by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Honouring The Past, Anticipating The Future or ‘A New Dawn’

The red of the early morning sun brightens up the facades of Munich.

It is 6:28 am.

The Olympiaturm shimmers in the distance.

A heavy warmness soothes my heart and my whole body.

Tears roll down my cheek.

What a great miracle is this life?

And I’m a part of it. I’m a part of something much bigger than myself.

A humble gratitude comes over me.

As the day is dawning it dawns me what an incredible opportunity this life is?

All these challenges. All these obstacles. All the confusion invites me – like this day is inviting me – to keep exploring.

Opportunities open up every single day in my life.

It is up to me to only focus on the obstacles or to focus on the possibilities.

And what is possible? Basically everything that I can imagine and everything that I want to afford.

Everything I’m willing to pay the price for.

Why would I spend so much time deciding which direction to go? There is only forward. Okay, I might take detours. I might ‘waste’ some time.

But hey. I’m trying new things nearly every day. I’m getting more and more inventive when it comes to ‘making a living’.

Maaaaan, I thought I lost it. I was looking for my excitement for months.

Yesterday night I was sitting at the campfire at my favourite campground in Munich. This year and last year I spent a couple of weeks at “The Tent”, but for some reason this place feels like home.

There were some italians sitting next to me. “Di dove siete?,” I’ve started a one hour conversation with this couple.

“Why do you speak italian?,” the german guy next to me asked me.

In this moment I realized what I had learnt in the past two years. Not only italian language skills, but essential knowledge about life.

I am so fucking grateful for every person who dipped my nose into my own truth.

“You have to take off your mask.” “Put yourself on number one.” “You are lost.” “Breeaaaathe in and out and in and out and in and out.”

More than ever before I realize that this is all the process of non-stop-learning.

Most of us think there is a goal. Most of us think there is something to reach – on a spiritual level, but there is only the expansion of our own consciousness and the daily work.

I read a headline on Medium the other day. It said something like “Get Out Of The Start Up Porn”. I haven’t opened this article, but I can liveley picture its content.

We are creating the perfect business in our head.
We are creating the perfect relationship in our head.
We are creating the perfect amount of money on our bank account.
We are creating our dream job.

“I did the most when I didn’t have money,” Nicolas, a talkative italian guy told me in the kitchen of ‘The Tent’ a couple of weeks ago. “It stretches my inventive spirit not to have much money,” Kunal, a soccer street performer, reflects his situation.

“Yeah, but it also limits your imagination of what is possible,” the german “But” replies.

Well, I get it. Money is a means of transport, a source of energy. We can’t survive without it. But does it really set us free?

I doubt it deeply. The happiest people I have ever met, the ones that unwittingly infected me with their life energy, they didn’t have money or they are not ‘doing it for the money’.

Money is not their major propulsion.

What are they doing? They are just following the invitations. They are not trying to create their dream life – they just live it. Now. They play the game. They follow their excitement. They actually take the opportunities instead of contemplating about them.

This is what it is all about. It is about taking opportunities and they are paving the way. It is about honouring the miracle of life – every single day.

I have to follow my own vision. I have to believe in my own survival strategies. Yes, I need help, but what I really need is trust and excitement in order to stay motivated.

Today’s morning sun was my invitation to keep going, to keep learning, to keep encountering, to keep listening.

Every opportunity that I have in my life is exclusive to me. I am invited to follow my own path and so are you to follow yours….

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Embodying Reality

I’m transforming.
I’m expanding.
I’m compiling.
I’m transcending.

Sensory input is beyond perception. I’m not observing, I (sur)render.

Out of body, out of mind I’m hovering.

Above the ground or elsewhere my energy field absorbs.

All matter blows up like a balloon.

A new force draws magnetically.

I’m submerging through the grid of masks.

My consciousness expands impulsively.

The boost disassociates me from the rest of the world.

My internal materializes within another dimension.

Involuntarily I convert into a canvas of reality.

I am lived.
I transfer.
I become life and everything that is and ever will be.

Is this embodiment of the light or incorporation of the shadow?

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Transformation Inventory

You Can’t Challenge Reality

You can’t challenge reality.

No matter how hard you try. You can’t control the world.

All you can do is to accept what is. Accept whatever situation arises.

Welcome every moment with open arms.

Become one with every sensation. Become one with joy and delight. Become one with loss and aloneness. Become one with your fears and your desires.

This is how they dissolve.

This is how you reconnect – with yourself and with the planet.

You can’t change the circumstances. You can’t change other people’s minds.

You can only adapt and ease in.

Release all tension. Relax all tightness.

This is how you will find relief.

This is how you free yourself.

By surrendering.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Hiding in Silence

Thoughts vanish.
Vastness consoles.

The heart sighs.
Silence provides.

A home within.
Sole freedom inside.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

About The Path

Don’t dream about the destination but enjoy your views.

Keep walking even though the trail gets narrow at times.

The conditions might change.
Intimidated by the fog you doubt the path.

You may have to double check your map – make small adjustments.
Sometimes you might have to go back and change the route completely.
Or you have to drop weight because the load gets too heavy.

The secret is to start every day with the first step.

It’s up to you either to resign – puzzled and paralyzed.

Or to keep calm, to settle within, to study the weather conditions. To adjust and equip and keep walking.

Don’t let the circumstances scare you. Be well aware and well prepared for change.

Let awe and admiration guide you, not dread and doubt or agitation.

This is perseverance. This is the path.

 
by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized, Writing Experiment

Writing Transformation Challenge 0.1

The longest two weeks of my life are coming to an end. Ok, I’m exaggerating. But man, this was harder than I thought. The idea was to get rid of my notes, but in reality I created so many new ones – of course – because the more I write the more I think and the more I think the more I streamline my insights.

The learning curve is steep, but through this challenge I definitely made the most progress I’ve ever made with any writing experiment. I literally wrote my ass off. But no pain no gain, right?

Nevertheless – I completely under-delivered. This was partly due to my perfectionism, but also because I was quite involved with editing projects and other work.

Instead of 14 articles I published only nine. Six of the 14 days I worked full-time. I visited my parents in my home village and I was living on a campground. I had a lot of social interaction, which drained my energy.

Nonetheless I used every free minute to write – in the subway, waiting for the bus, in the train, before going to sleep…. I spent nearly every spare moment writing.

I’m proud of what I have achieved in these two weeks. This challenge reached depths that I have never suspected and this is all that matters.

Killing The Darlings Fastly

The time restraint of the two weeks definitely forced me to steam down my insights. This made me think sharper. Due to the time pressure I had to ‘kill my darlings’ very fast. What do I mean by that for those who don’t write? I had to shorten and revise my articles faster and this helped me in the process of ‘detaching’ from my writing.

Writing is Growth

I find peace while writing. I love the process of filling a page with my thoughts.

Publishing with the idea to have to revise it ten times afterwards doesn’t satisfy me and it doesn’t improve my writing either. “Learning years are not earning years.” I guess patience is key and as long as I keep going everything is fine.

Pressure shapes a diamond, but it contracts my brain. It is more important to develop a writing routine than forcing myself to press the publishing button. There are things that are just not ‘ripe’ yet.

There is no such thing as ‘finishing an article’. There is always something to add. There will be always ten new articles in the pipeline. And that’s good – as long as the ideas are flowing I’m going to write.

“Writing over publishing”

I wrote between two to ten hours per day, but if I’m tired I better get some sleep. My topics are too fundamental to just pour them out. The range of subjects expands with every article that I write.

It blows my mind what I’m learning from this challenge. Even though my perfectionism screwed up the quantity of my challenge. I’ve never wrote more within two weeks. I feel like a tiny barrier in my head broke. And this is all that matters. I will keep going.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

What Would Happen To Your Life If You Turned All The “Shoulds” Into “Dos”?

What would happen if you would pursue the thing you are the most interested in? What if you would choose the one thing you really want to have learnt at the end of your life?

Just imagine it for a moment. How would you feel? And now imagine you wouldn’t pursue this goal?

Yeah, you might fail. Yeah, maybe you will loose all your money, but what if you wouldn’t ever have tried?

What is holding you back from doing it? Is the voice in your head telling you that you don’t have time? You are not good enough? You were never good at it? You don’t have money? You are too old? Your friends won’t like you anymore?

“Your thoughts become your reality.” Yeah right, we’ve heard this a hundred of times.

Only now I understand how fundamental this impact is. If I think negative about myself, if I don’t trust myself, if I continuously think I’m not good enough I will never achieve anything. I will never feel content or satisfied with myself.

More than that: Self-hatred is what manifests. If I don’t change these thoughts I will never manifest self-worth. This is something I have to generate from the core of myself.

You might ask: ‘What does self-worth have to do with pursuing your passion?’

Everything! I have an example for this: Since some time I’m offering coaching in the field of my profession. I give storytelling and video production workshops.

But the beginning was rough. I thought “I’m not good enough.”, “What if I don’t have an answer to all the questions?” The first time I was really fucking nervous. I thought I can never master this. I can never carry the audience. I can never teach anything.

Now, nearly two years later I did it five times and my perspective changed completely.

The other day one girl from a course last year honoured me with the best compliment I’ve ever received in my entire life: “I learnt from you because you are so passionate about it.”

What did I do? I helped her editing a video. Together we shortened a four minute clip to 40 seconds. She told me the way I did it was so inspiring – so calm, with patience and sure instinct.

This blew my mind.

How did I get there? Yes, I learnt the software in university. Yes, I did a lot of internships. What happened? I just liked it. I started to experiment. I edited as much as I could and over the years snipping moving images became a second nature.

But how did this happen? I liked editing, so I edited.

“Make your passion your addiction.”

Now that I write it down here it sounds like a romantic life story. But I tell you what: There are dozens of skills I haven’t started learning yet, because I think I’m not good enough. 

How could I not understand this? It is just about doing it. Doing one step at a time. Of course you are not a Mozart from the moment you are starting to compose music and you are not a Picasso the first time you wield the paintbrush. But you are getting there eventually (or at least a bit closer). 

Your mind will find thousands of reasons not to aim for the things you really want to do. Is it a lack of money or talent. There will always be something else to do. Something more convenient, something easier or socially more accepted.

The secret is to just get started, to do the first step, to make space for the things you like, to make your passion your priority.

And what happens if you do something you like? You feel joy. So why not make it your addiction?

Make Your Passion Your Priority

Yesterday I was speaking with some people about this topic. There was a guy who just went through a similar learning experience like me. 

Our question was:  “What do people do differently who are always on ‘doer mode’?” Or my interpretation: What do people do differently who immerse fully in an activity? What do they do to not have these big walls of self-doubt? How do they make the critic shut up? 

The secret is that they just follow their intuition. They don’t listen to these voices in their head. 

And – if we want to hear it or not – we have the choice if we listen to the voices in our head or not.

What would happen if you would turn all the “I should’s” into “I do’s”? Your life might finally moves into the direction you want. You might discover joy within yourself.

If anybody tells you “follow your passion” is bullshit please don’t believe them.

Go on! “Follow your bliss” as Joseph Campbell would say.

“Finding your passion is the natural outgrowth of healing.”  

Margaret Paul, Psychologist

Find your bliss or you will never find joy in your life. Be as passionate as you want. But be passionate. Make it your life mission. What else is this life about?

Life is about feeling alive. So do what makes you feel the most alive.

If you have other suggestions let me know. I’m open minded, but I prefer to do what makes me feel most alive rather than anything else.

“It is not a luxury to pursue this experience [passion], but a necessity. Without this special experience that gives meaning to our lives we tend to wander about, aimlessly looking for someone, something, or some substance to fill the void within us.,” says Margaret Paul. The author of the book I’m studying currently. It is called “Healing Your Aloneness: Finding Love and Wholeness Through Your Inner Child.”

When we are passionate we forget our problems. We are in the flow. We feel content. We get in touch with our true nature. If we manage to fully immerse in an activity there is no future and no past. We arrive in the present moment.

Is there anything healthier in this life than this feeling? I doubt it. By not pursuing our passion, we exist, but do we live? Come on… 

Please double check your “I should’s”, your “I always wanted’s” and your “As a kid I always liked to do’s”.

It is up to you to fuel what you are passionate about.

If you can’t find anything it is might be a sign that you are caught up in self-hatred. Then this is might be something you want to deal with?

Go on. Aim for healing, but be nice to you. Give yourself time. Whenever you are impatient ask yourself, why you are in such a hurry to get through your life.

Be patient. Feed your body and nourish your soul and the rest will come.

Start with small changes. Surround yourself with people who do something completely else then you are doing. Get inspired. Don’t resign the battle.

Observe. Soak in the positive vibes of the people who found their bliss – without envy or resentment.

Just be happy to have the chance to be a part of it.

Go ahead and find your happy place!

“The ego is concerned with getting something while the inner self is creating. In this way creation is the motor for unconditional love. “

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

The Magic of Observation

It was one of those early summer days in the beginning of June. I went for an extensive walk to cherish the long afternoons.

The sky was clear and the sun still gentile over the hilltop of this tiny village in Tuscany that I called my home at this point in time. 

I passed a field of barley. Effortlessly the ears were dancing in the wind. In awe I watched this spectacle.

The ears were not thinking about the direction they were moving. They seemed to be touched by the essence of life itself.

I noticed the trees swinging in conjunction with the grain. The sun was showing her last warm rays of the day. It seemed like the whole environment was in peaceful communion.

Watching this organic play soothed my turbulent mind. All of a sudden I was projected into the present moment. 

And this is what observation does. It maneuvers us into the presence.

What happens when we observe?

It forces us into the now, because the object we look at can only be in the now. 

Observation doesn’t allow yearning for the future or longing for the past.

Registration doesn’t allow judgement. We detach from opinions and assumptions. It holds us back from overinterpreting.

What happens if we look long enough? 

We are able to create a gap between us and our reality. 

Looking longer allows us to get a new perspective on something. 

If we look deep into the things we discover something new. We discover the details. We discover the edges of something – or the softness. 

We discover the things that are invisible. And eventually the blur clears. And this is how we reach a new layer of consciousness. 

We get to see the world how it really is. By observation we see the real connection, the real relation of things – without unnecessary entanglements.

We are giving up the power of our mind. By giving up this power we start to not-control things anymore.

We finally get to relax. But first we need to sit still. Without stillness we will never be able to create this gap that allows us to be the observer. 

The registration of ‘what is’ directs our actions in the right way.

By observing we find out that we don’t have to react all the time. It is a way of meditation.

We can go with the flow just like the cereal ears.


Inspired by Nyanaponika, buddhist monk for 57 years.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Transformation Inventory

The Lonesome Warriors

We are throwing ourselves out there.
We are growing deep roots while reaching out for eternal connection.

We challenge the current state by challenging our own convenience.
With reverence not with resistance we are breaking down our own walls.

We rip ourselves apart to give you a clear sight to the core of human nature. Mind-stretching and heart-opening we elevate the planet’s vibration.

Questions are our weapons, discomfort our means of transport and unconditional love our fuel. Our vulnerability is what makes us invincible.

We are the lonesome warriors fighting for existence.

With every barrier we break the battlefield extends. What we conquer is consciousness – layer after layer.

There is no way back – only forward.

Let’s team up and be the change.

 
by Uli on Threesome, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

3 Tools That Help Me To Reveal Toxic Thinking Patterns

Growing personally remains a matter of observing our habits and altering them. If we want to change, we need to break with our conditions and reveal our true needs. “Habit needs unconsciousness to be repeated. Where consciousness enters, habit falls.” Again I refer to Thích Nhất Hạnh here.

Habit has no power anymore as soon as we are aware of it. But how do we break the chains of habit and practice ‘change’ persistently? How do we get our willpower back?

There were so many things that I wanted to quit or change in my life. I read dozens of articles and books on self-improvement, on how to establish healthy routines and foster positive changes.

More and more I found out that if I want to live in a new way, I have to find out what are the old ways?

Simple, right? I have to avoid unhealthy behaviours. But what are these toxic behaviours? Smoking? Eating sugar? Drinking too much coffee? Yeah, these are the obvious ones. But what else is there? How many times have I found myself ruminating negative thoughts and mistakes? How many times do I still make others responsible for my feelings?

To get to the core of my toxic ways ot thinking I really need to have a closer look. How can I develop compassion for myself, if I don’t know me (well enough)? There are some easy steps that help me with the process of becoming more self-aware. I would like to share them with you in this threesome.

1. Practice Being Alert

Survey your behaviour – especially in conversations. I found out that a lot of times I take things too personal. This is a way of giving away my power. It is proof that I have problems with ‘staying with myself’. It is a sign for lacking self-awareness and at the end self-love.

It sounds familiar to you? So, what can you do instead?

Listen more than you speak. Watch yourself and see how your feelings resonate with the words that are spoken. When do you react emotionally? When do you get angry? When do you take things personally? Instead of plain reaction – get in touch with your emotions and desires. Ask yourself why you act like this? What would be an appropriate reaction?

By being aware of our reactions we are learning to review our thinking from a higher perspective. This way we can identify unhealthy thinking patterns.

2. Slow Down

Eat slow, walk slow, breathe slow, be slow. Abandon rushing from your life and everything will change. All of a sudden you will notice things that you’ve never noticed before. You will understand everything better.

“If you win time you win it all,” says Buddha and his disciples.

By paying better attention to our environment we automatically pay attention to what is happening inside of us. This doesn’t only give us the opportunity to act appropriate but also to arrive in the ‘now’. This is meditation – being slow.

3. Find the ‘Why’

I really need to understand the benefits of quitting a bad habit before I can alter it. For example: Theoretically I understand why eating sugar is a bad thing, but as long as I never find out what happens if I stop eating sugar / start meditating / going for a run in the morning I will never establish this habit.

I think this is why it is so hard to adapt the habits of ‘successful people’, because these habits might don’t suit our real needs. Journaling is might be helpful for people who like to write. But for some it is maybe not, because they get even more caught up in there strange thinking patterns.

We have to ask why in both directions. Why do we cling to negative habits? What can we do instead? And why / how changes a new habit my overall well-being? In any way we need to be open to ‘try something new’ every once in a while, if we really want to change our lives.