or interpretation itself is simply a signpost or tool.

Worshipping the concept instead of the reality is always going to leave you being removed or disconnected from the whole and that is the main problem with unicorns.

The short version, then, is that unicorns are a substitute for reality that are given heightened meaning because of our hidden emotional ‘stuff’. Because we’re not ready to own that ‘stuff’, because doing so will threaten our ego, we end up projecting it out into the world so that we can still feel it without realising that it’s coming from within ourselves.

It sounds a bit convoluted maybe but it’s pretty simple if you get some examples:

Perhaps the most common place where this unicornisation shows up to protect our egos is in romantic relationships.

We’ve already agreed that romantic relationships that are based on realness can threaten our masks because we can’t really avoid being vulnerable in those contexts.

If we resist this vulnerability, however, we can end up in a co-dependent or dysfunctional relationship where instead of real meeting real we find ego meeting ego.

Most of us have had these kinds of relationships at some stage in our short, miserable lives: they’re defined by a certain sense that something isn’t quite ‘right’ and by a push-pull dynamic as everybody’s conflicting attachment styles lead to a kind of ego dance where nobody really wants to stay and nobody really wants to leave.

This kind of ego dance is what we commonly call ‘drama’, kids.

For whatever reason, we stay in these relationships because they’ve ‘activated’ something within us that we don’t believe we can get outside of the relationship (or we just wanna get laid on the regular, whatever).

This ‘activation’ is part of the Unicorn Trap (aka ‘Unicornitis’).

Even though the relationship is distinctly unhealthy overall, we stick around because we believe we ‘love’ the other person (which we might, but that doesn’t mean we have to have a relationship with them – ‘love’ and ‘compatibility’ aren’t necessarily the same thing).

We probably even have moments of tenderness or intimacy with them – though they are few and far between in comparison to all the push-pull ego drama that unfolds the rest of the time.

Really, what’s happening in this context is that two people who don’t accept themselves are turning the other into a vessel for the feelings of unconditional self-acceptance that they’ve been hiding from themselves.

Read that last paragraph again because it might save years of your life.

It’s a kind of unspoken ‘deal’ that nobody even knows they’re taking part in: “we don’t accept ourselves but we can pretend to accept each other” – something like that, anyway.

The only reason you’d stay in an unhealthy relationship is because you don’t accept yourself in the first place but the feeling you get of being whole or understood in those rare moments of tenderness and intimacy are enough to keep you ‘hooked’.

What you don’t realise, though, is that those feelings aren’t coming from the other person – they’re already inside you and always have been.

You’ve just used the other person as a unicorn which means they serve as a vessel for you to be able to feel a degree of acceptance (or whatever else you’ve been ‘lacking’ because of your disconnection from yourself) without having to actually accept yourself and destroy your current version of the ego.

This is usually because – for whatever reason – you’ve been conditioned somewhere along the line not to give yourself permission to accept yourself and so you have to go about it in these strange and sophisticated ways.

Like I said, I used to be an emotional retard so I’ve been in this situation once or twice myself. I’m not gonna beat myself up over it or anything because I’ve seen a whole bunch of my friends in similar situations so I guess it’s just part of the ‘growth’ process.

A real, healthy relationship is when we use the context of the relationship to shave away layers of fragmentation and grow more real together by finding the Edge (see a later chapter).

The Relationship of Unicorns is what happens when you want the ‘relationship’ part but not the growth – once again because real growth would mean facing the Shadow Territory and seeing the emptiness of the ego.

Even with the ‘real’ relationships there’s a period where things start to settle down and we realise that we’ve created an idea or unicorn of the person we’ve been ‘seeing’.

Normally, we call this the ‘Honeymoon Period’ – all that’s really happened is we’ve projected all of the qualities we lack in ourselves on to this creature we’re now infatuated with and think that they have the answer to the question of our missing soul (which, don’t forget, we’re always on the quest to rediscover).

Over time, once we realise that we’re dealing with a real human being and not a fantasy, we have a rocky return to reality, and then we either stick around in the relationship and commit to trying to see what’s really there – or we move onto our next fix because we need to keep that ego in place and avoid the Shadow Territory.

Humans, eh? We’re all screwed.

Really, this idea of our “missing soul” sums it all up – if the soul is the whole within us, then we will naturally be attracted or repelled by the missing parts of ourselves in the objects of our worship or disgust (unicorns).

Not all examples are as dramatic as the romantic relationships we find ourselves in; there are plenty more mundane examples that we see around us day after day but they’re all based on the same principle of somebody subconsciously trying to fill the void inside themselves instead of simply becoming the void and closing the gap between themselves and the rest of the world and reality.

An obsession that many people have had over the last few years is ‘superheroes’ – obviously, Batman and Superman and whoever else have been around for almost a century so it’s not brand new or anything, but thanks to the popularisation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is basically just an expensive soap opera) people have gone next level in their fanaticism and their fervour for vicarious heroics.

We sometimes forget that the word ‘fan’ is short for ‘fanatic’ which means “Marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea”.

Where does this ‘excessiveness’ or ‘intensity’ come from?

From BULLSHIT, of course.

Being excessively enthusiastic or intensely devoted to anything is probably never a good idea but feeling that way about made-up characters in tights suggests that there’s something extra missing in one’s soul that needs to be remedied if one is to ever sort the problem of one’s life out.

We already spoke about ‘heroes’ in an earlier chapter and you don’t really have to be a genius or anything to put the pieces in place and make the connections here, but all of this ‘Hero Worship’ doesn’t really have anything to do with the tights that these guys are wearing – or the adventures that they get in – as much as it does the QUALITIES that they embody and the qualities that have been denied in the people that are unicornising them.

Look, I’ll be totally honest and admit that I watched more than a few of those Iron Man movies – they’re great entertainment and Robert Downey Junior is the man.  I get it.

When I found myself watching these movies, though, it was at a bit of a low point in my life: I’d lost touch with my purpose, I wasn’t working on a book or anything like that, I’d probably just come out of some dysfunctional relationship after unicornising some chick and trying to solve all my mummy and daddy issues, and I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing with myself.

I always end up quoting Henry David Thoreau who said that “Most men live lives of quiet desperation” – look around you and tell me this isn’t true.

Why do most people find themselves in this state?

Because they don’t trust and believe in themselves, they have no vision for their real growth, have lost touch with their purpose, and are waiting for things to make complete ‘sense’ instead of taking the little bits of sense that they do have and making something more with it.

More than this, many – if not most – end up beaten into submission and living as the mask so that they can fit in with the rest of society and live comfortable but miserable lives in the safety of their socially, emotionally, and spiritually ‘acceptable’ personalities.

They’ve shrivelled away and gone into hiding but – as we’ve pointed out – the drive for wholeness and the quest for the soul never stops.

You’re looking for your soul right now. That’s probably why you’re still reading this shit.

Listen, here’s something you need to know and embrace about human beings, if you don’t already:

Every single one of us is fucking awesome.

Really.

We have been designed as goal-seeking, purpose-chasing forces of nature that constantly grow towards wholeness.

We’re not supposed to be shrivelled up and living in a “quiet” or “desperate” manner. That’s something we have to learn because of shame or guilt or trauma.

When people are becoming fanatical about Tony Stark – or any other superhero or unicorn – what they’re really becoming obsessed with is the qualities that they’ve denied within themselves for whatever reason.

Tony Stark doesn’t need permission to do whatever the frick he wants; he doesn’t live meekly; he doesn’t sit around wasting his potential and living a miserable life working in an office cubicle and then going home to his bored wife and snotty kids.

All of the things this guy embodies are exactly what the people who become obsessed with him are lacking in themselves.

But here’s the kicker: They don’t really ‘lack’ it; they’ve just been taught to deny it.

Their obsession is a sign that they need to reawaken these qualities in themselves to grow whole – the mere fact that they even recognise these qualities in whichever hero they end up worshipping means that the quality is definitely somewhere inside them already.

If it wasn’t, they couldn’t recognise it.

All these comic book nerds and other Hero Worshippers have suppressed their heroism (not the unhealthy kind, discussed earlier, but the need for real purpose) and so they’ve turned to unicorns. They don’t wanna face themselves so they experience these qualities through the vessel of [some super hero / rock star / product / whatever].

The tendency to worship unicorns is also used against us all the time for marketing purposes. It’s done by having companies spend millions of pounds on ‘audience research’ which is really just about helping them to understand the masks we wear, our aspirations, and the pain points that led to us being frustrated and unreal with ourselves in the first place.

When we’re queuing for hours through the night to get our hands on the latest [iPhone], or whatever, it’s not the actual object that we’re queuing for but an opportunity to be returned to our own souls for a little while.

Really, in the case of an iPhone, we’re literally just queuing for a bunch of minerals and plastics.

Yes, the coming together of these materials has great functional value in allowing us to better interact with the world and communicate with the people we love and care about or whatever, but, really, any phone on the market can do that these days and we don’t see the hipsters getting in line to buy those with such fanaticism.

Nope, for these unsavoury characters, the iPhone has been heightened to the level of a unicorn (though, to be honest, way less people give a crap about iPhones than they used to – thanks, Universe!).

Instead of it just being plastic and whatever else, it has become a vessel for storing all the missing parts of the human soul and connection to reality that makes life actually worth living.

Because these people don’t wanna get directly in touch with their souls because that would mean denying the ego and having to face the reality of flux and change and all of the complicated things that come with it (DEATH), they decide to outsource these qualities instead and get in touch indirectly.

I’m making assumptions because I’ve never queued for anything in my life unless totally necessary, but I guess the people who act in this strange manner get to feel a sense of superiority because they have some high-status (to other lonely people) technology, they feel a sense of belonging because the Apple Store Monkeys are all clapping for them, they’re getting attention because they might get their picture in the paper, and they get to see themselves as people who “think different” and are unique because of the advertising campaigns – just like everybody else!

It’s all BULLSHIT though (as you probably guessed).

If we take the ‘reverse engineering’ approach, we can make the assumption that a lot of these people really feel inferior, that they don’t really belong anywhere, that they never get any attention and are unworthy, and that they’re just sheep who have to make a concentrated effort to stand out from the crowd.

Those poor bastards.

Honestly, the human ego can make a unicorn out of just about anything in order to protect itself and stop us facing the Shadow Territory and grow through things.

‘Pretentiousness’ is another interesting example, because in this case people make a unicorn out of other people’s work and their ‘understanding’ of it or of abstract ideas and theories that they attach their identities to for ego-augmentation.

It might be something simple like ‘music’ – many of us have probably all been through the ‘edgy teenage music fan’ stage where we think that listening to obscure bands and avoiding things that are mainstream makes us ‘better’ in some way. I even know adults in their 30s and 40s that are still doing that crap – how insecure can you get?

It can happen with whole fields of thought too, though.

For the last few years, I’ve worked with a lot of designers and I must admit that some of them have been the most pretentious people I’ve ever met in my entire life.

In this case, they turned the whole concept of ‘Design’ into a unicorn, allowing it to become imbued with all of the qualities that they want to embody themselves but secretly fear that they never can: a sense of control over the world and the shaping of it, a sense of style and sophistication, a need to be creative and cool, etc.

I’m not saying that design isn’t amazing (look at what we’ve done for the world with it); I’m just saying that a lot of insecure people become attracted to it because of the way that it can be used as a unicorn that helps strengthen their desired image of themselves.

‘Philosophy’ is another unicorn so is ‘Mental health’ or ‘Writing’ – there are billions of them.

The point is that we take mere things or actions and then put all of our ‘stuff’ into them so that we can avoid our own souls.

If you look around you, you’ll see that the world is built of unicorns.

Which means it’s all bullshit.

If this inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

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Stop Underestimating Yourself and Overestimating Others.

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Comparisons are odious (that’s how the old saying goes, anyway).

If you compare your behind-the-scenes footage of your own ‘stuff’ to somebody else’s highlight reel then you’re gonna have a BAD time.

In fact, you might not even have a ‘bad’ time because you probably won’t even get started – you’ll just kinda be…stuck.

A lot of you never get going because you’re too busy COMPARING your own perceived weaknesses to the strengths of other people.

Or you COMPARE the results that somebody else has got after years and years of working away at it with wherever you happen to be right now.

You compare superficialities like how good looking somebody is or how charming or how well they can speak or whatever else…

NONE OF THAT STUFF MATTERS, THOUGH.

That’s just your ego trying to keep you where you are so you don’t STRETCH yourself and start growing REAL again.

The TRUTH is that to get stuff ‘DONE’ you only need to follow a simple two-step process:

1. BELIEVE it can be done.

2. Do the WORK to get it done.

Yeah, there’s a few more things that take place somewhere in between – like TRUSTING and BELIEVING and allowing what needs to happen to happen as you take each step – but that’s the gist of it.

The main difference between ‘You’ and whoever you might be comparing yourself to is that they’re NOT comparing themselves to anybody.

The TRUTH is that you can’t compare anyway – we’re all on our own paths, we all have our own cocktail of strengths and weaknesses, we all have our own crosses to bear.

Comparisons are just a form of RESISTANCE – like we said, it’s your EGO’s way of trying to find reasons not to get started because if you do then the odds are you’ll succeed and so your ego will get a software update (which it can’t stand as that means learning and integrating our ‘stuff’ along the way).

Gain some PERSPECTIVE and see things CLEARLY.

If other people have found a way to do it, then there’s no reason why you can’t too – the only EXCUSES are the one’s you tell yourself when you’re trying to believe that other people are ‘special’ and you’re not.

If you do the work you’ll get there; if you don’t, you won’t.

Know your VALUE and share it.

Let me coach you and I can help you get where you know you can be.

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Action Kills Fear. Bullshit Makes it Worse.

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The more time you spend away from reality, the greater your FEAR of returning to it.

The TRUTH is that you know deep down when you’re being UNREAL – even if you hide behind layers of masks and BS.

The REAL you is ALWAYS calling to you beneath the surface of yourself and will show up in all kinds of CREATIVE and DESTRUCTIVE ways to get your attention and bring you back home:

-Maybe it’ll call you through the whispered sympony of your own restlessness.

-Maybe it’ll PROJECT the parts of yourself you’re trying to disown out into the world around you so you have to EMBRACE them anyway.

-Maybe it’ll DERAIL or sabotage your goals and relationships because it KNOWS that you got into them for UNREAL reasons and it wants to show you something TRUE.

One thing for sure is that you’re ALWAYS involved in the process of RETURNING BACK TO WHOLENESS whether you know it or not – the problem is that you BLOCK it by resisting life but you can only resist for so long and you can’t hide behind anything REAL (read that again).

When you’re trying to resist the return back to the TRUTH about yourself then you get involved in all kinds of CONTROL FREAKERY, HOLDING BACK, and HESITATIONS.

All of these patterns are just your EGO’s attempt to try and keep the REAL YOU at bay so it can keep tricking itself into thinking it exists.

When you get CAUGHT up in this state, then your overall state becomes a FEARFUL one.

It’s fearful because everything about it is rooted in BS:

-The BS that you carry about yourself and keep hypnotising yourself with.

-The BS that you carry about the world that stops you showing up in it.

-The BS that you carry about reality that stops you moving and pushing through.

This FEAR is about taking the first steps and returning back home because you have become DEPENDENT on all of the illusions that stop you going there.

The more you resist, the worse it gets, until eventually that REAL SELF will EXPLODE from beneath the surface.

To KILL the FEAR, you need to start RESISTING YOUR RESITANCE and taking ACTION – only then will you see that there is nothing to fear.

Once you’re home, you’re WHOLE, and everything else is just gravy.

 

Let me coach you and help you take actions that will change the game for you.

 

 

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You Were Born Wild then Made Crazy.

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There’s a wildness in you that can set you FREE if you unlearn to RECLAIM it.

This is because – no matter who you are or what you think your life is about – you were born to survive and THRIVE on the earth and the earth is a wild place.

It’s easy to forget about the WILDERNESS inside us all and the WILD CHILD that’s screaming for attention from deep down in the SHADOWS of ourselves.

It’s easy to forget about all of the PASSIONS, DRIVES, and INSTINCTS that have been buried down there in the depths.

It’s easy to forget who we are when we live in a ‘World’ that’s built only for the little ‘parts’ of who we are and never the WHOLE thing.

When you were born you came with EVERYTHING that you needed – yes, you needed the protection of your parents but the seeds of who you were had already been planted and just needed nuturing and nourishing so the FRUIT could RIPEN.

The problem is that a lot of the ‘WILD’ stuff that you need to channel and transmute to GROW REAL and get where you need to be was DENIED in the face of ‘The World’ and so you started to go a little CRAZY.

What is “crazy” when you think about it?

Crazy is just a lack of alignment with the TRUTH.

If the TRUTH is WHOLE and you begin to identify with just parts of yourself and deem the ‘socially unacceptable’ parts of yourself – like your joy, creativity, and spontaneity; like your anger, drive, and passion – just so you could fit in and identify with a limited interpration of the truth to be of ‘the world’ then tell me…

Is that not ‘crazy’?

Your craziness is ANYTHING that makes you believe that all of the WILDNESS and chaos within you is to be AVOIDED.

That’s just the LIES you’ve been told and then started to hypnotise yourself with so that you can be easier to CONTROL and so that the other crazy people in your world can keep up their own ILLUSIONS about things.

Growing REAL is about ACCEPTANCE of the TRUTH and if the truth is WHOLE that means accepting and embracing the whole of who you are.

There is so much POWER within you but you need to stop being CRAZY and embrace the fact that you were born of the EARTH and that means that you have the wildness within you.

Get ROOTED in the REAL.

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