Author: Uli

by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Powerstruggles

“Growth is uncomfortable. Don’t run, it will only follow you. Don’t hide, it will only scare you. Sit. Breathe. Feel the fibers of your being tear apart so that the light may shine through. Dare to grow so that you can experience a new world.” 

This quote by @doveism on instagram made me pause. I remembered what I’m here for. I’m here to move ahead – and not along.  

Nope, growth is everything but comfortable. And it doesn’t get any easier. Actually it even gets harder, because the path of truth becomes more narrow the further you go…

Recently I have been hiding. But I didn’t really want to face the fact that I’m hiding.

Since months I’m elaborating my ‘running patterns’. I figured out that I used to run from relationships, from responsibility, from accountability… all this serious stuff.

This morning I took a bath. And while I was soaking in the lukewarm water in a meditative state it came crashing down on me: The thing I’m hiding from (and in this sense running away from) is my own strength. Instead of my willpower I’m still applying some sort of self-pity when it comes to making tough decisions.

I reached a point in my life where I have to make a decision. Do I want to tap into my power, yes or no? Do I want to work in the name of my own values? Do I want to fight the good fight for good? Or do I want to keep talking about it? 

‘I don’t know if I can do it’ – How many times did I doubt my abilities? How many times did I thought ‘This time I reached a dead end.’; ‘This time I’ve gone too far’, ‘This time I’ve lost it.’ (Well, what is there to lose anyway?) How many times did I nearly drop this whole self-development thing and chose the trodden path? 

And how many times did I expand in the end? How many times did I grow above me?

‘Dare to grow’ – Thanks Dove for the reminder to be courageous.

The time is now. Come on, universe, tear those fibers apart!

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Writing Experiment

Compassion is Nothing to Achieve

Compassion is something you grow naturally.

How do you grow it?

By crossing your boundaries – once in a while and realizing that it doesn’t necessarily do you any harm.

By experiencing life outside of your comfort zone you become more sensitive to other people’s comfort zone.

Time after time you will realize that your precious standards are based on a value system that is printed in your genes.

All of a sudden you will see clearly that the life you have built is a reflection of your conditioning. (Yes, I am repeating myself, because you don’t get it. )

Compassion is nothing you earn. Compassion is not a skill. Compassion is also not your virtue. (Well…. Is it? I will think about it.)

Compassion arises in the moment when you give away your power. Compassion is what arises when you can see through this conditioning.

All of a sudden you will be able to look somebody in the eyes and SEE them and treat them like a human being – no matter if they live on the street, no matter if they are black or white, drunk or sober, if they are rich or poor, a sinner or a saint, if they wear a mask or not……..

It is when you stop taking yourself so fucking serious….

When you stop expecting that the world is appearing and behaving accordingly to your anticipation.

Your ego will just drop and you will feel the other.

What we have here is a golden cage and we are desperately searching for that door to get out…

What we don’t understand is that we just have to sit still and let the dust settle.

The door is right there. We just can’t see it because we are stirred up by threat and propaganda.

What does this have to do with compassion?

Everything.

Because as soon as we don’t take our own selves so fucking serious anymore we will realize how ridiculous the restrictions are that we impose on ourselves…

The walls we are building are getting higher and higher.

The paranoia is getting more threatening and threatening because we don’t see what is behind the wall?

We are trying to find a national solution for a global problem…

What we truely need is a connection with our human needs. And these needs don’t have a passport. They don’t have a legal basis. They don’t have regional boarders.

They are just based on compassion for oneself, for our bodies and our minds – for us and for our neighbours…

Amen.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

‘Do-Nothing-Challenge’ – Looong Update After Two Weeks

“You don’t have time to meditate for ten minutes a day? Then do it for one hour..” This became my philosophy – at least for the past two weeks…

Two weeks ago – in a casual moment of ‘overwhelm’ – I decided to gift myself one hour of silence a day.

I’m fourteen days into the ‘do-nothing-challenge’ – it is harder than I expected (of course, haha), but more than necessary.

I have to admit – I skipped one day. On Friday last week I had some drinks with my colleagues and afterwards I went straight to bed. 

But I decided to not be too hard on myself…

On many days I had problems arriving within myself. 

I was so caught up in daily tasks and the high demands I still have on my personal development. 

A lot of days I would sit down impatiently, waiting for the time to pass – desperately looking for connection with my true self. 

I would have problems even concentrating for one minute. Instead I would ask myself if I would ever come back to myself?

Slowly a sensation inside of me awoke. I could spot my own resistance. The harder I try to focus the less I’m allowing my body and my mind to rest. 

The challenge evolves – day after day…

Quickly I realized that it doesn’t make sense to make this challenge about focus or ‘achieving’ connection. It is impossible to ‘achieve’ connection – I rather ‘allow’ it. I only have to allow myself to ‘be’….

Instead of following a specific meditation technique, I’ve decided to allow myself to go wherever I want to go – at this point in time…. 

What can I do towards my own healing? What is my soul calling upon? What does my body need? 

These are questions that come up.frequently  to come – not necessarily to my mind, but to my senses..

Sometimes my body feels so tired that I have to lay down for my meditation. Sometimes I’m staring at a candle for one hour. Sometimes I’m falling asleep. Sometimes I clean myself with the violet flame. Sometimes I pray for my soul tribe. Sometimes I pray for the whole world. 

Two days ago for example I was meditating with my favourite stone to help me clear my thinking: the fluorit. Also I’ve started to work with energy healing tools like the “tibetian eight”. 

More and more I’m listening to the demands of my body instead of following a strict routine. 

I am very flexible with the way I’m spending this hour. Sometimes I’m sitting on a pillow, on a carpet or on my yoga mat. Some days I’m laying in my bed, other days I’m laying on the ground. Last Tuesday I joined a sound bowl meditation at an urban salt cave here in Munich. The frequencies helped me to destress my nervous system…

The only conditions that I have upon this challenge is that I’m not allowed to ‘tense up’. If I catch myself clinging to worries and negative self-beliefes I’m directing my attention towards source or my sacral or solar plexus chakra. And if necessary I’m manipulating my parasympathikus by deep breathing or breathing exercises like square breathing. 

Slowly I’m developing my very individual tools to arrive in the present moment. And this is kind of my first learning.

I’m Not a Victim of My Thinking

In this hour – and possibly in every moment of my life – I can choose. I can choose if I want to consciously be aware of my reality. Or I can choose to drift away. I can choose to fall for destructive patterns over and over again or I can choose to heal. I can choose to think positive and move towards the light. I can choose expansion – or contraction. It is totally up to me. 

If I don’t want to become a victim of them I HAVE to choose my thoughts. There is a sentence roaming around in my head since I’ve started this job at the reception of a very busy and – let’s call it ‘socially challenging’ hostel: “Stress you didn’t have, you didn’t have”. 

I can totally choose how I react in any given situation. And by reacting I’m not only talking about physical action, but also my mental response to it. I caught myself worrying over and over again. What will the future bring? Is it a good idea to jump into a relationship with somebody I just met? Would I rather leave and travel? Is there any way to travel again? Was it a good idea to start that job?

What lies underneath this chronic worrying is joy. The joy of being alive. And this is what the ‘do-nothing-challenge’ reminds me of…

On Saturday – day ten of my challenge I had kind of a breakthrough. It was one of my ‘days of clarity’ – what I like to call them. On these days I can identify clearly how my thoughts project my version of reality on a situation or on the way I view myself… Crystal clear I can differentiate – between my perspective and what a situation looks like from a different point of view…

I had this deep sensation of ‘arrival’ within my body. It felt like I’m arriving in my lower body: My legs, my sexual organs, my hips and my lower abdominals – everything filled up with life like a sponge which was dry for a very very long time.

I am Allowed to Surrender

These learnings go hand in hand… I came to the conclusion that I’m the only one who is building walls with my resistance. I’m capable of  holding on to energies and I’m capable of letting them go. It is within my power to do that. I can choose if I want to cling or if I want to – yeah, right – LET GO.. 

I am Not my Perfectionism

“Do I want to destroy this situation? Yes or no?” – How many times did I impose my own perfectionism on others? And how many times did I destroy a situation only by inflicting overly high expectations on myself? This is a thought that rattles me for quite a while now. I found out that my ‘perfectionism’ is part of my astrological birth chart. How do I exteriorize my perfectionism? I’m trying to be ‘the perfect human’ in any given situation and I barely allow myself mistakes. And this is what is kind of holding me back from attaining close friendships. 

What do I mean by that? The measurements I’m putting on myself are threatening to others. Subconsciously friends might think I won’t accept them if they don’t meet the standards I put on myself. I had no idea how destructive my perfectionism could be. 

I found out that I won’t ruin this challenge if I apply loose regulations. That’s why it is called the ‘do-nothing-challenge’. I am allowed to do nothing (once in a while;). 

I Can Let go of Heavy Energies

There is this belief still dominating my mind (and also the mind of many others): The belief that empathetic people are weak. 

For a couple of years now I’m studying a system called human design. So far I haven’t talked about it at all on this blog. According to this system humanity is divided into five different energy types: manifestors, generators, manifesting generators, projectors and reflectors. So far I haven’t talked about it on my blog, but most of my friends know that I’m studying those energy types quite thoroughly.

Each of them has a different way of obtaining energies and of householding with energies. I’m a projector – one of the so called ‘non-energy-types’. 

I’m a person who is very open for energies of other individuals and groups. Many of the so called projectors can be considered as ’empaths’.

For a long time I thought empathetic people are a victim to negative energies. But in reality it is quite the opposite. Through my meditation challenge I’m learning that I can release all these energies. I don’t have to hold on to energies that don’t serve me…

Wow…

It is quite a process that I have initiated with this challenge. I am beyond excited to continue my journey. 

I will stop making empty promises in my blog posts. I will probably post some more within the next two weeks…

I love you all!

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Transformation Inventory

Soul Retrieval

Hi Soul,
welcome back. Take some space. Make yourself comfortable. This body is your home. I’m sorry for neglecting you for that long. I was busy doing life. I appreciate your perseverance. From now on I’m coming back to existing – in close communion with you.

Sincerely yours,
Mind

 
by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory

The Battlefield Is In Your Head Vol. 1 – and The “Do-Nothing-Challenge”

‘I feel raw like a carpaccio,’ I am contemplating the current state of my being.

Raw and juicy. Mmmhhh…

My current life situation provides a learning curve with a steepness I didn’t quite expect for the rest of this year.

I had no idea what kind of surprises the universe would hold in stock for me after experiencing a so-called ‘dark night of the soul’, which lasted for about five months.

After working a couple of night shifts in a row I am sitting in front of my computer. I’m catching myself ‘waiting for inspiration’ – whereas my body is screaming for rest.

What do I expect of my neurons? I should lay down and sleep, but of course I’m trying to finish an article I had been working on for way too long (as my inner judge proclaims). In the back of my head I’m beating myself up for not doing (more) yoga or practicing a foreign language.

Jep. My internal organs are contracting. A heavy weight around my ribcage is limiting the capacity of my lungs…

I know this feeling very well. My perfectionism is pinching. Anxiety drains my energy system.

“This is a potent time to be with…,” the words of Kendra Adachi, who assisted me in arriving in the present moment over and over again for the past couple of months, are flashing through my head.

She is right.

I am working a full-time job at a low-budget hostel after living a nomad life for the past couple of years. I’ve started a relationship with a man who massages my feet every day (and who I’ve known only for two months). Me and my vagabond soul are practicing ourselves in ‘settling down’… more or less voluntarily. (I still owe you a longer story of what had happened in the past eight months. As some of you might know – I’ve travelled to India and then I fell apart.)

I discover my own boundaries and I’m learning to set them where I still need to set them. I’m learning to receive. I’m learning to ‘not run away’. To make it short: I’m confronted with regular life in times of a global pandemic. Yay – great fun!

It’s a time of adaptation. More than ever before I can feel it – an old phase had ended and something new began. Where this new period of time will lead? I have no clue… But do I have to know the destination?

2020 has been profoundly challenging – for a lot, if not all of us…

I did my homework during lockdown and quarantine phases (partly self-imposed). I dove deep into the darkest corners of the blackness of my personality. I reconnected with my soul in the darkness. My physical body is still sympathizing with old patterns.

There is A LOT to integrate.

And I better take my time to do it – if I don’t want to scare the people away who are trying to love me (for a change).

Still it amazes me how accurately aligned this global crisis is with the personal crisis I’m going through…

‘Who do you think you are? Some sort of hyper-human?,’ I’m questioning myself…

Well, honestly, I do think I’m some sort of a transmutation or at least I consider my life as a research project – as you might have noticed.

Haha, it sounds like the same story as usual… but it is not quite…

I’ve asked for help and I received it – in ways I have never expected. I’ve met the most inspiring and courageous souls that showed me my own strength and my own endurance.

The darkness became my friend in the end and finally it is my turn to actually apply the tools I had been gathering since I’ve started my journey in 2013 (or was it 2015? or 2017? :D)

‘Surrender or die’ – This is the short version of what I had learnt from my ‘dark night of the soul’. Dark night of the soul? Sounds more hip than just calling it a ‘depression’ or a ‘depressive phase’, right?!

I’m not even being pathetic here. It just wouldn’t be fair to call it a ‘depression’, because I was not depressed in the sense of ‘I couldn’t do anything’. I just lost track for a little while and remained paralyzed in a state of fear. I think that’s called trauma. That’s a difference. Argh, I didn’t mean to sound ironic here. It was really not fun. BUT… I FREAKIN’ DID IT!!! I SURVIVED AND I LEARNT A TON!!!

Anyway, probably I will dive into that further along the way… 😉

The challenge is to surrender. Surrender to the currents of life and trust that my life jacket will rescue me.

And how do I surrender? By doing nothing… First I wanted to call the challenge the ‘What-do-I-want-challenge”. This sounded too proactive and too ‘awwe, she is still searching’. Then I wanted to call it “Mindfulness-Challenge”, but come on?! “Do-Nothing-Challenge” sounds a bit more polarizing…

Another challenge? Well, the task is actually to destress myself. I want to give myself time to adjust…

I had attempted this challenge several times already. The task is to meditate for one hour a day for 30 days in a row…. And see what happens… I’m four days into this challenge and I’m already gathering some learning. By the end of the week I will give you an update.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

What is Freedom?

When are you truly free?

You don’t let the circumstances define you.
You let go of concepts.
You give space – and not advice.
You know what you are doing.
Your fear gave way to your excitement.
You feel joy.
You care for yourself the same way you care for others.
You are at home within yourself.
You don’t have to proof yourself.
You know your boundaries. That’s why you are not afraid of crossing them.
You do one step at a time.
You let go of the outcome. But you never loose focus.

You smile from the inside.
You don’t reach through the matrix – you roll with it.
You accept where you are at.
You have learnt to differentiate.
You express yourself.
You let others express themselves how they please without interfering.

You love like there is no tomorrow.

Your fears had lost their power over you.
The demands of this world don’t overwhelm you anymore.
You are not that easily pushed from your throne.

You have exchanged your phantasies with ideas.

You are not being easily impressed, but you are awe-inspired by life itself…

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Transformation Inventory

About Words

Why I write?

My words are my light. My words are my darkness. My words are my journey. My words are my destination. My words are my home.

They are nothing I ‘make up’.

I don’t do words.

Writing is not my skill, it is my trait.

My words are the process. They are my tools and my material at the same time.

Words set the stage and they perform. They are able to build and to dissolve. Words are the story and the narrator – all at once.

My words are like stray dogs. I let them run free and this is how they thrive. I don’t restrict them. I treat them with care. They have a place in my heart and this is why they always come back to me.

If I put them on a leash they get cranky. If I overindulge them they spoil.

Words – I use them as they use me. I become them. I am transcending through my words as they transcend through me.

My words are my thoughts but they are also my brain.

My words are my ascension partners. My words are my closest friends or my worst enemies. It depends. (And no, this is not a matter of perspective and this is okay….)

I can’t say ‘I want my trust back!’ I can’t say ‘I have to trust’. I can ‘just’ trust.

If I allow my words to be, they unfold. This is writing. It is a subconscious outlet of my expansion. They are nothing but a valve – but just as crucial as a pipeline for delivering drinking water.

What are they delivering? Words are the messenger but also the freight.

Words are zen. Words are the tao.

Words are everything if you let them. Words are nothing if you take them too seriously.

Take them too accurate and they will become your prison.

Let them go wild and they will become your shelter.

The other day there was high water at Isar after three days of heavy rain.

There is a swimming spot I had been visiting regularly during this summer season. It was kind of an island amidst my favourite river here in Munich.

The flood water rearranged the whole river bed. All the algea were washed away.

No stone was left unturned.

The currents had changed. A wooden stamp had built a little whirl pool in the very center of the river bed.

Everything was renewed and refreshed. It felt like a restart.

And this is what words do if you let them flow. They rearrange themselves. They become more powerful. They clear themselves. They settle.

This is the really f***ing difficult part of writing. Your mind wants to control. It wants to know the end of the sentence before you even start typing.

It wants to outline the whole book instead of creating the first chapter.

True beauty, the real raw beauty lies in imperfection.

Did you ever consider a tree as imperfect? Did you ever think ‘This tree really looks like shit here.’?

If yes, I’m sorry. I’m praying for you.

Your soul understands.

A tree is a tree.

It grows out of the elements.

It is the elements. It is creation. It arises out of destruction. It sprouts from the mud.

And so does your creation.

Creation demands freedom.

So, don’t do it perfectly.

Just do it.

Do it with your heart. Do it with trust. Lean into it fully.

Own it – and then let it go.

Give it away. If you cling to it, it will restrict you.

This is how you become a slave to your perfectionism.

But you know what?

Don’t beat yourself up for your poisonous perfectionism. It will make it worse.

Move to your rhythm. But move.

Don’t stay still. Don’t be paralyzed in the face of your perfectionism.

Smile at it. Be perfect in the now, but don’t try to live up to it.

This is how you integrate it. Accept and take action.

Instead of making a perfect plan, do the next step.

Put your faith into action. Don’t make ‘being perfect’ your goal, but make it your approach.

This all sounds paradoxical.

Let it be what it is and jump right in.

My words are exploring darkness.
My words are cutting and piercing through – until the truth leaks out.
This is how I enter the light.