no time to read? scroll down to the three insights in bold.
over the last three days, i’ve spoken to a friend who’s deep in depression, a friend who has faced suicidal ideation on her spiritual journey, a friend who’s going through major shit with her family and a friend who’s dissolving her past relationship which turns out to be a financial mess.
myself, i’m now living in the countryside where days can pass when I don’t interact with another soul in person. being alone without distractions is a powerful place to go into deeper reflection and to see how things are vs how i think they are when there’s a lot of noise around and the typical busyness of a 21st century human.
that’s when i feel how real the matrix is. far away from the noise of society, i sense that whatever i believe to be true is just a belief based on whatever i am bombarded with through the media, social media, netflix, the “news” and whatever you chose to consume and interact with.
our minds are like giant sponges. empty when we come to the world. in our first years, we soak up everything and our parents and environment make us who we become as a person. they traumatise us even with the best intention whether with what they do or do not do or by not giving us the love and attention we need or too much of it. or simply by what they do themselves. children absorb everything they see, hear and feel. that’s how we learn.
whatever we do, we traumatise them. fast forward two or three decades and that is you now. your childhood traumas still define you. you and everyone else on this planet. and even if you count yourself as a more conscious person who has recognised this and tackles the issues headfirst, the rabbit hole goes very, very, very deep. there are layers upon layers upon layers.
whatever ideas have been planted into our subconscious, they run our lives without us being aware of them. and that last bit, without us being aware of it, is what creates all the messiness of life. it’s like running around with a splinter in the foot screaming at everyone thinking it is someone else’s fault when it is me stamping on my splinter with every step i take. welcome to the world we live in.
we are all “screaming” at each other, blaming the other instead of looking at ourselves, recognising our wounds and starting to take care of them. believe me, we are all deeply wounded. and again, the trouble is, we don’t see it because it is part of who we are and the wound is hidden from our awareness. we just see the effect, the symptom.
if someone unsubscribes from this newsletter or my parents tell me, i don’t know what i am doing or i can’t write that, i get triggered. these days i internally thank them for showing me what i still need to learn, which of my wounds i still need to heal, e.g. of not being enough, of not being understood, loved or appreciated. everyone that triggers me is a gift from the universe to gently and sometimes less gently point me to what i still need to work on.
and this is really why we are here. to work on ourselves. our minds like to think because that’s what they have been conditioned and educated into that life is about having a beautiful family, building a business, a nice house, having nice cars, hosting cool parties that are sought after, being someone in society, having power and influence, having enough money so i can do what i want, … add whatever you think you need to be happy.
and none of this is relevant. not relevant does not mean we can’t or should not have them. not at all. we are in a body and are having a human experience and all those things are part of that play, to explore, enjoy and experiment with. but they are just props for a higher purpose: for us to learn about ourselves, work on ourselves and as a result expand in consciousness. that is the divine play we are in.
and once you recognise this, life changes. and there’s not a more powerful place to recognise this than in stillness. to withdraw from the matrix we are in. and yes, we are in a matrix. in several matrices.
first, there's the matrix of our own mind: whatever we believe and however we act, 95% of what we do is automatic or by the subconscious-triggered behaviour, has all been conditioned through our life experiences, most of which happened before we could even make sense of much. this not only explains what triggers and drives us but also why we have such different perspectives politically, how to live life or how to be successful and what that means. none of our beliefs and behaviours are consciously chosen, even if we like to think so. they are products of our memories which are a result of our experiences.
and then there’s the matrix of the external world, of society. now that we are adults and conscious, we are still being programmed 24/7. what we are shown and absorb on tv, through newspapers, through social media, through laws, regulations, rules or simply what is custom, they all inform our views.
whatever i believe, it is a belief until i decide to challenge it and test its underlying hypothesis. i can pick any belief: what i believe makes me happy, what i believe i want, what i believe about climate change, corona, work-life balance, politics, my partner, what i believe where i am right or wrong. they are all just beliefs until i challenge them and honestly weigh them against the counter perspective with the willingness to change my belief.
until i am willing to do that, i live my life mostly on untested hypotheses aka beliefs. and just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t make it any better. in the end, if i want to live a fulfilling, happy, peaceful life, i need to create the conditions to do so. if my beliefs are erroneous then it is likely that the outcome of my actions that are based on these false beliefs is unsatisfactory at best, but more likely negative or even disastrous as in it likely creates the opposite outcome of what i wanted.
i argue this is what we are all doing. we are living life based on instructions that are coded into our system that we never questioned nor agreed with. yet, they are driving everything we think and therefore do in life. our mind is a big meaning-making machine but like any machine, garbage in means garbage out. and we rarely question what went in.
so what can you do differently? that is for you to know. in the end, life is a game for us to experiment, play and in the process find the best way to progress - just like evolution does or, for that matter, just like you play a video game. just that when we play a game, we usually recognise that we are a beginner while with life, we usually believe we have figured it all out already, just that this is an erroneous assumption.
here are three reflections that i believe lead to vastly superior outcomes when it comes to life satisfaction or, even better, life fulfilment:
1/ no beliefs - don’t believe anything, especially your own thoughts
the willingness to question what you believe and as a result what you are doing, even if you have been doing it for all your life, is your most powerful tool to not fall into the trap of a meaningless life. Of course, challenging and therefore changing your beliefs is challenging in itself and i argue the reason why we do it so little, it’s just not convenient, but in my experience, it’s worth it every time and it’s the only way to progress in the game that is life.
you might be very good at playing the current game as in you are very successful but the real question is: how is it working for you? how do you feel? are you fulfilled? is life flowing for you? if not, question your beliefs. and when you ask a question, in time the answer will present itself to you not by thinking but by experimenting and exploring possibilities learning what works and what doesn't. the more honest you are with yourself, the harsher the realisations usually are but ultimately the closer you will get to the truth and as the saying goes: the truth will set you free.
the choice is yours: red or blue pill? truth or fairytale? escape the matrix or stay in it?
2/ no judgement - challenge your reaction rather than others
whenever i feel triggered, i know someone stabbed into a wound of me. instead of blaming the person, i want to look at the wound, acknowledge it for what it is, a wound, my wound, and realise that i am the only one responsible for removing it as in healing it. it reflects some perceived lack of mine which is a product of my ego, my personality and when i am identified with my ego, which we are most if not all the time, then i am living that wound.
a realisation could be that the underlying belief that created and has me continue carrying that wound, again, it is not true but a belief, and by bringing that wound to my awareness and realising that it is not true, it will start to heal. next time someone seemingly attacks this wound and therefore my ego, i will be less triggered and more aware of what’s going on under the hood. i will take a beat and breath before responding. a wonderful book around the whole aspect of ego and how it is our own enemy i mentioned in the last newsletter:
3/ no thinking - trust your intuition rather than your mind, for everything
all of these three points are powerful by themselves but this last one might be the biggest game changer. and it’s also the hardest one to live. challenging my beliefs and challenging myself rather than others are both aspects, while they might be hard to swallow for my ego, i can see the reasoning in it and i can test the waters using the device i know: my mind.
this third one is elevating the game to a new level: replacing thinking with knowing. it doesn’t mean i cease thinking. rather it means i stop to use thinking to make decisions and instead i learn to follow my intuition. if a friend invites me for dinner i can weigh the pluses and minuses of attending. the same applies to a job offer or getting married. this is what we do most of the time in the 21st century: we weigh options. but we have a much more powerful tool: our sixth sense, intuition.
so when a decision needs to be made, i will have an intuitive response, a knowing. before even having a single thought. this is my higher self guiding me and it knows best what i need rather than what my mind wants. my mind tries to understand the world with logic based on the little it knows and based on a lot of assumptions in my conditioned subconscious that i am not even aware of. and it is ego rather than fulfilment driven.
my heart, gut, intuition on the other hand, are faculties we were given for a reason. they are meant to guide us through life rather than the head. and it even makes sense logically: i want to feel good so i want to follow and use feeling rather than thinking as my guide. and the only way to find out is to try it. it’s like wondering whether i will be happy in a relationship or a new job. i can think about it all day but the only way to know is to try it out. but the best way to know whether i should or should not try it out is to follow my intuition, my inner teacher. that’s why we have it. nothing in nature is wasted nor random - but that's for another episode.
if my life doesn’t feel the way i want it to, if it doesn’t feel good, then i ought to change something. now i can use the device that got me here or i can use something different, my intuition. it’s your life, they are your choices and whatever you choose, you will naturally have to live with the consequences of those. these are the rules of the playground we are all journeying in. and that’s by design. we are here to learn and grow.
today i tried to make the case that intuition, a deeper knowing, is your best friend. but in the end, you should not believe me or anybody else. if my journey is of any value, life has taught me that it is not about certainty but rather about continuous experimentation that leads to new insights and thereby gets progressively better. every day a little wiser.
maybe in your next decision, you let intuition guide you and see what outcome it produces. if it’s anything like it is for me, you’ll start witnessing magic in your life. and the more you use that muscle of intuition, the stronger, the better it gets.
and there’s a bonus: the beauty of following your inner knowing is that decisions get made instantly because the answer presents itself intuitively in the moment. so you no longer have to carry around these postponed decisions that you have not come to a conclusion about yet. all of that goes out and life gets very light again in an instant and you can now use all your energy to live rather than to think about how to live.
have a wonderful week.
with love,
vincent
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