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, Uncategorized

The Way Back

Don’t be scared of your trauma. It is your way back.

 
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.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Swallow The Truth

Swallow the truth.
Become it.
Digest it.
Absorb nutrients.
Discharge toxins.
Clean yourself up.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

All in

When life calls you to go all in, guess what you are going to do?

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Allow Grief

Your grief is sacred. Welcome it.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

The Problem With Separation Consciousness

The problem with separation consciousness is that we think ourselves into separation.

The problem with separation consciousness is that we think ourselves into separation.

The problem with separation consciousness is that we think ourselves into separation.

I could write this down a hundred of times, but you won’t get it. Why? Because you don’t understand union.

Do I really have to tell you what it is? I don’t think so. Apart from the fact that I literally can’t, there are all these great teachers who do a pretty good job at describing it. Eckart Tolle to only name one this time. (Hint: Check Buddhism, Taoism and the popular world religions and feel between the lines!)

I can give you a hint: You can’t think yourself into union!

The problem with the terms around separation consciousness is that we THINK ourselves into separation. Even writing this down here I emphasize it.

“Separate from what?,” you might ask.

Tonight I remembered my purpose. It is reminding you of consciousness. Consciousness in the sense of union with source. I completely forgot that most people don’t have the slightest idea what it is…

I thought to myself: Why does the suffering hurt so much? It is probably the first time that I truly admit that. It hurts so much, because I tried to figure it out. All of the past years. Until I got lost in abstraction.

I had to do it. I had to get to this point where the illusion can’t sustain itself anymore. Now I can feel that THIS is the real starting point…

Everything else was the way to the way. My mind helped me to get here.

This realization that I made it all up.
This realization that the illusion is real – and the joke about it is that I knew it all along. The ‘space’ was always there, but I didn’t dare to enter.

The projection of my thoughts is what created my reality.

But the matter of fact is that I can ALWAYS choose my level of consciousness. I just never wanted to accept that. By choosing I already imply that I choose with my mind (interestingly called ‘consciously’).

Isn’t it what the mind is here for? I can always choose to be present. I can choose to create. I can choose to have a glass of water. I can choose what I have for breakfast. I can choose to cling to my thoughts. I can choose to react. I can choose suffering. I can choose the idea that ‘something better is yet to come’.

Man, I am preaching this over and over again. I am so happy that I was forced and forced and forced to question my thoughts endlessly.

This is what writing does. It makes you question the fuck out of your thoughts, because you always reach dead ends.

This is the problem with mind. It always reaches dead ends, because everything that happens in mind is a thought, a projection.

Now:

You can’t think yourself into union.
We can’t think ourselves into union.
I can’t think myself into union.

Oh boy. This is so deep. It hurts. And why does it hurt so much?

Because I cling so much. My ego just loves it. I love my false reality so much. I love the illusion soooooo much. I have to cry and laugh at the same time, because it is so ridiculous.

We just can’t let go. We can’t imagine that there could be something more beautiful behind this curtain. Hahaha, if it would be a curtain. It is a sturdy wall! The wall was built up by our grand grand fathers and it is quite a task to demolish it.

But this is what we gonna do! We are going to demolishing this wall of our conditioning…….(Mmmmmh I love this word so much, I love it and I hate it….) And then there is space to create! It is time for some courageous creation.

Only now it dawns me that there is a ton of work to do for us. It will be hard, but it will be worth it.

I am beyond excited to create with you! <3

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Rough Diamonds

Permission Slip

I allow myself to tap into my power.
I allow myself to act out my personal gifts.
I allow myself to be present in every moment.
I allow myself to sense opportunities with my heart.
I allow myself to release.
I allow myself to take action.
I allow myself to pause and take action when it is needed.
I allow myself to feel my feelings and move on.
I allow myself to identify the blocks that are holding me back and to overcome them.
I allow myself to overcome every challenge that I am facing. I allow myself to expand.
I allow myself to hold space.
I give permission to the divine to guide me into the direction that my soul is calling me.
I give my soul permission to direct my physical body.

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Transformation Inventory

Back Yourself Up

Think clearly and trust that your thoughts will transform your subconscious.
Take one step at a time and trust that you are on the right path.
Let go and trust that the cords of your attachments will be cut.