The Path

by Uli on Rough Diamonds, Transformation Inventory

The Magic of No Expectation

Drop your expectations completely.
This is how everything resolves.
No strings attached.
There is nothing to expect.
No outcome is ever the same.
Expect absolutely nothing.

Oh my god I found the key to everything. How could I not understand this all the way?

I am LOADED with expectation.
Expectation of how I should feel.
Expectation of how I ought to react.
Expectation of what I am about to make sense of…

The solution is to let it all go.
To enter into a state of meditation in every single moment of my life with every single cell of my body.

I let the appreciation flow through me and connect the dots of being alive.

My cells, my lungs, my body. The air. Nutrients. All of it belongs to me like I belong to this earth.

Nothing’s hard without expectation.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Collective Purging

Today is a day of insights, a morning of stream of consciousness.

It is one of those moments when I understand that I am not doing it for me. I am not walking the path for the sake of walking it. I am not even sure if I am walking it.

I am experiencing transformation because my life experience is crucial for the life experience of everyone around me – everyone I influence with my being.

What I am talking about here is not my professional influence or what I am saying or not saying within my social relations. It is not about my writing, because this is what I am doing for myself.

It is about how I show up energetically (or not).

Recently there seems to be a challenging time for a lot of us.

I can feel the collective purge – the RELEASE of “old” emotions or life experience.

I witness it first hand by witnessing the processes of my friends.

The unbearable breaks open.

What was closing off is what is causing the opening – of “the path” and of the heart…

New beginnings appear on the horizon. Out of nowhere.

And what is beyond the horizon is unknown.

And that is where we want to go:

There is this big big big misconception around the spiritual path.

There seems to be some sort of cultural narrative (maybe it is within my perception because I am part of the narrative, which makes it even more pressuring to share this thought as unfiltered as possible.)

The narrative is being told on social media platforms. The images shown are flawless. The spiritual path seems to be paved with beauty. It appears to be a chronological process – and incorporation of THE beauty.

But guess what?

THIS IS NOT THE PATH.

The path is beauty, yes.

But “the way” is hard.

Yes, there are the souls that are awake. They are born into awake beings.

But, we, us, the ones who are reading this (I reckon’) are the ones who have to eat the sh*t.

We have to plough that dirt – the most nourishing ground that we have. Our beautiful ugly life experience, our suffering that is us.

It is within us.
It’s our feelings, our wrong-doings, our mistakes, our painfully covered truth that’s sooo crooked. It hurts.

The old skin that wants to be shed but it is so “intergrown” with our lives, entangled with our conditionings.
There is one thing I am more certain than ever: There is no way around it. The untangling is what will release a ton of energy. We know it deep down inside (not as far down as we think).

Our imagination can help us to give the push, but we have to make the move and trust.

The thing about that is: There is no reason not to trust.

This reminds me of a quote I read in a philosophy magazine called “Hohe Luft”: “Being satisfied with life can be an act of rebellion in times where thriving to be the best version of ourselves became the way of being.”

To trust is also an act of rebellion in times where deterioration is everything that is being broadcasted.

And the counter movement? Is BLINDFOLING our true feelings – burrying the truth….

The thing is: We don’t need a movement. All we need is to trust in our own abilities. And with abilities I mean the gifts that we have inherited, our DNA that is allowing us to receive information and process information within our physical body.

YES, our truth IS our feelings.

Trust exists independently from what is going on in the external.

Truth is subsisting. It is us.

Yes, I am saying: “TRUST! NO MATTER WHAT!”

Trust – whatever feeling arises.
Trust – no matter which decision is “the right” decision.
Trust – in your sadness, in your despair, in your anger, even – in your addiction or let’s say in “your awareness of your addiction”.

TRANSFORM IT BY BEING IT. LIVE THROUGH IT. This is how you overcome it.

It is so simple that I would like to scream it from the top of my lungs.

I invite trust.

I invite you to purge all of your emotions, to go all in, to feel it all and move on. You will see the next step. Help will appear out of nowhere.

You are never alone.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Riding The Wave

Sometimes you have to ride the wave.
Sometimes you have to plough the dirt.
Sometimes you have to dust off the ashes.

Friction is what prescribes the trajectory.
Resistance is what makes you grow.

Go ahead and rise.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

“The Why” is Not The Holy Grail

“You got to become your own person before you can do your job on this earth.“

I don’t remember the exact words of Maor, someone I met briefly at a goodbye party of a friend of mine in Hamburg in 2018.

“Hm.”

Or something like that could have been my response. To be honest, I don’t remember if I countered anything. But I do remember that I was desperate. I was desperately searching and looking. I was desperate for adventure, for feeling feelings, for feeling something.

I was craving life. I was terrified of never finding what I was looking for – without knowing what I was looking for.

I was collecting memories and acquaintances – but did I know myself?

In the meantime I numbed myself. I filled the void inside of myself with all sorts of things. (substances, pleasure, party,….), but I had no clue what was really going on within myself…

This ‘unclarity’ crumbled away over time – like a crust of mud.

What I have learnt is that the mud has to dry first. The dust has to settle. And then the path clears eventually. The seeds can spring and the blossoms bloom…

I have been stirring up mud for quite a while. And I am pretty sure that I will keep stirring up mud. It is part of the journey (my journey) – to experience it all.

There is this big Why roaming around in the spheres around “personal development” – and yes knowing the why can be quite helpful.

Especially the “Why do I feel like shit most of the time?” over the “Why am I getting up in the morning?”

I did not want to question my feelings. Why? (Haha) Firstly: Because I didn’t even know this could be a good question to ask?! Secondly: I didn’t want to admit to myself in which areas of my life I had “lost it” or I supposedly “failed”.

“Find your why” – this has become an ever-lasting quest for a lot of people.

The realizations that I am sharing here with you stem solely from my personal experience. There is a huge probability that this self-development thing works different for you. Nevertheless I feel the urge to share this:

What I found out is that “the WHY” is not the holy grail… healing is!

What do I mean by that?

In 2015, when I was made redundant from my first work-contract, I was feeling the call too – the call that I translated into: “Find your why!”.

Over the years I have met a lot of people who put a mirror right in front of my face:

“You are lost.”
“You are the universe.”
“You have to prioritize yourself.”
“You need to find yourself first before you can make a difference in this world”

(Wo),man, I had no clue what this was all about.

Well, not no clue, but I was not able to deduce any action from all the mirroring I had (involuntarily) received from the outside-world.

Now I still don’t have a full picture, but I came to the understanding that I don’t need to have a full picture. I will never comprehend it all. This life is freakin’ unpredictable and I better embrace the unknown!

What is predictable is one universal truth: “Things WILL change” (I wrote about change many times in this blog. Actually every post is about change.)

And they did…. in my life over and over and over again. And I am more and more able to EMBRACE the unknown.

I was – and I still am lost – to some extent. But more and more this feeling of being lost transmutes into a state of floating (for some reason this is the word that emerged).

And I tell you: My mind is intervening – all the fucking time. Letting go is a permanent practice.

Thoughts, thinking patterns, limiting beliefs – they come back in circles, in arrays, in fractals, in seasons… (You choose which image works for you).

So. I faced a lot of (uncomfortable) truths about:

  • My conditionings and where they are coming from
  • To what extent I am influenced by toxic energies in my life.
  • Where I am not taking responsibility for my own life.
  • Codependency.
  • Addiction.
  • Rage.
  • Fear.
  • Grief.

The list is long….

What I have learnt over the years is that “the WHY” is slowly sneaking in.

I am growing into my why….

Our Wounds Are Our Gifts

First things ARE first: If I close my eyes from the areas where my body and my being demands healing, I will not find any useful “why”. The “why” will be a sugarcoated lie that I keep telling myself until I collapse.

Well, I do want to be radical here. First of all I have to define what I mean by healing.

Healing is the process of becoming whole again.

This is not really correct. We are already whole to be accurate. Healing is more a “fixing of the holes”, removing the dirt, dropping the unnecessary baggage, standing up on our own feet…

The healing process is sometimes a refurbishing, sometimes it is a surgery, sometimes it’s a sudden removal or a complete turn-over.

We are thrown into situations that tear us apart.

This is part of the human experience. These situations are here to teach us….

If we are torn apart the first step we need to take is to find the pieces that belong to us. The next step is to put them back together.

As long as I am putting myself together – this is my “why”. My healing is my “why”.

I don’t say you have to wait until you are fully healed until you are finally able to share your work.

The opposite is the case.
There is beauty in all of our messy healing procedures.

And there are people who benefit.
There are people who will embrace your experience.
There are people who will love to hear your story. This is what humanity always did – listening to stories and learning from them.

I am not cheesy here, this is what it is – and always used to be.

There are people out there whose healing depends on your healing.

The work that you put in matters.

Nothing you do is self-sufficient.

You will show-up in a way that is beneficial for others. Sometimes it’s only one person in the room. Sometimes it’s an audience of a million…..

So, you don’t know your why?

Don’t worry about it. Rest. Heal. Your time will come.

Healing is expansion.
Healing is the arrival in the present moment.
Healing is union with yourself.
Healing is completion.
Healing is meeting yourself where you are at.

Healing is doing one step at a time. Patiently.

“The why” can become a trap if you don’t take the time to really acknowledge where you are at right now.

And I tell you, I have been there. I am still rushing. I am still wondering very frequently: How do I set boundaries? How do I know what I want? How do I know that I am still on the path?

Then I remember to walk hand in hand with my heart.
This is what the hard times do to me.

There is this potential or let’s say a potential for potential stored within ourselves. This little seed that is resting there somewhere in our subconscious or in our brain.

When you heal you are able to reveal what wants to be revealed. And this is how you follow your purpose.

The hard times force us to walk hand in hand with our heart.

Let’s shed our old skin. Let’s forgive and heal.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Don’t Set Rules, Set Intentions

Don’t set rules, set intentions.

There is this voice inside of me that gives me commands every now and then (or if I am able to listen).

This morning I was able to listen.

I woke up happy. I woke up with a sense of excitement for the first time in a long time.

It was nearly 8 o’clock already. Way too late for the ‘ambitious’ Uli to start the day.

But my eyes were not burning. I felt a sense of gratitude. I was at ease – physically and mentally, with the world and with myself.

My window was open and I heard the rain dripping outside. The rain of an early January morning of the year 2022.

The past two days I was in a very dark mood. “The old” came creeping back up. “The new” was not yet to come. The fun fact is: the new does never come. Well, it does. But we can’t see it at first.

A friend of mine told me in a voice message yesterday: “You seem to be on your way. You seem to grow organically.”

And yes, maybe, only maybe, I am able to agree on this today.

So, what do I do?

In times of crisis. (And boy, I went through patches of crisis within the past over 24 months. Actually I found out that I was at my “lowest” in 2018. So it would be 48 months to be more precise. 😉 Ha!)

What do I do in these periods of crisis? Or the moments of anxiety?

I set intentions!

I did this so many times. During my lowest times I prayed every single day, every hour, sometimes I prayed every single minute of the day. I prayed for release. I prayed for a sign.

The thing with sings is: They never come when we (supposedly) need them the most. So, there is not really a point in asking for signs – every time we are in doubt.

What we do need to do is to take action.

What I learnt is that the voice of intuition is sometimes the faintest, the quietest in our blasting brain. What is blasting is: the self-doubt, the “shoulds”, the self-sabotage (an article on the topic of self-sabotage is in the pipeline).

We will always find hundreds of reasonable reasons to not do the step that we want to do, the step that is beneficial for our own growth.

What I got to learn throughout the past years of nomading and roaming around is: THERE IS NO WRONG STEP. There truly isn’t. I know it sounds pathetic. It is pathetic, but it is (for a change) a narrative that serves our personal development.

We can never predict the outcome. Who crosses our path is beyond our control. Who is going to help us is beyond our imagination. But guess what? THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WILL UNDERSTAND AND SUPPORT YOU. If? (Yeah, right. What are the ifs here?) If you change your thinking? Yes… What else? If you KEEP MOVING.

And it does not matter in which direction you go. Because there will be new intersections. New decisions along this path – over and over and over again.

There is no point in overthinking the next step.

What we can do is: We can set intentions. And this is what I did in the past couple of days when I was so down, so discouraged. I did not know how exactly to get out of my “old ways” of being and thinking. I still have no Idea. I have no idea how to “not be too hard on myself”.

Nevertheless, even if my mind said ‘shut the fuck up and squeeze your butt’, I wrote an intention into my notebook: “Prioritize yourself.”

This morning I prioritized myself by sleeping in and going for a long morning walk (Of course this is not always possible, but every now and then… why not?)

Words truly become seeds, if we let them….

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Thank You Letter To My Friends

Okay, I’m getting a bit cheesy towards the end of the year, but I really want to get this across:

This goes out to all my friends – the courageous souls who are walking this path with me:

THANK YOU for your tireless support.

Thank you for keeping me on track whenever I need it (and for leaving me alone whenever I need it;).

Thank you for clearing the mirror when I can’t see myself.

Thank you for grounding me when I’m losing touch with my source.

Thank you for “doing the work” – with or without me.

Thank you for guiding me into my power – sometimes with force and this is why I love you even more.

Thank you for making me proud of being a part of this all.

THANK YOU for reminding me that I am not crazy.

I am so grateful to have you all in my life. You know who you are.

I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart.

Sit back.
Be you.
Be even more you!

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Ease in

What’s the difference between ‘easing in’ and ‘letting go’?

Words.

I will keep rephrasing them. Renaming the unnamable. Reshaping the intangible – the power of manifestation.

What’s the difference between ‘easing in’ and ‘letting go’?

The difference is the feeling beyond those words.

Everything that requires action has the potential to cause resistance.

To ‘ease in’ represents ‘non-action’.

It is a principle in every martial art form and in a lot of (if not most) ancient teachings.

Do I have to elaborate this any further?

I don’t think so.

Happy new moon everyone.

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Rough Diamonds

Navigational Alignment

Trust your instincts – even if your mind is rebelling.
Take action – even though it scares the shit out of you.
Experiment fearlessly – no matter what the outcome might look like.
Move forward – even though you can’t see the road.
There is only the next step. Take it now.