my awakening - bursts of consciousness: Recent Episodes
Vincent Daranyi
For eight months now, neoslife has been birthing itself into form in the energetic realm, existing through my sharing of the vision, my passion and commitment to the land that found its way to me and by sharing stories and experiences with its growing community - you.
The other part was its physical manifestation by working on it tirelessly and putting my financial assets into neoslife’s creation. This has not been easy as the fear of losing my shirt by ‘betting’ so big on this vision has been ever present throughout this journey.
So much has happened since the land found me in October last year. Negotiations, due diligence, architectural, urban and masterplanning, relationship building with the municipality, brand development, land regeneration, website, community building online, in-person and on the land, investor discussions…
As we are approaching its ninth month, neoslife both needs and invites you to help birth this vision. We are looking for up to eight founding investors that are passionate to bring this vision to life. You will be at the forefront of its development, with the option to be one of the first to build a house on the land and benefit from neoslife’s experiences and services for the rest of your life.
We are looking for investors for €111,111 or more. Below you find a few slides about neoslife’s journey ahead. If this resonates with you, please respond to this email and I will be in touch with more information.
I am eternally grateful to every one of you, for being with us on this journey and your support in whatever form it comes. I am fully committed to see this vision through with all I have got as I expressed in my previous article
With much love and gratitude,Vincent
a message from karen
Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing for neoslife to exist? Can you imagine it for a moment? This beautiful village of light in Portugal, bringing healing, restoring hope, uniting people in their yearning for balance and unity, offering solutions and trainings, joy and connection. Can you feel and see yourself there, having contributed to its unfoldment, or perhaps even being in the heart of it?
I have explored many healing/eco-communities over the years, and each of them offer light into the world. They may have an approach or philosophy that I or you would contend with, but the resounding truth above all else is that the world benefits from such places. People need places to go, where they can be held by a healing infrastructure of compassion and inspiration, where the question of who’s right and who’s wrong is overshadowed by ‘What brings peace? What brings healing?’
Many argue that we are collectively on a precipice, and the earth cannot hold us much longer. It has always been clear to me and others who are tapped into the same transmission/data — that our best real hope lies in the power of village, of ‘joining the dots.’ There is an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it certainly takes a village to raise a new earth.
In the case of neoslife, the vision is alive, and great plans and actions have already been fulfilled. And now the final village need is apparent — investment. Who will be the ones that bring this dream to fruition?
If you are reading this and feel a resonance to neoslife, and desire from your heart to contribute some of your financial good fortune towards leaving a legacy (in a way that is still financially smart, and comes with the joy of sharing this lifelong journey with us), then this is your call to get in touch with us right away.
In love and community spirit,Karen
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Meet Karen Aiyana Birch.
Three weeks ago, Karen and I met over a Zoom call.
There was something distinctly different about this call.
The conversation was easy, felt safe, open and vulnerable.
It was not about what was said but what didn't need to be said.
There was an instant recognition of each other, who we are being.
It’s hard to capture in words. It has to be experienced, that way of being.
a new way of being
I believe that this very experience captures what neoslife is about.
Yes, neoslife is a village project.
Yes, there will be a healing and well-being center.
Yes, it is about land regeneration, organic farming and autonomy.
Yes, there will be lots of personal development modalities, retreats and workshops.
But really what will differentiate neoslife from any other project that I am aware of is our way of being.
For neoslife to have the impact we are aspiring to, Karen’s and my responsibility is to embody this way of being.
This is the reason why until now I have not had a co-founder for this massive project, because it needed to be someone who truly understands what we are creating - not because I am explaining it or there’s a mental resonance, but because she has been embodying this same truth.
We share the recognition of what we believe is the next step in human evolution.
When I read her New Culture Eco-Village narrative ‘Experience Paradise’ I thought to myself, she is describing neoslife. You can read it here.
upholding the highest principle
I was about to be spending time on the land with a potential partner and investor.
I spontaneously invited Karen to join and she agreed.
Our time together further sharpened my understanding of the mission of neoslife and that for us to succeed, we cannot compromise on this very essence of ‘a new way of being’ which is at the core of neoslife’s vision.
Experiencing for the first time true alignment with another human being, in juxtaposition with experiencing friction and incomplete alignment with the investor-partner, brought clarity to me.
The New Earth that many of us are working towards and that I believe many more are yearning for needs ‘a new way of being’.
It is not enough to create an eco-village.
It is not enough to build an independent settlement.
It is not enough to regenerate the soil and grow our own food.
The change we need to bring forward is a fundamentally different way of being with each other because
unless we shift our state of being, everything we do will perpetuate the imbalances, conflicts and polarisation of the current paradigm.
This is what neoslife is meant to empower in us, through experiencing it.
All the other pieces are part of the vehicle to make it happen, but they are not the essence of it.
crystal clarity
Over the past months, I had a number of investors approaching me to bring neoslife to form.
None of them was a fit and I had to reject them in order to stay true to the mission.
This was not easy because without money this project will not see the light of day and all the work, sweat, and money that has been put into it over the last eight months will be lost.
Worse, it means the impact that neoslife is meant to have will not materialise.
However, I have full faith because just the way the land found me without looking for it, and Karen came to neoslife without me looking for someone, so will the right investor appear at the perfect moment.
divine perfect timing
Karen and I first connected on May 23rd at 2pm.
I met Marie who brought the land to me at the airport on October 23, 2023 at 2pm.
That’s exactly seven months apart to the hour.
Coincidence? I’ll let you be the judge of it.
Seven is a special number in spirituality.
Our week has seven days, we have seven chakras and our lives move in seven year cycles.
The ‘random’ encounter with Marie at an airport marked the kick-off of neoslife.
I will share this incredible story another time.
so who is karen?
Karen’s bio reads:
My work is about reuniting heaven and earth and thus creating paradise, within and without. This is not creating anything but what is inherently natural to us. It is a returning to our natural divine blueprint. It is our natural state to be a Master. It is our natural way of being to use consciousness, intention, energy, sound, voice, song, movement, dance, and sacred space to maintain balance, to heal, to create – to live this way. …
You can read her full bio here.
Karen has been on a profound spiritual journey, including a period of twelve years of daily meditation practice in devotion to awakening which lead to letting go of her marriage, home, work and social life in order to surrender completely.
At the same time, she’s a serial entrepreneur and founder of the The New Earth School, an educational community platform to facilitate the shifts we need to make in order to create a more beautiful world.
She also
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founded the Unified Coherence Coaching Academy
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was regional director of a European branch within the Global Ecovillage Network
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coordinated the holistic services at a London addiction clinic for four years
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co-produced the award-wining eco-village feature film, ‘The Blueprint’
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published Celestial Earth, the story of her awakening
Both The New Earth School and the Unified Coherence Coaching Academy will be merged into neoslife, as the starting point for our online offering and part of a wider family of ecosystem services.
With much loveVincent(and Karen says hi)
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A message to the neoslife community — in response to conversations in our WhatsApp group.
Thanks to all of you for being a part of and contributing to this community by sharing your insights, reflections and ideas. I am in awe of and grateful to the nearly 300 souls that have found their way here. I am reading and taking in every comment even when I cannot reply to every single one.
Fundraising
I’d like to add some specific clarity around fundraising: I used to be an investment banker and a tech startup founder. I am very aware of the fund raising processes available and currently, I spend most of my time on all the aspects that are required to make funding happen. I have personally invested more than €300,000 and continue to invest into this project. I am all-in with no back-doors and have committed everything I have to this project.
I am living in the stretch of any new startup and yet this is different in one major way. It is not just a beautiful idea, it is being created from a new way of being. I am really in my inner work and practicing walking the talk. I am not a guru or a messiah. I am someone who is answering a deep call. I am a listener and a student in many ways. In others, I have a foundation which the calling knows and draws upon.
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Alignment
The neoslife retreat last month has beautifully and painfully shown me that it is crucial that the people involved at the very beginning are fully aligned with the vision and mission of neoslife. There can be no shortcuts. The same applies to investors. neoslife needs investor(s) that want this project to succeed because they fully grasp the opportunity and necessity we have to lead a much needed shift in humanity and are competent to do so abundantly.
neoslife is still a very fragile flower but it has the potential and purpose to empower the journey of transformation by hosting and cultivating the current scientific best practices and the corresponding ancient wisdom that will support a quantum in moving up from the lower vibrations into the higher vibrations using all the chakras optimally and into full awakening.
Doing from being in the heart
There is no point in just creating another village. The vision is to become a model to the world and it can only do so if who we are “being” informs the right doing. The primary core pillar is centred in being and acting from the heart. I have spent a 1,000 hours with one of my hermetic teachers to understand the underlying principles. I am deeply committed and invested into embodying this alignment.
As it says in the Gene Keys:
“Before you begin anything new in your life you need to ask yourself ‘What is the true essence of this beginning?’ The majority of people don’t realise that most beginnings contain subtle traces of fear. If these grains of fear are present at the very source of your endeavour, you will have unwittingly planted the seeds of its eventual demise.”
Truly living a new paradigm
I am very intentional that neoslife needs to be grounded not in fear but in the aspiration of something higher. I am calling in supporters and investors that understand this so we can start building the new earth operating system for life (neoslife) rather than just something that looks like it.
Sadly, I have witnessed plenty of pseudo-spirituality: Using spiritual language, dressing ‘spiritually’, etc. and all the while unconsciously remaining grounded in the old paradigm. I did not spend 10 years full-time preparing for this project to then take a shortcut and thereby planting the project’s ultimate demise.
From Drama to Empowerment Triangle
I love all of the challengers "in here" and out there. The role of the Challenger is to help the Creator become a crystal clear visionary capable of strategy in this way: The most lovingly connected and authentic way of being present to the vision will generate a logical and obvious next step or "doing".
I really encourage everyone who is interested in participating to look at the information around the Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Triangle (here’s a short video). It is life changing. 99.99% of the world lives in and is therefore stuck in the Drama Triangle. This is the reason why we still have all the wars and conflicts whether on a global level or within our very families. Make no mistake, it’s all the same. The universe is fractal.
neoslife village principles
The transformation of the roles of Victim/Rescuer/Persecutor to Creator/Coach/Challenger would be fantastic practical next steps in support of your own lives and for sure would be in support of one of the practical processes I am committed to modelling in the village culture being created. I am here to create the village before the village. All villagers-in-the-making will be able to confidently step into village life and play full-out.
I see us as Stewards and Thought Leaders. We are connected and have many interconnections. We have shared values and concepts that can be innovated and leading edge. I invite everyone to lean in and be all-in. I read that Findhorn is divesting from the foundation model. I am committed to understanding the limits they came into.
There are many other communities that have reached their upper limits and I am curious as to what needs to shift so that neoslife has blue sky success. I read the concerns of those worried about the luxury aspects as pricing out those who are here. I am keenly aware and neoslife’s mission is to to become a place that welcomes and can host a broad spectrum of people and income classes.
Funding stage one
However, there is a voice within me guiding me in these initial stages around patient capital and funding a foundation. I remain open to nearly all possibilities as we explore developing the property, however, due to the rapid nature of this first stage unfolding, time is a limit that is going to dictate capital.
I know in my heart of hearts that just like the land found me through a then stranger, Marie, that stood behind me in the line to board a plane only to present me with this property days later. The only land I ever looked at — and it is the perfect land. What were the chances of this happening?
Such is the nature of higher unfolding. Magical. Miraculous. Just like that, I suspect that there is a specific investor out there looking to fund this very project and land.
Everything is unfolding
The Vision and the Land are working through me and all of you. I see it as you light up in your discussions. I am looking to meet that investor(s) who light(s) up in the same way. It will be a recognition rather than me selling or promoting the land. And of course, I am out there so that this opportunity is visible as widely as possible calling in the resonant and relevant people.
If you have not watched the 4 mins neoslife vision video yet, please do. See the end of this post.
I know this is long, however, I hope it inspires and gives us all permission to step up. I have no doubt that this group has embodied within it already the genius to take this vision to where it and we need to go.
Thank youI love youVincent
PS. If this resonates, please join us for today’s 7pm GMT Zoom call to connect, have a profound experience and discuss neoslife. You can register here or read about it in my previous newsletter.
PPS. If you’d also like to participate in the conversations around neoslife, I invite you to join our global WhatsApp community here.
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
neos·life’s vision is to create Heaven on Earth.
Yet Heaven is first and foremost an inner state. It is a place where we feel in harmony, satiated with joy, peace and love. This place is available to any of us anytime.
While we are not yet on the physical neos·life land, this
Tuesday, May 7 at 19h GMT / 20 CET / 11am PST / 2pm EST
I have the pleasure of partnering with my dear friend SKAI, a quantum healer from France, bringing you a unique Heaven on Earth live experience.
Skai spent 3 years in silence to master his energy. After helping many clients quickly reverse chronic diseases like Crohn’s, Sjogren, Cancer, Neuropathy, etc., he wants people to learn to heal themselves.
He has created a powerful energy work to Master Your Immune Force. You can try it for free here.
Skai will guide us through a 40-minute inner journey into Heaven using a blend of guided meditation, lucid dreaming and ZeroPoint energy work. We’ll see, smell, hear and feel Heaven on our very skin, remove obstructions to access this space within and discover a clear pathway to return to it at will.
Then we’ll explore what Heaven on Earth means for us and how neos·life is creating a blueprint to build villages, pockets of Heaven on Earth on this planet.
To join us on our Zoom on Tuesday, register here — it’s free:
And here’s neos·life’s new vision video featuring the land, our community day and reflections from participants and myself about our future village.
You can also see Skai in it at 2:05.
We are looking forward to experiencing a higher state with many of you.
With loveSkai & Vincent
To stay up-to-date with the latest at neos·life, join our active WhatsApp community here.
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Love is the only answer to all our problems.
It transcends gender, race, politics, opinions, beliefs.
It transcends everything.
Thanks to some recent challenging experiences around the emerging community of neoslife, I have realised that neoslife at its core is really about one thing:
How much can I love.
How much can I love in the face of disagreement, ego, separation, judgement, conflict and adversity.
The question is not am I right.
The question is how much can I love.
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This is not an airy fairy spiritual idea but a very real day-to-day challenge to be fully embodied.
Talk is cheap.
If I truly want to change the paradigm, I have to love no matter what others think, say or do.
This is the challenge.
To unconditionally love all the time and everyone.
I don’t have to agree with you but I can always chose to respond with love.
Love transcends all boundaries.
It might be the hardest thing to ever ‘do’ and it’s also the most transformative.
I pledge that I will embody this to the best of my abilities.
I thank everyone that challenges me and shows me where I need to learn to love more.
You’re all my teachers and I bow to everyone of you for showing me my wounds so I can heal them.
I see you.
I love you no matter how much it hurts sometimes.
We can create a beautiful world, a world that the world has never seen before and cannot even imagine yet.
That’s how powerful we are.
All we have to do is to love a little more, a little more and a little more.
So that’s what I’ll do.
Every day a little more.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
Thank you for being patient with me.
I see you, I thank every one of you.
I’m deeply grateful.
I truly love you.
What does this mean?
After a magical retreat earlier this month, I had a number of challenging experiences with team members and participants.
Taking time to deeply reflect on these exchanges, I shared the above message in the neoslife WhatsApp group here.
My previous perspective was that all (individual and global) problems are due to a lack of consciousness, of self awareness.
However, these experiences have helped me see that there’s a simpler and clearer way to put this:
All problems are the result of a lack of love.
Whatever is seemingly done to me is a product of my perceptions, conditioning and ultimately my unhealed wounds and at the same time a product of the doer’s perceptions, conditioning and ultimately their unhealed wounds.
Whatever we say or do to each other is therefore never personal but simply a reflection of where we are at — both on the doing and the receiving end.
And where I am at is simply a function of how much I have come to be at peace.
As Rumi said:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Therefore, all interpersonal challenges are a result of a lack of love for oneself.
And as I cannot give to others what I don’t have for myself, a lack of self love expresses itself in how I perceive, respond to and treat others.
This is what all great seers taught us:
Love thy neighbour, enemy and everyone as yourself.
Though we might look at it like a reminiscent of ancient times and only applicable to enlightened people, this timeless wisdom is as valid and as important today.
And it’s achievable by every single human being.
I believe all of you readers of this newsletter wish for a more peaceful, more harmonious and more loving world.
The good news: We have the power to create it any day just like I have the power to create a fit and healthy body.
The ‘bad’ news: I cannot wait for others to do this work for me.
I have to create it and it starts with how I receive, respond to and treat others.
There’s no running away or hiding from it. I have to do this (inner) work.
Life is providing an infinite amount of opportunities for me to do this work.
How I receive, respond to and treat others cannot be dependent on how they treat me because then none of us would ever be able to start being more loving and hence the world around us and in extension the world globally would never start to change.
Love is and has to be unconditional. And the power of such love transforms anyone it touches.
My only job is to do everything in my power to be more loving and soon enough everything around me will be more loving.
That is the power we all have:
To transform the world.
All I have to do is to start myself.
And if not me, who?
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
In this newsletter:
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Signing the promissory purchase contract
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Another neoslife podcast
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New website
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First renders of the 34 bedroom neoslife hotel to open in 2025
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Meet Neo, the 4th resident of neoslife
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Last Call: Two spots left for the retreat next week. If you are an investor, supporter, influencer or future resident, we have two spots left for the most transformative journey of your life. Apply here: ir.neoslife.com
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On 2/4/24, five months after I first set foot on this beautiful land, we signed the contract to acquire the estate that is becoming neoslife.
It was the only land I ever looked at and I knew right away this is it. How the land found me and everything that happened after was nothing short of miraculous and full of synchronicities. Miracles are real if we allow ourselves to see and act on them.
Signing the purchase agreement turned out to be an emotional day for me. I’m full of gratitude for all who have supported me on this journey till now and to the many more to come. So many have messaged me, strangers and friends alike, from all corners of the world that want to live there, learn, contribute, participate or understand what it is.
It’s been an intense, beautiful, exhausting, fun, scary and humbling five months all at the same time. I learnt that nothing is impossible when we want something from the bottom of our hearts — and it activates huge resources and support. I cannot wait to see what we will all be creating there together starting this July. I know it will be magical.
The human story is yearning for a new paradigm, a new way of being in harmony with each other, nature and ourselves. Adversity, war, conflicts and diseases were all necessary for us to remember who we are not. We have played this game of fear and animosity long enough.
We’re ready to wake up to a new story and to bring paradise to earth. neoslife is intended to support us with that and that one day there will be many ‘neoslives’ and with all of us living in love, peace and harmony with each other, nature and ourselves. It might sound like a utopia but it really is the future we are creating.
We’ve been gifted such a beautiful world, let’s also make our human experience an extraordinary and beautiful one — because we can.
That today may be the day where we start writing a new chapter of the human journey. I know we will make it happen.
With all my love, thank youVincent🙏🏻💫❤️🚀
Another neoslife podcast
Where I talk about how the land found me at a random encounter at the airport, what neoslife is and why the world wants and needs it.
We also cover my journey from investment banking to Bitcoin and spirituality, loosing a fortune speculating, personal growth, society, technology, the upcoming retreat, the neoslife vision, the spiritual journey, psychedelics, awakening and purpose.
I hope you enjoy it!
You can also listen on Spotify.
We have a new website
Mobile friendly and more structured. Still a lot of moving pieces but its progressing.
Check it out at neos.life.
Fourth resident of neoslife
Please welcome Neo. On Easter Sunday, this eight week old face looked at me at a seemingly random encounter. I wasn’t planning on getting a dog just like I did not expect the land to find me at an airport encounter. She was gifted to me, literally and figuratively.
Life is magical when I get out of the way and let it take its course. Now female Neo is part of the family and will move with me onto the land in July.
neoslife hotel and retreat center
Another view of one of the future hotel guest rooms.
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neoslife on podcast
Recently I had the opportunity to share my journey from investment banking to Bitcoin, psychedelics, spirituality and neoslife on the Once Bitten Bitcoin podcast. If you enjoy this newsletter, you will enjoy this podcast. Here are the Spotify and Youtube links.
neoslife in development
This is an early-stage of what I am working on with a Shan, our 3D designer. It’s not a refection of the actual village but us playing with how to best display it:
neoslife on WhatsApp
The growing neoslife community has now a home: Join our 160 people strong WhatsApp chat to follow along.
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Earlier this week, I attended the ChangeNOW conference in Paris.
The conference website states:
WE ACCELERATE THE TRANSITION TO A SUSTAINABLE WORLD. We lead and amplify concrete actions that inspire and change norms, companies and individuals. Step into a sustainable world - THE LARGEST EVENT OF SOLUTIONS FOR THE PLANET.
It was a three-day conference but 24 hours after touching down I was back in Lisbon.
The conference was a full-on display why the world is not improving. None of the many incredible solutions will solve the problem of hunger, poverty, climate change, eco destruction or anything else.
Because none of them addresses the root cause of the problems we find ourselves in: Our way of being.
Here’s a 60 seconds video of me at the conference explaining.
The conference was heartless and many speakers inauthentic. The opening statements could not have been less inspiring. From the feel it could as well have been a banking conference.
What’s the problem?
The world we live in is a direct reflection of who we are being as a civilisation of eight billion people.
If I want to change the world so that I look better, become richer or more important I will not make a positive impact.
Neither if my solutions are focused on external, outside of me, solutions, no matter how brilliant or well intended.
When I create from ego or fear, what I create will be ego-driven and fear-driven and thereby amplify the problem not solve it.
What needs to precede any desire to change something is the desire to change oneself first.
Whatever I am doing is a function of who I am being.
The reason the world is not improving despite the millions of people trying to solve its problems and the trillions of dollars that are poured into the supposed solutions is simply because none are addressing the root cause:
Our separate sense of self.
As long as I believe my life is about me and I need to have more money, power or control to be safe or feel good, whatever I create will create more of the same.
Social media is a beautiful example. It was meant to make the world more connected but it really has created more silos, polarisation and separation. Not because there’s anything wrong with the technology but because technology simply amplifies who we are being.
AI will be the biggest amplifier of this and it will crush us if we don’t wake up from the illusion of being separate.
What’s the ‘solution’?
My primary job as a human is to evolve. This is the very purpose of life. If I am not evolving I am wasting my life because this is what I came here to do.
After I exit the body I am in stasis again and hence the opportunity to evolve is lost.
As a collective, we are meant to evolve from feeling separate from each other and therefore fighting and competing our way through life to remembering that we are individual expressions of one universal consciousness that simply uses the human life to experience itself and evolve.
We are this consciousness and we are playing with ourselves the human game of life.
How? By having forgotten who we truly are.
And the ‘job’ we came here to ‘do’ is to wake up from the dream of separation and to remember who we really are thereby returning to a state of pure love for life, the world, each other and most importantly ourselves. Because
We are one.
This return to love and oneness is what we are all secretly yearning yet what is for our separate minds so very difficult to understand.
The moment we remember and therefore act from a place of individually expressed oneness again, poverty, hunger, wars and the destruction of nature will all end at once because we understood that really we are one single organism of consciousness hurting itself.
No one in their right mind would hurt himself yet that is what we are doing.
That is, until we wake up from the illusion.
How can we ‘do’ it?
neoslife is the vehicle I am building to create a place for this new way of being, helping us to remember and experiencing again who we always were.
We have just forgotten.
A life in harmony, peace and love we are all yearning for can be created right now.
All it takes is that I let go of my idea of being a separate self by waking up from this illusion.
I ‘do’ this by living from the heart rather than the fear-driven mind.
Yes, Vincent has a separate body, mind and personality but the consciousness that is experiencing itself through this avatar called Vincent is the same as yours.
And it is eternal. I was never born and I will never die. Only Vincent was born and Vincent will die but not the consciousness that looks through his eyes.
It’s the same consciousness that looks through yours and hence when I hurt you or only think of myself it is simply the unevolved me who has forgotten that we are of the very same consciousness.
I am building neoslife to help us in the process of remembering our true nature allowing us to create heaven on earth again completing the human journey we came for:
To remember who we truly are: Consciousness or God as some call it.
How can you help?
By waking up yourself.
April 10-14, we are inviting eight potential investors for a life-changing experience where they will remember who they truly are beyond their bodies, minds and personalities.
We are providing this sacred experience unconditionally of any monetary exchange.
It is the most incredible and exhilarating adventure there is. It is tasting eternity.
It is an initiation into the best kept secret of the universe: Your truth.
If this could be you, please fill out this form: ir.neolsife.com.
We are looking forward to welcoming you home.
We thank you for following this invitation.
Beauty awaits you.
With loveVincent
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This April, I am inviting eight participants to a transformational retreat on the future neoslife estate in Alentejo, Portugal.
You will be guided by the best facilitators that have supported and catapulted me forward on my journey of growth.
Building on the retreats we started last year, in a first, all of us are joining forces to bring you the most transformative experience yet.
We will embark on two different journeys with the Toad and the Heart Protocol.
I have written about my profound experiences with both these medicines in previous newsletters.
Furthermore, we will dive into meditation guided by a master, connect with our bodies through yoga and energetic massages and be nourished with incredible food all while being surrounded by the magic of this very special land.
Fouad, Jeff, John and Sam are all flying in from different corners of the US especially to guide you through this life-changing experience.
A team of nine of us will look after you and I will personally support you in your process of integration in the weeks and months after.
This will be my gift to the selected participants.
You will never look at life the same way.
Who is this for?
We are inviting eight individuals to go through the most transformative experience of their lives allowing them to discover and unleash their own greatness.
And at the same time, to experience the magic of the estate, meet the neoslife team and learn about the vision to explore their financial support for the creation of a place for the world to transform.
For neoslife’s vision to flourish, we need investors to make it happen.
If this is you or you know someone who should be one of the eight, please respond to this message and I will share more about the retreat.
Following closing, I will move onto the land to oversee the development and operations with all my resources, mind and heart.
I already have invested more than €300,000 as well five months of full-time work.
Developing neoslife is and will continue to be my sole and exclusive focus.
I am all-in. To learn more about the project, visit neoslife.
I can’t wait for us to spend these days together and unleash true greatness.
Welcome to a new life.
With much loveVincent
If you have not seen the land yet, here it is:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
Our fiat money is, just like the systems we are part of (countries, governments, companies etc.) a collectively agreed upon imagination. Conversely to what we are told, since the $ has been decoupled from gold in 1971, fiat money is no longer backed by anything but our joint belief.
With the incessant money printing going on and the ever increasing government debt ($34,000,000,000,000 for the US alone, i.e. $100,000 for every US citizen), more and more people are questioning how much longer this house of cards can stand.
"I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop." — Friedrich August von Hayek (1984)
Welcome to Bitcoin
The abuse of our money has been the very reason for the creation of Bitcoin. It was launched at the end of the financial crises with the following headline written into its genesis block: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
Bitcoin is this “sly roundabout way that they can’t stop.”
Why has Bitcoin gone from being worth cents to $60,000 and a market cap of $1.2 trillion in less than 15 years?
More and more people understand the value of Bitcoin in a world where central banks and governments are out of control.
What is money?
Money serves three purposes: 1) store of value, 2) medium of exchange and 3) unit of account.
A critical aspect of the quality of money is that it preserves its value. The issue with all fiat currencies is that central banks can create more of it at will. And especially in recent years they have done so increasingly and recklessly. Plainly spoken it’s legalised theft and an example that legal and ethical are two very different things.
Inflation in consumption items and asset values like stocks and real estate is a direct function of the creation of money. Yes, there are other factors but this is the main factor few economists and central bankers talk about because if they were we would realise that the rigged game they are playing with us.
Central banking is legal theft
Whenever a central bank creates more money it directly devalues all the existing money. Your $/€/£ are immediately worth less. And they call it inflation.
Imagine there were only $1 million in the world. Suddenly the central bank decides that its government needs more money and they create - with the push of a button - another $1 million. The amount of monetary units has doubled but nothing else has changed. Everything will increase in price because double the amount of units are now chasing the same amount of assets and goods.
This is how the system has been stealing from all of us since the money has been delinked from gold - a scarce asset. Why scarce? Because it costs a lot of energy to mine gold and the new supply is therefore limited.
Bitcoin — the best money
Bitcoin is the new, much improved gold because not only is it scarce and hard to create but it has absolute scarcity.
No government nor anyone else can ever create more Bitcoin. There will only ever be 21 million. It’s therefore the hardest/best money there is.
As more and more people understand this very core principle about the quality of money they buy Bitcoin and this pushes up the price - because of its limited supply.
This process has been accelerated with the recent launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that make buying Bitcoin much easier for the traditional financial rails and institutions and everyone else. It has been the most successful ETF launch ever.
Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme
Bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme because existing investors are not paid by new investors. The price keeps going up because of its limited supply and the fact that the majority of Bitcoins are not available for sale.
70% of Bitcoins have not moved/been sold in the last year and 80% not in the last six months because holders increasingly understand Bitcoin continuously increasing in value. It’s the perfect store of money so why would you sell it if you don’t have to.
Bitcoin has been the best performing asset
What scares many people is the extreme volatility. The reason is that even today it is still very early days and most people don’t own any Bitcoin. Its total market cap is still less than 10% of that of gold. The market is still in its learning phase and therefore speculation is ripe which is reflected in the price. Don’t confuse price with its underlying value.
Despite its volatility, Bitcoin has demonstrated to be the best performing asset over the past decade even and especially when adjusted for its volatility/risk. While it goes down a lot, it goes up a lot more and will continue to do so. As Bitcoiners say: It’s just math.
With governments and central banks getting ever more out of control, there is no better time to hedge yourself and own some Bitcoin. There will ever be only 21 million so not even every current millionaire (56 million) nor every US millionaire (22 million) will ever be able to own a full Bitcoin. Far from it because the majority of Bitcoins are not for sale which creates even more upside pressure on the price.
And if you think Bitcoin is expensive at $60,000 wait until it’s $100,000 then 200,000. The question is not if but when.
Owning Bitcoin is owning a piece of the future financial system free from governments manipulation, control and especially devaluation.
Bitcoin is peace
By holding Bitcoin you are voting with your money. Governments would not be able to go to wars if they could not print money at will as they would need to raise taxes to pay for the wars - a very unpopular decision. It means we would enter wars only for defence or where the majority explicitly wants it and is willing to pay for it.
Just like the state and church are meant to be separated, so is money meant to be independent of governments’ control. And with Bitcoin we now have to technology to complete this separation. The world will be much better off for it.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice but merely reflects my opinion. Bitcoin is highly volatile. Invest only what you are willing to loose.
And this is how welcoming the Bitcoin ecosystem is: Here’s nobody me discussing Bitcoin with Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, a public company that owns $12 billion worth of Bitcoin. We talked for 12 mins. I don't know of any other industry where that happens.
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
Note: At the end of the article you find a new video of the estate neoslife is buying.
Imagine putting on an Apple VisionPro headset and entering a virtual world. Now imagine never taking this headset off and believing that the virtual reality you are experiencing is Reality.
This is what life is. We put on the “headset” of being a person at birth and we take it off again at death. Yet we believe that we are the headset, our body and mind, when they are merely our interface to experience life.
What we really are is the awareness behind this headset. The awareness that is experiencing life through the mind-body headset.
This awareness is ever present and eternal and doesn’t know birth nor death. Birth is simply the moment we put on the headset for the human journey.
What’s the purpose?
You chose to put on the headset to evolve. The purpose is specific to you. It’s your tailor-made experience.
And there’s a higher purpose: To understand who you truly are.
We are awareness = consciousness = love = source = God = creator = everything = oneness.
(Pick whichever label you resonate with. They all mean the same. God has nothing to do with religion. It’s simply the spiritual word for consciousness.)
But how can I understand what I am if I am everything?
Rich is meaningless without poor. So is beauty without ugliness or light without darkness and love without fear. We need polarity to understand.
Therefore, to understand who I am I have to experience what I am not.
This is what the earthly experience is about: I experience myself as a separate self so that I can experience what I am not and therefore understand what I am (which in it’s ultimate step means everything / awareness / …).
How does it work?
Once I understand what I am not (separate, ego, personality, self), I can take the headset off and experience what I truly am. This is called “waking up”.
The ultimate purpose of life is to wake up from the illusion we have created. This is the purpose of this illusion: To wake up from it.
The practical consequence of this is that once I wake up (not to be confused with “being woke”) embracing the much larger reality I am, I start using my life for a higher purpose, in service to others, rather than what my security and pleasure-seeking ego self wants or craves.
Why? Because realising that I am not an individual self I start treating everyone “else” as if it was me. Now imagine if we were all to do that what a beautiful world we’d live in. This is the promise of waking up. It is the ultimate utopia. And it’s a real thing.
It’s a head twister and might sound crazy but who said life is straight forward.
Why should you care?
If I don’t realise who/what I truly am then it’s impossible to make the most of this life experience.
While that’s per se not a problem, why would I want to choose a less joyful experience and missing out on its purpose? That’s like buying a movie ticket and then covering my eyes and ears. It’s self defeating.
The consensus belief that our life is the ultimate reality is the single source of all the suffering and dissatisfaction we are trying to escape from throughout our entire lives. It keeps us trapped in the perception that we are separate from everything else.
And it keeps us grasping for more. Ironically, our very seeking of pleasure and trying to avoid pain is the very thing that keeps us locked-up in the prison of never finding the satisfaction we are yearning for.
The never-ending rat race for a better tomorrow that we can’t win — and then we die.
How do I wake up?
First, I need to fully grasp that I am (in) an illusion.
There are various ways to experience your true (soul) self: Death, a near-death experience, certain psychedelics and deep extended meditation or self inquiry, to name a few. It’s not a quick process. It’s developmental just as growing up is.
Second, I need to live it.
Understanding the illusion not just intellectually/by knowing but reflecting it in my way of being. I need to step out of the illusion and act accordingly. I need to follow my intuition, an inner calling rather than following my survival and ego-driven mind. This is much harder than the first step (which is already difficult).
Third, I need to remember why I came here.
To experience life was a conscious choice. We play in this game of identity, time and space with the purpose to evolve. I might have come here to learn forgiveness and hence keep experiencing seemingly unforgivable experiences. Whatever resistance I seem to be up against, that’s where my purpose lies and where transformation takes place.
Those three are not necessarily sequential steps. Waking up is more like an iterative, spiralling up process.
Waking up is hard
As I am writing these lines, I’m reflecting on my own process of waking up from the illusion. I have gained certainty through experiencing it that life and the person Vincent is is an illusion: It is a temporary construct through which I am experiencing myself (step 1).
However, embodying this in my every day life has been rather challenging. As Einstein said:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
This is why I have been working on it for now a decade. My goal is to fully and permanently wake up and navigate life from that place of full surrender. It’s not an easy feast nor a fast one but I know it can be done and I am convinced I can do it (and everyone of us can). We are much more powerful beings than we think we are.
Humanity as a whole is going the opposite direction. We are getting trapped ever more deeply in the material illusion and our pain is increasing in the process. It’s not a coincidence that mental health is getting ever more worse — a reflection of our level of unconsciousness.
Let's make it easier
neoslife is the vehicle I am building to make it easier for us to wake up and live thriving lives. No one can do it for you just like no one can go to the gym for you but it definitely helps to have great coaches, environment and community.
For this purpose we are acquiring a beautiful piece of land to create a home and village for a new way of being. I just came back from my sixth visit shooting the below video. It’s an unedited/unfinished version but why not share it.
In April, we are holding a world-first transformation experience for up to eight potential investors. During this life-changing weekend you will not only experience neoslife and the estate but understand for yourself what all the fuss of waking up is about and why it will change the world. If that could be you, hit reply.
With loveVincent
NB. Yes, the ostriches, cows and sheep are all part of it. Because of previous heavy rains the water is brown rather than blue.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
After a decade of seeking truth, I have to conclude that the seemingly inconceivable is true:
Censorship is everywhere.
We play part in a global conspiracy.
It is all a big show. Nothing is what it seems to be.
Governments are no longer our protectors but our enslavers.
Wars are fought not to bring peace but to extend power and wash money.
Politicians are groomed, elections influenced and leaders are instructed what to do.
The media is its propaganda machine serving the agenda of our global enslavement.
Hollywood movies like the Truman Show and Matrix are closer to reality than fiction.
The difference between China and the West is that we are made to believe we are free when we are trapped in an intricate system of lies that provide sufficient freedoms to keep us highly productive entities.
The longer we ignore the above, the tighter the system becomes with us ultimately all living in a social credit system under a one world government with a programmable central bank digital currency.
We will own nothing, our freedoms will be constrained and we will be dependent on the government as AI and robots do all of our work. Yuval Harari already refers to us as the useless class.
Both Orwell’s 1984 and Our Brave New World are coming true.
We are talking years not decades. The WEF, WHO, Bill Gates, George Soros, the military-industrial complex, CIA and other agencies are hard at work to make this dystopian future a reality.
Sociopaths are running the world but only our lack of awareness and compliance keeps the system in place. We vastly outnumber them.
This will upset a lot of people, get me canceled and ignored. I get it. It’s very upsetting to me too. I used to think all of the above is crazy talk. I wish it was.
However, things are accelerating so fast that I feel we no longer have the luxury of time to not take a public stand.
Luckily, people are waking up and fighting the system. Most recently the farmers in Europe.
We have a small window of opportunity to turn this ship around.
What can we do about it?
My focus is the creation of a new, humane system of living. A new earth.
I used to think neoslife - the New Earth Operating System for life is about the creation of a well-being center and village.
But the most urgent matter is to create a home that celebrates freedom, well-being and removes us from the dependence on the government. Where we live on our own land, with our own food, energy, water, holistic healthcare, school and community.
This is my mission. I have committed my personal resources to it. This is not a vanity or commercial project. It’s about creating a beautiful Noah’s Arc where we will all want to live — freely and happily.
We are in the process of acquiring this 410 ha (1,010 acres) estate 75 mins outside of Lisbon, Portugal. Legal due diligence has just been completed and we are ready to move forward.
It’s imho the perfect place to create a new civilisation while being close enough to the existing one. We only need €5MM to kickstart it.
If this is you or you know someone, please get in touch and let’s create a place worth living.
With loveVincent
Here’s a 3D model of the land. Use mouse/trackpad and shift key to navigate it.
Want to dive deeper?
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It has become clear to me that there’s a need to swiftly create and scale a “human transformation engine”. More on that below.
“We fk each other over all the time, without even realising it. We fk every living thing on this planet over and think it’ll be fine because we user paper straws and order the free range chicken. And the sick thing is, I think deep down we know we’re not fooling anyone. I think we know we’re living a lie. An agreed upon mass delusion to help us ignore and keep ignoring how awful we really are.”
— Julia Roberts in Leave the World Behind
Why do we do that? Why are we not learning and evolving into a higher consciousness, a higher way of being? It seems we are blind to what’s going on. Are we too “busy” with our own lives or maybe we just don’t care or hope it will all go away? Because somewhere there are people taking advantage of our ignorance:
“Make no mistake the final goal is to eradicate humanity as we know it. Once you understand the final destination it becomes much easier to look back and identify the psychological conditioning, the biological tampering, the cultural grooming and the educational prepping that we have been subjected to for decades in preparation to making us accept a posthuman future. It takes a lot of physical and psychological abuse to get an intelligent species like ours to agree to its own extinction.”
— Paulo Aboli at the Better Way Conference 2023
Crazy talk? I invite you to reflect, especially those that have journeyed spiritually and psychedelically, that what you mentally believe to be true is simply that: A belief. Our minds are tight prisons within the greater reality.
That’s why it is crucial for us to reconnect with our intuition and deeper knowing — a place that is free from conditioning and that cannot be manipulated. Ask yourself: What do you KNOW to be true?
time is a luxury we might not have
I also invite you to watch this enlightening interview with intellectually brilliant biologist Bret Weinstein as he dissects what happened during Covid, and, more importantly, what is happening right now. With the WHO pandemic treaty on its way to being signed by our governments this coming May, we are seeing a big step towards a one-world government being implemented in front of our own eyes — with nobody talking about what should be front-page news.
“The COVID pandemic caused us to become aware of a lot of structures that had been built around us, something that former NSA officer William Binney once described as the turnkey totalitarian state, the totalitarian state is erected around you. But it’s not activated. And then once it’s built, the key gets turned.”
— Bret Weinstein
Click on the picture to watch the video or read the transcript here. It is an eye-opening interview even for the most sceptical towards Covid disclosure. If you are short for time, watch the last ten minutes.
davos 2024 vs. waking up
As some of you are making your way to Davos next week, take this opportunity to reflect upon the state of the world and how you may be part of its devolution through inaction. Be honest because once a totalitarian agenda is implemented, it will be very difficult to undo. The time for action is now. Observe yourself, the conversations and the people: Where do I see things going wrong? And what am I doing about it? Because if not me, who?
Stop holding back. Indeed a global consciousness is what is required. Yet how will that come about? Somebody has to start. The opportunity is here for you. You can be the source of this new consciousness. You can be the inspiration. Indeed you must be. Who else is there?
— Conversations with God, Book 2
Luckily, there are more and more people recognising what is going on and willing to speak about it openly even at the risk of being canceled or ridiculed. I’d love to be wrong but I am convinced that while we have a window of opportunity to turn things around, we are moving fast towards a point of no return. I believe that to be 2027.
It gives us three years if we are lucky. It could be much less. The world is moving very fast these days while our attention is captured by our personal lives, Netflix, making more money and news distraction, diversion and the polarisation with Israel vs. Gaza (and previously Ukraine vs. Russia) — an online shouting match of who is more evil.
People are suffering and the media’s game is to focus our attention and to tell us what to believe — divide and conquer while distracting us from what is really going on. And as you are engaging in this exchange, my question again: What am I really doing? Am I making a difference? When will it be bad enough so that I take action? If not me, who?
we are due for an upgrade
Elon Musk said in a recent interview that “the amount of compute dedicated to AI is increasing by a factor of ten roughly every six months”. If this is true, it means AI is increasing by a factor of 100 per year, a factor of 10,000 (10x10x10x10) every two years and a factor of 1,000,000 over three years. It’s hard to grasp exponentials and nearly impossible to grasp the implications of this. 2026 will be nothing like 2023. Nothing.
While technology has been evolving exponentially, our human “operating system”, our consciousness has stagnated at best. It still operates the way it did 1,000 years ago. We still resolve disagreements through physical force, war and conflicts. We still follow the Darwinian survival of the fittest — and hence keep f*g things up.
Having God-like technologies in the hands of cavemen is a dangerous combination. Especially in the hands of those that seem to have a very specific plan for humanity as Bret masterfully explains in the interview above. It’s time to wake up.
calibrating your compass to true north
So what am I doing about it? neoslife’s immediate focus will be to become a transformation engine: A significant evolution and deepening of what we started with the Awaken to Beauty retreats.
A residential one-week program where you go through a deeply transformative experience that wakes you up to your true being and we subsequently work through all your issues. It’s an all-in, no backdoors program. You will do open-heart surgery on your being to unleash your soul and to get into full alignment with your reason of being.
Once your heart is liberated and your understanding of self evolved, we will move on to a crash-course in understanding the world around you. You bring all your beliefs (whatever they are) and we will challenge them until you finally get to YOUR truth rather than the one you have been made to believe over your lifetime. We will help you remove the tumour and step out of the collective delusion.
You will be calibrating your compass to true north. It won’t be our truth or answers but we will be here to help you find yours by empowering you to look deep inside yourself. It is deep inner work, a labour of love.
It is also the most difficult and the most beautiful work. It’s called The Great Work. It really is the only work we are here to do. As a result, your doing will become an expression of your being. The gift of knowing is the freedom from thinking.
a priceless gift
The reason you will choose to take this challenging journey is that you may get something priceless: The clarity of who you are and why you are alive, the freedom to be unconditionally you, the courage to live a full life, an absence of fear, doubt and anxiety, a community for life to support you on your journey and, I have no doubt, so much more that we will discover together.
I see you and your suffering, however big or small. Writing these lines has cost me every ounce of my energy. Many times, I asked myself whether I am going crazy and what am I doing with my life? Many times, I had to wade into deep and dark waters full of alligators only to find out that they were fictions of my mind.
This is an offering from my soul to yours: To cleanse your heart to reconnect with your soul and remember who you truly are. You will know whether you are called to come. And when you are, we will be here for you to be reborn and supporting you at every step along the way.
Births are difficult but giving life to yourself is the most beautiful gift there is. It really is the only thing that matters.
I leave you with this poem.
That all the love may find youVincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
I am committing my entire net worth to bring neoslife to life — to ignite…
a new age of enlightenment
The world is crumbling: War, conflicts, polarisation, destruction of nature, moral decay, anxiety, depression and loneliness epidemics just to name a few. We have lost our way on a staggering scale.
Simultaneously, AI and robotics are taking over the world at unfathomable speed. Within a few years there will be close to no human task that technology cannot take care of. This means most of us will become - commercially speaking - useless.
Paired with financial wealth, land and power being consolidated by a small number of people and institutions, we have the ingredients for the perfect storm: A totalitarian one-world government controlled by money and technocrats where your money is programatically controlled (CBDCs) and you get your universal basic income (UBI) once you complied with their requirements. China is showing us the future.
But not all is lost. It’s darkest before dawn. Every challenge is equally an opportunity, an opportunity to change, grow and transform. Eighty years ago one man brought the world to its knees and in the process killed millions of people. But was it really just one man or was it the entire Western world, hundreds of million people standing by in quiet complicity until the very last moment when the horrors became so great that they could no longer ignore it?
We are finding ourselves at the outset of just such a grave moment again. And again it might be hard to see it without the benefit of hindsight — as it was when Hitler rose to power. Of course, it’s a very different situation but history doesn’t repeat itself but rhymes. Staying on the current path, we are moving towards an extinction level event for humanity at worst and the Hunger Games at best.
So what’s the opportunity? To wake up from our sleeping state and change the direction 180 degrees and create a new age of enlightenment. How? By massively raising our consciousness and changing our way of being. How? Be creating a new model on how to live that makes the current outdated and dysfunctional model obsolete. How? I encourage you to look into the mirror and ask yourself this question: What do I know to be right but ignore? What do I need to change? How do I need to show up differently?
what i am doing
“Don't fight the existing system; build a new system that makes the old system obsolete." — Buckminster Fuller
Here’s a 5 mins video sharing the vision (thank you Darius for capturing me):
We are building a fully self-sufficient village in Portugal. It will incorporate all what we know about how to live well, healthy and free amongst each other while enjoying all the riches life has to offer including the support to heal, evolve and thrive. I wrote about it in more detail here.
This is a big undertaking but imho more important than anything we have ever done. It is about building a modern day Noah’s Ark. This time it’s not a ship but land where we freely reimagine the way we live and remember what it means to be human.
To put my money where my mouth is, I am pledging my entire net worth of 600,000 Euro irrevocably to this project. I am “burning the boat” ensuring that this project will succeed and that I will leave no stone unturned to make it happen. Failure is not an option.
There is no better and more important investment than into our future. We are yearning to find a new way of being human. Let’s showcase the world that there’s a better way. We don’t have much time.
An incredible team has already come together to bring this vision to life. Here’s a look at just some of the people involved (in no particular order), new supporters are joining us every week.
To lay the foundation for a new perennial model for humanity, I foresee a structure with a Swiss foundation at the top and for-profit entities underneath that allows you to invest in what I expect to be a financially rewarding undertaking: High impact comes with high rewards. We are creating the New Earth Operating System for Life — NEOSLIFE. And the land, the “hardware” we found is spectacular.
Simultaneously, the foundation will be able to attract tax-deductible donations and NGO grants and ensure the vision will survive us all. This structure is inspired by OpenAI (see here) adapting it for what didn’t work including wisely choosing a vision-aligned, capable board of “elders”. Here’s a draft.
an invitation to reimagine being human
If you feel the calling to be part of reimagining how we live and to contribute to preventing suffering on an unforeseen scale, I invite you to get in touch. We are in the process of acquiring the land for which we need additional seed investors to bring this vision to life.
Here’s a glimpse of it from the air. It is literally made for neoslife, a new way of life. In my previous newsletter I shared more about this very special land.
Beyond investment, we are inviting individuals who are passionate about creating and operating this vision: Visionaries, architects, farmers, hospitality experts, marketing, operations, financing, structuring, administration, development, HR, legal, community… There will be things to do for everyone who identifies with the vision, is passionate and skilled and dreams of living in nature while enjoying all the benefits of a city surrounded by fellow dreamers and doers.
In its full development, we envisage around 1,000 people being simultaneously on the land (guests, day visitors, patients, staff and residents). Everything we need will be provided by our village plentiful so when the world locks down again, we continue as usual. The land even has an airstrip for small planes.
There’s so much more to say but I will stop here. Get in touch if this resonates. I am excited for you to be a part of building the future of humanity. Together, we have an opportunity to create something truly extraordinary.
If you would like to stay up to date, join our Telegram channel.
I am forever grateful to all the teachers on my journey that showed me the light and continuously give me the courage to see this vision through. You know who you are. I stand on the shoulders of giants. This would not be possible without you.
To a new beginning. With much loveVincent1/1/24
PS. Here’s neoslife’s genesis story and how my life’s journey lead me here.
And let’s have fun doing it. Yesterday was my fourth visit to the land together with business, regeneration and village building experts:
Questions, ideas, suggestions or just want to connect, reply to this email.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
if you are looking to invest into the future of humanity, here's an opportunity to be part of it. we found magical land to build the neoslife center — a paradigm shifting place that will be the first of its kind in the world.
when we are in full alignment, things move at lightning speed.
not in my wildest dreams would i have expected to write these lines already in 2023 but after years of quiet preparation the neoslife village, center and resort for healing, well-being and human thriving is ready to become a reality, ready to be born. here’s a high level outline i wrote a year ago after my transformative ayahuasca experience: neoslife center
the village will include:
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a cutting edge healing center bridging science, wisdom and spirituality focused on prevention and curing rather than conventional symptom treatment (led by my teacher dr. nader butto),
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a co-working and creation center,
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a meditation and inner wisdom center,
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a school that helps the next generation to become self-sovereign critical thinkers,
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an academy teaching and furthering our understanding of how mind, body and soul are integrated and thereby how to live healthy and happy lives,
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a resort and residences for guests, staff and permanent residents hosting around 1,000 people at the same time,
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a farm based on regenerative and permaculture agriculture that will fully sustain the whole village with its own water and energy production and free roaming animals across the land,
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all of the above integrated into the local community and in harmony with all stakeholders no matter who they are or where they are from and
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a few other things that will make this place truly unique on this planet.
we are on earth to commune together and the neoslife village will model that this is not only possible but value accretive for everyone while providing comfort, modern amenities and even luxury living in harmony with nature and the local community. yes, we can have all of that without compromising and this project will showcase it to the world creating the first modern blue zone. it will also be a fully self-sustained and self-sufficient village — who knows when the next lock-down comes.
this is no longer just a vision: we have found a beautiful 420 ha piece of land in alentejo, portugal within 75 mins from lisbon airport and the city that overdelivers on what we were looking for to become the most cutting edge health, healing and well-being center and community.
the land is operational and already comes with
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it’s own drinking water sources and several water bodies including a dam,
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170 cows and various other animals,
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most of the areas is covered with cork trees — a source of beauty and income,
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existing buildings with 16 bedrooms, restaurant and social spaces that are currently used for hunting tourism,
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agricultural equipment including tractors and
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even its own airplane landing strip.
imagery of the land: first picture is the northern part, second picture the southern — both parts are divided by the dam in the middle.
here’s a glimpse of the land around the dam:
the following is a concept design from two years ago for a much smaller and hence denser resort. with the above land, things will be spaced out and it will mostly be single housing with few large buildings and a maximum of two floors embedded into the hills so that what will dominate are splendid views of nature from any place inside and outside.
this image gives you an idea of the topography and extensiveness of the land. it’s width in the middle is 2km (1.2 miles) and it’s height is 3.1km (1.9 miles) for a total of 4.2km2 or 420 ha. from the highest peak to the river valley has an altitude differential of 100m (330 feet). the land has several hill chains which provide stunning views and privacy across. there might also be an opportunity to buy the adjacent land which compromises another 280 ha.
there are many more details about the land, the project and the amazing people involved that i am happy to share if you would like to learn more.
what’s next?
we have secured the land and are now looking for the initial seed money to complete the purchase, start the planning process, hire an architect and do a refurbishment of the existing buildings and facilities so the land becomes operational for retreats this coming summer. we are meeting the municipality next week to discuss our vision with the mayor and urban planning team.
i cannot think of a more rewarding investment opportunity (impact, well-being-wise and financially) especially in the polarised and adverse times we find ourselves. here you have an opportunity to be part of a peaceful revolution in showing we can do so much better. i am fully committed to see this project through to the end.
neoslife - life reimagined
neoslife is my life’s work together with many of the amazing souls that i have met and keep meeting along the path, some of them which are listed here: neoslife team. this list is continuously evolving and expanding as people get drawn towards the project. i’m looking forward to soon include you or one of your acquainted investors. reply to this email or send a message to vincent@neos.life to become part of this ride and have your own residence in this heaven on earth.
last but not least, we are looking for aligned early and later-stage investors that understand the vision and are primarily investing because of their connection with it rather than for a purely financial return. this project will provide prosperity for everyone involved financially and otherwise but it s not meant to be a mere transaction but a calling to create beauty.
if you are interested, i would also like to invite you to consider journeying with us this december 8 or 9 at Awaken to Beauty which will allow you to get to know the team, the project and even the land while having the most expansive experience and connecting deeply with the vision. i can’t wait to start working with you on this and create heaven on earth.
with love and excitement for what’s to comevincent
ps. here’s the timeline i outlined in 2022 and to my amazement, we are ahead.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
what if i could promise you everything you ever wanted? you might think: “how could he possibly know what i want?” or “how could he possibly give me what i want?” if you are like every other human being after removing all the mentally made-up wants i would bet that what you really desire is to enjoy freedom through peace of mind, joy and love.
what’s standing in the way? your mind. why? because it’s driven by fear. fear of not having enough, fear of not being enough, not being safe, not being loved, not being understood, not being… what do all those fears (many of them unconscious) do to you? they make you suffer — the absence of peace of mind, joy and love.
because of the worries you have about what you are (seemingly) not yet or what could happen to you in the future, life can be miserable. and to make up for that we try to acquire money, power, status and even try to buy love. what’s the result? the suffering only becomes more. why? because the hole we feel inside cannot be plugged by external achievements.
it’s like taking anxiety medication. it doesn’t remove anxiety, it just suppresses it. just like all pharmaceuticals. they “treat” symptoms rather than curing the cause. and so it is with our cravings to compensate the gap we feel inside.
what’s the solution? stop trying to fight the symptoms, address the cause. how? by healing to underlying trauma. how? by seeing the truth and awaken to your true nature. how? many ways lead to rome. we have created one that we call awaken to beauty. here’s one of our recent participants after experiencing her truth (1 min):
“i know who i am. i am not scared. i have seen humanity. i have seen the light. i have seen death. i have seen everything. i am not scared anymore. i am happy. thank you.” — alex, investor, participant of awaken
is this an adverting for our retreats? no. there’s a reason i have co-created this experience after nine years of looking for “the answer” to life’s big questions and how to get out of the never ending cycle of suffering. this creation is my gift to you and i wish every human being to experience what alex has. because when you do, you are ready and able to end your own and then all suffering including wars.
to clarify, this is not a magic pill. this is medicine. i like to call it a truth serum. it won’t solve your problems but it will empower you to realise that what you think are problems are just distortions of your mind. once you have seen your mind for what it is, you will be ready to make the changes you secretly wanted to make all along.
and because an experience alone is not enough to create permanent change, this does require your desire and willpower to change, we have embedded this most profound experience in a whole life transformation and empowerment journey. we and the community of fellow travellers are here to support and empower you to make the changes you want so you can find the peace, joy and love that you came for to earth and that are your birthrights.
we are here for you when you are ready to put an end to whatever you need to put an end to. this is a sacred mission and i could not be more honoured to connect you to your truth when you got tired of playing the old game and are ready to awakentobeauty.co.
one by one we will see the light that is in all of us, that we all are.
with all my love for you and for all of humanity, i am in deep service to you, vincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
the god molecule
two weeks ago, we held our first “awaken” experience together with john and fouad who have served the “god molecule” to 12,000 people. john is an american psychiatrist who realised on his journey that he could help people much more than prescribing symptom numbing pharmaceuticals by giving them a profound spiritual experience. six years ago, he quit his nyc based practice and started serving 5-meo-dmt exclusively.
as a reader of this newsletter you know i’ve explored all kinds of psychoactive substances. however, there is nothing quite like this one which is extracted from the venom of the sonoran desert toad. in john’s words:
this is really hard to, it’s ineffable, it’s hard to put into words or describe. but many would describe this sense of: a deep inner soul journey where you feel like you are connected to oneness. you are connected to everything in the universe into infinity. we refer to it as non-duality. the sense of connecting to something deeply spiritual.
there are psychedelics and then there’s 5-meo-dmt. the moment you inhale this potion you experience yourself as something much greater than your mind and body realising — without the shadow of a doubt — that you are much more than that. this puts everything the mind thinks into a completely new context. it’s a rebirth of oneself.
i don’t know what else to tell you because no words can do this experience justice. whatever you think you are or you are not, whatever you think you can do or cannot do, whatever you feel you are stuck with or challenges that you have in your life, this puts it all into a completely new frame. and this is why we chose this particular substance for the container we have created.
here’s a glimpse of it:
awaken to beauty
when i started this newsletter i called it “my awakening”. i didn’t know back then that there is actually a substance that takes us into an awakened state of consciousness, a state where the mind is offline — at least for a few minutes — so we can experience truth directly rather than the distortions and creations of it.
if this calls you, we are having our second edition at the end of the month in portugal. we call it: awakentobeauty.co. earlybird pricing ends today but for the first ten people who register from this newsletter, i will extend it to tomorrow.
it’s my deepest desire personally and for all of humanity to awaken to our true nature. we are energetic beings having a bodily and mental experience rather than being bodies with brains that create consciousness. this misunderstanding is single-handedly responsible for all the suffering in the world, including my own one.
the end of all wars
i am looking forward to an awakened future in the not too distant future where we have all experienced this oneness and we treat each other accordingly. this will also be the end of all conflicts and wars — whether within our own families or on geopolitical level. i cannot think of a more timely moment to start creating this new peace from within by experiencing it for ourselves. one by one we awaken.
we are here in deep service to you to guide you through this sacred initiation whenever you are ready.
that all wars may end.
with love,vincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
there will be two types of humans: those that are acting from the mind and those that are acting from a higher principle call it love or the heart. based on the current paradigm the world is operating from it might be hard to see where this new human will come from and how it could possibly survive in such an adverse world.
but this is looking at it from the mind and through the current paradigm we are stuck in. one could argue that the current human is on a self destructive path where, while some of us enjoy luxuries and pleasures every day, we are dying slowly and quietly inside.
it all comes back to three question:
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who am i?
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why am i here?
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what do i really want?
human 1.0
if i cannot answer these questions, it is like driving my car without knowing why i am driving, where i am driving to and why i am driving to where i am driving to. yet this is how most of humanity navigates life. and then i die. and so what was the point of it all? there was no point. such a life is meaningless. and that’s the very nagging i might be experiencing everyday.
yes, i make money, i buy stuff, i build stuff, i enjoy myself, i travel, i have sex, i drink, i eat, i have fun. and tomorrow, i choose from this menu again trying to maximise my pleasure and minimise my pain. rinse and repeat until i die. i try and might get better at playing this game but somehow life keeps throwing me curve balls: from the weather and traffic jams to breakups, losses, disease and death.
i want to control it all yet i never succeed at it and so more often than not i am frustrated, depressed, sad, angry, worked up, tired. life is so exhausting. yes, it is because i am playing the game of human 1.0. it’s an outdated game i continue to play.
human 1.5
or maybe i am playing the human 1.5 game which is i work on myself, i become conscious of my shadows, patterns and traumas. i might even be on the spiritual path drinking plant medicine, going to retreats, doing breath work, working with shamans and traveling to exotic locations trying the newest and latest. it is because i realised that life gets easier when i let go of the baggage i unconsciously have been carrying around. however, i am still suffering just as the human 1.0. maybe just a little less.
human 2.0
and then there’s the human 2.0. it s an entirely different animal. it looks the same outside but when you get in touch with it i immediately realise there’s something different and i wonder what this human has that i don’t. and i want it! i can see how this human not only has his s**t together but navigates life with such ease and grace that makes me wonder what is his secret.
the human 2.0 has not just understood but experienced that he is not his mind, identity and body. in other words, i am not vincent. vincent is an aspect of me and yes, i experience this life through vincent and my mind identifies with him. but capital I am so much more. (i refers to my perception of self and capital I refers to everything there is which is what I really am.) I am everything and I am nothing because I am beyond the realm of the material world. I created the material world so I can experience myself through it.
capital I
I am you and we are all I. we are all One. I am god, god is I and I is you and everyone else. and as we one by one realise this we as a collective start waking up to a new world, a world of love and understanding, a world of unity, a world where we all understood we are all One, literally. and that there is no death and there is no birth. yes, our individual physical vessels are born and die but these are simply transition moments of the consciousness we are.
and for what that I am, there is no money, there is no ownership, there are no things. I am all that or rather all that is a creation of mine. I is us and everything around and beyond us. I is everything. we are I and I is pure love. I created this world, the whole universe so that I can understand and experience myself. because I is everything, I needed to create separation, i.e. what I am not so I can experience and understand what I am.
what I am not
only by experiencing what I am not I can understand what I am. because before I created the material world and our sense of being separate, there was only I. everything was and everything is still I but I is experiencing itself through me, you and all other eight billion human beings separately but we are One I.
the mind is a formidable creation of I amongst all the other creations that we can see and experience and everything beyond that our limited i’s can’t perceive. my mind keeps me in the illusion that i am just vincent. and because i think i am just that, i act like i am just that and so i not only feel separate but i behave like it as well: i want my stuff for myself and i want more of it. and i want more money and i want more pleasure or whatever. i, i, i.
but none of that is relevant because when i die, I remember the consciousness I am and to where I go back to, which is also where I am all the time in parallel and there is no money, there is no time, there is no material world. there is just I. when i die, I remember this was all a game I was playing with myself though i took myself very seriously.
what I am
so this is what I am. and this is why i am here: to remember who I am. and so what do i and I want: to remember. and what does vincent want, wish and work towards: for all of us to remember.
this vincent can’t help but let you know one more time: if you want to meet I for yourself, come to portugal next weekend and have the most profound experience that i know of: understand who you are, why you are here and what you want.
from the bottom of my heart i wish every human being that they remember who they are. it’s the most beautiful moment. more beautiful than anything you’ve experienced before. it’s what we are all secretly yearning for: to be reunited with self, to understand who we are.
i and I - it is a real mindfuck. that is until you experience yourself as I. and all your questions will be answered all at once.
awakentobeauty.co
with love,vincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
this article is based on a spontaneous instagram live and has been adapted and expanded on for legibility. if you like to watch the original, here it is:
the purpose of life
as we are gearing up for our event awaken to self, i have been reflecting: what is the purpose of life? what are we doing? we're all chasing something, right? we're building companies, building families, building businesses, building our lives. and one day we die — and that could be very soon or in 40, 50, 60 years and then so what? all of what we have built disappears.
so the question is: what was the purpose of that life? and of course it depends on what you believe. whether you think you're just this body and when this body dies then your existence ends. but from everything i've seen this is not the case. i'm an eternal being. i'm pure consciousness. i'm just experiencing life through this body and it can be either a life of suffering or a life of beauty, awe and surrender. this is what i come ever closer to realise: our existence is nothing what we think it is. we live in an age of ignorance.
the age of ignorance
we have been living in an age of ignorance for a long time and that is what created all this dystopian world that we are moving more and more into. it is because we are stuck in the ego fighting each other, competing with each other, whether it's between countries, businesses, industries, people and even within our very family. our family structures are collapsing. there's no love in this world. and therefore it's a constant fight. but it doesn't have to be that way.
i was just commenting on a post on linkedin about my experience at singularity university and that technology will solve all our problems - and it's b**t. i used to believe that but technology won't solve anything. the only thing that will help us get out of this mess and evolve is raising our consciousness, realising what we truly are and what this experience of life really is about.
based on everything i've learned over the past eight years and especially more recently, life is about learning and growth. all the challenges i encounter are in service of my evolution. everything is a gift, even the most difficult and painful experiences. to the mind this doesn't make any sense because the mind lives from a place of scarcity, ego identity and separation. it just wants to have and be more.
the business, the partner, the money
it wants to feel safer. it wants certainty. and those are the lives we build for. but then i wonder: why am i not feeling it? why am i not happy? i got the business, i got the partner, i got the money, i got everything. so why? maybe i need a bigger business, a bigger house, a more beautiful partner, a more successful partner. but i will still not be feeling it. because this is not how it works, or rather it is how exactly how it works: by looking for it in the external world, the world outside of us, we will never find it.
yet this is what the mind keeps us doing and chasing — when we live from this very limited place of the mind — because life is so much more. again, i'm an eternal being. i'm pure consciousness. some people call it god, some people call it source. it doesn't matter what you call it. it's all the same. and there are experiences like the experience we're offering at the end of this month that show you very viscerally and experientially who you are. you don't have to believe anything. you will know what you are with more certainty than knowing your name. and it won’t be your mind and body.
i am pure consciousness
this has tremendous implications for how to live life. and that's the second part: we will be helping you to ground this realisation into your life. because even once i know i am consciousness and the body is just a vessel through which i experience life temporarily, i am still here in this life, right? i still need to make money, i still need to pay bills, i still need to take care of my family and deal with all the friction of life.
these non-ordinary states of mind, these consciousness-expanding states that help us grasp that we are more than who we think we are, they don't necessarily make it easier to live life if we don't bridge the experience into our everyday life, into this dimension. when i realise that i am more, the purpose of life also changes and it is no longer about resource acquisition and creating dominance in the world but it becomes a much more profound understanding that in the end, this idea of pure consciousness means we are love and love is what we all yearn for.
reconnecting with self
i'm not talking about romantic love, i'm talking about the love for life. this deep and continuous sense of presence, connection, gratitude and awe. i want to feel that every day. everything in life is in service of this realisation that i am more. and the more i can live in this place, the more i experience presence and gratitude. these are not just new age words. this is profound (perennial) wisdom that humanity has established over thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years, since we exist.
we just forgot it. when we go to school, school teaches us how the world works — which has nothing to do with how the world really works. yes, you get some practical skills like math but this connection to inner wisdom is severed shortly after birth when our “education” through our parents starts. the “awaken to self” experience is reconnecting you to your true self which most of us never experienced and never will experience outside of these modalities.
truth vs. needing to be right
and from that place, i can then live life differently. for example, one of my big obstacles is the trauma around money. it has shown up in many ways: i was a banker. it was about having more and more. then i was trading bitcoin and other stuff and made a lot of money and lost a lot of money. then i was coaching charging a lot of money. money was a reflection of self-worth and for me to feel safe.
while money is still part of this game called life — there's nothing inherently bad about money, the obsession with money and with the ego that wants me to be better, faster, more right, etc. is single-handedly responsible for all the friction in my life and between me and others and the world at large.
when we have an argument around vaccines or covid or any other (controversial) topic we're not engaging in it like “i want to get to the truth and let's debate it to get to the truth”. instead, we're going into every conversation with the need to be right. and that’s the friction that we then experience in life. it is self created. it is self destructive.
killing ourselves
and then i wonder why life is so difficult. yeah, because i am not here to be right. what do i know anyway? i am here to expand, i am here to learn, i am here to grow, i am here to connect and ultimately i am here to love. to love every experience and living from a place of awe and wonder for life. this place exists for every one of us, for every human being. it's a birthright. we've just been out-educated, out-socialized of it. we live in this disconnected world now. when i switch on the tv, which i never do, or when i look at the news, it's all about fear, it's all about competition, it's all about indoctrination, it's all about control. and it’s full of lies and half truths.
when someone speaks up against it, they are called a conspiracy theorist, and then they're canceled. people are being canceled and our genders are being confused. all of that is confusing our sense of belonging, community and harmony. that's what we are doing to ourselves: we are killing ourselves, and we are even supporting the process of killing ourselves by not speaking up against it but canceling those that do.
recognising who i am
i hope that the experience we are holding this month helps participants find their purpose — just like it helped me and so many others. it's a beautiful, a fulfilling thing to understand what you are truly made of and who you are. while i can be a banker or a startup founder it’s not who i am:
my calling in this life is to support those that want to be shown who they truly are. it’s what i have been seeking for myself and it’s therefore what i am here to gift to others. the messenger and the message are the same.
and like that each one of us has a calling, an essence. it is not something you choose. it is something you recognise, you find, you discover: you are who you are. and when you allow your being to be what it is, you will feel all the purpose, meaning and beauty you have been looking for all along. it’s all already inside of you. you are coming home.
coming home
if this resonates then i invite you to have a look at the experience we put together. i don't want to market it, i just want to tell you about it and invite you to it because i am deeply passionate about all of us remembering what we are and therefore bring back the world we are all yearning for: one of beauty, love and unity. this is not a utopia but a dream we can all create and live together.
this either calls you or it doesn't. it was my most profound experience. we enhanced it by building it into a beautiful container to allow you to safely and softly land back in this world. if you have any questions, send me a message. i am looking forward to journeying with some of you.
before you go: i can promise you one thing, or you get your money back, that this will be the most profound experience of your life. bar none. and the container in which we embedded the experience is the most supportive and loving one.
as mark twain said:
the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.
this will be such a day.
with lovevincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
want to experience your higher self and having the most profound experience of your life? learn about our “awaken to self” journey at the end of this article.
humanity at crossroads
we are at crossroads. there are two prevalent competing themes in the world:
one of increasing government control/fascism, conformism, so called woke-ness and division on all levels from gender to sexual preferences to affluence to political orientation to narratives. it’s the theme of self/ego, separation, conflict, control, power and dominance. the oldest human story there is — a very un-evolved one.
the other theme is one of awakening, starting to grasp the big picture of the human journey and as a result seeking harmony and collaboration between people and with nature. it’s based on the understanding that we are not separate but really one organism experiencing itself through many different players. in this game, we are here to learn and grow with each other. it is a game that doesn’t end with one’s death and therefore i play it very differently.
i have previously attempted to lay out the case (see 61/ the biggest lie) why the evidence is overwhelming that we are more than our mind and bodies and therefore the reason we are here is not only beyond just competing and seemingly winning at the game of life but the opposite: it is about serving the greater self and from this place of service and unconditional self-expression, we find what we are all seeking: love, joy and fulfilment.
what has gone wrong?
the world is the schoolroom of god. our being in school does not make us learn, but within that school is the opportunity for all learning. — manly p. hall
so how come we are not taking this next step in human evolution and instead are keeping the status quo with wars, poverty, destruction of nature, division and fighting that led us to experiencing both the most affluent world ever (though ever more unequally distributed) but also the most miserable one with people that have everything materially suffering from loneliness, depression, mental and other diseases.
how come so many of us have more of everything than ever yet feel less satisfied? it’s the lack of meaning because the only thing that feeds on having more (wealth, power, control, status, sex, …) is the ego and the ego is what separates us from each other. i can feed my fear driven ego that never has enough or i can wake up from this never ending game (there’s never enough) that doesn’t give me what i truly want which is, i’d argue, to feel at peace, in harmony, in awe, joy, love and unity.
the challenge is not only in the world of business, politics and geopolitics. these are merely the symptoms of the underlying cause which starts with those supposedly closest to us: our family. the lack of love, support and harmony within the family structure is what ultimately shows up as fighting (in some form or shape) with everyone else for survival, dominance, winning, etc.
the crumbling of the family structure and the lack of individuation from our parents has meant that we are externalising the unconscious battle we are fighting within ourselves. individuation is the process of becoming your independent self without needing the approval of your parents and family members. to be yourself unconditionally, confidently and irrespectively of what others think. to have an adult to adult rather than a parent to child relationship with your parents and your children, once grown up, with you.
liberation through initiation
this used to be achieved through a right of passage, an initiation, once you attained a certain age. indigenous tribes, for example, abandon their young adults in remote nature. if you make it back home you become a man and are treated like one no matter that you will always be the son of someone. you move from a parent to child relationship to an adult to adult relationship. you become one amongst equals. while we still celebrate the passing of one turning 18 or 21, there’s no initiation nor do familial relationship really change. “you will always be my little boy/girl…”
not only do we stay emotionally dependent, we are also staying a victim. during early childhood, we all get traumatised by our parents no matter how well they mean. these mostly unconscious traumas keep us in a victimhood where we try to make up for our perceived lack in all kinds of ways including that the most successful people are those that have been traumatised enough to have a strong drive to compensate through success but not that much trauma that makes them a criminal (pretty much all the prison population comes from deeply broken families).
our deepest trauma: birth
but it gets wilder: as decades of research by stanislav grof show, our deepest trauma that then informs our behaviour throughout life is formed during the traumatic birth process. it says imho a lot about the level of our consciousness and therefore the problem pointed at at the beginning of this article, that despite all that we know about this topic it is not part of our mainstream understanding of self. watch this outstanding documentary on his life, psychedelics and the origin of our deepest wounds: the way of the psychonaut. it’s enlightening.
two paths to navigate life
the conscious person uses the world as a mirror to better understand and master themself. the unconscious person attacks the mirror because they do not realise it’s a mirror. — from the samadhi movie
just like humanity, we individually choose between two possibly life paths: reacting, fighting and trying to dominate and influence/manipulate our environment and the people around us or see everything and everyone around us as a mirror, a reflection that teaches me something about myself.
the first one is the easy, common, mentally and logically instructed path. the one most of us choose because that’s what we are taught and how 99% of the world operates. it’s the survival of the fittest path. really, it’s an animalistic path. we might look much more evolved than animals and we are good at covering up our motivations but underneath that cover the reptilian mind dominates and acts. as andrew grove, former ceo of intel, titled his autobiography: “only the paranoid survive.”
the other path, the path of awakening is the path of taking full responsibility for everything in my life and therefore becoming the empowered creator of it. yes, i can blame my parents for what they have done or lacked doing to me, i can blame my former partner, the government or friends that seemingly let me down — that’s what i am doing if i am on the first, easy path. but on this second, conscious path i am the creator of my life and i see how everything in my life is here to show me something about myself so i can evolve and expand in my way of being.
from victim to creator
this moves me from a reactive victim to an empowered creator. if have a heated argument, i ask myself what did i do to create this tension? what has been my role in this? this is not about being right or wrong. the opposite: it’s about moving beyond right vs. wrong to an understanding of how i need to change and evolve to bring harmony, love, connection, joy or whatever you like to call it into this relationship and life at large. this is the challenging and awakened way of being.
and it’s freaking hard. i don’t claim to be able to live up to that, yet. but i am committed to work everyday on becoming better at it, to be wiser. and as i do, i remove dissonance in my life and bring more of the good stuff into it: flow, gratitude, harmony, serendipity, synchronicity and abundance.
tuning myself to higher states
life is not what happens to me, it is what i create from moment to moment starting with my thoughts and attitudes. this is very hard for our logic driven thinking to comprehend. i like to think of it as a tuning fork. i can vibrate on a low frequency carrying all my traumas and wounds as an unconscious victim and living them out with others — or i can look inside (by taking note of how i respond to others and they respond to me), bring awareness to my issues, work through them and thereby raise my frequency, my way of being. the higher i vibrate, the more i attract other high vibrating "tuning forks” aka humans.
it’s about resonance. and it starts with every thought i have. think of everything around you as a giant mirror. it’s all there for each of us to become conscious of our ways of being and to elevate myself. and when i do, life gets more beautiful without anything around me needing to change. i feel better and no one has the power to change or take that away from me because i choose how i respond rather than i react unconsciously.
and as each of us starts moving from a victim carrying its wounds to an empowered creator taking full responsibility for everything i experience the world also transforms from one of animosity, competition and war to one of harmony, collaboration and peace. just like that. all i need to do is to transform myself and as i do the world around me transforms.
experience: awaken to self
september 28-30, we will be hosting one-day bufo toad ceremonies in portugal. not only will you get to connect with your higher self, pure consciousness, in this life-changing experience but we will be providing the support to help you translate this experience into tangible insights for your day-to-day life — during the experience as well as after.
i am joined by a wonderful group of souls including a board-certified psychiatrist, body workers and intuitive healers to help you find your own answers to: who am i? why am i here? how can i experience more love, beauty and peace? how can i make the most of my life? last but not least, it will take place at a breathtaking location.
we have put together all the information on this website: awakentoself.one
if this calls you, message me, fill out the application or join our q&a call on
monday, september 18at 10am pdt, 1pm edt, 6pm uk/pt, 7pm cethere’s the zoom registration link.
we will be happy to answer any of your questions.
though the experience is unique to everyone, i have written about mine with the toad here:
with love and gratitude for your presencevincent
ps. before you go, enjoy this powerful be her now 60 seconds reel: heaven surrounds us in every moment. the awaken to self experience may connect you deeper with that truth. ♥︎
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
i am doing something i have not done before: sharing a coaching session where i am the coachee. it’s a vulnerable display of my journey and its human struggles. i feel there’s a lot of insights to gain from and that’s why i am sharing it. you get to experience vincent behind the scenes. the video and timestamps are at the bottom of this article.
challenges on the journey
after last week’s newsletter went out, i woke up that morning with anxiety. despite having clarity on the spiritual level the human journey doesn’t get necessarily easier — that is until it does. so what’s the point of spiritually evolving then? it’s about recognising that life’s journey is about something else than what it seems to be about.
and with that recognition, i then can make changes in my life that allow me to navigate it with more joy, presence, love, serenity, peace and grace. it is moving from the rat race to no more race.
what are we running after anyway? what is the point of having more of something (money, houses, cars, followers, fame, …)? let’s assume you have more than you had a year, two or ten years ago. do you feel any better? is your life more fulfilling, more aligned? my explorations continue to teach me that no matter what i achieve or where i get to, the fulfilment i am looking for is not to be found there.
now if i were you, i’d think, wonderful, but given that you also seem to experience anxiousness, stress, overwhelm, frustration, grief or whatever emotion is currently present for you, what’s the point of all these spiritual explorations if they don’t make you feel any better?
my response: i am still in a transition stage. i have learnt a lot. i have gained clarity of who i am and why i am here. i understand the purpose of my life. however, i have not done the most important step yet: to fully embody that knowing, to let go of the i i think i am and surrender to the higher realms meaning to not attach, judge and resist what i know to be true.
awareness is one thing, surrender is another
and that is a whole other animal. you could say i have completed phase one of a two-stage process. phase one (awareness) is a prerequisite for step two but step two is a lot harder. i know that it won’t be hard once i have taken the step but until i do, it seems incredibly hard.
how do i know that? i’ve had several experiences that viscerally taught me that. the one that always comes to mind first is me literally stripping naked during an ayahuasca ceremony. i have mentioned this story before so i will keep it short:
i knew i needed to strip naked to move forward. i had extreme resistance to do that. when i finally overcame that resistance and stood there naked, nothing happened. and that was the message and teaching: all the resistance was imaginary, in my head, in my mind. it was an illusion. nothing bad happened but the opposite: i was told that as i stripped naked, the energy in the whole room changed. people felt that something had transformed. (if you like to hear my complete account listen here.)
the life lesson was: there are things i know i need to do. i really don’t want to do them or rather: i feel resistance, fear and i am scared of what could happen if i do. but once i do it, nothing bad happens. it was easy and i feel free, elated and something larger has transformed.
letting go of the self that resists
it is the very same thing with my spiritual journey: what i am here to let go not just in ceremony but in life is the excessive thinking, doing, worrying about what could happen, what others could think, needing to be someone, needing to have a lot, to be successful in the traditional sense, bla bla bla. this is not why i am here and this is why i continue to be on this journey.
there is no escape from who i am and this is imho true for all of us. i didn’t come here to build wealth, to be important, to be safe, to live in convenience, to have a lot, etc. i am here to grow, to expand, to become free to be who i truly am. to be myself. and when i let go of all the beliefs and thinking, i finally can and then i feel the fulfilment, the peace, the presence i have been yearning for all along.
that thing that i am after, whatever it is, is not to be found in the world outside of me. it is not to be found in money, power, sex, fame, achievement, control, certainty, … it is to be found in me being free to be who i really am and live fully and freely expressed being myself rather than to constantly worry about tomorrow, next year, the next deal, the markets, … all of that is childhood, societal and cultural conditioning. it is not me.
everything is a gift
every moment i spend thinking is a moment i have not lived, a moment i have not enjoyed. thinking is part of life, part of being human. but i am not meant to think my way through life. i am meant to go through life being myself, being in awe, being in gratitude for all the many things i experience from moment to moment, being in joy, being in love with life for all its richness and diversity no matter whether it rains or the sun shines. everything is a gift.
instead, i worry, i strategise, i play roles, i control, i manipulate, i escape, i disagree, i fight, i need to be right or look good, i argue over money. and then one die i die. so what was all this battling about? nothing. worse: it made my experience of life worse, it stole the joy that life is meant to be from me. but by then the time is over and so it turns into regret.
i could have been so happy, so free, doing what i love, bringing joy to myself and other people, exploring, be grateful yet i chose to worry, fight, argue, hold grudges, … for what? for nothing and suffering as in not enjoying the ride along the way.
i am the master of my life. i decide whether my life is joyful or not. it has nothing to do with what others say, think or do to me (absent of physical harm). i alone decide how i respond to others and life. you scream at me, ok, you must have had a bad day. you insult me, i guess i trigger something within you. whatever someone does to me, i decide how i respond and that decides how i feel. not how much i have or have achieved.
healing rather than escaping
i am full of unconscious insecurities and they are the reason i am trying to achieve so much — to make up for what i feel i am lacking. spending a whole life trying to prove i am worthy, i am lovable instead of healing those wounds and then being able to be myself and do what i love rather than what i think i need to do to impress others or achieve ever more wealth.
this is the human plight: i will never find that peace i am looking for by trying to fill an imaginary hole: to plug a lack that is simply a product of my mind. realising this is called doing the work of healing. this is not some new age stuff, it is something that has been forgotten and we are finally starting to remember.
when i realise that i am much more than my body and mind, i realise that everything i think i am i just think i am. i am so much more and this little “i” i perceive to be is just a construct of my mind, it’s an imagination that feels very really but is not. it is simply here for me to explore, learn from, grow with and ultimately transcend it.
as long as i try to understand this with my mind, i will fail because the mind is the very thing that is asking to be transcended. i cannot understand something by using that very thing. and i most definitely cannot transcend this something using that very thing. this something, my mind, is what needs to let go of wanting to understand and control. the place i am meant to be in is beyond the mind’s grasp.
paradise is already here — just not in my mind
and that’s the very thing i am working on. clearly, i am still using my mind to think about life. not so much when i am writing these lines, they just flow out of me, but when i wake up anxiously in the morning worrying about what i am doing and what i am not doing but “meant to do”.
as i am writing these lines i remember what i am here for: to first and foremost help and liberate myself from the stranglehold of my very limited mind changing the paradigm from a world of “me first” thinking, fighting, worrying and competing to a world of me being embodied harmony and presence with those around me, bringing joy to myself and the world and experiencing the awe and richness of all that life is. what a beautiful world that will be.
below you find a conversation i had the day i published the last newsletter with one of my guides around my anxiety, my frustrations, my stuckness and all the very challenges i experience on this journey. it’s a humbling display of how i am still very much part of the human drama. one that i am fully committed to and working on every day to leave in the not-too-distant future. just not yet.
how can i serve you?
my life’s purpose is to explore and to serve others. it is also what brings me most joy. how can i support you? let’s jump on a call and explore (email me or pick a convenient time here). i know you can propel yourself forward beyond your wildest imagination. your innate potential is limitless.
prefer exploring as a group? join me and others on today’s
wednesday’s weekly awakening circle at 10am pdt, 1pm edt, 6pm uk/pt, 7pm cethere’s the zoom link.
looking forward to connecting with you.
reality check: vincent being coached
want to have an inside look of my struggles on the journey? it feels very vulnerable to share this and i feel it is in service of my mission, my purpose and possibly you. there are plenty of teachings in those 54 mins. so here you go. the juice is especially in the second half. we cover:
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1’ being incongruent — spiritual vs earthly life
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4’ revisiting the same issue over and over again
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7’ being tired of the human experience
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12’ controlling vs. releasing
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16’ feeling “impotent”
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18’ family, love and acceptance
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22’ my inner child “mumi”
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24’ don’t fight the ego
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25’ the biggest lie — reflections
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28’ making tough choices on the path
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31’ neoslife: our vision for the future
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34’ reflecting where i am at
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36’ falling in love
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40’ wanting to be in control
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41’ ceremonies: “telling the mind to go f**k itself”
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44’ soul vs mind battle: don’t fight the ego
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47’ just get started — don’t wait for perfection
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50’ letting go — my 5meo experience
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51’ love — the end of thinking
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
this might be the craziest email you’ve ever received — and the most life-changing one: what if i could prove that you are not who you think you are? how would that impact your life and the choices you make? it would change everything. this is such a once in a lifetime message. this is no hyperbole. this is about a revolution in consciousness — the most important revolution ever.
who is me?
my name is vincent. i’m 45 years old. i’m male, single. i coach, i write, i think, reflect and explore life and what it means to be human. but am i really? if you strip me of my name, age and occupation i am still me. if you remove all my limbs, even my entire body and just keep my brain alive, i am still me. even without any senses like sight or hearing, i am still me. and if i had amnesia or alzheimer and forgot who i am, i would still be me. so who is me?
clearly, i am not my body as without it i am still me. clearly, i am not my memory as without i am still me. when i am in a coma, i am still me. so when do i stop experiencing myself as me? at death? not so fast…
what happens after death?
you might think we don’t know what happens after death but we do know what happens when you die — and then come back: so called near-death experiences are well documented. don’t believe me? check out this youtube channel with more than a hundred detailed accounts. this is not scientific? check out this documentary exploring the phenomenon through scientists who have died and come back. i personally know four people who had near-death experiences.
near-death experience is a misnomer: people don’t nearly die. they are dead and then they are alive again. often science cannot explain how they were able to come back without lasting damage, e.g. drowning for 30 mins without oxygen. that is because science is as handicapped as we are in our understanding of self.
not only remember death survivors what happened once they had died, they are also able to recount what people said and did whether they were in proximity to their body or in other locations, and a lot more: they describe meeting other beings, feeling infinite love and peace, learning about the purpose of their lives, talking with ancestors, etc. how is this possible?
belief vs truth — shifting paradigms
why does all of this sound unlikely, crazy or even impossible to most? because it doesn’t fit our current narrative of how the world works. but what if that narrative is as broken as our previous belief that the earth is at the center of our solar system and the universe. copernicus was executed for pointing out the truth. nowadays, the world is a little bit more civilised: scientists just get ignored, unfunded, discredited and canceled.
true science has been replaced by scientism which is dogmatic and allows scientific advances only within the prevailing worldview. science like most of the world has become dogmatic and politicised — it serves a larger agenda of keeping us asleep.
the reason why it is so hard for us to believe that we could be more than our material existence is that most of us have never experienced their true self or if we have we dismiss it as a hallucination. therefore, we keep looking at the world through the mind which is the very thing that keeps us imprisoned in the illusion.
what is consciousness?
consciousness is the awareness that while i am alive in human form experiences itself through my body. this consciousness survives death because the body and the material world is a product of it and not the other way around. that is why people having “near-death experiences” describe a world after death that maps across individual experiences.
i don’t need to die to experience this truth myself. earlier this year, i wrote about the journey of experiencing the pure consciousness i am, that we all are:
before and after this i had a number of other experiences that taken together with what spiritual sciences have known for eons and what modern science is finally arriving at (see below), i now have the certainty of knowing that i am simply experiencing myself through this body and mind. and this changes everything.
the illusion of self
i am pure consciousness. our collective consciousness has dreamed up this world, this universe and everything material in it. at the same time, we are experiencing our self-created illusion from within, through the avatar/body we have dreamed up (it’s a little bit more complicated but let’s keep it simple for now).
we are both the witness of the movie (consciousness) as well as the experiencer and actor in it (our human self). the trouble is that we have forgotten who we truly are and are confusing our dreamed up material self as our real and only self.
the vincent i identify as, is on one hand very real but he’s not who i ultimately am. vincent will die but i won’t die. vincent has a preference for sunny days, the freedom to do what he wants when he wants, to avoid pain and discomfort and instead likes to experience joy and pleasure all the time.
my higher/consciousness self does not care about the above. it is simply here to have an experience, to express its true self unconditionally and grow and expand with that. it is not afraid of uncomfortable even adverse experiences because from its vantage point there’s no good or bad it’s simply all experience. in fact, pain is one of most powerful enablers of growth and transformation — it forces higher evolution.
how is this understanding relevant for my day to day life?
waking up from playing the wrong game
no matter how i play this game of life, life keeps throwing me curve balls. no matter how hard i try and how far i’ve made it in life, i can’t obtain the certainty and control in life that my survival-driven mind craves.
while vincent would like to lock in all the good stuff and live happily ever after he continues to experience disagreements, disappointments, obstacles, conflicts, fears, anxieties, etc. — he obviously fails at controlling his world. yet this is what we are all continuously trying and failing at — and the reason for our suffering, nagging, dissatisfaction, stress, overwhelm, burnout or however you experience it.
as buddha said: all life is suffering. but it doesn’t have to be that way. what buddha actually meant is that
suffering is simply the absence of divine joy. so long as we place importance on the fleeting experiences of the physical world, we will continue to suffer. — source
divine joy, joyfulness, peace, beauty or whatever you are yearning for is available to you, me and all of us all the time, right now and forever. all i have to do is to let go of the idea how things need to be for me to be happy and i can be happy all the time.
it really is that simple and yet even with having the awareness of this it seems hard to live from that place of continuous serenity. the reason is the egoic, limited illusion of self. if i believe i am just my biological self then i will continue to be limited by its premises of needing and wanting to be more.
however, once i realise i am more than my body, that i am pure consciousness and that even physical death won’t kill me, i am free to be my true self as i can let go of the shackles of my limited self and all the garbage beliefs that come with it. this doesn’t happen overnight but it can happen very quickly. and it is what we are all meant to rise up to:
being yourself always (in) all ways
as i am typing these lines i feel the freedom i have been looking for all these many years in my search for the truth: to be myself unconditionally, to share these truths without hesitation and to not worry about the future because i know it is all unfolding in divine order. and even if not: i am a soul, an infinite energetic being. nothing can kill me so i might just be and express my true self rather than who i think i need or should be. it’s liberating.
how did i get this confident and clear about my larger self? after eight years of seeking, the three things that ultimately empowered me were:
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self inquiry and contemplation: the continuous questioning of my perceptions, beliefs and the nature of who i am. this is largely a mental process supported by absorbing content related to that matter (e.g. scientific, psychological and spiritual texts and reflections) and working with coaches and guides that mirrored back to me what was hard for me to see by myself.
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meditation and silence: to experience my true self i have to move beyond the mind because the mind is the very creator of the illusionary me. both meditation and prolonged silence and stillness empower the recognition that i am more than my body and thoughts.
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non-ordinary states of mind: the conscious use of entheogens (psychedelics) as well as holotropic breath work is the most rapid and powerful tool to get instant access to one’s higher dimensions. however, glimpses of higher reality alone are usually not sufficient for sustained change and continuous higher awareness.
entheogens for awakening
nature has gifted us with these incredible substances for a reason: so we can reawaken to our higher selves and move beyond the perceived limitations of our small minded minds and bodies.
while it might be easy to dismiss these experiences as hallucinations, it is impossible to do so once you’ve properly experienced them. so how come not everyone is talking about this and it is not common knowledge and practice? i believe there are at least these three reasons:
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the mind’s grip on our limited reality is very pervasive and therefore despite the life-changing nature of these experiences people can go back to their lives as if nothing has happened. it doesn’t help that everything around you is still the same after such an experience so you fall back into they way you have been living with the same habits, worries and fears. change requires more than just awareness: willpower and action. as jack kornfield puts it: “after the ecstacy, the laundry” — the real work begins afterwards.
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people keep these experiences to themselves because just like many less understood phenomena, others might ridicule them, discredit or even cancel them. it’s easier to keep quiet about it. it doesn’t help that taking such substances is usually illegal — despite that what is illegal and what is bad for you have nothing to do with each other. often, it’s the opposite. however, just like with science, the dogma and taboos are deeply entrenched and serve the agenda to keep us asleep.
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the experience can be so otherworldly that one might struggle to bridge them with this reality. let’s say i know i am pure consciousness but i still have to pay my mortgage and get the kids to school. as they say: before enlightenment: chop wood and carry water. after enlightenment: chop wood and carry water. psychedelic experiences won't change your life but they have the power to change your relationship with life. and that is their real purpose: to stop resisting the flow of life and thereby find joy, meaning and peace in its unfolding no matter how it unfolds.
what is science saying?
science is at last arriving at the same conclusion given that its current models fail to explain consciousness and the universe. listen to donald hoffman (here and here), professor emeritus of cognitive sciences at the university of california at irvine who does “research on consciousness, mathematical models of consciousness, and how physics and spacetime might arise from a theory of consciousness that's completely mathematically precise.”
what does he mean? he is working on developing a model and thereby proving that consciousness is the foundation of the universe rather than space-time, i.e. that the material world and therefore everything we see on earth including us is a product of consciousness first rather than consciousness being a product of the brain.
i highly recommend watching the whole “awakening mind” documentary which features scientist and spiritual teachers who have awakened to that reality. this reality of consciousness being the foundation for everything is undeniable. most of the world has simply not yet woken up to it. if you concur then you are one of the early members of this club of newfound freedom.
still unconvinced? listen to dr. eben alexander, md, neuroseurgeon, death survivor and previous sceptic and others for a few mins here.
there’s so much more
there’s so much more i’d like to share with you. in fact, i have written various versions of this article never satisfied with how i was bringing those points across. i will continue to work on bringing more clarity to this subject so that we can all one day life from this place of clarity that we are so much more, that there is really nothing to fear and therefore experiencing the freedom of being your (true) self always all ways.
this is the only conversation i am interested in because from where i stand, this is the only relevant conversation. once we all know who we are, there will be no more suffering on this planet and love and understanding will connect us all. this might sound like utopia but it really is just one “conscious” step away. all it takes is for us, one by one, to wake up and walk out from the truman show into full reality.
a lack of consciousness and the perpetual confusion and lies of being just your limited bodily self is the mother of all problems on this planet. once we successfully addressed it by waking up all the problems we are dealing with will solve themselves because they are derivatives of our scarcity driven mindset.
want to dive deeper?
if you are curious to explore these topics and your higher self further, i invite you to my newly created awakening circle: a weekly zoom call where we explore this topic across all angles — theoretically, practically, scientifically, spiritually and personally. i invite you to discuss with me, challenge me, share your perspectives and for us to explore how to arrive at this truth and how to embody it in our day to day lives against all the challenges we encounter.
this is the work i am committed to do for the rest of my life: to help us as a species to awaken to our true being and power. i like to think of the awakening circle as an early iteration of neoslife — the new earth operating system for life.
join me this wednesday at 10am pdt, 1pm edt, 6pm uk/pt, 7pm cet on zoom for an informal explorative conversation around the nature of consciousness — it’s free and it will be fun:
unsure? send me a message with your questions.
this is what a client had to say about the one-day workshop working with me across the topics of consciousness, understanding of self, expansion, healing and life purpose. it will give you an idea of the personal empowerment of this type of conversation. one day i hope this is the conversation the whole world is having.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
in this newsletter:
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immortality through awakening — the evolution we are meant to go through
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the heart protocol journey — meet your true self in july
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integrating your experience — how to bring insights from psychedelic journeys into your daily life
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the historic role of psychedelics in the evolution of humanity — and their role in our future survival
if you die before you die, you won’t die when you die. — the immortality key
we are afraid of death and thereby we are afraid to fully live but once you realise what you truly are, the fear starts to dissipate and life turns from a struggle into a gift that is the journey of waking up to your true self.
when renaissance artist michelangelo was asked about the difficulties that he must have encountered in sculpting his masterpiece david he unassumingly replied:
it is easy. you just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like david.
i now recognise this is what i have been doing all these years and it’s the work we are all meant to do: chipping away at what we are not so we can be our true selves. in my specific case, this even expressed itself by me feeling both resistance to and the need to strip naked twice in (ayahuasca) ceremonies. don’t worry, i have never seen anybody else strip naked.
i now understand that it was simply a metaphor of my soul asking me to let go of everything i am not. the journey of “becoming” myself is one of removing all that i am not because from its perspective i am not my mind, personality and the things i own or surround myself with (aka my life and lifestyle). i am not what my ego defines itself as.
i am a soul that uses this body to have an experience on this planet. and once i viscerally experienced that, the fear of death and fears of not being enough or not having enough started falling away. it marks the beginning of the end of all fears and the start of confidence, clarity and the freedom to express myself fully and authentically.
experience immortality
we must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing, a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use. ― plotinus
next month, the heart protocol is coming back to portugal. i had a profound experience when first experiencing it in april this year. i touched upon it in this recent newsletter (57/ 5-meo-dmt: experiencing full Reality)
whether you are looking for a higher-level understanding of yourself and life or a breakthrough, the heart protocol has been one of the most profound and at the same time gentle experiences i have gone through: there’s no physical purging, you don’t need to travel to south america and your journey takes place in the comfort of a private room and bed.
dr. samuel lee, md (sam) is a board-certified psychiatrist and has developed the heart protocol by looking for an answer to navigate his own challenges and help those of his patients and clients. in his words:
out of 10+ years of practicing western psychiatry, serving as the medical director of a holistic health program, and exploring all different kinds of plant medicines and therapies, i can honestly say that this protocol has the potential to catalyse healing and growth more than any other physical modality I’ve encountered thus far. — dr. samuel lee
the heart protocol is the combination of two psychoactive substances: mdma which opens the heart and lets you experience the full love for yourself, life and everyone around you; and ketamine which shuts down the narrating monkey mind and lets you experience pure consciousness without the nagging chatter. together they enable you to experience your true, soul being and bring clarity on how to solve your life’s challenges.
the journey
words cannot do these types of experiences justice. and that’s the very power and purpose of them: to reframe your reality into a more open and healthy way to help you get out of the blinders and limitations of your current thinking, self-perception and beliefs.
to give the wanting-to-know mind something to feed on, i will share the structure of the program. if this subsequently piques your interest, fill out the form hereand we hop on a phone call to explore whether this is the right time for you.
you will meet dr. sam at noon in a home in the beautiful surroundings of sintra, portugal. you will journey by yourself or together with up to two other participants (depending what option you prefer). the journey starts around 3pm which you will enjoy in the comfort and privacy of your own bedroom.
you will be lying comfortably in your bed with an eye mask, headphones playing music and a microphone recording your reflections during the journey on your phone. the latter is unique to this format and extremely valuable as you will have a transcript of all the realisations you had during the experience which you can then refer to in the days, weeks, months and years after this experience. this will be a powerful tool in helping you to implement the insights into your day-to-day.
during the journey, sam (and i, if you’d like me there) will keep checking in on you as little or as much as you would like. some participants appreciate a continuous accompanying as i did for the person in the picture at the beginning of this article. others like to be by themselves just with the occasional check-in that you are doing fine.
the journey will last between three to four hours. as you slowly come out of it, you will have the option to stay in your room to journal, to go for a walk in nature or to meet us and other participants to talk and enjoy some food if you are hungry. you will spend the evening in whatever way calls and supports you the most. you will then spend the night at the property.
in the morning, you will have breakfast followed by an integration session where you can share with, if you like, other participants and us your experience and where we give you suggestions and reflections on your journey and what to do next.
that concludes the in-person part of the heart protocol with dr. sam.
integration — bringing what you’ve learnt into your life
the psychedelic journey will remove the veil and open your eyes to the illusions you have been holding about your life. or to put it in plato’s terms of the cave allegory, you will exit the cave and experience the true nature of things and yourself.
the psychedelic journey is the exciting, the eye-opening part. however, the real work starts after which is to bring meaning to the experience and to make changes to your life as a result — otherwise what would be the point of it besides the novelty factor?
the purpose of such journeys is to help us get out of our mental prison and learn to live authentically and transform the way we look at and go through life — who we are being and how we are showing up. as a result, life will be more joyful, effortless and beautiful. that is the gift.
as i like to say, the journey opens the veil but the real work is to keep it and ourselves open and transformed without going back to the old ways of being and doing things. that requires effort because, despite a life changing experience, we are creatures of habit and back at the office on monday, it will be easiest to keep doing what you have always done.
to help you with this, i am offering to spend the subsequent 24 hours with me. based on my experience, this will involve reflecting on your experience, reviewing your transcript and helping with the interpretation and concrete action steps for when you go back home, bodywork including an energy wash-out (a trauma and emotional conflict releasing technique by my teacher dr. nader butto), exploring of your gene keys and life purpose as well as any other subjects that might be relevant to you.
most importantly, i will sit and be there for you and whatever you need. i will hold a powerful container for you to explore safely where to go next. you will have access to me, my whole toolkit and my mind and heart and we will explore what serves you best.
the money conversation
these types of experiences provided by the right people (meaning with the sole purpose of serving you rather than profiting from you) are priceless because they are positively life-changing. for both sam and i this is a labour of love and our contribution to help you and the world to awaken so that life will be more beautiful for you, your loved ones and everyone around you.
sam is offering the heart protocol experience for €3,333 including the overnight stay divided by the number of participants. so it’s €1,111 to €3,333 depending on whether you want a private experience or to share it with up to two others. if all you want is a journey with him than that’s the total investment plus your journey to portugal.
if you like me to accompany or spend an integration day with you, we will explore this over the phone. as i have laid out in my beyond coaching manifesto, my service is no longer driven by money and hence i will support anybody who is serious about this work irrespective of your financial means. together, we will determine what you need and what you can and want to contribute financially.
i am bringing the work of sam to your attention because his protocol is extremely potent and he has done deep work in developing it. i have no gain in promoting his work. my calling is to make this work accessible to more people in a safe and beautiful setting and use it as a springboard to help you transform your life for the better. from where i am at this is the only way how we will evolve as humanity beyond our reptilian self-destructive brain.
the role of psychedelics in human evolution
unbeknown to most, psychedelics have been used since the dawn of time to help us in our evolution and in raising our consciousness. they go back to the time since we became settlers and started agriculture. ergot is the mold that would “infest” wheat with a psychedelic effect.
funny side story: the german reinheitsgebot brewing was likely motivated to prevent this psychedelic effect from appearing in beer — which would occur if the wheat was not stored in a particular way. as long as psychedelics existed there has been a war of removing them from our access not to protect us but rather to prevent us from awakening. why? because awake people ask questions and are harder to control individually and as a society as a whole. but this is for another article.
if you like to dive into the history of psychedelics since the dawn of humanity, i highly recommend the following talk by brian muraresku new york times best-selling author of “the immortality key: the secret history of the religion with no name”. he researched and proved the use of psychedelics back to ancient greek and roman times. it’s a fascinating and eye-opening talk.
i have been holding the view that our awakening (supported by psychedelics) is the only way for us to navigate the new brave world of ai without the risk of destroying ourselves. something i hope to explore in more depth in a future newsletter. for now, please enjoy his reflections. if you are only interested in this aspect (and not the history of psychedelics), start watching at minute 33.
last but not least
sam will be here offering journeys from july 12 to 21 for a maximum total of 30 people. his experience is both powerful and popular. if this is something that interests you, reply to this email or fill out this form and we set up a zoom call where you can ask me any question and we explore whether this is for you.
if not this time then i hope you will have the opportunity in the future to explore your higher self, the nature of the universe and the miracles of life that will transform your understanding of self, why you are here and empower you to be the best version of yourself. i believe this to be everyone’s birthright if they so wish.
with love and in service of your higher self,
vincent
and here’s a beautifully uplifting song for you — currently my favourite (especially the second half):
spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me
take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my saviour
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
if the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed. — terence mckenna
how truly free are you? in spite of all the money and success, do you feel overworked, stressed, exhausted, anxious, worried, low or even depressed? do you find yourself always busy, always running, always clamouring for the next big whatever, always competing to be ahead of whatever trend or technology, always thinking about your next move, always working on becoming more successful, wealthy, important, loved or valued and never ever feeling you have arrived?
after seven years on the investment banking floor and six years in brazil as a founder and ceo battling with startup life including a co-founder breakup, i thought there must be a better, more peaceful, more joyful and more fulfilling way of living. so in 2015, i set out to find it.
on this journey i striped naked literally and metaphorically, i let go of everything, i made and lost a fortune, had a panic attack and thoughts of going insane, explored altered states of consciousness (ayahuasca, breathwork, meditation, mushrooms, ketamine, dmt, …), no longer knew who i was, pushed my body to its limits, was in complete silence for weeks, stopped drinking, stopped partying, stopped socialising, stopped having sex, became a hermit and lived in seclusion and even got punched by a friend in the process, … all in the search for finding the answer, the truth about life.
what can i tell you? there truly is a place of continuous peace, serenity and being in love with life. and it is available to every one of us. as humans we are designed to discover and evolve into it. so much emphasis is put on finding “the answer” but only in the journey we discover our own process of returning to our innate peaceful center. it’s a beautiful process. it’s the process of waking up.
rebirth: meeting your true self
your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. — carl jung
this summer, i’m inviting eight people on a journey to explore the depth of their being, the meaning of their life and to do the work to come into complete harmony with their existence.
in leadership it is said “the work of the one is the work of the many”. we will journey together as a group as well as individually one on one. we will work across body, mind and soul. this is the most powerful, beautiful and profound work there is. it is sacred work. it is why we are here.
this journey will encompass the breadth and depth of what i have learnt, experienced and experimented with during my eight years of seeking compressed into a six-month experience — minus all the snake oil i came across; and there’s quite a bit of that out there. i know of no other program that comes even close to its comprehensiveness, depth, impact and level of transformation. it’s the program i have been looking for and the culmination of all my work.
in any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety. — abraham maslow
will you have to strip naked? i don’t think so, except that is what you want. you yourself will discover and choose what it is you need to do to get to where you want to be. you alone decide how far you want to venture and how deep you want to explore your being and the secrets of life. it’s a beautiful and empowering process. and you are the pilot of it. we, as your team of guides, will provide you with a challenging yet safe, loving and supportive playground to meet and explore your true nature and self.
being happy, authentic and in harmony is your birthright and the most natural way of being. that is, after you have stripped off all the layers you are not, the layers you have taken on unconsciously over the decades of playing a role rather than authentically expressing yourself. think of every time you said or did something just to please others. being you is not a process of becoming but one of chipping away at what you are not.
we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them. — albert einstein
moving through life without a nagging mind is possible. never-ending thinking, strategising and mental exhaustion will give way to feeling the ever-present flow and beauty of life. expressing who you are fully and unconditionally allows you to become the best version of yourself leaving a legacy more beautiful than you could ever have imagined and without needing to change who you are on the outside: banker, founder, ceo or whatever you are.
when all of your facets come together and are expressed as the one true you, everything changes. you will recognise how you are the creator of everything in your life, the great, the good and the ugly. and from that place of complete ownership, you can create whatever life you want free from the shackles of what you thought you needed to do or be.
when you are in full alignment authentically expressed, you enter a room, no word needs to be spoken and everybody knows who you are. — my coach
my journey has taught me there’s nothing more liberating than being free to be who i was always meant to be thereby moving from ordinary to being extraordinary. this is your birthright. we are meant to evolve. that’s why you are here. and then that nagging will cease to be.
you will start 2024 as a new human being, one that is closer to your truth than you have ever been. you will be more blissful, happy and grateful than you have ever been. you will be present with life, in peace with what is and do your greatest work with clarity and courage. and you will touch and change the lives of everyone around you.
if this is you and you are a leader or person of influence, please reply to this email and i will connect with you in person.
not me but…
due to the high-touch nature of this program, i can only take eight on this journey this year. i am therefore focused on empowering those whose work touches many others.
if this is not you (yet) but you would like to participate, please let me know and i will put you on top of the list for the experiences in 2024.
if this is not you but you know someone who could be a great fit, please reach out to me. as a thank you, you will receive a generous referral award if he or she ends up participating in this or next year’s program. more details in person.
last but not least
this is not a marketing email. this is an invitation. this program is not for the faint of heart. we will go to the edge of your understanding of self and beyond. but what awaits the brave, the explorers willing to venture beyond where most people go is the freedom to finally be yourself. to be a version of you you did not know existed but that was waiting, nagging to come to life all your life.
the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. — mark twain
this journey is for those that want to experience nothing less than the full magnificence of life and are willing to go to great lengths to find it. as with all (inner) work, you get out of it what you put in. this is for those of you that want to go all-in, no backdoors, support each other in the process and reap the priceless rewards of this work.
and if you do, i promise you from the bottom of my heart that nothing you have experienced in life so far will even come close to it. no matter what you have done or explored before, this will be another level. there is no other program like this one.
to clarify: yes, this program will involve psychoactive substances which will allow you to access places that would otherwise require a lifetime of work. however, the biggest part of this program is the integration of these experiences into your daily life. i have witnessed countless people doing endlessly medicine work without being able to make meaningful changes to their lives and therefore miss out on the well-being, happiness and fulfilment that the insights were meant to provide them with.
you can only meet others as deeply as you’ve met yourself. — my adaption of a quote by matt kahn
meaningful integration work is lacking in nearly all experiences and that will be the focus of this program: how to bring what you have learnt back into your day-to-day life. how you show up minute by minute with your partner, spouse, co-workers and co-founders, friends, children, parents and yourself defines how you feel and experience life. this is the Great Work. and the work that few choose to do.
how congruent are you and can you express it authentically 24/7 365? together we will hold each other accountable and thereby empower the greatest results. this is why this journey is not for everybody but for those that are peak performers already and are truly committed to go to the next level.
a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — from the tao te ching
this journey is not about me teaching you. i don’t have your answers. this is an invitation to a journey where you will find your own answers. answers that you did not know existed within you. this is an academy for the pure-hearted. until you clean up your inner environment and pursue purity, you will not be able to embody and reap the benefits of the highest version of yourself — it’s a dividing line.
this is what integration means: can you live your truth from moment to moment? you will become familiar with the tools and techniques to empower your greatest self. and the group, i and the other guides will hold a powerful mirror to each of us in this process. this is what makes this program different than any other.
will you have to go to the jungle or drink ayahuasca? no. will you have to travel? yes. while the majority of the program will take place online, you will have to travel twice to a european location later this summer.
all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. ― blaise pascal
besides all the inner work, we will be exploring adjacent topics that touch our earthly existence including physical health, wealth/money/finance, artificial intelligence and societal developments amongst others. always with the question in mind: what is my role and duty in this world, where do i want to take it to and who do i need to be as a leader?
now, if you’ve made it this far, here’s a song for you that captures this work:
i am deeply humbled to journey with some of you this year.
with gratitude, love and excitement for what is to come,
vincent
the universe is not outside of you. look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are. — rumi
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
no time? jump down to “what does it all mean?”. i have noticed, my writing often starts slow with the real meat, the conclusion, coming at the very end.
in the last two months, i had the two most profound and life-changing experiences of my life. yes, a lot of superlatives here. before those, that had been last year’s ayahuasca experience which i described here. however, these recent experiences took it to a whole new level: i got to meet the real „me“, twice.
on april 15, i experienced the heart protocol, a combination of two psychoactive substances that, over a multiple hours long journey, catapulted me into nothingness where i experienced being pure consciousness and saw how this consciousness, which we are all made of, created step by step the universe, our planet, humans and then, pufff, consciousness became i or rather consciousness started experiencing itself through me. and then i disintegrated and looped back into being pure consciousness/nothingness/just thought.
words, of course, cannot capture nor do it justice. this is a realm beyond words. you gotta experience it to grasp it. it was a very visceral, visual and real experience that i am not who i think i am. i saw how the conscious me is a construct of the unconscious me which is pure consciousness which is the stuff we are all made up of. it’s the inverse of what we commonly believe: consciousness is not a product of the brain but rather our whole personality, physical being and the brain are creations of consciousness. through the body, we simply experience ourselves as this very limited flesh and bones expression of ourselves.
it’s one thing to abstractly believe or contemplate this, it‘s an entirely different thing to experience it so real that it becomes truth. to see how every thought of mine creates the reality i am experiencing in real-time rather than - what we widely believe - our thoughts simply responding to the reality outside of us. there is no outside of us, there is just consciousness. oneness got a whole new meaning for me: everything is consciousness. it was a challenging and intense but equally beautiful and empowering experience. it‘s intense to cease to exist as myself.
if that wasn’t enough, exactly a month later to the day, i found myself experiencing 5-meo-dmt: the strongest psychedelic known to man. some call it the god molecule. it‘s a specific form of dmt that can either be extracted from a particular bufo toad, that‘s why it is often referred to as bufo (although most bufo toads do not carry this molecule), or it can be created synthetically.
both of these experiences found me without looking for it - through friends that felt this might be something for me. this is how it usually happens: these experiences find me although undoubtedly i am calling them in unconsciously because the real me, my soul, needs them to show me something that the human me still has to understand.
the heart protocol was something i never had heard of before but bufo had been on my „to do at some point“ list. both came at exactly the right time and order. i feel these experiences build on top of each other. last year‘s ayahuasca experience opened the door to a new realm for me. these two recent ones expanded on it.
the most incredible experience of my life
5-meo-dmt: the most incredible experience of my life bar none. how can i do this experience justice? i can‘t. this was even beyond my wildest imagination. ten days later as i am writing these lines i am pulled back into the experience:
i am standing in the middle of a living room. in front of me stands one of my guides holding a pipe. behind me stands another guide and to the right is a friend watching us all. i am pulling in the smoke from the pipe where the crystalized dmt is being burnt to vapor. i am filling my lungs with as much smoke as i can and holding it in for as long as i can. a few seconds pass and i start losing consciousness. i fall back and my guide catches me and lays me on the bedding on the floor. i don‘t remember any of this but i have a video of it happening.
as i am leaving my body, i find myself in nothingness. there is no more vincent nor any physical world, it is just me and pitch-black nothingness. similar to the heart protocol, as i start thinking, i start creating and i find myself in mental loops that become increasingly intense. i feel trapped in my own world, the world of my thoughts that is creating my experience in real-time. it is very fast and instant. negative thoughts are creating negative experiences and i find myself in pretty unnerving places.
i feel i am going crazy. i feel i am not coming back to this world. i am looping ever faster in the world of my thoughts. it‘s very intense and unnerving and there is no escape from my thoughts. it feel like i am trapped here forever. i feel i want to throw up, throw myself up, get out of this experience. i want to get out of my body, out of this experience. it is too much to bear. it‘s so intense and with every thought i am digging myself deeper into it. it‘s like i am biting my own tail and eating ever more of myself only then to wanting to throw myself up.
i am being presented with my own b**t. i feel how my thoughts are choking me. it becomes so overwhelming, i can‘t take it anymore. i rather die. in that moment, i say: yes, i am not ready to let go (of this material illusion and the stories i tell myself about life and myself). with these words spoken, i surrender, i let go of holding on because i just can‘t anymore, i‘m exhausted. i can’t fight anymore. my body relaxes and i surrender to the universe and whatever it wants to do with me.
and then, my whole body is flooded with love with a love that i have never experienced before. it‘s overwhelmingly beautiful. this must be divine love. i feel i am in paradise. it‘s like a symphony. and with that, my heart is filled with love and it grows and it gets bigger and bigger and it becomes a huge sun and that sun is swallowing up everything, the whole world. it‘s the most beautiful end. a happy end. the end.
here’s a voicemail to a friend capturing my experience (listen to it at 1.5x):
i slowly open my eyes. i am still tripping and my vision hasn‘t returned to normal. everything is buzzing and vibrating. i look at the people around me and reach out to them. i want to feel them, i want to touch them, i want to connect with them. i feel so much gratitude and love. i feel so blessed. how lucky am i that i get to experience this love and clarity about who i truly am.
who knew that from the investment banking floor my seeking journey would ultimately lead me to this living room floor experiencing the truth about life and divine love. you might think i am crazy but i can tell you if you experience what i just had, everything changes.
the universe is pure consciousness, we all are, and we are here on earth to remember this and the path to it is love. not to think, worry or strategise but to live from the heart, from a deeper knowing of who i am and what i am here to do. to follow our calling and dreams because that‘s why we are here. and to live with joy and deep gratitude because there’s nothing to fear. we are pure consciousness. it’s all just an experience until we return home.
what does it all mean?
the thinking mind is here to keep me surviving. but i am not here to just survive, i am here to thrive and the answer to how to do that was very clear: to live from the heart, from this deeper intuitive knowing of who i am and what i am here to do. to not hold back but to be unapologetically fully and authentically expressed. not to think about what i need to do or say but to feel and connect with what i yearn to be and do (which is what i actually am) and then trust that it will all work out beautifully.
my particular journey is one of exploring the edge of consciousness and then share what i encounter with others and support them on their journey if they so wish. that is me. i’m not a banker. i’m an explorer and servant of consciousness. and the way to do this is from a place of joy and love. to feel love, i need to be love.
the mind cannot grasp what is really going on. it‘s trapped in its limitation of what it can perceive through its senses and what it has experienced so far. living from the mind is living from the past and thereby standing in my own way. when i live from a trusting, open, curious and loving place, life and the universe will take care of me and create a life wildly beyond what my mind could ever imagine. that was the loud and clear message from my experience and a blessing to experience.
since my 5-meo experience, i have been going through different phases of integration. it‘s such a surreal and reality-trashing experience that i feel like a new human being and that nothing will ever be the same again. but then of course old habits and patterns have a hard time dying and as time passes i catch myself doing the old vincent. **
that is the real challenge of all psychedelic/spiritual/3d-reality-busting experiences: they show us the real Truth, smacked into our faces, loud and clear but knowing the truth and living it are two entirely different things. and that’s the challenge: changing the way i am and do, trusting myself and remembering that my thinking mind really has no clue what‘s going on.
as steve jobs famously said: „you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. you have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. this approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.“
you are God = pure consciousness
two days after my experience i was lying in the park listening to the song below and suddenly it hit me. i started crying and realised:
it took me 44 years to find what i didn't know i was looking for. God exists. it's in you, and me and all of us and everything you see. you’re God. we all are. when you experience this everything changes. and not a single church is needed. it's you. you're love. we're coming home. i love you.
(replace God with “consciousness”, “source”, “tao”, “what is” or whatever word speaks to you. it’s all the same. and you are it.)
i see you. i know the darkness you are going through at times. i do myself. life is challenging and that’s why we are here: to learn and grow and ultimately find back home. but it’s also not what it seems to be. we are pure consciousness. we are one. we are here to support each other on this journey of remembering. we are all doing our best. i have been working hard on waking myself up from this dream called life. i am here for you if you need me. i am sending you all the love and strength that you need. you can do it. you are powerful beyond measure. you are God.
with profound love, vincent
we are bringing the heart protocol to europe this summer. if meeting the real you is calling you, let me know and i will share more details. just want to chat about life? i’m always happy to hear from you.
want to get a teeny tiny glimpse of how it felt meeting divine love? listen to the end of this song and feel it. i’m not religious* but this song captures it beautifully. life is meant to be a celebration just like this song. all we have to do is to get out of our own way.
last but not least
- religion tells us that God is separate from us that, that he is outside of us and he is judging us. that’s the fallacy and trap. there’s no separation. we are God. we entered the human form and thereby forgot that we are God so we can experience the absence of God/love because we need duality to understand what we are. God is love and we are God and love but how can we understand that except through the absence of it. we need darkness, the absence of light, to understand light. we need ugliness, the absence of beauty, to understand beauty. we need fear, the absence of love, to understand love. but really all is just God/love/light/consciousness.
**** sharing my experience with others helps me just as much in keeping it alive for myself. and that’s the most important part. what do i do with this outer-worldly experience? if it doesn’t lead to changes in how i live life there’s no point except for the experience factor. integration, i.e. how i bridge these “two worlds” and bring the learnings back into this life is the most important and it is the part that is widely lacking. most often, after the experience you are left to your own devices.
i am excited to start creating community around experiencing and integrating consciousness expanding experiences. whether it is breath work, meditation, sound healing, psychedelics, spiritual, self inquiry or other experiences, they all lack community and support to help us bring the learnings into everyday life and enable us to make the profound changes bringing more easy, love, joy, gratitude, bliss and all the other good stuff into our lives.
this summer, we are embedding the powerful heart protocol (a more gentle experience than 5-meo-dmt) into a multi-day retreat experience and thereby seeding a community that allows us to all experiment, expand and embody together supporting each other in a safe and trusted space. personal and spiritual growth will thereby get a whole lot easier, more powerful and hopefully a lot more fun too. everything is better together. we are meant to grow together.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
last december, henrik zillmer, serial entrepreneur, host of the honest podcast and a dear friend of mine and i sat down to discuss a question both of us have been pondering and to which, i believe, many of us would like the answer:
i was not too excited to share our contemplations when he published it this month. my inner critic was saying: april 2023 vincent does not approve of what december 2022 vincent was thinking and saying. and indeed, today the podcast would be different.
the response of one of his listeners, himself a big entrepreneur, changed my mind:
subject: thousand thanks
“just wanted to say thank you for the inspiring podcast about the meaning of life you posted recently. hit the spot on many of the things i fiddle with and helped me reflect better on some bigger decisions i'm facing.”
you won’t get the answer to the meaning of life (just yet) but you will get our sincere attempt to share what we have been discovering in asking the question. i hope you’ll get from it just as much as he did.
what happened to the newsletter?
since coming back from egypt - a trip that warrants its own newsletter - i found myself going through my most profound experience yet (yes, even more than the ayahuasca ceremony i wrote about in episode 36). an experience that, i believe, will change many lives in the not-too-distant future. i am looking forward to sharing it once i have fully processed it.
i have been feeling it is not worth writing until i have something new and meaningful to say. yes, it might be entertaining or even insightful as i am sharing my trials and tribulations but what i am shooting for is to provide you with a tangible, practical answer to the question of how to best navigate life.
i am confident by now that there is such an answer. call me crazy but i believe we actually know the answer (we as the body of knowledge of humanity). but knowing is useless without embodiment, without living it. and that’s the struggle i have been in. and while i have found much more peace in it, i am still unwilling to embrace the answer i have found.
a friend recently shared with me this quote - some attribute it to albert einstein:
a clever person solves a problem. a wise person avoids it.
in other words: a clever person gets out of a situation that a wise person would never get into.
my whole journey is about becoming this wise person and then model it rather than talking and reflecting about it. it is asking me to completely shift my way of being, who vincent is. i know it will happen, i am closer than ever before and it has not happened yet. so not much new here to see. the struggle continues until i put an end to it.
i hope this finds you well and i am looking forward to sharing some exciting stuff in the near future.
with much love,
vincent
if you prefer to listen on apple podcast, here’s the link:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
“what is your life about, anyway? nothing but a struggle to be someone, nothing but a running from your own silence.” — rumi
attachment is the enemy of freedom. it kills from the inside out. this short clip from lord of the rings is a powerful illustration of what attachment does to us:
two years ago, i wrote an instagram post about what i call the three stages of freedom: freedom of money, freedom of time and freedom of mind. the first two are obvious: to be able to do what you want when you want with whom you want. i believe every ambitious person aims at achieving those freedoms to some degree.
but once we get “there”, we still don’t feel the freedom we were hoping for. that’s because what we really yearn for is to feel at peace - for the nagging in our head, unpleasant feelings to stop - aka to be free in the mind.
“i don't mind what happens. that is the essence of inner freedom. it is a timeless spiritual truth: release attachment to outcomes, deep inside yourself, you'll feel good no matter what.” this was krishnamurti’s answer to the question of what his secret to life was.
i feel good, happy, at peace. then things happen that i don’t want or that i don’t like and i am no longer happy. that’s how one could describe the human experience to an alien. so where lies the secret to this freedom of mind? we find the answer in the difference to the other two freedoms money and time: they are freedoms of the material (outside of us) plane vs. freedom of mind is an inner freedom - it is non-physical, it is in the realm of thought. and by that, it is under my full command. it is a muscle i can build.
and that’s the key. freedom is something i perceive. i either feel free or i don’t. that feeling is based on expectations because when i “need” x million in my bank account to feel free and i have less than x million i don’t feel free nor at peace. i might even feel fearful and unsafe. but the moment i let go of the attachment or yearning for a specific outcome and situation, i am free. once i release the grasping, the freedom is mine instantaneously. i can feel peace and freedom right now.
you might think: but i don’t want to let go of money, success, status, being with that person, being powerful, the house in the hamptons, … and you don’t have to. i just have to release my attachment to it, my need for it. it’s a subtle but crucial distinction - the difference between a happy life and one of not being at peace.
every single one of us could have peace and freedom right now. release what i want and accept what is. boom. i am free. no need to force it. just letting go. and letting go is easier than i think it is. think of holding a highlighter/pen in your hand. i’m holding onto it tightly looking at you and saying to you: “letting go is really hard. i can’t let go.” you’d look at me thinking i am crazy and then say: “just open your hands.” and in a moment, the pen would drop to the floor. that’s how easy it is to let go - i just need to stop holding on.
that’s the theory. if it were that easy, i would have done it already many times over because that’s what i have been seeking: total freedom of mind - no more friction in my life, just flow. but life continuously challenges us because that’s how the cookie crumbles. so the only way to freedom is to let go and fully accept whatever comes.
but that doesn’t mean i don’t have aspirations or i enjoy making and having money, in fact, you could make money the centre of your life while being completely open to the outcome. so the magic sauce is to detach from the outcome not from the effort or desire. letting go is not about not caring, not doing and not wanting.
letting go is simply about accepting whatever is based on the understanding that whatever is is anyway, whether i accept it or not. so there’s no point in resisting or fighting. that’s what creates the suffering in the first place: the non-acceptance of what is - that we all want to move out of.
eckhart tolle shared that the path to happiness (happiness, freedom, bliss and love are really all the same - the absence of negative feelings) is living with non-attachment, non-judgement and non-resistance. this makes what letting go means more concrete, more tangible.
non-attachment means not being attached to anything. because i cannot control the result, situation or outcome anyway, there is no point in wanting to. i show up, i do my work, i might even work hard but i cannot control the outcome hence when i let go of the attachment to a particular outcome, really to any outcome, then i won’t feel any negative emotions because i am open. there is no more friction with whatever the outcome is.
non-judgment means not labelling things as good or bad, right or wrong in a way that i experience negative feelings. i.e. if i see someone doing something i don’t approve of i judge that person and it puts me in a negative state and as result, i suffer. discernment is of the essence: it doesn’t mean i don’t have opinions. it just means that i am at peace with this person having a different way of being. this applies to any opinion or way of being: political, societal, values, … (of course, if someone’s behaviour threatens the well-being of others, that is a different matter.)
and when i remove judgement, i enjoy exploring differences in opinions and thereby learn and grow from others - there’s no more fighting or arguing. when i judge others, i also judge myself because i tell myself that things need to be a certain way and i thereby secretly constrain the degree of freedom that i allow for myself, e.g. “one cannot do that”.
non-resistance is accepting whatever comes and is. whether it is the weather, the current political leadership or someone being moody with me. and again, discernment is crucial: it doesn’t mean i agree or even like it. it just means that i accept that it is and at the same time i might pull all my weight into changing it. i might even go as far as making the purpose of my life to change it but the key is that i accept that whatever is right now is.
i get to work on all of the above right now in what i believe to be the most challenging environment: spending time with my family. as ram das said: “if you think you're enlightened, spend a week with your family.”
imagine the judgment numerous people have about my writing, especially family, as i am dissecting every part of my life publicly - and i am deeply grateful for them because they show me like no one else what i still need to learn to enter the realm of total freedom. the day their opinions no longer trigger me, i know i have “arrived.”
i wrote in the past: everything is a gift. me being triggered by anybody shows me where i still have to do inner work, to let go and release. and when i do, life gets a little lighter. and next time such a comment or behaviour will affect me less. it will be easier to stay in peace, to feel free. rinse, repeat. over and over and over again.
you might say that sounds like a lot of work. yes, it is. it’s a lot of work and it’s intense work too. but every time we show up for this work, life gets a little lighter, brighter and more joyful in perpetuity. not a bad return on investment.
the alternative is not to do this work and it means that i will keep getting annoyed, angry, sad, disappointed, misunderstood, … by the very same thing over and over and over again. faced with that choice, there’s only one choice: to welcome the challenges into my life and keep doing my inner work.
family triggers and childhood conditioning are the last things that one surrenders because they sit at the core of who we are, in all of our bodily and mental systems. they define my personality - the negative part of it. and while these aspects of me might not be gone for some time, i am noticing that my recovery time from triggers and negative feelings becomes shorter and shorter.
some of those i have been holding onto for as long as i can remember. of course, many were not conscious to me until i started this work. but these days i can much more easily and quickly breathe through something and make a full recovery to face the same situation and person within a short amount of time and without holding it against them, without blaming others. as a result, life is becoming ever more effortless, flowing and with a sense of freedom.
until the day that i achieve total freedom. where anything can happen and i just notice it, accept it, release it and take my next step. this is what krishnamurti talked about and what buddha found under the bodhi tree.
i know that this way of being is possible for every single one of us. it might require a lifetime or many lifetimes of work but that’s what the very purpose of life is: to be in love with life no matter what happens. imagine what a beautiful life that would be. and all it takes is to let go of needing it to be my way and accept the way it is.
“do not do what you want, and then you may do what you like.” - said sadasiva, an indian saint. that is the freedom we are, i believe, all seeking. i have been seeking it for years and now i realise there is nothing to seek. all i have to do is to do the work to embody, to live it every day and then a little bit better tomorrow. one day at a time.
this is the “secret sauce” to life. there is no secret. the secret is to live freedom of mind every day.
namaste 🙏🏻 - the divine in me honours the divine in you
today, i am flying to egypt to take part in a research trip with robert grant exploring the ancient wisdom and secrets of this civilisation. i am told an exciting announcement will be made about a new discovery of what the giza plateau encodes about life, the universe and consciousness. i will be sharing the journey on instagram.
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tl;dr money is the false god in the 21st century and greed is single-handedly responsible for our experience and the state of the world. greed has been a pattern of mine begging to be transformed into something higher. the only way to do that was to do what seemed to be the unthinkable. and once i did it, i experienced a new sense freedom and possibility.
money is what runs this world. it runs every one of us and everything we do. as a wise man once said: “if you want to see some really selfish behaviour, stir money into the mix and see what happens.”
there are four types of conversations that disconnect and create separation between humans: looking good, being right, conversations of time (intimacy) and conversations of money (commitments).
money itself is a tool to exchange value. as such, it is neutral. however, we live in a world that celebrates money (because money is power) rather than the creation and exchange of value. life has become about having as much as you can rather than creating as much value as you can.
and the bible warns us about that. i am not religious but have learnt that our spiritual texts read metaphorically rather than literally are transmissions about the deepest truths about being human. so just like the israelites were worshipping a golden calf when moses came down from mount sinai with the ten commandments, we are worshipping the false god of money instead of being our highest self.
the price we pay is suffering. while we live in the most affluent world that ever existed, we also live in the most miserable one since world war two i'd argue. depression and mental health issues are skyrocketing. just look at everything on social media, it’s all about how to make money quickly with chatgtp rather than how to provide value.
and in lockstep, the world is a shitshow with continued wars, pandemics, polarisation, corruption, unhealthy everything - and all can be traced back to money. more precisely: greed that is now deeply rooted within humanity (and me - more on that in a minute) and its the disease that is hollowing us from the inside out. we feel empty because we worship the meaningless. we confuse pleasure and comfort with fulfilment and purpose.
the real transformation we are about to go through as a species is the transcendence of money altogether. but before we get there, the addiction to money will reach even higher proportions. it has to get worse before it gets better - for the pendulum to change direction, it needs to swing to the extreme first.
greed is the very cancer i am working hard at ridding myself of
last week, i was presented with the demons that are most deeply rooted within my psyche: the fear of failure, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of not having enough (money). over the last two years, the markets and my reckless behaviour (ironically driven by those fears) have led to my wealth collapsing by 90%+ from its peak.
to avoid having to sell what remained of my investments, i had borrowed money from relatives. i now found myself met with the request for it to be paid back. this borrowing ended up costing me 100% as the asset i had to sell now was worth 50% less than if i had simply sold it at the time instead of borrowing cash. lots of lessons here.
another irony, if you like, is that i studied finance, worked in investment banking, fundraised, studied bitcoin and money deeply and, one would think, i therefore understand money and how to manage it. though my behaviour has little to do with understanding and everything with psychology, specifically the underlying subconscious patterns which run 95% of our lives. (the psychology of money - a powerful book on that topic)
having an “i need more of it” hoarding attitude has been a wealth and self-destructive pattern. i have written about my previous painful experiences here but clearly, i still had not learnt my lesson. i therefore had to keep experiencing the pain again with life patiently and repeatedly trying to teach me that the relationship and underlying beliefs i had with money were begging to be transformed.
money is energy and it is simply a tool to exchange value between humans. its purpose is not to be hoarded, most definitely not for me. even my gene keys highlight this beautifully: my shadows are immaturity, greed, expectation and failure. the purpose of life is to move out of one’s shadows by learning the lessons and thereby transform them into gifts - meaning my dysfunctional relationship with money serves the purpose to birth something higher. it’s a tool for transformation. it's not bad but i am meant to move beyond it.
the need to hoard money stems from a lack of trust about the future which likely stems from my ancestors who lost everything in the war (it is not rational nor mental it’s a traumatic pattern encoded in the body). by not trusting i have been creating the very future i was trying to avoid. and this is how life works. it shows us what we need to see and evolve from with increasing volume until we do. at the last stage of this process, the body gets sick and its breakdown is reflected through disease (i plan to share more about the connection between psychological conflicts/trauma and disease in a future episode. if you are curious check out this link).
so what was i meant to learn? to let go of the attachment and focus on money and use it as a tool to support something greater. i learnt this very lesson in my recent ayahuasca ceremony and while i was able to let go of that attachment in the ceremony, i had not integrated that lesson into my real life. this is the difference between understanding something intellectually and embodying, doing and being it. i knew i had to stop “smoking” yet i had not done it yet.
(this is also often misunderstood about ayahuasca. i can keep going to ceremonies over and over again but if i don’t bring back the learnings into my life, there’s no benefit of the learning in the first place.)
last week’s conflict (52/ the death of ego) was at its foundation driven by my money story because it concerned an exchange of value. as i was working through it with my coach, she asked me: “have you paid back your brother yet?” i responded: “no, not yet.” there was visceral resistance of taking another financial loss by doing so. she said: “just do it. it will be transformational.” my mind was racing and giving me all the reasons why i should do it later when my investments are up again… the mind loves telling stories justifying all kinds of ultimately erroneous and self-constraining and self-destructive actions.
as i was trying to wiggle myself out of having to do it, i realised she’s right. this is a redefining moment and if i do what feels impossible to do, it might unlock something powerful. so i took a deep breath and committed to slaying the money dragon i have been carrying with me for as long as i can think of. it was time to kill it at last and that day was the day.
after our call, i logged into my account, sold some of my investments and transferred the money. done. and it felt great. and i felt liberated, free from this burden. i could feel the shift and expansion immediately. and it was easy. i was still breathing. i was still alive. i still had a roof over my head. nothing had changed in my life, just the number in my account. i felt a lot lighter because i had just moved out of the complicated web of why i could not do what i had just done. and thereby i also had released the baggage of this open issue sitting in the back of my mind every day. i had turned the tide.
and wow, it was powerful because in that very moment my relationship with money was redefined. i had just hired an editor to help me turn this substack and my learnings into a book and she was waiting to be paid a significant amount as well. after repaying my debt, i logged in again and paid her. no more resistance. done.
i could feel that my ability and willingness to spend and invest in me had been rekindled. i had liberated myself from this shadow. or at least, i had moved out of the darkest part. and all that by “simply” doing what i was most uncomfortable doing.
this is the nugget of this episode: wherever you are stuck, wherever you are resistant to doing something or to stop doing something you are doing, the only way to move out of this discomfort is to break through by doing exactly what you are resisting. and the moment you do that, you will feel free again and wonder why you had not done it a long time ago. you will feel liberated and excited and it will feel like it was a small, easy thing to do. but until just before that moment, not a millisecond earlier, your mind will tell you it is an impossibility and your whole body will scream. and then it is done. boom. transformation. freedom. inner peace.
the very purpose of life is to evolve, grow and expand. every moment i get to decide whether i choose growth or status quo and staying stuck. the mind will always argue to keep doing what i have always been doing because it is the known, the safe and habituated way of being - staying in my comfort zone, even if self-destructive.
what we want deep down is to expand, to fully live, to thrive. there’s a yearning inside of us to break free from perceived constraints. and this requires taking risks by doing what i am most resistant to do no matter how difficult it seems to be. when i find the courage to go there, freedom awaits me on the other side. whether it is my money story, a relationship or job that needs to be changed, whatever it is that you want to do but can’t quite get yourself to do, that’s where you are meant to go.
once on the other side, life feels magical and i literally feel the expansion, the growth and the new freedom. the space of what i perceive as possible expanded in that very moment. the prison of the mind has been forced to loosen its grip and it learned a new skill that it thought was impossible until a moment ago. everything is a gift including every obstacle we encounter. it is all in service to our development. it’s the school of life.
the money story is a pervasive one. because money touches everything we do. as i quoted in the beginning: “if you want to see some really selfish behaviour, stir money into the mix and see what happens.”
i am no longer interested in the money conversation. and with the cancer of greed removed from my system, i can now bring all my efforts, energy and attention in alignment towards one singular thing: to make my life and this world more beautiful and empowered. i am finally getting myself out of the way and that’s the most powerful thing there is.
with love, vincent.
i am coaching again. after a break to do all this inner work, i am ready to serve again. if you are curious, send me a message. we will set up a call and you will experience coaching with me. i won’t sell you anything nor is there an expectation that it turns into an engagement. in that one hour, i will serve you to the best of my abilities and it will be all and only about you. you bring the content and i provide the context for you to move above and beyond where you currently are. coaching is the biggest gift you can make to yourself. and when you found the right coach for yourself, you will start playing on a whole new level. coaching is not magic but it creates miracles.
i am writing a book. as a reader of this newsletter, i am curious to learn about the format that best serves you. i would love to hear what you like about this newsletter, what you don’t and what would make reading the book worth to you. i appreciate negative feedback just as much as positive one. we aspire to make this an incredibly powerful and transformative book and i’d love you to be part of this. just hit reply and let me know your thoughts or a time when you have 15 mins to speak over the phone. i am eternally grateful.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
today’s episode takes a different, more entertaining format. the above audio is the message to a friend. she responded: “great message. you should broadcast wider.” she is a “type a” senior executive in finance - i thought this will resonate with my readership. listen to it at 1.25x or 1.5x speed. it gets more thought provoking as you continue to listen.
i cover and connect a wide range of topics from the purpose of life, trauma, karma, ego, mirroring, embodiment, spiritual path, soul, thinking vs. being, the game of life, the limitations of the mind, science and spirituality, awakening, avatars, healing powers, our higher capacities, the future of medicine, beliefs vs. truth, the two paths of humanity, doing and having vs. being (see timestamps below). where appropriate i added links. i recommend both video links - they will take you far down the topics.
i am using “you” in the earlier part of the message. that is because it was in response to my friend’s question. hear it as if i am talking about myself. what i am sharing is my experience and understanding.
enjoy! and let me know what you think.
0:11 everything is there to show and teach us something1:48 the purpose of life: evolution, moving from i to channeling my higher self4:00 from escaping to moving through and out of pain5:02 triggered trauma is like screaming at others while chocking oneself5:40 karma - every action/thought/feeling adds or subtracts from it6:11 ego death and life after death (this is an advanced video on the topic)6:35 life is school and a different game than what our minds think it is7:14 the more i love and give, the more love i feel. what we give is what we “get”7:44 everything is for me - everybody else is just showing me what i need to see8:17 book “satan - an autobiography” explains life’s inner working well8:27 knowing vs. being/living it8:41 the spiritual path9:05 why we met and soul contracts9:55 we all serve the purpose of helping each other on our higher self journey10:03 the less i think about myself the more beautiful my life10:22 light, life and truth11:04 the only game there is12:28 our minds cannot comprehend beyond time and space12:55 spirituality - rediscovering what we have always known13:25 science and spirituality - two sides of the same coin14:20 we are here to move into the sixth chakra which is awakening, psychedelics14:50 ego construct and the limitations of the mind15:35 awareness/knowledge vs. wisdom/embodiment15:55 being in my stories and transmuting them16:25 jesus as a teacher of forgiveness17:07 burning collective karma and avatars17:53 the power of healing through being18:18 amma healing through hugs18:38 we all have higher capacities and they are encoded in our dna19:00 unified integrative medicine - the future of medicine (this is a powerful video)19:30 scientific dogma - science is no longer scientific 20:00 most of what we call truth are beliefs20:55 nothing is impossible21:30 as we raise our frequency we unlock new human capacities 22:05 spiritual texts are real when properly interpreted22:40 humanity is walking two paths: fear and control vs. the journey of awakening23:50 discovering our true nature24:15 it’s all about being not doing and having
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
short for time? skip down to the bit titled “ego death”.
“again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of god.” — matthew 19:24
there are days when i feel like i am a pressure cooker about to explode. as i am working hard to transmute my shadows into gifts, i am confronted with the fears and stories of myself. i am letting go of the old, of my patterns, behaviours and ways of thinking that are fear and scarcity based.
i know i will eventually let it go and i would love that day to be today - yet i am squirming trying to get out of my skin, trying to escape the transformation i am going through. my system is fighting the change from deep within and at the same time, i know it’s already happening.
birth is painful. and this is the birth of a new me. but to be born, i first need to die. i have died seemingly many times (whether it was destroying wealth, stripping naked or surrendering everything) and it never gets easier. our two greatest fears are the fear of death and the fear of failure. the body doesn’t like to die nor does the ego.
on tuesday, i woke up to a message from a friend that triggered me deeply. my whole body went into contraction and vincent just wanted to shout, even scream at him. luckily, i recognised it for what it was, took a deep breath and sat down to meditate.
and there i found clarity: this is another gift in disguise courtesy of life aimed at continuing my development. we get these gifts all the time and they become more powerful and frequent as we become more aware as our soul asks to progress and accelerate: life doesn’t give me what vincent wants but what vincent needs to evolve. it’s a beautiful system once we can appreciate it for what it is. until then i fight and resist it, my ego is, and that’s the battle of life we experience daily: something happens and it’s not what we want.
the timing of this gift was also impeccable: tuesday was my six month anniversary of the journey that started this newsletter. i used to call that a coincidence but when there are coincidences every day and sometimes many a day you start seeing it for what it is: divine timing - more precise than a swiss watch.
the message felt abusive even more so coming from a close friend. for the majority of the following 36 hours, i was in an internal fight, in victim mode, feeling like our relationship was unbalanced, i was not appreciated and taken advantage of - or so my ego felt. but it was a gift in disguise and there were three things to learn - all powerful and one life-transforming.
expectations vs. agreements
the two of us had made an arrangement but it was a verbal one and we did not discuss the terms in detail - given that we are friends. that was the cardinal mistake and it’s something i have done numerous times in my life. life keeps showing me what i need to see as many times until i learn from it and change.
i didn't just fail at creating a written agreement but also not discussing it properly meant, as his message revealed, that we had very different understandings. and while i was fuming i should not have been surprised. life’s message to me was loud and clear.
i should also have known better as i have worked with all my clients on what steve chandler calls “expectations vs. agreements”. you can find his 30 mins recording here. it’s a treat. one of my former clients even told me that everybody at the company now uses it and i like to think that there are a lot less misunderstandings as a result.
learning: create written agreements wherever misunderstandings could threaten the relationship. they don’t have to be formal but once it’s in black and white it will become clear quickly whether both parties are on the same page or not. a prenup also serves this purpose - though there can be different motivations for having one.
moving out of victimhood and story
next up: the message also put me into victimhood and presented to me all the stories i am still stuck in - despite all the work i have been doing. this stuff goes very deep and as i previously shared, being aware of it is a big step but it’s a tiny step compared to what is needed to move through and out of the stories. and doing so feels like dying - more on that below.
the message triggered my money story (“this is not fair”, “i am overpaying” and “i don’t have enough”) which is an expression of me living in perceived scarcity rather than abundance and having a lack of faith and trust in life and my ability to generate money at will. stories are usually not true but they have a very powerful grip on our subconscious and feel like truths to us. they keep us in bondage. this was a big anniversary present bringing to the surface a lot of what i needed to see to move out of the story of “i can’t make a mistake” (perfectionism) and the underlying belief that “no one has my back” (and hence i can’t trust).
it’s ultimately courtesy of reverberations of the divorce of my parents at age sixteen. this is not blaming my parents, they did the best they could at that time which is what we all do: doing the best we can at the time. this is about understanding where these limiting beliefs come from and i am grateful to them because they gave me exactly what i needed to unfold in the way i did which lead to these realisations and the work i am doing. just like the message from my friend or getting punched by another friend (here), it was a gift in disguise. a painful, difficult one but therefore also a powerful, a life-transforming and defining one.
all of these conditioned beliefs are holding me back to be the person i am meant to be and they needed to be there for me to become the person i am meant to be. you gotta love these paradoxes of life. both statements are true. as the gene keys beautifully convey: our shadows (contracted, limiting beliefs, trauma) are the keys to unlocking our gifts (our expansive, higher expression, the person we are meant to be/become).
the important part is that i don’t stay stuck but move out of my shadows/limiting beliefs. and that is hard. and it is the very thing i am, and i believe we all are here to do: to evolve from darkness to light. and i don’t even have to believe in any of that because when i do i can experience the result of moving from resistance, struggle and suffering into acceptance, flow and bliss. and the only way to find out is to actually do it, to live, to embody it. no thinking can get me there.
that is where trust, faith and surrender come into play. because these limiting beliefs are to the mind and my ego/psyche who i am, they feel like the truth. so to move out of them i have to not only become aware but transmute and thereby let them go. and that feels like dying. which brings me to lesson no. three, the life-transforming one:
ego death
“the gradual transformation of ancient karma is like watching a saucepan of water slowly coming to a boil — for a considerable amount of time, nothing appears to be occurring. at a certain point, however, you sense a great pressure building within the saucepan, and you see the telltale signs that something big is about to happen — vapour begins to rise, a tangible heat begins to emanate, tiny bubbles prick the surface. when the explosion finally happens, it happens all at once and appears to be unstoppable. this describes the process of the dawning of the siddhis — the higher divine consciousness hiding in your dna.” — the 32nd siddhi - veneration - the perfume of consciousness - from the gene keys
over those 36 hours, i have been moving from rage to anger, to disbelief, to peace, to acceptance, to forgiveness (both to him and myself), to gratitude, to surrender and ultimately to ego death. ego what? more on that in a minute.
what guided me - in this order - were meditation, reflection, a light mushroom journey in nature (to move into the heart), a conversation with my coach, more meditation and reflection, falling asleep to listening to my own newsletter (aka reminding myself of the learnings of my journey), a night of sleep, a morning run in nature, lying in a hammock listening to my life’s gene keys aka the map of my life, listening to my ayahuasca episodes (newsletter 36/ - 40/) where i experienced an ego death in ceremony and meditating on all of this as the sun was setting and…
coming to the realisation that all the work i have done, the journey of seven years of seeking and then working hard at embodying it for the past year is coming to a conclusion. i can keep dancing around, exploring and talking about it or i can start fully and completely embodying it. i know that this is where i am going anyway so why not do it now?
the suffering triggered by a message showed me what i no longer want and how i continue standing in my own way and that of my unfoldment. how i keep myself stuck in all kinds of, yes, deep-rooted and hard-to-let-go stories but hey, this is the very thing i have been working on so let’s get it done and over with. i would not want to let such a beautiful and divinely timed gift go to waste.
with the blessing of having a sauna, i decided to get myself into “fire” to burn and sweat out of my system what had to die today. while i was cranking up the heat and sat in the ice-cold pool in between sessions, i was feeling into how life will be once i let go of my limiting stories moving from life being about me, protecting myself, procrastinating to not make mistakes and not to risk spending money, fear of failure, etc. etc. bla bla bla, to a life of presence, love and surrender and being about that very message. the messenger and the message are the same. it’s all about being rather than talking about it.
and as i felt into the “new” surrendering me, i started experiencing feeling this newfound freedom i would be enjoying. and the more i was feeling into it, the easier it became to let go of vincent and embrace the new me. i was moving from being scared of letting go and resisting to changing to being elated, excited and deeply grateful for what is to come.
from this day onwards i am committed to be guided by trust, faith, surrender, gratitude and in service of others in whatever shape or form it takes. the construct of vincent is dying and making room for the vessel that is emptying itself so it can be the message without the need to be or achieve anything. a pure message through the absence of ego and fear.
and if life works as i understand it to, as a result, this message will reach many more people than if the message were about me. this is really my message for all of us: when i get out of my own way, when i let go of the ego, i raise my vibration and open up for divinity to flow through and i start experiencing life and the power i am in a way that no other way of being ever can.
but to experience that magic, the ego has to die. i need to move from “me” to me surrendering to being in service and life’s unfolding. and i have absolute conviction that magic unfolds from here. will i not be in the ego ever again? of course not, i will drop back into it many times, daily, as old wounds will get triggered but my commitment is to be aware and continuously move out of it by making life no longer about me. we will see how that is unfolding.
with love, vincent
ps. the next newsletter will take a very different format - a break from my journey and an immersion into what i am seeing.
my view and me as i decided that today is the day:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
“if it is bread that you seek, you will have bread. if it is the soul you seek, you will find the soul. if you understand this secret, you know you are that which you seek.” — rumi
i could be the founder of a unicorn tech startup. i could be a senior managing director in an investment bank. i could be the ceo of a multinational corporation. my peers are holding these positions. i was on the path and i had the ambition. yet i am living in a rented home in the countryside reflecting and writing about life and my spiritual journey.
why, you might ask? he could have had it all yet there he is: single, alone with his books, his cat and nature. my family and i am certain some of my former colleagues, bosses, employees and friends are wondering. they probably don’t care or think about it much but they might ask themselves when we cross paths online or in person.
i believe there’s an inner force within us. i believe we all know it. we might have drowned it in the noise of daily life but it’s there. and it keeps popping up regularly and inconveniently asking what happened to our life.
how many times did i sit in my office or at home wondering what i was doing, why i was with the person i was with, why i did not have my own family or a fulfilling relationship with my family? i had the title, i had the money, i seemingly had a great life and yet i didn’t feel it. i wasn’t at peace. and so i started asking questions.
i was born to ask questions, it’s in my nature, it’s who i am, who i always was and always will be. it runs like a red thread through my life now that i see it. when i was only a couple of years old, i would take everything apart, trying to understand how things worked. in my twenties working in banking, i would ask why we were doing things a certain way with those questions often not being welcomed. later, as an entrepreneur in brazil, i asked how we could do things better or more successfully.
but to ask the ultimate question, i needed to be pushed out of my company. adversity is a gift in disguise to nudge us in the right direction. eight years ago, i started asking: what is life all about? why are we here and what are we doing? the desire to find the answer grew so strong, i had no choice but to find it.
so here you are reading what i have written as i near the end of that journey. i discovered what was happening within me that allowed my clever mind to adapt and pivot in any direction: i could do anything - but not be me. the disparity between the many different parts within me and the actual one self were begging to be reunited.
i have been very fortunate to have met with and been guided by many awakened and aware souls who believed in me and supported my search - without doing the journey for me. they empowered me to take big steps towards allowing me to be my authentic self. to overcome the fears that were holding me back.
what do i mean by being myself? ask yourself, do you love the role you are playing every day? with your spouse, colleagues, friends, whoever. if you are not 100% authentic all the time you are playing a role. how does that feel? it sucks, right? yet this is what so many of us are doing including me most of the time. we people please, we say the right thing or don’t express what “should not” be said.
and little by little over years and decades we become someone that we don’t recognise anymore. next time you are in front of a mirror, lock eyes with yourself and ask: who are you? don’t look away. keep seeing yourself. really look and feel any discrepancies. it’s powerful.
today, friends of mine wanted to stay with me on their way back. i was on a call when they messaged me. my intuitive response was no and then “vincent” came online and “said”: but you are meant to be nice, loving and welcoming so you gotta say yes. but my soul, my true, intuitive self, had said no. not because i didn’t want them to stay but because i had to do something else.
i had to have a profound conversation with my coach, reflect on it in stillness and solitude and then sit down and write this article. i didn’t know at that time this is what i would do, i just knew i couldn’t host them. if they had come over, i would have not had these realisations and they most definitely would not have made it on paper. it took courage to say no. it was not my natural response. and it was the only right response because i was true to myself. i was authentic.
i told them i would love to have them anytime (in fact, i just hosted one of them for a few nights) but today i was in a process, that i needed time by myself and i thanked them for understanding. and they understood. it was much easier than my mind made me think it would be.
and so it is with all of our resistance: it is a mental construct. and as long as i give in to it, it imprisons me: my life, relationships, work, everything becomes something that i am not. and one day we all will die and wonder what all the struggle was for. hell, people commit suicide because of their lack of being able to be themselves.
authenticity requires courage and its reward is freedom.
the freedom to be yourself, to live in alignment with yourself. and it might mean not to build a unicorn, not to be a managing director or ceo of a large company. even if you could be all of that. i am, you are and we all are here to express our full authentic selves. and when we do, magic happens. and it feels magical too. call it bliss, serenity, presence, flow, love, it’s all the same. it’s our birthright to experience it.
we are taught that we need to do, to have, to be someone. but it’s the inverse: we want to be ourselves and from there what we do and have are simply products of our being, they are neither the purpose nor the origin of our existence. riches or money are not wealth but our relationship with self and others is. abundance is having both but it all starts with who i am being.
and it’s hard to be myself. i want to be liked, loved, understood and agreed with by everybody or at least everybody i care about and especially the people close to me or those who i look up to. the price of this people-pleasing is me becoming someone i am not. and that’s a very high price to pay, really the highest price to pay in life: not being myself. it means missing out on the very purpose of my life. that’s the nagging we might be feeling or the emptiness we see when we look at ourselves in the mirror: who have i become?
but there’s wonderful news: i can change all of that in the blink of an eye. i can change it right now. i can show up differently in my relationship or leave it. i can change my job, start my own thing, finally take that sabbatical, try something new or spend a year travelling with my family. whatever the thing is i need to do, i can take the first step towards it right now. i most likely even know what it is without thinking: it’s this decision i am resisting which, if i am honest, i knew all along needed to be taken.
i am not saying it’s easy. maybe i need to take a few intermittent steps. maybe i need to make some financial or comfort compromises to get there. but it's worth it. it’s the only thing that is worth fighting for: my authenticity and expressing it fully. every step i take towards it will make me come more alive. this i am now certain of. don’t believe me? call me and we will figure it out together: +351 912 388 33x [the last digit is the sum of the two digits of this episode number].
i’m being serious. this is important. this is your life. if you have ever wondered how you can feel more alive, how you can finally arrive, how you can feel peace, freedom and love for life, this is it: to be yourself. be authentic. be you. say and do you. isn’t that wonderful news? all we have to do is to have the courage to be ourselves. to be it with kindness and love but without deranging ourselves for the fear of stepping on someone’s foot. if i am afraid to be myself i will never feel fully alive.
what is my purpose? i don’t have to find my purpose. it is simply to be myself and everything else is an outpouring of that. and when we allow ourselves to be our true selves then not only will we feel free but we also allow others to be themselves. imagine what a world that would be.
this is the human journey. this allowing myself to be me and to be the most giving version of me is why we are here. and when we are, we are present to life, we live in the now and we are fulfilled. as wayne dyer said: “you can either be a host to god (your higher/true self) or a hostage to your ego (your people pleasing want to be loved by everybody else). it’s your call.”
based on what i discovered in my journey this is the one factor that determines the quality of my life. the only real one. am i being myself or not? it does not matter how important, rich, loved, appreciated, admired, beautiful, sexy, tall, smart, intelligent or - insert whatever your most sought-after trait is - i am or if i am none of these things. they are things most of us want to be to compensate for not feeling ourselves - because most of the time we are not.
but there’s a much easier, even instant way to the proverbial paradise on earth: i just have to be myself. i just ask: am i being authentic? do i express who i am fully and unconditionally? yes or no?
i left my careers to seek and find this message and then to develop the courage to live it. it might sound too simple to be true but real truths are very simple yet often hard to see. it took years and many sacrifices and experiments to find it. this is the journey i was meant to take. it is just me being myself. and it is no coincidence you are reading this.
being myself can feel like the hardest thing to do. there is and always will be lots of resistance. a fulfilling life is not an easy journey. as the saying goes: easy choices, hard life. hard choices, easy life. but isn’t that worth dying for: a fulfilling life? we don’t even have to die, just our ego needs to. being ourselves is the ticket to experience the heaven we, i believe, are all secretly hoping for but might have given up on.
and the incredible thing is: we can all be it and experience how amazing it feels right now. but we will only know when we are ourselves, when we have overcome our resistance to follow our natural way of being, when we trust our intuition - and not a millisecond before.
with love, vincent.
you might enjoy my favourite poem - by marianne williamson:
our deepest fear
our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.it is our light, not our darknessthat most frightens us.we ask ourselveswho am i to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?actually, who are you not to be?you are a child of god.your playing smalldoes not serve the world.there's nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you.we are all meant to shine,as children do.we were born to make manifestthe glory of god that is within us.it's not just in some of us;it's in everyone.
and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
after a powerful experience i sat down and wrote the following, call it a mission statement:
"who am i and what am i here to do?" are the most difficult and the most important questions in life. when i know who i am i know what i need to do. my being informs my doing. most of us spend our whole life trying to become someone. it is a painful and never-ending process that i know all too well. i have spent the last eight years looking for the answer and i am committed for the rest of my life to live it and empower those who seek it to do so as well. when i am, everything changes.
what we seek is ever present and within us. it was, is and always will be. being stuck in the mind keeps us distracted from actually feeling yet that is what we yearn for the most. many of us experience something constantly nagging in the background. our drive to achieve and to live our genius becomes the nightmare of the insatiable need to obtain approval from others, trying to become someone.
but there's nothing to achieve or to become, we already are. the moment we recognise our eternal nature, we move out of our ego and into the heart and that's when we start flowing with life experiencing the feeling of bliss, love and serenity - no matter what is happening. am i in this state continuously? absolutely not. i am very human yet i have experienced this state and i am working hard at staying in it and not to fall back into the prison of the self.
before, i used to be an investment banker and startup founder. if the above sounds spiritual to you, it is. i used to be an atheist and i have come to understand that the answers lie beyond the realm of perception of the mind. yet you don't have to believe anything, experience is the most powerful teacher, the only teacher really. and you are your own most powerful teacher. no one else except you knows what you need to do.
as a coach and founder of neoslife, i am deeply committed to live the highest expression of myself and to empower everyone around me. it is a continuous labour of love. and it is work. it is the very work we all came here to do. the moment you experience your highest state of being, you know that it is.
if the above resonates within you, i invite you to get in touch. there is no randomness in life, it is simply the mind being incapable of seeing the connection.
as steve jobs famously said: "you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.... so you have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. this approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
with love, vincent
moving from what i have done to who i am being - the above is now my linkedin page.
so what happened? thursday evening, i found myself pacing around anxiously. no need to bother you with the details, it was a combination of late nights, having taken on a lot of work, pressuring myself to create results fast, money stories and wondering when will it all finally come to fruition. in short, i was trying to become.
i felt the tension rising over the past days and that night it was overwhelming and my body was contracting. i messaged my beloved coach whether she was free to hop on a call and shortly after we were speaking.
she challenged me and i realised: i was not present. i was not in acceptance. i was fighting internally. and i was being my own enemy. i was reminded that this is called the great work for a reason.
wikipedia reads: “the great work is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will.”
you can call it the process of awakening, the spiritual path, the journey of “becoming”, remembering who we are. it is what we are here for. what the purpose of this whole existence called life is. it doesn’t mean we have to do the great work but if i wonder how i can stop this nagging i referred to above, this feeling of i am never quite there, this is the answer.
and it’s not a simple answer. it is a commitment to continuously work on myself, to see whatever life throws at me as an invitation to learn, to evolve and elevate my way of being rather than being in resistance and feeling like a victim. it’s the great work because it is hard and because it is never ending and yet it’s the way of fully embracing the journey of life moving from resistance to taking full responsibility for everything that i am feeling and creating in my life. it’s the path to an empowered way of being.
and today i was running up against one of my limiting beliefs: i can’t trust, no one has my back. this is not an intellectual belief, it is deeply anchored in my body. it is a product of my childhood, my ancestors, generational trauma, etc. yes, this stuff is real and it goes deep. and if i don’t face it, it drives my whole life. it is the story i am unconsciously telling myself and that story then creates my life experience.
and the only way to move beyond it is to face it. head on. to take a deep breath, sit with it and move through it. what life am i and have i been building by not trusting? many of my life experiences have reinforced that i can’t trust but if i dig deeper i can see that the underlying lack of trust created the very situations that then resulted in people in my life not being trustworthy.
that’s the crazy part. me not trusting, whether consciously or unconsciously, creates a way of being, you could even say a way of vibing that is subtly perceived by others and i thereby attract the wrong people and situations in my life. those then make me believe i can’t trust but in reality it is me that never trusted which created these very situations.
it is not that the world is untrustworthy. the world is untrustworthy because i don’t trust it. it is a confusion of cause and effect. i am the cause and the world, people and situations just mirror back to me how i perceive it. life brings me the exact situations to learn the lessons i need to move forward, to move out of my limiting beliefs. to realise the powerful creator i am, we all are.
thought and beliefs create 24/7. we are all master manifestors. if i believe the world is a dangerous, unloving, untrustworthy place then this is exactly how it looks like to me and i will attract the very circumstances that confirm that view. we can only see in others that what exists within us. everything in life acts as a mirror so i can see what i need to. i can be in resistance and denial of that or i can use it to wake up, to become an empowered creator seeing the perfection and beauty of this mirror system. my experience of life is a reflection of who i am. change your thoughts, change your life.
so what does it all mean? to me it means that i have to move through that trust issue rather than avoiding it. it will keep standing in the way until i let it go. and the only way to do that is to get uncomfortable and do the opposite: trust and take actions that reflect trust rather than trying to protect myself and hold back as a result. and that’s why it’s called the great work. because doing the opposite is hard. it is like dying.
my mind finds a million reasons why i should not do that. why it is not safe even stupid. and i know if i don’t do it i continue living life with the “handbrake put on”. that is the reason for feeling a nagging in the background, why we are never quite present, why we worry rather than living. and that’s what this feeling is there for: to show me what i need to change if i want to experience the flow and beauty of life.
life is choice. everything is a choice. and once we see it for what it is, all choices collapse and only the right path remains. it becomes a choiceless choice because all other choices keep me stuck in a limited way of being. in that moment i know who i need to be and what i need to do. and then i have to take a deep breath, collect all my forces and jump into the seemingly unknown, trusting that it all will work out.
and when i do, i experience freedom. the freedom i have been seeking all along.
what would it take for you to be truly free today?
you might also enjoy this read which highlights the struggle and power of surrendering:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
The juicy content and insights are in the later part, so if you have no time or patience, skip to after the picture.
I’d like to start with an apology. I feel that in the last episode, I slipped back, at least partially, into teacher mode with statements like “we are all traumatised”. While I do believe that it’s not for me to make any statements about you or people in general. I am here to share my journey with the goal that you might gain something from following it: An insight, a realisation, new ideas, something to reflect on - and not to tell you what you are or need to do. That’s your journey. I hereby reaffirm my pledge to humility - and also recognise I am human. I am learning and growing.
This is the human journey. But I have more interesting things to share. I feel that I am getting closer to cracking the code of life. This is big because that’s literally what set me off on this journey. Over the years, I felt that my understanding of what makes humans happy improved significantly but I was far from feeling that I had to key to it. Last year life showed me that knowledge and awareness are a requirement but embodiment really is the key. You gotta walk the talk.
And embodiment is hard. Embodiment meant letting go, surrender, stop wanting to plan and control life, stop believing to know what I need and let life show me what it is, be more giving, loving and sharing, stop worrying about money or the future and trust that life will bring me exactly what I need. I realised that what I have done for four decades of my life did not bring me that eternal happiness I now believe exists and so the only way to find out was to jump, to let go, trust and see where it takes me.
When I did that beautiful things started to happen. Some will sound unbelievable and others just like luck or coincidences. You don’t have to believe anything. I just invite you to see what it evokes in you. For me they have become new truths and realities and I am therefore continuing that journey which is getting more beautiful, peaceful and effortless by the minute which in turn allows me to surrender even deeper, becoming a servant of my higher self rather than staying a victim of my ego.
Let me share a few stories to illustrate what I am talking about. A few days ago I drove to a therapist called Nuno. He deserves his own newsletter and that’s for another time. On the way, I was listening to the book Satan. I think it’s the fifth time as I’m working its messages into my system. In one passage he talks about the ancient language of Aramaic which used to be as popular as English is today and Jesus apparently communicated in Aramaic especially when he was sharing wisdom with his disciples.
The author mentions that “Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, is an Aramaic word (Maccah) that means “to break through.” At that moment, I look out of my window and I see the sign for the village I am entering: “Maça” Wow. What are the chances? I didn’t even know there was a village with that name. And the timing. And the meaning: Breaking through.
Another example: I recently moved to the countryside, see picture. Before the move, I did visualisations of living in the countryside and asked for an opportunity to present itself. I hadn’t looked for properties or anything nor did I tell anybody. Within two days of doing so, a dear friend of mine pinged me and asked whether I wanted to rent their countryside property. I knew their place well but it didn’t even come to me that this might be the place for me and that it would be available.
Another thing is numbers. I constantly see number triplets like 11:11 (time) or 2,22 Euro or Bitcoin price of 17,555 or leaving a WhatsApp message of 1:11 length or 66,444 unread emails in my inbox (lots of spam, I stopped deleting emails). I get these numbers constantly and I didn't use to get anything like that before.
What I have learnt is that all the above are signs that I am in alignment with my path. It’s the universe talking to me. I know what you are thinking. And I don’t blame you. It’s hard to believe this stuff but when you experience it all the time, every day, you can’t deny it. And I realised my mind doesn’t understand life and this is how it works. Nothing is like it seems. And that’s one of the joys of the journey of awakening. I learn and witness amazing stuff. I could go on and on sharing stories about encounters and synchronicities.
So what do I do differently than before? I am increasingly quieting the left side of my brain and letting my intuition, heart, gut and deeper knowing guide me. I reduced my obsessive thinking and worrying about money and my future and my career and relationships and all the other previously seeming life construction sites and replaced them with trust, gratitude, faith and surrender. I am asking myself how can I serve and support others rather than what I want or think I need.
And the result I am experiencing speaks for itself. I feel more at peace, at ease, in flow, present, grateful and recognise the beauty of life. I stopped fighting and controlling. I see that whatever happens is in the service of me learning and growing. The more I am in this acceptance, the more life supports my journey in a gentle and empowering way.
Life is always supporting our journey but when I was in resistance or focused only on what I wanted, life would give me pain and I would be in some form of suffering with the purpose that I can recognise that I need to change, that I am off. For most of my life, I was ignorant that this is how it works. I think we as humanity are - and hence all the suffering and quest to find meaning in it. I used to think I am lucky or unlucky or it was my hard work or the lack of it that led to an outcome. While how I show up obviously influences the outcome and I might even get what we want, life has a magical way of always giving me what we need: Pain or joy.
I have countless examples, let me share two with you: When I was a startup founder in Brazil, my co-founder and I struggled to make the company work but in the end secured funding from a high-profile investor. I was like yay, we are going to make it big but the trouble started the moment we had money. We had very different ideas of how to run the business and the conflict escalated to the level that my co-founder worked hard at ousting me and I ended up leaving the company a year later. When I cleared my desk, I found that he had hidden a small sculpture of a man bowing which turned out to be Brazilian witchcraft. Yes, our separation was nasty. It was a proper divorce.
The lesson I needed to learn was that a) this work was not in alignment with my purpose and to get into alignment I needed some harsh wake-up calls in the form of betrayal and my “baby” being taken away from me. If that had not happened I would not write this newsletters because that very experience made me question everything and start seeking for the purpose of life. It was a blessing in disguise. They all are.
Everything is a gift. If I can’t see the gift then I am not looking at whatever happens in the right way. Everything that happens to us is in the purpose of unfolding of our higher self. Unhappy in the job or relationship, having trouble with money or so much you don’t know what to do with or how to invest it, keep being ousted or mobbed from jobs (like I was), and, this is going to be highly controversial but being constantly sick or suffering from a disease, it’s all in service of our soul journey. To heal, to wake up, to learn, to make changes. I will write about the disease statement another time. And about what I mean by soul journey and what the soul really is. These topics merit their own episode; or many of them. It’s a big topic.
Teaser: The soul is information in the quantum field. Science and spirituality don’t contradict each other, they are two sides of the same coin. And when we apply that to our thinking, science and they way we do things, life as we know it and our understanding of it will transform. That’s what I am working on, to support this awakening and transition. I hope to share more about the project in the near future. If this is of interest to you, hit the reply button and message me.
The other thing that I believe I needed to learn was to let go of the ego. Both my co-founder and I were stuck in it and the result was a big conflict and the company going under in the process. Our egos killed the very thing that we wanted to feed our egos on. Isn't that irconic? So at least two big lessons here. Both were necessary for my own good, growth and evolution. Many years later, I can now clearly see the gift and necessity of it. The purpose of life is about learning, growing and expanding, it’s a developmental journey. When we accept that rather than striving for outcomes like success, money, appreciation, beauty, luxury, comfort, etc. then we flow with life, it becomes a continuous experience rather than a mission to make it. It becomes effortless, not easy, but effortless.
I will keep the second example brief as I wrote about it here at the time: In 2021, I made a fortune aggressively speculating on Bitcoin and not much later I lost it all and a big part of the principle as well. And then I did the same thing again the same year. It left me with less money than when I started years ago. I created and destroyed a fortune in the process. When I look back at how it all unfolded it feels surreal. Why did I do what I did? It was plain stupid, reckless, and it was exactly what needed to happen. I didn't know any better at that time as trauma that was anchored in my body made me freeze, unable to act, when I should have sold. My reptilian mind had taken over. I needed to work and heal from that programming.
And I needed a lesson in humility, that I am here to be in service rather than hoarding money. And that my focus had to shift to the spiritual journey rather than trying to do both, get rich and enlightened ;) And this experience of loss achieved all of that beautifully and very effectively. Many things like the violent exchange with a friend (see episode below) and the learnings from it would never have happened if it had not lost that money. It was a piece in the puzzle of my unfoldment. Beautiful now that I can understand it that way.
The linearity and unfolding of life are incomprehensible for the mind and superficial cause effect logic. We can’t grasp or anticipate what will happen because of what happened. We just see it for what it is in the moment, good or bad, pleasant or painful. But it is so much more. And it always is in our highest service. Life always happens for me not to me. A beautiful parable is the following story. You can find a full version of it here. The short one is this:
A man’s horse runs away. The villagers tell him how unlucky he is. His response: Who knows what’s good or bad? The next day the horse comes back with ten wild horses. The villagers say: You were right, you are so lucky. The father: Who knows what’s good or bad? The next day the son rides one of the wild horses, falls, breaks his legs and becomes a cripple. The neighbours: You are so unlucky. The father: … The next day the army comes through the village and inscribes all able-bodied men. The neighbours: You are so lucky. The father: …
The lesson of the story: I don’t know what’s good or bad. None of us do. We just have a belief, an opinion, a view. But the magic and unfoldment of life are way beyond mental comprehension. Life doesn't unfold linearly and logically through time. And we can’t anticipate what will happen when and if. That’s just what our minds like to think and make us believe. And they do a great job at it. This illusion is thick.
As Steve Jobs famously said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
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 s**t 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.
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
Welcome to a new year.
As I was closing 2022, I have been reflecting on what I learnt this year. I wrote down a lot of things but if I had to boil it down to one thing, it is this:
I have an ego: It’s called Vincent, it has 44 years, is 186cm / 6’1’’ tall, has green-brown eyes, has been a banker, entrepreneur, seeker, writer, coach, etc. etc. This ego thinks it knows a lot, has learnt a lot, prides itself in having gone down many rabbit holes and having come out of them more knowledgeable and wiser.
And that is all wonderful and it’s really easy to identify myself with all of that and more. And that is the trap. That is the very thing that keeps me stuck on this plane, the one where I am always trying to become someone, I am always becoming, but I never am.
And this ego is both my trap and my illusion. I am, we are all much more than we think we are. When we think, we are in the ego, we are living the ego, we are identifying with it - as in it being separate from others. And of course, this is what we have been taught and learnt since we touched down here, the moment since we came out of the womb and have been given a name.
And yet, this is not me but a construct the real me has created. And this construct is here for me to experience life, to experience cold and hot, ugly and beautiful, good and bad, right and wrong, rich and poor. Only through this separation and polarity, I can experiment, learn from the experimentation and then expand, grow and ultimately remember who I really am and return to that light and love that I am, that we all are.
Now this might sound all too spiritual for you, too disconnected from the reality we seem to be operating in, and I get it, it’s hard to see it that way, for me as much as it is probably for you. I have been blessed with having the desire and the ability to explore and play with these reflections in my daily life, it is what I do, to understand Reality and Truth.
And why does it matter? Because when I am going about my life without understanding who I truly am, how can I be playing this game of life well, without knowing what’s really going on here, who I am and what this is all about?
When I don’t ask these questions, I will try to live a life of pleasure, always trying to minimise pain. But does this work? In my experience and by observing and working with others, it does not. Also, all spiritual texts unequivocally state that the ego, the self, is an illusion and if we think about ourselves first or only, we are playing the game wrong.
I think most of us feel that there’s something wrong with how we approach life, at least if you take the time to just reflect a little in between the busy life that you might be living. No matter what we do, we never seem to arrive. So how do we arrive?
I want to feel happiness, love, gratitude, serenity, bliss, peace, … and the way to feel those is to bring them into the present moment. To do that, I have to let go of the notion that I have to arrive somewhere or become someone, to feel a certain way. And the moment I surrender to whatever is present, I will find all those things within me.
Everything I want is present when I stop looking or trying to get it. When I stop taking everything for granted that seems to be normal. When I start appreciating the wonder that my body is, that I can breathe in and miraculously, I oxygenate my blood which is transported to my cells and there an incredible machine is taking care of everything in every cell, trillions of them without me doing anything.
I can taste food, hear all kinds of sounds and see with my eyes the incredible beauty that nature has created. Wow, the richness of life. And you might say yes, but I need to make money so I can put food on the table, pay the mortgage for the new house and put the kids into school.
Yes, you might have to do all of that and a lot more, but if you cannot do that by bringing joy and love into your life, if you cannot enjoy that very journey, what is the point of it all? And that’s the point: There is no point in all of that. All of that, life itself just serves the purpose of us remembering who we really are, that we are just experiencing life on earth through this body, a temporary vessel we inhabit, to remember what we are: Love, light, consciousness, God, whatever you want to call it.
The separation we are experiencing “simply” serves the purpose to remember and appreciate who we are, underneath the hood so to speak. And when I remember that, then I realise there is no need for me to become someone, what I am trying to become unconsciously is to feel the light and love I am underneath the clouds of the ego that is yearning to experience the very things I am already.
And when I realise that I am looking for and trying to become something that I already am, then I sigh and all the expectation and pressure fall away because by no longer trying to become I can finally simply be. And as I don’t need to realise or achieve anything anymore, I can stop worrying about myself and I can be loving, generous and giving to others.
And when I find the courage to do exactly that, to not think of myself first but how I can serve others, then the most magical things happen, then I suddenly start flowing with life and life starts bringing everything to me that I ever wished for. I feel love, light, purpose, presence, peace, beauty, all the good things effortlessly. There is no more trying, fighting, competing, I simply am and I trust that life will guide me through pain and joy to where I need to go.
Whatever I feel and experience are simply feedback mechanisms of life to guide me back onto the path I am meant to walk on. The more I suffer, the more I am depressed, not feeling love but lack and meaninglessness where every day seems to be a struggle, the more life is trying to tell me, hey, that’s the wrong direction, you are playing the wrong game.
The more joy, peace and love I feel, the more life is telling me, hey, that’s where you want to go, keep going and it’ll get even more beautiful. It is that simple. The hard part is first realising that this is how it works and then, the harder part, to have the courage to live it, to embody it, to trust life, to stop fighting and competing.
And the only way to find out is to be and do it. The mind will never be able to grasp it because the magic of life is beyond the mind. Believe me, I have tried for many years to intellectually arrive at this place. It doesn’t work. I have to live it: The trust, the faith, the giving, the surrender of the ego.
Following my last episode, I have given away a book to those who responded. This book powerfully and in an entertaining way conveys the key to a fulfilling life clearer and more concisely than any other book I have read before. If you want to make yourself a big gift for the start of the new year, I could not recommend this book more highly:
Don’t let yourself be put off or fooled by the title. This book is not a satire but is very powerful and concrete about how to live the most fulfilling life. And of course, we not only have to read it but be and do it.
If you have not received the book following your response, please check your spam folder for an email from Amazon or Audible. Otherwise, please send me a message.
And now I’d like to share with you the most touching message I have received. When we authentically share, we help each other to bring more light into the world, to connect with our humanity and with what is real. I hope it moves you as much as it did me and it empowers you to start the new year with more gratitude and love. I wish you that 2023 may be your most beautiful year yet. Happy New Year.
Vincent,
I’ve struggled with depression for quite a while. Something sad has always been dormant in me for as long as I can remember, but the conclusion of a relationship a few years ago sent me into a spiral and just when I thought I couldn’t get lower, my self worth plummeted to the core of the earth. For a while I didn’t want to help myself. I got comfortable with the sadness because it was familiar and the truth was I think a part of me liked the pain. After a certain point, I didn’t think I was capable of being happy and that I must have done something to deserve this punishment. Something karmic perhaps? I’ve long used my pain as comedic relief. I loved being the sad clown. It has been my art. Sometimes my only joy. If my pain could be pleasure for others, then it wouldn’t all be in vain. I still feel that way because I like to make people laugh, even if it’s at my own expense. I’ve done some “work”. Some therapy, some meditation, some reading, some writing. But, I’ve never really felt like I’ve truly made strides.
Your insights with these daily musings and spiritual reflections always manage to center me and make me feel calm. I feel closer to making changes that I know I need to make in order to feel better. The episodes about ayahuasca in particular peaked my interest as it has been something I’ve always been curious about, especially in treating depression. I have self prescribed micro-dosing psilocybin but it wasn’t really for me as mushrooms have a really strong effect on me and I couldn’t seem to get it right. I remember asking you for some recommendations for Aya last year and I was even thinking of revisiting this as I’ll be going to the source next week for a work trip. I have been careful not to force it because I know there is preparation involved and I want to make sure the timing is right and I’m not rushing in or out of it. I want to be intentional and take it seriously. Not be impulsive, which I can be sometimes. I’m at a point now where I’m not desperate for relief. I’ve surrendered to what is and how things are and that makes things feel a lot better. But if I’m honest, I’m still not great and I don’t want to be complacent with how I’m feeling and where I am spiritually, emotionally, physically.
I’m opening my arms to the universe and am open to receiving the wisdom that will carry me into the 2023. Grateful for all lessons and teachings in whatever form they may take. Thank you for the daily dose of hope and inspiration.
Lots of love
If you are struggling with something, whatever it is and you feel that a conversation with me might help you, please have the courage to reach out.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
I just finished reading an incredible book. It is the most clear, concise and entertaining book on how to live your most fulfilling and meaningful life with the least suffering. Or in short: The book beautifully captures the wisdom of Truth. It deeply resonated with me more than any other book because it captures the essence of life better than any other book I have read so far.
I would like to gift 44 of my readers this book as a Christmas present or for that matter a holiday or New Year’s gift. Instead of ruminating soon how to be more successful in 2023 or any of the usual New Year’s resolutions, read this book. From where I am at, everything you need to know to make 2023 and all the years thereafter breakout years, better, how there’s your life before 2023 and after, this book will tell you how to do it.
Now, this book may or may not speak to you. Or you may understand it but not really believe it. Or you may believe it but are yet unable to do it. That is the journey in itself. Everything in life, including life itself is a journey. So is living your most beautiful life. Just like with wanting to have a healthy body, a personal trainer and a nutritionist can guide you what to do, you will always have to do the work yourself. So it is with this book as well.
And that’s by design. Anybody who promises you something else is selling snake oil. Which makes me think of this hilarious video I came across a few days ago: “A lifetime of transformation in one day. No compromises. No sacrifices. You don’t have to change a thing. Just show up.”
Some seem to believe, because wouldn’t it be great, that plant medicine, psychedelics, a course or some magic technique is the cure but, whatever it is, is really just an enabler of change. Psychedelics for example can show us something but we then need to integrate, we need to be what was shown to us. They can be like a springboard but I still have to have the courage to jump and dive myself. The springboard itself doesn’t make me do it, it just enables me to.
Ok, so how do you get this springboard of a book? Reply to this email until the end of today, 23rd, with one of the following: What was your most powerful learning from this newsletter? What change did reading it help you make? What was your highlight and/or lowlight? How can I make it more meaningful or helpful to you? How would you recommend it to a friend? Or simply share a story that has unfolded as a result of you reading this newsletter or interacting with me.
Let your creative mind flow. Just write something meaningful and from the heart. No thinking needed, just let it flow. I will pick the 44 most authentic messages that I receive and share them in the next newsletter with everyone. When replying, please indicate whether you prefer the Kindle (book) or the Audible (audiobook) version and whether or not you would like your response to be anonymous or with your name next to it. Or you can tell me not to share it at all, if it’s too personal.
I am deeply grateful to Marissa, one of my guides, who mentioned this book seemingly incidentally to me. That’s how magic happens. When you least expect it and without much fanfare.
Why 44 gifts? I am 44 years old. 44 marked also the year when I finished my 7 year journey of seeking and started a new cycle of serving. In numerology, 44 is a master number. It means you are being given encouragement and support along your path. 44 may also be thought of as an expression of the number 8, the number of achievement, abundance, and professional and material success. Doesn’t that make for a great start of the New Year?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Merry Xmas, happy holidays with much love,
Vincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
„You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It‘s your call.“ — Wayne Dyer
Today‘s episode was meant to be about the holotropic breath workshop I attended this past weekend but something more pressing came up: I got threatened and physically attacked by a friend. There‘s a lot to unpack here.
No time to read? Look for Insight #1, #2, #3 and #4 in bold. Also, the text version is extended to the audio recording as I made some last minute additions around the false guru concept, added Insight #2 and #4 and numerous smaller edits.
I’m using the word “spiritual” frequently throughout this episode. It can be freely exchanged with personal/human development or growth. Use whichever speaks to you. It’s all the same.
Today’s event made me think about when I last had a physical fight with someone and it brought me back to the tender age of 16 when I physically wrangled on the floor with a guy in my then-dancing class. Nearly three decades ago. That is the only proper physical fight I remember. Maybe there were others, quarrels, but nothing major.
What happened today (the content) is less interesting and relevant than how it happened and why (the context). At least from the perspective I have and I can share. I will also get to why this is worth sharing and writing about. There‘s a profound lesson for myself and I think for every human being. Being human is not easy in ways we don‘t often fully appreciate.
The two of us had several disagreements, small by nature, but significant enough that it would have been worth addressing and resolving them by way of a conversation. However, this conversation never happened because the other party did not deem that conversation relevant and/or did not want to have it. What we both did, as a result, was to eat up the related frustration inside of us until it boiled over.
It had boiled over before but they had just been verbal exchanges, angry glances and a lot of bad energy, you know, the stuff you can feel when you enter a room or look at a person without a single word needing to be uttered. We are hyper-sensitive beings and can sense anything that is off. Often this perception gets drowned out by an overactive aka overthinking head or by us dismissing our intuition as: Ahh, it‘s nothing…
This morning was different. We had had a few text exchanges that had ended with a message from him that was, in my opinion, so out of reality and distorted in its perception, worse, it turned the situation upside down, arguing that I was playing the victim and attacking him at the same time. And that he is CLOSING THIS CONVERSATION HERE.
As I woke up and was reading this message, I took a deep breath. I could feel how my body tensed and wanted to react straight away rather than me composing a reflected and constructive response. I took another breath. When our nervous system perceives a threat, it runs automatic programs that put us into fight, flight or freeze and the outcome is always worse, most often much worse, then to skip a beat, breathe and reflect before responding. Except, you really are in a life-threatening situation but in 2023 that happens once every blue moon. Not when texting with a friend, boss, spouse or whoever.
I feel my heart rate slowing down again. I get up and sit down for meditation, hoping to find more peace, calm and clarity on how to deal with this conflict. An hour later, I arise with the clarity that I will confront him about his message and set a clear boundary. Healthy boundary setting and communication are something that I had not learnt until recently. It‘s always been so much easier to please the other person and be nice but the result is that we eat the frustrations into ourselves until we explode (as we both have been doing) rather than communicating our needs and wants proactively and addressing and resolving them in the process.
I get up and walk into the kitchen. I look into his eyes and say calmly but with certainty: “Don‘t ever send me such a message again.” What happens over the next few moments is an increasingly loud and aggressive exchange leading to ordering me out of my own home, threatening me and ultimately physically attacking me. All from a seemingly innocuous comment about some house preferences I had. However, he, for whatever reason, saw them as a repeated attack on him personally.
Insight #1: Whatever we say might be perceived very differently by someone else based on their internal, unconscious life story. The reverse is of course also true: Whatever we perceive might have been intended with a very different meaning by the communicator. That‘s why context is key (even more so over text) but even context can often not overcome differences in perception.
It cannot be overstated that our minds create our reality based on sensory inputs and memories rather than actual physical reality. What we perceive is never absolute reality but a mix of emotions, stories, visual and other senses interpretations of our brain. Even the physical reality we see is not real but a construct of the mind optimised for survival.
As I am leaving the house, I am pinching myself for what just happened. Did it really happen? There was no real issue to start with and yet it had completely blown out of proportion. Over the next two hours, I got in touch with my coaches and guides or whatever you want to call them to help me see what I am missing - as I am one of the two people in the conflict, my perception must be biased. Our egoic minds play these games on us just as they did on my friend. Going into meditation and, more importantly, speaking with people who are well-versed in the understanding of the human condition and can provide a dispassionate and objective perspective is the surest way to make sure one is not lost, does or says stupid things and thereby escalates the situation.
Insight #2: Our minds play all kinds of twisted games to preserve our egoic sense of self. They can’t be trusted to present truth so we need to insert checkpoints, a warning system, to alert us when we start acting out of place. This is especially important for extreme situations. The only real checkpoint is another, professional person, a coach, a therapist, a shaman, whatever. And you need to be confident about their skill not on paper but that what they’re teaching they are being/doing themselves, in their personal and professional lives. Otherwise, it’s knowledge rather than embodied wisdom and their judgment can’t be trusted (more on that below). As my coach taught me: There’s only one of us inside.
The conversation with her lead me to the conclusion that, at least in this instance, I seem not to be crazy, what I communicated was reasonable and he seems to be putting himself into victimhood, making me the perpetrator when he was the one attacking me and then blaming me for making him attack me. Not only was he gaslighting me but he was also playing reverse psychology by making himself the victim while claiming I am in victimhood. The mind can be a twisted place. I have plenty of experience of that myself, just read:
Situations like this one happen all the time. What makes this crazier though is that this is a person who meditates a lot, like me, every day in the hour or hours range, has done a lot of work on himself, worked with many people and has gone down deep the spiritual rabbit hole. So this is not just a random person that doesn’t know what he’s doing. This is a person that is highly evolved and self-aware. So how come he had such a primal and uncontrolled reaction to something seemingly innocuous?
Insight #3: I can be spiritually extremely knowledgable, seemingly aware of the human condition and have done a lot of work on myself yet it’s all useless if I can’t embody it. I take this as a very visceral warning shot for my own journey. It is so easy to get caught up on the spiritual or personal growth high horse and the moment I get unvigilant, the ego and/or the reptilian mind takes over. We are both the redeemer and the destroyer - as my coach always reminds me.
My friend’s behaviour and actions were for me to see what can happen when you do a lot of inner work and therefore think you can’t possibly be doing anything wrong even to the point of hitting another person and blaming them for doing so (how about killing then?!).
The spiritual journey is fraught with obstacles, especially the spiritual ego which is just another form of ego but much more dangerous because one thinks of oneself as so much more evolved, beyond ego so to speak, and hence could not possibly have an egoic defence mechanism anymore. And when it does get triggered, then yes, it must be the other person aka you made me hit you. Call it the delusions of “waking up”. This is obviously not just a spiritual issue but applies to any human development: Becoming good at something and arrogant and with blindspots as a result. What makes it, however, especially tricky in the spiritual context is that that is the very domain of evolving in one's human capacity, awareness and behaviour.
After my coach and I had reviewed the situation, her next question was: What do you want to create from here? Besides me wanting to resolve this dispute - whether we will or not is outside of my purview though - I responded that I never want to become that person: The false guru. The one who claims to be enlightened yet abuses at the same time. The world is full of those because as you evolve spiritually and without continuous work on humility and keeping the ego in tow, it just pops up in another place, often bigger than before having started the personal growth journey.
My pledge: If I ever do - not have done because my younger version has done all kinds of “young” as in less developed things, I am on a journey in the end just like all of us - then please call me out on it! Now that I have become fully aware of the extent and nature of it, there are no more excuses. I’ve graduated. There’s only the high road from here on. If I act with spiritual ego, please kindly point it out to me so I can correct it before it could ever escalate. Thank you.
And let me add an important distinction to “the false guru”: The very idea of the guru is false in the sense that there is someone that has the answer for you. There is no-one that has an answer for you, we are each our own guru. It’s your inner teacher, the feeling or voice that is not thought but knowing, the intuition that you feel when you know what needs to be done or who you need to be that is here to guide us. That is also the path from being a victim of life to being the creator of everything in it. Read:
Back to the actual topic: Humility is the name of the game. The further you evolve, the more humility is required to operate in those higher echelons. The grail scene in Indiana Jones illustrates this powerfully:
Insight #4: Humility is the fuel for spiritual or for that matter any human development. Without it you’re not going anywhere. I like to think of it as a gate for the worthy: You can’t move forward without increased humility. Human evolution is embodiment-based. It doesn't matter what you know or who you are but how you are, your day-to-day beingness, how you treat other people including, especially, the waitress and the cleaning help.
It reminds me of my recent Ayahuasca journey where I got humbled by the need of letting go of everything: Money, power, fame. You can’t hide from yourself. Read:
It was a lesson in humility that then helped me to ascend into higher realms in subsequent ceremony nights as I shared in episodes #38-40. Humility is not only the door opener in Ayahuasca but Ayahuasca is simply an amplified and accelerated learning experience for real life. That is the very purpose of Ayahuasca, to experience something powerfully, viscerally and in condensed form so that we can accelerate our learning rather than taking years or a lifetime of trial and error in “real life”. Whether or not we bring the learning from the ceremony back into real life is of course a choice. The power of the human journey is that we know what is true and real deep inside - and then we have free choice and we can thereby explore and learn the consequences of our choosing.
And today, I was put in place again by the universe through the display of my friend’s behaviour. And I thank him for showing me what I needed to see. No book can teach this. I had to experience it viscerally. It’s a reminder that the journey I am on here is to serve others not my ego. No matter how far I make it or how wise I ever might become, there’s no room for ego, for the indulgence of myself. Instead, I am to live from a place of gratitude and grace, thankful for the journey I am on and the many powerful teachers that have seemingly miraculously found their way to me.
I want to add that I am eternally grateful to my friend for so many things. He has been instrumental in my journey and I would not be where I am without him. So if you are reading this: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have done including the lesson today in what not to do. Words cannot express my gratitude for the path we have walked together and no matter how difficult it was at times I know there was not a single moment wasted. Everything was and always is a gift.
And this is also the end of our shared journey. At least for now. This is no longer a constructive relationship that is serving us and I believe everything we needed to learn has been shown to us. Now it is our individual turns to put the learnings into practice, to embody it. It’s time to move on to our next chapters.
If I don’t speak to you before the holidays: Happy Holidays and if you celebrate Christmas: Merry Christmas. That you may have a wonderful and connecting time with your loved ones laying the foundation for the most beautiful start into the New Year.
With much love, Vincent
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
As I got up from my meditation, I realised there are no mistakes. Whatever I did, do and will do, they are just steps in my journey called life. And then, there will come a moment when I die.
This might sound rather sombre but it is all but that. The reality that there is an end to my life is actually hugely empowering. Because it means, I can live full out, there is no need to worry, to be anxious, to regret. Yes, of course, my mind loves to do all of these things. And that’s the illusion. That is my mind making up stories about who I am, what life I should live and what could go wrong. But these are just thoughts.
The Reality is - with capital R vs. subjective reality with a small r - that there is nothing to be worried about nor anything to be achieved. These are all illusions of my mind. What I am here for is an experience and to grow and expand through this experience. And the more graceful I can walk this journey, the more love, presence and kindness I bring to it, the more beautiful it will be both for me and everyone around me.
You see, my mind is here to worry about me, to make sure I survive and that I have as many resources as possible and live an as safe as possible and as convenient as possible life I can. But that's a confusion and hence I spent most of my life with distractions, chasing those things. And that’s what we individually and collectively all do, chase these distractions as our minds keep us in the illusion.
Don’t get me wrong, I am in this illusion just as everybody else most of the time. And at the same time, I work hard at leaving it and connect with capital R Reality. And when I do I become present, I am in awe with everything, I relax, my breath slows down and gets deeper, I exhale, I smile and I laugh about the “normal” me that is stuck in my mind.
Just this morning, when I got out of the shower and looked into the mirror I laughed and said to me: “Vincent, you crazy guy, what are you doing?!” And I was referring to both my journey of awakening as well as to the “normal” me that is stuck in the illusion of chasing all kinds of meaningless things. The old “crazy” me is “crazy” as in distracted with the material illusion. The new “crazy” me is “crazy” as in different from how we look at life most of the time.
So who’s right? It’s not about being right. There are no mistakes. However, there is an efforted way of being and there is an effortless one. The former is squarely focused on the material plane and the world outside of us. I believe, in time we all learn that no matter what we do and have, that lasting happiness never quite arrives. This is because we are looking for something outside of us that's always inside of us.
And then there's the effortless way and that one is focused on being. That’s the me that looks out of the window and just appreciates what it sees. And it’s the one that types these lines and is in awe that I can think, my fingers type, a computer shows them on a screen that I can see and then I can click a button and all of you can read it and get a glimpse of my being and thereby it touches your being. Isn’t that a miracle? All of it. Just think about how my brain coordinates all the muscles it takes to type these lines. Or how yours decodes the pxiels on this screen into something that has meaning. Wow.
And I can do so much more than just thinking and typing. I can create an experience for people, I can help them shift their perspective of life so they can navigate it with more grace, presence and love and thereby experience the beauty we are all meant to experience before we leave again this plane of existence.
We can all do so much more than we think when we break out of the confines of the mind that imprisons us. We are all these powerful creators yet we spend most of our time worrying about the mundane. There’s nothing wrong about the mundane. What is wrong about it and what makes our experience negative is that we get stuck in the mundane rather than making the mundane sacred. Appreciating every breath we take, every word we speak and hear, feeling the energetic exchange when we converse with someone as much as when we make love to them.
This is what I am here for. To wake myself up from the mundane and make every moment of my life a sacred one. And if I can thereby touch others simply through my way of being, then I am full, my life is complete. No teaching, no lecturing, no knowing it better. If I can bring divinity to everything I do, through who I am being, then I have lived the most beautiful life I can. Not wasting a single moment but being fully present in every one of it. No matter what it is. It's simply all experience.
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This is a longer one. No time? Scroll down for the 3 min TL;DR.
It’s 2 am. I’ve just finished watching a new documentary on the effects of the mRNA vaccines (see here). It’s a crazy world. I realise this is a very controversial topic and this newsletter is not about Covid. But it is the reason I am typing these lines at 2 am in bed.
After I finished watching it, I could not fall asleep and as I was contemplating life, my journey, the world and how much I have changed since my days as a London investment banker or as an entrepreneur in Brazil, the thought popped into my mind, how good we are at creating misery - based on my very own experience. Both our individual mysery as well as mysery in the world - which are just two sides of the same thing. And also, how easy it is to get out of mysery. Which is what this episode is about.
As I am contemplating this thought, my mind goes like, f**k it, I haven’t slept properly the last two nights and rather than lying in bed unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep, I rather create something and turn obstacle into opportunity. So here we are.
Getting what I desire is easy. We can all have it. Right now. After years of seeking, the clue I finally discovered and that articulated itself in my head in these early morning hours is: I need to ask the right question. Einstein famously said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
What we are doing most if not all the time is working hard at getting what we want rather than pondering the question: Is this what I really want? Why do I want it? And if I get it, will I be where I want?
If you think about your last success in getting what you want. And you reflect on how you felt while you wanted it and how you feel now, do you feel better? I’m not talking about the very moment you got it, surely that must have felt great, the release of dopamine of having achieved it. I am talking a week later or a month later or a year later. Does your life feel better to you? But rather than speculating about you, let me use myself to illustrate.
Nothing I ever achieved had a long-term effect on my well-being. And how do I define well-being? By how I feel. And how do I measure how I feel? By simply asking, how do I feel? Or how happy am I? Or how fulfilled? Right now. On a scale from 1-10. What’s your number?
Mine is 10. And I know what you are likely thinking: Ahh, yea, whatever, he’s just saying that. Or worse: He is lying to himself, false positivity. I don’t blame you. I would probably have thought that not too long ago, had I read such a statement. Especially if I would add to that, that I am single, I am not seeing someone, I am sharing an apartment with someone else and that at age 44! I have no kids or family. I don’t have a normal job. Worse, my current bed is a single (the last time I slept in a single bed I was still living at home and going to high school).
And yet I am telling you I am 10 out of 10. That doesn’t make any sense. You are right. It does not make any sense from a conventional perspective. But I am very confident it would make all the sense if you were in my shoes right with my perception of the world and life.
The reason why life feels like the never-ending chase after this seemingly elusive happiness is because I have been chasing all my life something I don’t really "want". To be more precise, I have been chasing things that I think will give me what I really want but they don’t.
Most of us are chasing success, wealth, passionate love, great sex, influence, power, being someone, add your desire here. But what we truly want is to be happy. We think these things will bring us happiness but at best they do so temporary and at worst they don’t and we keep on chasing hoping it will happen when we get the next promotion, the next car, the next partner, the next bonus, … and one day we drop dead and that was it. A life chasing after happiness but never really bathing in it.
We are all meant to live profoundly happy lives. It is our birthright. Yet, to do so, I need to learn the game. I had the blessing of spending the last eight years trying to understand the game and how to best play it. 98-99% of the time in those eight years I was far from away from a 10 out of 10. Worse, most of the time, no matter how adventurous and exciting or successful my life was, I was suffering in some form or shape. I was anxious about what could go wrong or I was annoyed with something or someone that didn’t work out.
I was never quite at peace. And then, over the course of the last two months, something started to change. And as they say: Gradually and then suddenly - it all came together. I came to the moment of revalation on the Hero’s journey. The exact moment was the end of this night:
In this night, I surrendered all of my old self and it died. It was very intense and painful. And the reward was rebirth. Looking back, it was so simple and clear what and that I had to do it. My mind goes: You could have done that years ago. But that’s the mind doing its old thing of making up stories. It happened at the exact right moment and the only moment it could have happened: When I was ready.
And to be ready, I needed to go through all the previous experiences including overcoming my resistance to striping naked (also, see 37/ ayahuasca - jumping over the edge) and every single other life experience. They were all pieces of the puzzle. And then what needed to happen to unlock the beauty of life was to be willing to let go of everything. And I was able to contemplate and ultimately be willing to do that only because of all these experiences and insights I had before. It's like one thing builds on top of the other. You can't birth a child without a partner to make one. And then it takes time to gestate...
That was why I need to be on this 7-8 year journey. I say 7-8 because it‘s been 8 years since I left my last company/job and it‘s been 7 years to the week since I embarked on this seeking answers to life journey by attending my first coaching course. Seven year cycles in life are a real thing. But that‘s for another post.
You might think, yea, I hear you but I don‘t want to have your life and be happy. I want the life I want and be happy. I am not saying let go of everything (neither have I, read 38/ ayahuasca - being bathed in love ). In fact, it‘s not about changing my life at all. My life hasn‘t changed since that experience. I am living in the same place, same circumstances and sleep in the same small bed. But what has completely, 180 degrees changed is my relationship with life.
I am no longer feeling like a victim of circumstances or other people nor the need to control life or have it my way. I am simply bathing in the experience of whatever is. And wow, it feels great. I feel I am finally surfing the wave of life without needing anything. I enjoy every moment of it, even the difficult ones, because that is what life is about. It‘s a journey. It was never meant to be about where I'm at or where I think I need to get to.
The moment I live from this place of surrender, presence, openness and curiosity which comes with deep gratitude for every single bit of my journey, including being fired from investment banking, betrayed and ousted from my company by my co-founder, two heart-breaking breakups, losing a fortune trading, and all the other painful stuff. Everything was a gift because, without those profound lessons, I would not be writing these lines and feeling the way I am feeling now. All of that needed to happen.
And while it was all very painful at the time, it was the medicine I needed to be able to take the steps to live in surrender to the beauty of life. And from there, magic starts to unfold. I can tell you wholeheartedly, I don‘t want to be in any other place. It‘s 3.10 am and I am so clear about who I am, what I am here to do and so full of gratitude, I could not care less about the actual circumstances of my life. And I know that this is only the beginning. The best is yet to come. That feeling of clarity, peace and serenity. No one and nothing can take this from me. And that‘s priceless.
Here‘s the TL;DR
We all want to be happy. Happiness is being in love. Not romantically but with life itself, with the experience of life, with every moment. Being in love is the absence of fear. Fear of not being rich, beautiful, successful, safe, secure, understand, loved or appreciated enough. That (unconscious or conscious) fear keeps us chasing the future. And it makes the present moment, the moment right now an unpleasant and un-present one. Pun intended.
How I now feel and realise I always wanted to (and I believe we all want to) is to be at peace, trusting, in love with life and curious about what the future brings - rather than worrying about it. And that feeling we can all have right now by stopping to want our current reality to be any different. The problem I had was that I thought things needed to be different for me to be happy. But that was the wrong answer/belief (at least if my journey has any meaning).
We can all have what we really desire - which is this feeling of love for life - by letting go of the need for it to be different and thereby dropping into the present moment. Meaning: When I have a conversation I am fully present to and fully with the other person rather than thinking about my next meeting or what a friend said to me on the phone earlier. I am here right now. Damn, you can even find joy in a Nazi concentration camp as Victor Frankl‘ shows us in Man‘s Search for Meaning (it's a beautiful book). And believe me, I don‘t say this lightly being half German.
It is the context that we give things that creates our experience. We are both the experiencer and the creator of our experience: I choose how the experience feels inside of me. It is not the experience that makes me feel good or bad but rather my interpretation of the experience, the meaning I give it. All life is context. If I believe I need a big house to be happy, I will not be happy until I have it. And when I have it, I will find something else I need until I can be happy. Result: Happiness never arrives and then I drop dead. And when I don't realise I need nothing to be happy, then I start having everything. Both figuratively and in due time literally. Though ironically (as life is) I no longer need those things to be happy then. Isn't that funny? I found life to be full of seeming paradoxes.
It‘s 3:31 am and it‘s time to give my body another chance to sleep. I hope this episode touched you in one way or another and it is a step towards finding more joy in life. Taking baby steps is perfect too. Remember, I needed to seek for nearly a decade only to then have a full breakdown of my existence so I could finally taste this freedom. 100s of hours in deep, long meditations, try a million things including drinking Ayahuasca numerous times, endless exploring. It was a long journey.
But I didn‘t really know what I was looking for. You can have all of this without all of my drama. The moment you realise that your life is perfect the way it is because you are simply living an experience and you are the creator of this experience and the moment you realise that, everything changes. Everything.
I first heard the following song in my recent Ayahuasca experience and it profoundly touched me. I have since then listened many times to it and cried tears of joy and gratitude. It beautifully tells the story of a journey of seeking from darkness to light. Maybe it resonates within you too.
Thank you for being with me on this journey. I love you and I wish you find this deep love for life in yourself very soon too.
Happy Thanksgiving.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
There’s no randomness in life or the universe. None. A few years ago, maybe even as recent as last year, I would have laughed about such a preposterous statement and probably thought the speaker of such words has no idea what he's talking about, at best, or, at worst, silently thought of him as an idiot. Little did I know.
I can observe this change in me, call them beliefs or views of the world, across the board. I used to be hardcore reason and science-minded, an atheist with a purely mechanical and material understanding of life and the world and oblivious to the real workings of all things as I see them now.
In that vein, I cannot fail anybody for thinking the same about that very statement and me. But before you judge as I used to, hear me out. I am just as reason and science-driven as I used to be before, just my understanding of what science is and how it works has expanded.
During the pandemic, the slogan “because I believe in science” has been used by mass vaccination proponents all the time. But what science were they referring to? When Covid hit us in March 2020, I dove into it and started researching everything I could get my hands on. And after two weeks or so of full-time research, I set up this website of the best resources I had found.
My conclusion after processing all that information: Covid is potentially very dangerous and I called my parents to tell them to stay inside and choose carefully where they go to and who they meet. This was the early days and few people panicked yet. Little did I know that I would completely reverse my assessment over the subsequent months and years as I was digging deeper into sources beyond the mainstream headlines.
What is my point? This is not about Covid or who’s right or wrong. This is about me believing something and then doing a 180-degree turn as I test and challenge my beliefs. This is an uncomfortable process because not only does my current reality collapse but also the one of the people that know me - as I do a seeming U-turn in front of their eyes.
But the seeming turn is not one of opinion but guided by facts. And as the facts that I am aware of change, a new reality becomes more probable than the previous one. So the only reasonable thing to do is to accept this new, to me superior “truth.” Because if I know that something I-used-to-believe-is-correct no longer is, the only thing that makes sense is to adjust my understanding to this new perceived reality.
An easier and seemingly more convenient way is to ignore the new facts or not even explore the topic to uncover new information. We are all busy with life and I might just decide that the topic is not relevant enough for me. But if I do that, I need to at least acknowledge that my view of reality is based on outdated or possibly incorrect information. Yet that’s not how we as humans operate. We believe that what we believe is likely or even 100% true. A combination of sampling and confirmation bias.
This was a long intro to my initial statement that there’s no randomness in life. As I find myself getting into full alignment of who I am, full alignment means what I think, say and do all match with my experience that I am continuously testing, challenging and experimenting with. I am doing all of that to get to the bottom of things.
Whether that is Covid, society in general, Bitcoin and thereby finance and money (see here) or life/happiness/fulfilment (see this newsletter) somehow I have been driven for the past eight years (since leaving my last business) to get to the bottom of things. My parents or friends would wonder what I am up to and why I am not getting a normal job and live a normal life (normal as in what most people choose to do) and neither did I know, I just felt a had to keep going. I could simply not not be doing it. And so I kept following the rabbit down the rabbit holes.
And here we are. This newsletter and the explorations I am sharing are a result of this continuous labour of love. Everything that came before were bridges I had to cross to lead me to exactly where I am now. And at last, after all those years, it starts making sense and I am no longer following just a gut feeling but a deeper knowing, a certainty that can’t be explained rationally but I can feel it deep inside me.
This journey of getting to the bottom of things started even earlier. I’ve been at it all my life. When I was only a few years old, I already took everything that I could get my hands on apart, before I could even speak properly. At the age of 3 or 4, I put a nail into a power outlet, despite it being protected, and nearly electricuted myself. If you have been wondering about what kinds of things I am doing to myself to find answers, well it all started there.
My point is: This always curious exploring quality is everywhere in my life since the first days I can remember. It is innate to me. This is true for all of us. We are all someone before we come here and our job in life is to reconnect with this truth, with ourselves and then live in alignment with it. And when we do, our lives become incredibly enriching, beautiful and powerful - in the best sense of the word. We feel fulfilled and we touch other people profoundly. We are deeply seated in our authenticity.
It took me 44 years to fully comprehend this truth: That everything I have been doing in my life has been leading up to this moment, to this realisation. All the explorations and doubts about what I am here to do, everything was always guided by my Higher Self, the mind and senses just didn't have the capacity in comprehending this. They never do.
And so I am finally understanding what Steve Jobs meant when he famously said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”
Everything is here to guide us to where we need to go. If we get off our path, our unique path, life will first gently nudge us back and if we don't pay attention or get back on it, life will become more forceful through suffering, physical disease and ultimately death. Our bodies only support a life in alignment with who we are.
We don't get to choose who we are. We are who we are and we are here to remember who that is:
If you have not watched Steve’s powerful Stanford commencement speech, here it is (15 mins):
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
As I am working on my new project - which is not really a new idea but something I have been working on over the past few years and now all the pieces are finally coming together in one big synthesis - I find myself doing things the old way.
I am strategising around the pitch deck, how to raise money, how to develop the MVP (minimal viable product), who to partner with and hire, how to protect the integrity of the vision and make sure that it unfolds successfully. And as I am doing all this, I keep telling myself you can’t make any mistakes, see:
And then I pinch myself and remember, hey, this is the old you and the old way of doing things. What I am working on is so dear to me, that I feel it’s too important to make any mistakes but by acting like that, I am making the cardinal mistake of getting in my own way. My only job is to hold the vision and get out of the way. This is not the usual way how to build a company but it’s the way this one needs to and will be built.
The most powerful lesson I received during my recent Ayahuasca experience was the power of surrender. In that ceremony, I was asked to let go of everything I have (money) and everything that defines my public persona (like my social media accounts). I was asked to give away and cancel everything, see:
Letting go of everything was the key that unlocked my journey of rising up into the heavens and experience love, celebration and beauty in ways I had never experienced them - in the subsequent nights of drinking the medicine. Ayahuasca is a powerful experience but the most powerful part of it is that it makes you experience a clear and intense message about how to live life. My job is to bring what I have learnt in Ayahuasca into my “normal” life. That is the very purpose of it. To learn the lesson in a this “crash course” so that the message really comes across - and then, and that’s the most important, I am meant to embody it “in real life.”
Embodiment is the key word. I can know everything about what I need to do but I am not doing it. What is the point of knowing it then? There are two steps to an awakened (or happy or fulfilling or whatever word you like) way of being: Awareness is the first. Without it, no change is possible. But awareness and hence knowledge of “how to be” is only the first step. It is a simply a requirement, a prefix for the actual, the real step of living it which is embodiment. I don’t just need to know how to be and what to do. I need to actually be and do it.
So as I am working away on my venture, I realise I am embodying my old way of doing things. And the moment I catch myself, I remind myself that this is no longer. I am here to surrender. I am simply a vessel, a conduit to bring the vision to reality. I am not here to control it, to force it, to plan it. I am here to let the universe show me how it is meant to unfold. All I need to do is to take one step after the next, to follow my intuition and see who I meet in the process and what happens as a result. And then follow that recipe with the next step again. Simple.
This might sound crazy. And my (old) mind definitely agrees. How can you not control and strategise? How can you build a company without it? All the more a large and complex project? And I fell for that line of reasoning. That is, until I catch myself and remember that powerful night (of Ayahuasca) and all the beauty it unleashed - after I had surrendered everything, most importantly my ego.
Whatever I do in life does not serve the purpose to show how great and smart I am nor how important I am nor to make me rich. My job is to express myself authentically and with integrity, to gestate and birth the vision and then to get out of the way so it attracts the people to grow and make it flourish. And when I do, when I get myself out of the way and let life and the universe take its course, what will be born out of it will be many more times more beautiful than what my mind could ever have envisioned.
That is the power of surrender. I have experienced it in “another realm” and now my job is to trust and to have faith in its unfolding. And of course do all the things that you need to do in building a business like raising funds, hiring (and firing) people, articulating and communicating the vision so everybody is clear and aligned with what we are doing but, and that’s a big but, I am not here to control it. I am here to envision it, to influence, to mend, to guide it and then be open to see what unfolds and where it takes us.
Taking one step at a time and then look from that new vantage point to see where we need to go next. That is very different than to plan a fixed route to a fixed destination and not being willing to deviate from it. A river does not decide where it flows, it naturally flows with the environment and to where it needs to go, thereby carving its riverbed and becoming ever more stable and anchored as it grows.
And this is what I am here to do. And, I believe, we are all here to do. We all want so much to get to a certain place in a certain way. Or rather, that is the sense I am getting looking at myself and the world and people around me. We all want, want, want but that prohibits me from actually going to the very places I am meant to go, that are much more beautiful than anything I could ever imagine, and the journey of moving towards it is effortless rather than the fighting and efforted way of wanting to get somewhere and asap.
And as I am typing these lines, I sink deeper into surrender and trust that everything will work out even more magical than I could ever have imagined. Which reminds me of the first meditation in the book the The Three Magic words:
This Universal Mind knows the answer to all of my problems, and even now the answers are speeding their way to me. I needn’t struggle for them; I needn’t worry or strive for them. When the time comes, the answers will be there.
The full version is here:
Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher, was asked by his followers at the end of his life what his secret was. His response: “I don’t mind what happens.” I am here to show up, do the work and then let go of expectations, detach from the outcome. It doesn’t mean I don’t desire a certain outcome, quite the opposite, desire is what creates the drive to make things happen but it means I am open to see what unfolds and thereby I leave myself open to all the possibilities rather than the only one I had in mind.
Surrender is the most magnificent, effortless and powerful way of being. I have experienced it first hand. It can move mountains in a way no other way of being can. My job now is to practice and embody it every day in every step I take. And what a life that will be.
And to remind myself of that, I created this sign that sits on my desk:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
If you have not read the previous episodes, please start here (36/ drinking ayahuasca, again) for context.
Tonight is the fourth and last time we are drinking Ayahuasca. Of the four phases of life, it is the phase of relaxation. We will also be drinking a smaller amount than the night before.
Tonight was the most incredible night. I was a much shorter time under the influence of Ayahuasca. I think it subsided after three hours - though perception of time is distorted. My body got a complete makeover. Ayahuasca is a powerful plant that not only contains the psychoactive substance DMT but is also a strong healing agent for the physical body. They say whatever is in your body that doesn’t belong there will be gone after.
After the healing, I started navigating the spiritual world which I realised is always around us.
This was the most powerful night of my life (even more than the previous two, one building up on top of the other). Also the most beautiful and humbling one. Mother Ayahuasca not only healed and did surgery on my body but I started ascending to higher realms, the spiritual world, experienced other beings - and how they were watching me - and knowledge was conveyed to me - like that the universe is fully fractal. What I need to do in life became even clearer.
This night I didn’t purge (throw up), I didn’t feel unwell, my stomach was fine (a lot was happening during the previous nights) and despite three nights of little to no sleep, I feel good.
After the trip, I stayed wide awake with my mind processing what it just had learnt, the experience, implications and actions to be taken. Including inviting my family to spend time with me in Portugal. My body kept being worked on for many hours into the early morning. I moved through the ceremony by leaning back and enjoying the journey, with no fear, no controlling, just letting God and Aya showing me what I needed to see.
It was mind-blowing. That state of grace and gratitude I was experiencing kept me on an emotional high up until sunrise. I walked out of the dome with a fellow participant who also got up early to bathe in the rising sun (see picture below). We had a beautiful conversation. Profound experiences like these connect people deeply without the need for many words.
The biggest gift I received tonight was the faith and the unshakable conviction that what I am going to work on, the rather big project I became clear on over the ceremony nights, is going to be built and will touch many people. Everything is in place for it to succeed. It’s not an intellectual knowing, how could I know how things will play out, it’s a deeper knowing, a knowing that this is the time and the place and everything that came before was leading up to exactly what is about to happen next.
I stayed awake until sunrise reflecting on the potential gravity of what I am embarking on. While two people were snoring so loud that even my head would finally quiet down, I could not sleep. Sometime in the early morning, I see Nader awake and I call for him to share my plight with the snoring. He tells me to try to sleep on the ear. I say: I’m already using earplugs. He says: Then just accept it.
And of course, he’s right. I can’t do anything about it and I can’t leave the dome before sunrise so just make peace with it, surrender. Here right now is my lesson as I was for a brief moment already moving out of surrender again. As I shared yesterday: Life doesn’t give us what we want but what we need. This was a beautiful example of just that.
After we close out the ceremony, we have a sharing circle, breakfast and move to a seaside town for two days of integration back into the real world before going home.
I see Ayahuasca, other plant medicines and psychedelics generally taken in the right context and with the right intention, not as creating hallucinations but rather letting our senses and mind tune into a different frequency, like switching the channel on a TV, and thereby perceive a wider spectrum of reality that we normally do not have access to. This allows us to raise our understanding of life, our journey, our learnings and self-awareness. It’s an intense and equally potent tool to find answers to the very questions we ponder daily.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
If you have not read the previous episodes, please start here (36/ drinking ayahuasca, again) for context.
Every ceremony begins with each participant sharing their intention for the night with the group. One says: I ask God and Mother Ayahuasca to…” We go around in the circle. It’s my turn. After yesterday’s most beautiful and heart-opening experience, my cup of love for life is full and I am ready to move on from asking for something for myself: "I ask God and Mother Ayahuasca to give me the strength, wisdom and grace to serve humanity with love.”
I am not religious and in a conventional sense, I don’t believe in God. That is until I understood that what the churches of the world teach us is a misrepresentation of God based on a dual worldview where there’s the earthly, material realm and the heavenly, spiritual realm. This belief system is single-handedly responsible for all the suffering in the world. Because it tells us that there’s us and then there’s another place - whether you believe in a life beyond death or not.
I used to be an atheist so I have to smile that I now believe in God. God is one word for it, the spiritual. Science refers to the same thing as consciousness and experientially we refer to it as awareness. Universal consciousness or awareness is all pervasive. Without it, we would not be able to experience life. But consciousness does not originate in the brain. Consciousness is without location, form or time. It is what the universe is made of. Everything originates from it. And when you go really deep in meditations, you start connecting with that Reality.
I was getting on a tangent. I will share more about the above in another post. Back to our night no. 3 drinking Ayahuasca: The night I met, or experienced God. Again, I am sharing my verbatim notes I wrote down the morning after:
The night I met God. The was the most intensive and most beautiful night of my life. Everything became clear and fell into place. I never felt so much clarity and decisiveness about what needs to be done. That is because I have met my true self, I know who I am. I feel full of love and purpose and there is no more doubt or fear.
Money and needing to be right are a thing of the past replaced with love, humility and deep gratitude. I have seen the matrix, the web that connects and runs everything. I am (we all are) and I can (we all can) tap into it. I attended my own initiation as a humble servant of humanity. I realised my power to create from and with love and my divine guidance and protection (I am now realising it is always present for all of us though life might not give us what our mind and human experience want, it always gives us what we need to grow and expand.)
I felt deep healing for my body and the removal of all shadows within me. It became clear what I need to do next.
Rereading and typing those notes I realise they don’t do it justice nor might it be clear for the reader what was actually going on. There are no words to describe this experience but I will try to provide more colour and context.
First Ayahuasca/God/consciousness worked on and repaired my body. Visually, it’s experienced like a of-geometric-patterns formed being that is living and breathing and with infinite detail. I am saying repaired my body because I could feel something doing surgery on my body. No pain but I could feel things inside my body changing.
After that and for the rest of the night, it was a celebration. I huge party. It was like I was welcomed into the heavens with a huge celebration, like the whole universe and its beings were throwing a party for me. It felt like this is what happens when one surrenders, lets go, and moves out of darkness, fear and scarcity into love, light and infinite possibilities. Again, it seemed like the first, extremely hard night and me being willing to let go of everything was the admittance ticket to where I find myself now.
Nader has told us that Ayahuasca works like an elevator. Once you free yourself of your inner demons, you can move upward towards the heavens. Although there was no elevator present for me, I felt how I was moving from the lower realms, the darkness, into a place of light, love, joy and high vibrations.
Nader always checks in with everyone at least once during the night and if you are struggling as many times as you need him. As he came to me, he said: I am Nader, who are you? I responded: Vincent (no jokes from me this time :). He asked: How are you doing? Me: Incredible. It feels like I am attending a coronation of sorts. It’s a huge celebration. And there’s just love, joy and happiness. He said: Good. Wonderful.
Then he puts his hand on my heart and says: There is still some ego. Let it go. You don’t need it. And then he leaves me. I am thinking, interesting, I thought I had let that go yesterday but the ego is, as my coach likes to say, insidious. You move out of it in one place and it pops up in disguise in another place. Maybe my ego has transformed from I need to be someone to I need to help others, the saviour complex.
I am starting to scan through my body and especially around the heart to feel if there are any contractions. If I am completely open, trusting and in peace, there should be no contractions. After I am somehow unsuccessful in the body I start playing through my mental processes. And there I discover a tiny but present saviour complex meaning it is me who will show others the light. But that’s a confusion of the ego.
I am, and no one is here to show anybody anything about how they should live their lives. What my mission or purpose is at best is to be the change I want to see in the world. To model love, compassion, surrender, trust, light and exactly not be in the ego of how great, smart, intelligent, wise or impressive I am. That is the trap that is so easy to fall into on the spiritual journey. And spiritual ego is worse than the normal ego because one should know better, one has done inner work to move out of the ego, not into a different shape of it and believing there is none anymore.
With great (inner) power comes great responsibility. Humility and the shunning of arrogance and pride as Mooji says in the last minute of this (another :) beautiful meditation: You are the seeds of awakening in the sleeping world. So don’t sleep now. Don’t turn back. Don’t turn away from the support of grace. Shun arrogance and pride. Flourish in the self.
The “instructions” are clear: Serving others with love, grace and humility by showing up as the best version of myself, having filled my cup of love and gratitude (I do that in my morning meditations) so that when I get up it is no longer about me. Whether it is me needing or wanting more of something or me wanting to save others or whatever - all of those are wants of the ego. Both of them are based on fear (of not being enough) rather than love. And fear is the enemy and opposite of love.
My most important, daily work is to empty myself of those needs and to show up us the most loving, present and humble human being I can be. Again, as Mooji says here: Do not strain yourself trying to improve this world. First, completely know yourself. Then your actions they spring from this spontaneity, from this depth, from this understanding, from the real. And they will shower blessing upon this world. And that is also the most beautiful way to experience life.
In the morning integration circle, Nader shares instructions for our journeys: Whatever is there, whatever the difficulty, just accept it, surrender to it. This is the way we experience life: to experience it, to face it, to learn from it and then I don’t have to experience (the difficulty again). Nader is beautiful at embodying and modelling wisdom and humility.
I feel blessed. I’m in deep gratitude for my journey.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
If you have not read the last two episodes, please start here (36/ drinking ayahuasca, again) for context.
I want to highlight that Ayahuasca is a very personal experience. If you were to drink the medicine, yours will be entirely different from mine. There are common elements yet our journeys and their unfolding are unique. The saying goes: Ayahuasca does not give you what you want but what you need.
After yesterday’s ordeal and no sleep, I can feel the resistance to going into ceremony again. Luckily, I have been here before and I am 100% committed to seeing this week-long retreat through. Hell, I have had a feeling that this will be a life-changing week already leading up to it. Given the process I have been in for the past weeks, I feel I am really pushing through something at last and this will be a pivotal week.
After sunrise, we all get up and clean our space so that it’s neat and tidy for tonight. I am taking my bin bag out of my bucket, tie a knot into it and throw it into a bigger garbage can where all the “purging bags” go. I'm walking out of the dome into a new day.
Back at the lodging house, we gather around the table for an integration session. Everybody shares as little or as much as they like. The focus is on what we learnt through the experience. This is a powerful and important practice, especially with Nader who is helping us to understand and reframe our experiences so we can learn from the struggles and adversity we were facing during the night. Integration is lacking in most Ayahuasca retreats where people just get “spit out” on the other side left to their own devices and interpretation.
It’s my turn to share yesterday’s experience with the group (see 37/ jumping over the edge). I shared that I had to let go of everything, money, my social media and, really, of my life as it is. Nader asks me: Are you a person that tends to extremes? I am reflecting and answer: I feel I am quite balanced and, yes, there are situations where I have been going all in. He responds: You can keep your money and accounts but use them wisely, with purpose. That resonates and, of course, I feel relief. No dramatic changes are needed. No becoming of a hermit which is how I felt I had to become yesterday night.
However, unbeknownst to me, it will turn out that my willingness to let go of everything was the shedding needed and the key to unlock what comes next. After we complete the sharing circle we get to enjoy a big vegetarian, salt and sugar-free breakfast. Our only meal each day as we go into the ceremonies fasting.
I’m going up to my bedroom to catch some sleep. My mind is still processing and trying to make sense of it all. It is also anticipating what I will be facing tonight again. Not a very useful activity as there’s no way to anticipate what is to come (and that’s the very point of it) but, oh well, the mind. It does its thing.
What a difference a night can make
It’s 8 pm. In between thinking and the noise of a shared bedroom, I barely got any sleep but it’s time for the next round. We all meet to walk up together to the ceremony dome, do our dance to connect and bring some joy into the seriousness of what we are about to do and finally take our places and receive, one after the other, our cup of the medicine. As the music starts, I close my eyes and the journey begins.
Today, I am sharing the verbatim of my journal notes from the morning after - with additional reflections in brackets:
What a difference a night can make. This was the most beautiful night of Ayahuasca or even the most beautiful night ever. Love is the answer. As Nader said during the night to me: “Vincent, you have a beautiful soul. Anger and rage are not for you.”
(I was reflecting upon this. Yes, anger and rage, why would I want to be in those emotions? They are not serving me and they make me feel bad. I really don't need them. And just like with forgiving (see 32/ forgiving everyone) I released and let them go. No more of them for me.)
The whole night was about love and how love is my natural state of being. And that there is no other way of being but to be loving and that love is the answer for me and the world.
That really sums up the whole night. I was just a shower of love and expansion. My heart was growing and I was training my heart. Every time I went into the head or outside of me or got “distracted” with the beauty around me, I came back to the heart, feeling it beating and expanding and how it powers my whole body and being. And it was connected with the gut and the two started communicating and vibing together. I saw how the whole world can be touched by love and how it is the healing agent for the world, for all the fear, toxicity and hate that is going on.
Love is the agent that glues us (back) together. It is the most powerful force in the Universe. Why would I or anybody not always act from and be in a place of love? It removes all judgment and separation. Amen.
I need to book a flight to my parents or invite them to me, “simply” to give them a hug and say I love you and to look them deep into the eyes without any negative feelings and without separation but from a place of pure love for them and our shared journey. That by itself will be beautiful and healing.
Ayahuasca really is the master teacher and it presents to me what I need to see when I need to see it. I needed to do the work (over the last seven years) to be able to absorb this message. Of course, love is the answer. Love from the heart not from the mind, and to feel how it is affecting the body when I’m loving from the heart - as Nader pointed out.
And then pictures (in my mental eye) came up of loving everybody on my path and around me. Giving the doorman and my neighbour a hug. Yes, maybe they think I am crazy but love is more powerful than that. Communicating and going through life with an open loving heart from now on - noticing whenever there’s contraction (in me) and keep moving back into the heart.
I felt it beating really strongly in my chest and it was growing and expanding. It was like a whole new system was coming online that has been waiting within me to be activated to undergo and feel this learning. And now, I am ready to go out into the world and love!
I am realising that the key to unlock this most beautiful and profound - words cannot do it justice - experience and feeling was that I was willing to let go of everything (the night before). When one is no longer in need to have and be “more than” and therefore no longer in fear but willing to completely surrender to life, it opens one to love.
This Sufi trip beautifully captures my experience that night: "One has to become empty, whole then all the poetry and all the music will come through you. This divine love occupies heart and mind... Once this divine love makes it suits in the heart, the person gets overwhelmed, drenched in this beautiful experience. Where the mind goes into the zone of silence. The whole universe then exhibits the divine dance of love. ..."
Listen to the whole Sufi trip here. It's the journey of spiritual awakening in a song.
Tomorrow
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com
If you have not read yesterday's post, read it first for context: 36/ drinking ayahuasca, again.
The next four nights and ceremonies will follow the four phases of life which we can observe everywhere in nature, in the seasons, our ageing process and our heartbeat: excitement, expansion, contraction and relaxation.
Tonight is excitation. And excited I am. And a little apprehensive. Last time I drank Ayahuasca ten months ago, I got lost in the recesses of my mind fighting the battle that I had fought many times before drinking the medicine: Having to make a choice between stripping naked and thereby seeing the Truth or not doing it and staying asleep to the illusion of life. It felt like an impossible choice to make: Stripping naked in front of 20 mostly strangers and worse, friends. I was in huuuge resistance but I had been in this exact same place many times before. And so that time I did it. I stripped naked. Not just once but three times in a row.
Flashback: Wow, it was a powerful experience that taught me three things: There are things in life I feel resistance to but deep down I know I need to do them. When I actually overcome my fears and do them, it is easy, it's just the mind that makes me believe it is difficult. And when I do them, they are powerful.
The girl that was sitting next to me, now a dear friend, told me afterwards that when I stripped naked, the energy of the whole room changed. I know what you might be thinking but there was no sexual connotation or anything, it was about me overcoming something and everybody felt the power of that. It was the power of authenticity. Both literally, as I was not covered with and “hiding” behind clothes anymore, and figuratively as I overcame my fears and did what I needed to do. (The full story is here.)
Back to tonight sitting in the dome (see pictures below). Given that I had gotten the stripping naked out of the way, I wondered what could come up this time. I reminded myself of the things we were taught by Nader: Stay present and grounded, don't get lost in the mind, don't resist or try to control the journey, stay in the seat of a dispassionate observer, stay seated upright, don't get lost in the distractions, keep my eyes closed with an unfocused gaze as if I were a little drunk.
And, if whatever came up I could not face or deal with, start praying, whatever prayer I was familiar with. For me, that was Our Father in German though I think I had not prayed it since I had my confirmation at age 16 or maybe many years ago at the Christmas service. Anyway, here it would be a tool to get the demons and entities that might come up out of the way. Who knew prayers actually do work - just not in the way the church teaches us.
After we did a joyful dance together in the circle, we sit down and one by one receive our cup of Ayahuasca. The light turns off, I close my eyes, the music starts playing. After 40 mins or so, I start feeling the effect.
I find myself going crazy, again. Without realising it, I am totally lost in my mind. And I am presented, again!, with an impossible choice. Not stripping naked this time, no, much worse. To fulfill my life's purpose, my destiny, I need to let go of everything: Of all my money and material belongings, of my social media accounts, of everything. I will need to live from the support of others and I will have to live in full trust in life and with no planning or securities. One day at a time.
My mind is contemplating this. If you have never drunken Ayahuasca you might discard the above as crazy stuff and say, of course I would never do that. But this is not how Aya works. It feels so real, so clear and there is no escape from it. Time stands still under the influence of DMT - the psychoactive ingredient of Ayahuasca. And that’s the purpose, that’s why drinking Ayahuasca is so powerful.
I know I can't escape this choice. The way it is presented to me again is that I either follow this call for letting go of everything-I-think-I-am-and-own and fully surrender to life in whatever way it unfolds, no more controlling but just trusting, and then I shall find all the bliss, peace and serenity I have been seeking. Or, I don't do it, and I keep myself in a meaningless life of worries, anxieties and the mundane. Obviously, me having been on this truth seeking journey of wanting to understand life, no way I choose the latter. But the former, giving away everything, sounds very scary to me. Well, probably to most of us. It was just like the striping naked, just worse.
I am holding my bucket between my legs with my head hanging half into it. I have been purging a few times (the process of throwing up in Ayahuasca both physically and energetically, the purging of trauma, blockages and other entities). And my mind is racing: How do I give my money away? To whom? How will I get back home? Deleting all my social media, videos and writing, all my contacts, can I secretly recoup them again if I change my mind later? But that would be cheating. And when we cheat, we are really cheating on ourselves. There's no escape from the truth.
As I am hanging and spitting into my bucket, Nader comes to me. He says: I am Nader, who are you? This is to check whether the person is not possessed by another entity. Possession is a real thing. When people act weirdly or, in extreme cases, don't remember their name, their body is possessed by another entity. (Yes, this sounds crazy and it's beyond the scope of this post.)
I respond: I am Vincent. And then adding: Or am I really, I mean, our personality is all an illusion, a construct. My playful me coming out in the midst of this suffering. I have not lost my humour yet. Nader ignores it and says: You can do it. Me: But this is so big, this is such a big ask. (Not sure whether he knows what is actually going on inside of me.) He grabs my shoulders and says again: You can do it. You need to be decisive and take action. Then he leaves me.
He’s right. Worrying about making a mistake has kept me holding back doing so many things (see 24/ i can’t make any mistakes). And it has led to a fair share of procrastination. And to what results. My peers have build large, even unicorn businesses and here I am wondering what to do. Decisiveness, ok, I know I can. Just that what I know I need to do might not be what my mind, my ego and my safety seeking self might want to do. The I can’t make any mistake part of me.
I pull myself together, thinking again, yes I can. If this is what it takes to live an extraordinary and beautiful life, I am ready to give it all up, to surrender completely. In the end, thinking didn’t led me to the answers nor the life I am seeking, it has not done it in 44 years. Keeping doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. And I have learnt that the heart, intuition, gut and - in the near future - my higher self are the real guides through life. Not my mind that has created this crazy choice in the first place.
I am playing through in my mind for the 50th time this night what will happen if I really do it. My mind and ego are racing with alarm bells: It's crazy, who does that, why do that? But deep down I know I am done with the old way. There's nothing wrong with it but it has not and it will not lead me to where I am going.
I know it is true, I need to let go, I can feel it. It’s the release, the freedom I have been seeking. It is not random that I came here to have that very experience. In fact, nothing in life is random. We are just so distracted in our life experience that we do not see and connect the dots. The universe is pure math and cause and effect. Just our senses are too limited and constrained by time and space to understand it all. But that's for another post.
I remember my guided mushroom ceremony earlier this year. No, I am not taking psychedelics every week. I am very specific and discerning about what I do, how, when and with whom. These two were the only ceremonies this year and they serve the purpose of healing and growth, not to have fun. This one was also a very special one. What it left me with is that when you want to give birth to something, a child, a company, any creation, it comes with pain. There's effort, there is shedding, there is learning and that's what I was doing this night. The best analogy I can think of is having a child. It's real work for the body, the mind, your whole being to give birth. And it’s painful.
Giving life to something takes effort. And I am birthing something here and it requires me to let go. For something to be born, something else needs to die first. What needed to die tonight was my attachment to money, power and fame - all of which serve the ego that always wants more. But only from a place of purity, one can create something pure. Tonight was the night for me to let go of all of these shadows of the ego.
And so in a final push, I got ready to let it all go. Everything. Money, visibility, connections, power, everything I had and everything my ego wanted. It was painful but I started feeling lighter. A decision was made and I knew it was the right now. I felt it deep inside of me.
It's probably 4am by now. The music stopped, I am putting the bucket aside, lay down, cover myself with the blankets I have, the night is cold, there's no heating, and try to sleep. But I can't. My mind is still racing. How is tomorrow going to be? Will you really dispose of all your money and delete all your social media accounts?
As you can see, the answer is no but that night I truly thought that that's what I would do. I had made the decision. And I knew from my stripping naked experience how powerful taking that decision is.
Tomorrow, you will read what happened in the end and what the second, very different night brought.
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The dome ready for ceremony…
… and the morning after:
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Today marks day 100 since I started my no-excuses meditation practice which led to this newsletter. And today I am also sharing with you my recent and most profound experience in life, yet.
I find myself in a big dome with 20 people sitting in a circle. We are all dressed in white and are calmly awaiting the storm. We came together from all over Europe to attend the sixth seminar together with our teacher and guide of two years, Dr. Nader Butto.
Nader is one of the most fascinating people I had the honour of journeying with and probably one of the most underappreciated ones, yet. He is extremely humble but I am certain he will make big waves in the not-too-distant future. Our group has been studying with him what he calls Unified Integrative Medicine for the past two years. It is much more than just about medicine and health. He has developed a unified theory for everything. And so our course initially started out with how the universe came to be, from a scientific spiritual perspective.
Science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. Humanity has known that in the past but in our current paradigm, these are two opposing worlds. Nader is one of a handful of people who are bringing these worlds together again pushing the frontier of our understanding of what it means to be human. Not the belief-driven pseudo science that we have witnessed over the past two years of lockdowns but real science: The search for Truth.
Nader is a medical doctor, a practising cardiologist in Israel, a researcher, a spiritual seeker and has written and published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, various books on unified integrative medicine and treated and cured countless people including former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres. He is also a singer and musician. Really the archetype of a polymath. He is famous and revered in Israel. The waiting list to get an appointment is more than a year. We are incredibly lucky to have such an amazing guide and teacher for a whole week just with us. (Here’s an article about his work.)
For the past two years, we have been studying how the universe came to be, the seven universal laws, the human soul, how it is connected to the body and how it leads to a healthy and a diseased body, the purpose of life and how to live a fulfilling one. If all of this sounds too crazy, you are right, it is - from a conventional perspective. Yet, that is what he’s working on, to change the paradigm and bring us back to the truth of how we humans function and thrive.
It’s been an incredibly enlightening journey over those two years but the most exciting part is just about to start. This sixth module is called Spiritual Realm and Psychiatric Disturbances (see picture below) and it is nothing like the other levels. We will be drinking Ayahuasca for four consecutive nights with Nader himself guiding the ceremonies. He has been drinking Ayahuasca for 17 years as a tool for healing, growing and awakening and together with his medical, spiritual and scientific understanding I do not know anybody who could be a better guide.
I have been drinking Aya 10ish times before, the first time in 2016 and most recently in December 2021 where I stripped naked in the ceremony - something I normally don't do. I talked about that journey and my learnings here. The past 24 hours we spent in a classroom where Nader taught us in a 133 slide deck everything there is to know about Aya and how to best navigate the journey. Many things I hear for the first time will allow me to go places that I did not know one could get to by just drinking a cup of Aya. No other shaman, though Nader doesn’t consider himself one, has taught me anything close to what we learnt and will experience over those days. Nader is playing in a league of his own.
I am taking a deep breath and getting ready for what is about to happen. If it’s like any of my trips before, it will be a long, intense night full of struggles and purging.
Tomorrow, you will hear about how my first night unfolded.
Here’s Nader and me at the end of the retreat:
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Thinking is a disease. At least in the way I have been using this capacity all my life: For decision-making. Thinking was not created for me to decide what to do by weighing one option against another through reason, thinking was created to be creative, to create.
When I use thinking for decision-making I create misery because logic is not what drives life and well-being. We are all familiar with the situation where we need to make a decision and we are advised to write down the pluses and minuses of the different options. Hell, I have given this advice to clients in the past.
In fairness, this exercise can help become clear what are the pluses and minuses. But that’s it. The decision is not to come from the mind or logic, I want to make it from the heart because only my heart, my intuition truly knows what I want and where I need to go.
When I follow my rational plus minus sheet and choose the option with the highest score it might seem right but if it doesn’t feel right it is not right. Simple as that. Thinking is a disease when I use it like that because it keeps me in perpetual suffering by making seemingly reasonable choices that take me away from who I am and what I want.
I know intuitively what’s right and wrong for me. The problem has been that I have been told otherwise (and I listened) and so I started doubting myself. Logic is presented as the tool to navigate life and that creates suffering. We are humans not machines. I make choices that are "reasonable" because I don’t trust my inner voice. How can I trust anything if not even my own guidance and intuition?
It is fascinating how different my sharing is perceived by different people. I got messages from my parents reading my "bursts of consciousness" that they are worried about my reputation and my mental health. I am doing really well. I am more clear than ever and I am finally letting go of the distractions and attachments and the desire to please other people and worry about what they think.
I am becoming attuned to my true self and have the courage of speaking my truth, with compassion, as I think we are all meant to do. While I have compassion for my parents, they are creating their own suffering by worrying about what they can't and should not change. As an adult, I am finally healing and breaking out of the prison I have unconsciously built myself. And hopefully, I empower others in the process to tear down the walls they have built for themselves as well.
My parents just like most of us are also overthinking and therefore worrying and not realising how they are cutting off their life force and creativity to live in presence and serenity. Worrying and telling your children what to do are probably two of the most destructive forces in the world. It is coming with the best intentions and yet it is destructive nonetheless. The road to hell is paved with good intentions… And I am having no more of it.
If others choose to worry that is their journey but I am no longer falling prey to their worries. I am trusting my inner guide, my own truth and I am walking that path with clarity, confidence and conviction. I was not born to worry but to create. The less I think (and worry), the more I can create from a place of powerful presence.
Next week will be an exciting one as I am shifting gears sharing the unfolding of my week-long Ayahuasca retreat.
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Light is flooding the room and I am looking into the greenery somewhere in the centre of Lisbon. Next to me is Gillian, my conscious alignment therapist and one of the recent additions to the tribe of mentors, guides and coaches that are propelling me forward.
I have been learning more about myself in the past months than I have in all the years before. Suddenly, it is all coming together and I am getting to know the real me. And I get to see how broken I am, also in a physical sense. By how broken I don’t mean that it’s a lot or little, not quantity-wise, but I get to see how I am broken.
And with Gillian, we are looking at my body, my posture. It is incredible how much the body is a reflection of how we carry ourselves and for that matter our wounding. It’s all in the body and Gillian is very good at spotting and adjusting it. She can perceive how my posture subtly changes when I move my awareness in my body. I can't see it but I can feel it.
My posture is a mirror of how I have been going through life. Facing the world with my forehead and belly thereby hyperextending my legs creating a hollow back and putting all the pressure onto my lower back - and a few other things. Taking a profile picture of me, she shows me how it’s looking, and I laugh and cringe at the same time. It looks like I am having a beer belly though I have barely any excess body fat (see picture below).
It doesn’t look healthy. Just as my life has not been internally healthy for four decades. Unconsciously that was, until now. That’s why I am here. I initially sought out Gillian to help me fix my alignment. Little did I know that she would seamlessly fit into my spiritual journey and turn into one more force of connecting with my true self.
Leading with my forehead and belly is a representation of me facing the world through thinking (head) and the second, sacral chakra (belly), the chakra of sex, power, money, creativity/creation and emotions. According to her, this unhealthy posture is very common as most of us are living through our minds and are driven by basic desires (sex, money and power).
This unnatural, non-vertical alignment requires my body to stabilise and compensate with all kinds of muscles that are now overworked, stiff, and as a result, are physically reinforcing this misaligned posture. Even with her instructions and me feeling into my body, I am having a hard time standing in a perfect vertical line. If I did it right, there would be little effort and muscles needed because my body would be stacked and sit on top of each other .
Decades in the wrong posture make standing correctly feel like I am hanging over. It requires real effort. Plus many muscles have hardened that keep me in the status quo, including really hard fascia all over my body. Yet, it all boils down to one thing I need to learn, as Gillian points out: To feel my body. Don’t try to think and correct my posture, again: Feel my body. Feel the inside of my legs, torso, etc. everywhere. Feel the volume.
After several sessions, I start succeeding in feeling myself into the right posture. No thinking wanted or needed. It’s counterproductive. Isn’t it funny that that is also the exact same thing I have been learning on my spiritual journey? To feel and be connected with myself rather than to think and strategise. It is all the same. It is all connected. Body, mind, health, relationships - it's all one thing.
The path to freedom is to feel through life. That’s it. I keep learning the same message in different places and from different people. And so I continue unlearning “always thinking” by which I have created the very obstacles and (health) issues I was hoping to avoid.
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“Do not do what you want, and then you may do what you like.” -- Sadasiva, Indian saint.
I could not sleep all night, reflecting on the realisations I have been having, excited about what is unfolding, messaging with my coach in the middle of the night, scrolling social media and seeing what the rest of the world is up to and after several attempts to fall asleep, I turned to Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. And I came across this passage:
When the warrior humbly asked for some spiritual instruction, Sadasiva wrote with his finger on the sands: “Do not do what you want, and then you may do what you like.” The Mohammedan was uplifted to an exalted state of mind, and understood the saint’s paradoxical advice to be a guide to soul freedom through mastery of the ego.
This is the key to freedom and a fulfilling life. In one simple sentence. Wisdom and Truth are always simple. When it is complex, it is likely not the truth. What is he saying? He is saying that if I want to live happily, I need to let go of wanting, wanting to have, to be and to do. And when I let go of that, I am free to fully experience life, freely and happily because there is nothing I want anymore, and thereby I can have everything. Not in terms of ownership but in terms of the very thing I have been seeking: Freedom, serenity and peace.
These days I am doing “nothing” but moving on this path of gaining clarity of self. And I am increasingly falling into peace with it because I am realising that what I have been doing all my life has not worked. I chased money or fame or relationships or sex or other pleasures or achievements. But no matter what I had or did, it never fulfilled me, it never felt like I had arrived.
I realise now that nothing we can have or get in the external, the world outside of us, can fulfil me. And that’s why in the never-ending chase for happiness, I never arrived. What I seek, what we all seek, is inside of me and it’s the freedom to be me, to express myself authentically and with love and humility and in the process serve others. It is when I no longer need but I give that I receive and feel full-(filled).
I get to write these lines, some people read them, I hear from them and that fires me up to share more and to go deeper in my journey. Everything is a gift. If I had not had a sleepless night, I would not have had this realisation, come across this wise quote now or written this reflection.
I hope you got more sleep than me and that you are a little bit more inspired to go through your day in presence and with gratitude for whatever it brings. Thank you for being with me.
This was day 33. If these reflections are serving you - or not, or you have any comments regarding any aspect of this newsletter, please reply and let me know. I am always grateful for feedback whatever form or shape it takes. There’s no negative or positive feedback, it is simply whatever is true for you. Thank you. 🙏
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Forgiving everyone. That is what came up in my meditation and it was so clear and easy to do so I just did it. Letting go of all grudges, of all hurt, of all the seemingly unjust stuff that has been done to me.
In that moment, it struck me as the most obvious thing to do. How could I have not seen that before? Why would I want to walk around carrying with me this weight of grudges for what has happened in the past? That’s a lot of stuff to carry. As the saying goes: Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent-free in your head. And yet, I have done just that for most of my life.
Grudges for what other people have done to me and regrets for what I have or have not done. No wonder I could not see things clearly with all this noise inside of me. I feel lighter. And it wasn’t a big deal. Not compared to how big it actually is. I have forgiven everyone and everything. I don’t hold anything against anyone anymore. That’s grand, it’s big.
Yet it feels like just another day. It’s easy to say and much harder to do. But I did it. I can feel it. I feel the release. And it was easy the moment the realisation arose and I fully embraced that everything that has been “done to me” had to happen so I arrive at the exact place I am now in. In fact, I had let it be done to me. It was me doing it to myself - until I learnt this lesson and released it.
All the lessons that I needed to learn from people stealing from me, betraying me, hurting me, cheating on me, etc. It was all there for a higher purpose. Call me delirious but I now see it clearly. It’s not that I enjoyed any of it. But with the benefit of hindsight, I can see how these were lessons to direct me to what I needed to learn to evolve. Including my own mistakes. Everything was, is and always will be a gift.
It’s not that I have not done my fair share of injustices to other people thereby shooting in my own foot while holding it against others (see 25/ i'm not a victim). The ego is such a formidable foe in twisting and turning everything making it look like it is other people doing something to me rather than me doing or avoiding things with others, unconsciously or not, and then receiving the boomerang back.
I'm a master manifestor, we all are, meaning that I manifest the very thing I am holding in my mind. It’s like the headquarter for the unfoldment of my life. Holding grudges and resentment is then creating a life full of that darkness and ignoring the very teachings it encapsulates. For example, I should have paid more attention to the needs of my cofounder. It was awful how he schemed me out of the business but it’s not about that.
It was not about what he did but what I needed to learn. We are all mirrors and thereby teachers to each other. Think of it like a school. We are all on different levels of awareness. So we are capable of taking more on because our growth is authentically growing in capacity. It’s not a tit-for-tat. That’s for kindergarten. If I can hold a larger frame, I can hold space for more than me, accommodate the needs beyond my own ones and see clearer what everyone around me needs. That's when I expand.
And so all these grudges are lessons in smallness, where I have been thinking that life should operate by my rules and my understanding of what is right and wrong when it was just there to show me: Hey, wake up, you are here to learn, to grow, to expand and to love rather than forcing your rules and desires onto the world.
I am committed to living my brightest most giving life rather than remaining as the smaller version of Vincent who thinks everything must be just and equal. If I am stronger, I am meant to carry more.
As Mooji said: Do not strain yourself trying to improve this world. First, completely know yourself. Then your actions they spring from this spontaneity, from this depth, from this understanding, from the real. And they will shower blessing upon this world.
Below the messages with my coach when it happened:
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“This is my secret. I don’t mind what happens.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
Two months of meditating twice daily have left their mark. I’m much calmer and my continuously present worries about money and what to do with life, wondering where my journey is taking me, are quieting down. I’m finally arriving at a place of peace where everything is “perfect” the way it is in the sense that I don't need anything to be different.
I’m excited about where this will lead me and I’m no longer concerned about it. I’m just doing my work which I am now fully embracing as my work, and it is work, which is meditating, quieting the mind, reflecting from a place of calmness, gently letting the ego fade into the background and be open to whatever arises from that.
And my body is reflecting these mental changes. My sleep according to my Oura ring has never been better. I am spending extensive time in deep sleep, my heart rate is lower than ever (dropping below 40) and my HRV (heart-rate variability, higher is better) is averaging 80ms at night spiking up to 120ms. These values are nearly twice as high as just a few months ago — indicating vitality and well-being (see screenshots below).
It is a result of dropping into a relaxed state with less chatter, more presence and calm. There is no more anxiety. I’m being able to tackle subjects that I previously avoided or procrastinated around because I am no longer worried about the outcome. Detachment is happening.
My coach previously told me that this is a journey and it will take however long it takes (in her case she likes to say it took her twenty years). So whenever I wondered when do I finally get clarity, she said it’s in the body and "it’ll take a minute." And now it is happening much faster and more sudden — when I least expected it.
It is happening exactly because I’m no longer trying hard or being attached to achieving it. All I am committed to is showing up to my meditations and doing the self-reflective work and leaving everything else to take care of itself. I am in surrender.
I’m recognising the fundamental truth in this process that things take care of themselves, there is a natural progression that is unfolding that is beyond my mental understanding. Things fall into place much more powerfully than my mind could ever think them up or control them.
So I’m sitting back as I’m typing these words wondering what amazing things will unfold next. All from a place of wonder, awe and openness rather than, how it used to be, from a place of expecting and wanting to arrive. Once again it strikes me that life is full of magic and nothing like I thought it was.
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Nothing matters. And that’s a good thing. As I am facing a certain meaninglessness on my journey something magical happens in the background: Detachment. It’s Friday evening and I’m lying on my bed, scrolling through social media and exploring what’s happening in the world and in people’s minds.
And I notice that I am detached. As in, I see people having fun, sharing their achievements, weddings, holidays, party pictures, the usual stuff. I’m excited for them and at the same time, I’m happy in my bed on a Friday night by myself. And the worries of the past about what to do with my life and what about the future and that I need to achieve x and y are floating away.
What’s the point anyway? Whether I am a billionaire or not, nothing will be different. You might think that’s crazy and my old self most certainly would have agreed but right now I am like everything is perfect. And I wonder what’s next. What is the point of being alive is my next question as I don’t really see one. Hence the meaninglessness.
So I send a message to my coach who’s way ahead in the journey and
I ask her: What am I here to do? (Curious about what she might reply… )
She writes back: On the Drama Triangle, what do rescuers need to become?
I respond: Coach.
Her: Exactly. I didn’t become a coach by accident. (She has an unbelievable story, that’s for another post).
Me: But what’s the point of coaching? Life is an illusion, we’re all just playing here. (I’m referring to that I’m just temporarily in a body and I will be leaving it in the not-too-distant future aka when I die.)
Her: Coaching as a purpose is different than Coaching as a marketed profession.
Me: I understand. But what’s the point of real coaching? We will all die and return to source.
Her: You have been meditating seriously for how many days?
Me: 61.
Her: Ok. Let's talk about it again at day 122.
Me: Haha. Hmmmm. Ok.
Her: Which posted at 3:33pm (her local time). Mastery is around the corner.
Me: (Looking up the meaning of angel number 333 - I might write about this another time) "You are completely surrounded, protected, loved, and guided by the benevolent ascended masters."
Wow. Beautiful. I’ve been seeing angel master numbers like 111, 222, 333, etc. all the time recently. Way more than it could be by sheer coincidence. Anyway, so I think to myself: Sweet. This is the first time that I am actually completely quiet inside, no need to be or achieve anything, no need to coach or help someone so I just wonder what’s the point and what’s next. And I got my answer.
I respond: Indeed, the meaninglessness might be the precursor to dropping the ego and then magic can happen because there’s nothing in me worrying about me anymore.
Her: 🙏❤️
I feel I am finally getting somewhere in my search. A place full of peace and presence where I don’t need to do or get anything instead I surrender to what life brings me and let the universe guide me. And from there, no longer constrained by anything, everything becomes possible.
I’d love to take this opportunity to thank my coach Lisa for all that she has done and the million ways in which she has served me and my development relentlessly from a place of love. I like to call her my angel that has brought so much light, love and mastery into the dark recesses of my thinking rather than knowing mind. Lisa, I had no idea what journey we would be getting on when we first met and not even my wildest imagination could have predicted where it would lead us to. Thank you for being in my life. ❤️
The Drama Triangle is a powerful relationship framework to understand - in work life as much as in private life. We spend most of our time in this Drama Triangle, until we become aware of it. If you’d like to learn more about it, send me a message and I will share more resources and videos with you.
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I think I am small. I think I am a victim of circumstances and I have to react and respond to the world rather than create it. But I am powerful beyond measure. It is my thinking that keeps me small. We are all powerful beyond measure. We are all butterflies that can cause a storm. Just our thinking keeps us small.
When I rise above my thinking, when I connect with my true self and powers, anything becomes possible. I attract the frequency I operate on: If I am in my shadow, in my limited self, in my victim state, in my I can’t do anything about that then that’s the very reality I keep on attracting and creating.
But if I rise above that, if I realise I really can be and do anything, everything starts changing. I’m an infinite being having a limited by time, space and matter experience here on earth. When I recognise my infiniteness, my smallness falls away and I remember that I am here for a journey, a very different one than the one I think I am here for.
And from that moment of awareness, of awakening everything gets lighter and easier, and the drama and daily chores are fading away and I start opening up to what I want to do with my life. Who am I here to be? And from that place of vast possibilities, I feel great, I feel wonderful and I am excited because it no longer matters what I do or achieve in life, what matters is how I feel. And that opens up a new world.
When I remember who I truly am, I immediately feel lighter, I feel like, hey, you are doing good, you are waking up to your true nature, you start remembering and I stop being in the thinking and worrying loops. Instead, I’m like this is a journey, and I’m waking up to my very journey so I’m doing great. I’m finally waking up to who I am, now the real journey can start. The one I came down here for.
And it is a very different game than the one I’ve been playing so far. The problem with the initial, conventional journey is that I never arrive, I never get to the place where I feel happy and in serenity. I can feel comfortable but I never feel fulfilled. And that is because I am looking for myself by trying to create myself outside of myself. By acquiring material wealth and the struggle to become someone in the world.
But that’s not really me. That’s just me desperately trying to become someone. I am already something before all of that, that is what I am looking for, that is what I am trying to reconnect with. And when I do, then my second journey starts, the real journey where I start expressing my true self, the one I have always been and always will be, that is eternal consciousness.
From that place, I am a giver as I realise that when I give I feel everything I have ever longed for. It is not about me anymore nor me having more but it’s about me learning to give and to love more. And as I am looking for my true self, my gift and desire is to empower others to recognise their own true nature and thereby also pull themselves out of the never-ending game of chasing more.
And I foresee a day when I finally pull myself completely out of that old game, and so will you, and on that day I will be thanking myself for living my greatest life. And the more I give, the more I heal, the more people I touch, the less preoccupied I am with myself but with the wellbeing of others, the more full and fulfilled I am. And closing my eyes, I can feel that I am living my greatest life. I am living life as a masterpiece. That’s the powerful butterflies we are, we can elevate everyone around us.
Who are you going to elevate today?
And if you have not listened to yesterday’s meditation, do it today. It’s a powerful and beautiful one: Mooji - Before the heavens were made… (14 mins)
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We have all heard of SaaS - software as a service. This is how most internet-based businesses work these days. They sell you a monthly or yearly subscription to their services. But what about LaaM? While the last decade’s rage in investing was all about SaaS, I believe the time is ripe for LaaM to take front and center stage this decade: Life-as-a-Masterpiece.
What am I really here for? I can, which is what I have been doing most in my life, just go about my ordinary life, get up, do my job, develop my career, my relationships, my romantic life, save some money and have some fun, but this is a very limited life, life can be so much more. And that’s when it came to me: Life-as-a-Masterpiece is what we are here for.
It is so easy for me to get stuck in the mundane, staying in my routine, playing with my phone (see yesterday's burst 27/) or whatever it is, and live today just like yesterday, and the day before. Yes, one day I meet friends, the other day I go to an event, another day I explore this new restaurant. That’s it? That’s what I am here for to just have one arbitrary experience after another?
That seems too limiting to me. It also sounds kind of boring and repetitive. Why would I get up and kind of, more or less, repeat every day? What’s the point of that? Sounds like Groundhog Day - the movie where Bill Murray keeps living the same day over and over again. There must be more.
But that’s kind of what I feel I have been doing. Yes, there have been many variations, I have been living quite a colourful life, many different countries, many different people and experiences, yet, I still feel I have been playing the same game and routine in the sense that how I feel about my days and how my days play out, the theme is similar.
There have been no life-changing quantum shifts. Or at least none that I would be willing to give that one-of-a-kind qualification. Even going to places like Burning Man, drinking Ayahuasca for the first time or leaving finance, the day after, my life was inspired but continued somehow similar one way or another. I still had not “arrived.”
And finally, I’m realising that’s not what I am here for. Because what’s the point? I can have a nice glass of wine every evening (I no longer drink but just to give an example) and I can truly enjoy that glass of wine every night, but there must be more than keeping doing the same thing over and over again until I die.
And that’s when it popped into my mind: Life-as-a-Masterpiece. How would living my greatest, most extraordinary life look like? Once I know that what’s holding me back from living it? And that’s fear, fear that it’s safest to keep doing what I have always been doing, fear of being delirious, fear of not being able to pull it off, fear of what other people think, fear of it not being able to sustain myself.
As I reflect on all those I realise they are all BS excuses. There is no reason not to live my life as a masterpiece. In fact, living any other life than a LaaM doesn’t make any sense. If I can live a LaaM why would I want to live anything less? Why would I want to live an ordinary, repetitive, everyday dancing with the same struggles life if I can live an exciting, powerful, impactful, alive, you name it life?
Why not giving it my all? Why not going all-in, no back doors? Why not making that big f**ing leap and just do what I am dreaming to do? To stop the whining and I can’t do x or y and just get on with it. To start living an extraordinary life, making the most of every single moment I have and to make my life a living masterpiece. Wow, what a life that would be.
What would your life-as-a-masterpiece look like? It all starts with a single thought.
Enjoy this powerful meditation from Mooji - Before the heavens were made… (14 mins) that connects with today’s reflection.
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Waking up, I started playing with my phone, scrolling, swiping, you name it. After I was done, I sat down to meditate. And it was a difficult meditation. My thoughts were racing and I was all but in a calm state. When I looked at my Oura ring afterwards, my heartbeat and my heart rate variability were not where they normally are during meditation. I could sense my body was under stress, relatively speaking.
And as I set there in meditation and my mind finally started slowing down, a thought arose: Why am I doing this? Why do I let my phone steal hours of my life doing something that doesn’t add to my life? Whether it is scrolling social media, which I don’t do that much anymore, or swiping through dating apps, which I still do and afterwards, I always feel a sense of failure. I know these are activities that not only are distractions from enjoying the beauty of life and being present but they also don’t lead to anything meaningful nor do they make me feel better.
Yet in the moment, I succumb to them courtesy of my craving mind which wants to see who’s behind the next swipe or what I get to see if I scroll just a little longer. These services are built around our dopamine system which always wants another hit. They are legal drugs. Rather than my phone serving me, it has turned me into its slave. Of course, this is all by design. There’s big business behind all of this. But I don’t want to defer responsibility.
I’m not a victim but the creator of this. I decide to give in to whatever urge or desire, to get the pleasure of another hit of dopamine instead of deciding against it knowing better after years of playing this game. And my heart even confirms the direct physical effect my behaviour has. So why I am doing it?
Well, there’s a craving element, maybe the longing for a partner, procrastinating about sitting down to meditate or whatever else I would otherwise do. And habits that I keep repeating of course reinforce themselves even further. It’s a beautiful example of how I am standing in my own way. It’s always me standing in my way. I’m a creator, I create the life I am living with every thought I think and every action I take.
That then in turn creates who I am, what is called Vincent. And because I created it myself, I also have the sole power to change it. And I know exactly what’s going on and therefore what needs to be done. So with this awareness present, there is no reason nor excuse not to let it go.
And yet, these things are hard. They can be really hard and of course, there’s a root cause behind whatever I am doing. And that’s where I need to go and rip the weed out of once and for all. In the end, it’s a simple decision and then to have the determination to stick with it. No when and but, no tomorrow but to stop it now. Because if not now then when?
When I am in meditation, I am connected with my higher, freer self and I can feel and see who it is and what it wants to create. Yet, here I am playing with my phone. That’s what is called wasting my life. And today, I am saying to myself once more: No more.
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The following is an excerpt from a conversation I was having with a friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Things are inverted from what we’re told and that’s why there’s so much unnecessary suffering. You’re not your body. You’re higher self, infinite awareness that uses an avatar, your body, to have a finite, limited-by-the-senses experience.
The challenge is that you, and every one of us, forgot that that’s not who you are and you get attached to your current version of little “I” which is the ego with your personality. And the ego suffers when it’s not heard, loved, understood, when it doesn’t feel safe and that is what causes all the wounds and ultimately physical pain including cancer. If you think that something is wrong with you, subconsciously, your body, mentally and physically, reflects that because your body is the physical manifestation of your beliefs and thinking.
The moment you realise that that is not who you really are, you wake up to your higher self, the big, true “I”, you realise that all this suffering is an illusion, it is erroneous thinking. And when you do you start thinking differently, empowering, positive thoughts, and then you start healing. That’s why the placebo effect is not this weird inexplicable effect, the placebo effect is THE effect.
It works the other way around: Your life and your body are a reflection of what you think and who you think you are. And once you realise you’re whole and this is not really you, your body becomes whole. And that is what is called waking up. Now, understanding and believing this is one thing - it took me seven years to get it. You might do it much faster because pain or traumatic experiences like cancer are a wake-up call and hence you’re now reading all these books that otherwise you might not have and they are opening your eyes.
But the real, the big step, and without it all the reading and knowledge is useless, and that’s what I only realised recently, in my 8th year… is that I have to embody it, I have to be it, be the walking talk of it. Every cell in me has to live and breathe that knowing, that truth, that I am not who I think I am, every moment of my life, and from that place, I can live an effortless, free-of-disease and free-of-suffering life.
This is the kingdom of heaven that Jesus spoke about and that is everyone’s birthright. I’m not religious and I was an atheist most of my life but I now recognise that Jesus is not this heavenly figure, no, Jesus and other enlightened beings, are simply humans that woke up to their real being, they dropped the ego and the illusion of their mind and connected with their higher self from where immediate healing is possible.
It sounds unbelievable but if you read through these books and recognise their deep truth you’ll one day or another come to that conclusion because it’s the only possible conclusion and when you do, and hopefully, before that, your cancer will go into remission and you will heal. I know this is a bold statement and you shouldn’t believe anything I say but you can take what I said and investigate it and that’s what you’re doing.
If you go asking questions all the way then I believe you’ll find exactly this capital T Truth as well. That is ultimately the gift of your cancer, to wake up to your true eternal being and that there’s nothing to be afraid of and that you’re pure consciousness and that your body - as it says in the meditation - is an expression of pure spirit and that pure spirit is perfect and hence your body is - and the cancer will be gone.
There are recorded cancer remissions within minutes. And there are many ways to get there. I have been in Joe Dispenza’s coherence healings where we healed, without any prior experience, people from grave diseases. I remember asking a girl at the end of one of these healings how do you feel and she looked at me and said: I knew I was healed after the second healing (we did three in three days) and I thought I didn’t need this third one but this was again so beautiful and healing that I’m glad I did it.
All it took her to heal was 8 people that never had done this before sitting around her lying down and sending her loving healing energy while being in a theta brain wave state. That was it in essence. Joe explains it beautifully with animations on how we affect the (quantum) field. And the Three Magic Words, written in 1952!, explains it with different words but it’s all the same.
Nader Butto, who I’m learning from directly and whose link I sent to you, teaches and practices the same thing differently but it’s ALL the same. It’s about waking up to who you truly are and when you do, life just becomes about love. How much can you love yourself and everyone else, this whole experience called life with all that it comes with? How much can you raise your vibration?
There’s no more fear. And of course, you’ll have all kinds of things coming up all the time: He did that, she said that, you’re not good enough, that’s dangerous, the future is unsafe, you’re not beautiful, you might lose everything, you might die from cancer, whatever your negative thoughts are, the difference is that before when these thoughts popped up from the subconscious of which you seemingly don’t have any control of, you engaged with these negative thoughts, you worried about them, you went on thinking how it could all play out, this bleak outlook and that’s how you manifested them in your life including your cancer.
But the “new” you realises that this is how it works, and that you’re an infinite being that created this body in this experience called earthly life and that your job is to wake up to your true self and when you do you realise that the thoughts you think manifest, meaning create, your physical reality. That is what is karma, your thoughts become reality in the material and physical realm.
You are your thoughts. And when you realise that, you start choosing the thoughts and what you are thinking very carefully. You chose to only think loving, whole and positive thoughts. You realise that everyone is trapped in the same ego illusion as you were and that’s why they’re doing to you what they’re doing. They’re not bad people. They just haven’t woken up yet and they don’t know any better. They’re hurting just like you were.
From this new place that you are in, everything changes. You’re now a healer to others just through your way of being. And all thanks to the cancer you manifested yourself. Everything seemingly adverse is a gift from the universe, from yourself really, trying to wake you up to who you truly are. Welcome to an awakened life. ✨😘
And now please enjoy this profound and musically beautiful reflection by Mooji (14 mins). Or listen to it before going to bed as I do. What we do last before falling asleep informs what our mind processes and thereby influences to what reality we wake up to the next morning, with what eyes we look at the world.
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I’m not a victim. Yet that’s how I have been operating most of my life. Not in an obvious way. Not by complaining about how difficult my life is or the weather or other people. But through my unconscious behaviour.
Something would disturb me and I would not say anything. I would not say anything because I didn’t want to create a conflict, I didn’t want to piss someone off. Instead of expressing my dislike about something, I would remain quiet and hold it against them. Unknown to them but to my mind it seemed obvious that they must know I didn’t like it.
Over time things accumulate and then slowly I would start nagging at them, making a comment here or there, making an annoyed face, etc. And so a passive-aggressive me would suddenly present itself. And it feels shitty. I don’t like to be that person yet I would not be able to help it.
I would be reluctant to express my needs or desires or boundaries for that matter and so things stockpiled and I would get increasingly annoyed and the relationship would get worse and worse. I felt like a victim of the situation, of the other person. And bam, I was, unconsciously, stuck in the drama triangle with someone.
Once you are in it, it needs a very conscious effort to get out of it again. So if I would be the self-imposed victim, because of my learnt lack of boundary setting and ability to communicate those, then the two remaining positions for others to take on are perpetrator and rescuer.
As long as I stay in the drama triangle, I always occupy one of these three spots, I am just rotating because the moment I get rescued by someone, I become the new perpetrator and my previous perpetrator is now the victim. I rotate on the triangle and I keep myself and everyone around me on the triangle as long as I don’t see it.
Unfortunately, most of the world is operating in this triangle, unconsciously, and is thereby stuck in a continuous power struggle with others. It is about dominating and hierarchy. I am better than you, I am more beautiful than you, I am more right than you, I know better than you, you name it.
And so I continuously create conflict. Even defending someone or helping another victim out of the drama triangle, rescuing that person, is just continuing the struggle in new positions. I found myself in just such a situation as the victim again and I couldn’t see it until it was graciously pointed out by my wonderful coach. And bam again, a light went on as we have worked a lot together so I immediately understood what was going on and took 100% responsibility for it.
I am not a victim. I am a creator. I created that situation. I made the other person the “bad guy” because I failed to clearly communicate my boundaries and needs upfront. I was not authentic. I was, as I told myself, accommodating and respectful and it backfired. Because I was inauthentic, I was not being myself and that always backfires. One way or another.
The moment I saw that I was free. I no longer felt animosity against my "perpetrator" because I realised that I had forced them to play that role by not taking ownership of the situation. I went down the seemingly convenient path of avoiding confrontation and in return I created a toxic environment for both of us. All just because I didn’t speak my mind.
As I am looking back at my life I can see the million times I have been doing that and how it got to bite me back hard later. Personally, professionally, in relationships, family, life, everywhere.
When the student is ready, the master appears. This time I had the vocabulary and awareness to see and own what I had created. And it was time to grow up, to step out of the drama triangle once and forever and become the 100% responsible creator that we are all meant to be.
From that place, I am who creates and therefore I can change anything, any situation. And so I finally grew up to be an empowered creator and no longer a victim. Thank you life for keeping showing me what I need to see - until I learn it and rise above.
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I can’t make any mistakes. This unconscious belief has kept me in bondage for most of my adult life. Only now do I understand how powerful these subconscious beliefs are and how they have been driving my decisions, behaviour, feelings and actions in small and big ways and every aspect of my life.
I can’t make any mistakes and the fear of failure. I now know where they stem from. Because the conscious Vincent cannot relate to them. I have taken many risks and made many mistakes in the process and I now laugh about them or I appreciate that I had to make them to learn what I needed to learn.
So where does this I can’t make any mistakes come from? I am certain it originated from the divorce of my parents at age 16. It happened suddenly and unexpectedly. It turned my world upside down much more than I realised. It was very painful for me at that time but really it has been life-changing to this day.
I can’t make any mistakes originated from the “learning” of the divorce of my parents. Because what teenage Vincent learnt there was that if I make a mistake, the world comes crashing down. The divorce of my parents more than crushed my external world, it ripped me apart inside without me even realising it. The mind and body create coping mechanisms.
My parents represent the masculine and the feminine inside of me. One being logic, drive, focus, reason and mind and the other being empathy, understanding, connection, heart and love. When both of them are united and act together, I am a complete, powerful and balanced human being.
Yet when they are disjoined, I have two sides competing with each other, that are pulling me in different directions, leading to indecisiveness, lack of clarity and as a result stuckness. Stuck because I don’t know whether to go right or left, to listen to reason or heart.
The masculine is usually more pronounced in men and the feminine in women but all of us have both, except for psychopaths who lack empathy completely (and that’s how you know when you are having one in front of you).
When the two are balanced and connected I go through life with clarity, decisiveness, reason, love and understanding. I express and embody both of them in a united way. There’s just one of me inside instead of two competing halves.
And as I am healing that wound from the divorce some thirty years later, I am bringing the two lost halves of myself back together so I can return to being my most beautiful and empowered self. Healing is a labour of love and patience and it is the work of a lifetime.
If you are interested in a conversation around any of these topics, a specific situation or life in general, just hit reply and message me. There are no conditions or expectations, just that you bring your whole self to the conversation and come with an open mind and heart.
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The other day I received a message from a friend. We haven’t spoken in a while and we always had an interesting dynamic between us. And his message triggered me. It seemed to me that he was challenging whether what I was doing, the commitment to focus so much on inner growth or healing, was healthy and whether there should not be a balance between living life and doing this work.
His challenges seem to always trigger me. And of course, my bursts of consciousness seem to have triggered him and that prompted the message in the first place. Maybe it was a genuine inquiry, maybe not. It doesn’t even matter. But there’s a message for me: Why would I let other people let me trigger? Why would I let them steal my peace and joy?
It is just a message. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to agree with it. I can even ignore it. But the most powerful and liberating way is to be equanimous about it. When I don’t differentiate between good and bad anymore, actually when there is no perceived good or bad anymore. When there just is what is.
That’s the seemingly elusive place of peace and bliss that I am seeking. And there is nothing to seek. I can have it any moment. I can have it right now. I just have to embrace this realisation and then I embody it and act accordingly. It is simple as that.
Freedom from suffering is within reach for me and all of us. It is evoked by the simple insight that nothing needs to be different than whatever is and that it is my attachment and need for it to be different that creates the suffering in the first place.
He just sent me a message. It might have come from the best intention. It doesn’t matter, that’s the important point. Even if he wanted to trigger or annoy me, or put me in my place, so what, not my problem.
The weather does what it wants and so does the world and everyone in it. I can’t have it my way and I don’t need to. All I have to do is to let go of the idea that things and life needs to be a certain way. And the moment I do, I am free.
While it is that simple, it is harder to embody than to say it. That’s because I am under the illusion of being a personality with an ego that wants to be understood, seen, loved, appreciated, safe and comfortable. But me needing all these things creates the opposite of what I want and moves me away from all these things rather than closer to them.
Everything I am seeking is already here and the moment I stop seeking it, the moment I let go, it will all be mine.
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Why do I get up? Why do you get up? Of course, I get up because my body wakes up and then I start my day. But why? Because I have to do x and y and because I have to do my job, make money, have appointments, etc.
What if today I had no nothing and none of these things, would I still get up? I mean, the bed can be a pretty nice and comfortable place. This is a powerful question. Why do I get up? What is there for me to do in the world? What gets me out of bed wanting to create or experience something? What makes me want to do that? And why do I do that?
They all seem like weird, crazy or even stupid questions. But are they really? We barely stop in life to ask some of the most fundamental questions, to question the things that have become so normal, so “obvious” that we rarely take the time to ask, to challenge them.
You could say that this is just what we do, this is what humans do, this is how the world works, it’s like breathing, it’s natural. But is it really? Breathing is something I do automatically, there is no conscious effort, I have been doing it since the moment I came out of the womb and, most importantly, when I stop breathing, my life in this body will end within 15 mins or less.
That doesn’t apply to all the other things that I am doing and why I am getting up. So why I am getting up? I think I am getting up because of three possible reasons: a) I get up to survive, because if I don’t get up, I am not foraging for food and then maybe not today but sooner than later I will die, so it’s about survival.
b) I get up because I choose to, I am excited about what I am about to do. To write, to create, to interact, and it all comes effortlessly. I love getting up because of all the beauty that is unfolding in a day, the surprises it brings, the awe I experience, another day around the sun breathing in life.
Or c) I get up because I have to because there is a boss waiting for me, because there is a client that expects something, the kids that need to be brought to school, you name it. Now b and c are overlapping. I might need to do something and I am also enjoying it, I might love doing it. I might need to bring the kids to school and I love doing that, it’s not a chore, it’s something I cherish.
Most of my life I believe I have spent doing c). That doesn’t mean I did not have great moments of joy, laughter and beauty but the majority was driven by I have to do x to get to y. And mostly not questioning why I had to do those things.
a) is not relevant for probably all the readers of this piece so I’ll skip this. b) is where I want to spend the rest of my life in. I need to make money to put food on the table and I might need to drop the kids off at school (though I could home school them but that’s a whole other topic) but I can bring joy into all of that and that is what I am committed to doing.
And if I can’t bring joy into those activities then I have to look into the mirror and ask myself, do I need to change my attitude (always a yes) or do I need to change what I am doing (sometimes a yes)? I can bring joy into the most mundane things like washing or clearing up the dishes. It can become a meditation, where I just rest in my being, feel my aliveness, my body moving, and appreciating how the cleared-up kitchen looks more welcoming.
Chores don’t have to be chores. It’s my resistance to them that makes them unwelcome and painful. And if I can’t find any sense in them, then I have to ask myself, why am I doing them, maybe I need to change something.
Steve Jobs said: “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
I know what I need to change when I need to change. Whether it is something big like breaking up a relationship, quitting a job or moving to a different place or as small as a routine that no longer serves me, I know deep down there’s something that needs to change and my job as a human being is having the courage to take action what I know needs to be done.
And it is not from a place of craving or wanting something different, it is from a place of knowing, there is no doubt, that the change is needed because the current way no longer serves me.
I might have huge resistance to it because it will be difficult, I might be judged, I might hurt other people’s feelings and society might ridicule what I am doing. But when I know I know and I know it has to be done because when I live in full alignment with myself, I know why I get up every morning.
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Nothing really matters. At least not what I think, what my mind thinks matters. A radical statement. And yet, in my meditations, that's how I feel. My mind is a beautiful storytelling machine. It continuously creates stories around who I am, what I need to do, say and be. But they are just that, stories.
I get attached to those stories and I get sad or angry when those stories don’t come true, whether it is in my career, success, relationships, money, ... But when I meditate, my thoughts subside and I am just with myself in a pitch black space of nothingness, none of this matters.
It doesn’t matter whether I am at next week's party, Burning Man or this cool dinner. I might or might not go to them but it doesn't matter. Many of these gatherings no longer feel conducive to my life as they are mostly alcohol or substance-driven get-togethers of pleasure seekers.
There's nothing wrong with that, I have attended such events for two decades of my life but whether I am there or not doesn’t change my life. My life will be different, as I will make different experiences, meet new people and reconnect with friends and maybe even meet my future wife. And it doesn't matter. I am looking forward to the day I meet my future partner and if I don’t or things play out differently, that’s fine too.
I am completely surrendering to life because I am realising that nothing really matters. No matter what I have or don’t have, my life won’t be better or worse because of it. Whatever I do or have, I always want more but it ultimately never makes a difference in how I feel.
When I am sitting in meditation, it doesn’t matter where I am, it doesn’t matter whether I have a nice view, a beautiful kitchen, a garden, lots of money, a beautiful girlfriend, I am in the nothingness and it's calm, quiet, serene.
There is nothing to be achieved or done and nothing is missing. It’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, it's perfect. And when I come back from nothingness, and I open my eyes and look into the world, it still doesn’t matter. And when I get up, it still doesn’t matter.
I enjoy seeing friends, meeting people and exchanging ideas, in fact, it lights me up. That’s why I love writing these bursts of consciousness. It comes natural to me, it’s effortless. I am not fighting to create the life I want, instead, I am living it. Life is happening right now and it is perfect because I am fully present to it.
When I wake up in the morning, I am curious as to how the day will play out, what will happen, who will I interact with, what realisation will come to me and what will I do. I am open and free from expectations attached to how it might unfold. And so the day will be good because I am curious, present to what is and in awe of life and the experience itself. I am detached from the how and what.
I know from observing myself, that when I have certain things or experiences vs. when I don’t have them - there is no difference. Meaning whether I am at this cool event or not, my life is just as good, maybe even better because I won’t have a hangover.
I am not saying I don’t like to go to social events, build a business, get married or have a family. These are all wonderful things. But it doesn’t matter whether or not and how I have them, because life is wonderful and full of surprises no matter what is.
Life is about evolving. There is something to learn every day, especially when there is pain. That’s the journey of life, me not getting attached to a specific journey or outcome, which is what creates attachment to a different life and all the suffering as a result - instead I am open, in awe, wonder, joy and gratitude for whatever unfolds around me. Not forcing but surrendering.
From this place of calm, peace and presence, anything is possible. Because I am no longer married to a specific outcome or future, I can authentically express myself. I am writing because I enjoy doing it and there seem to be some people like you who enjoy reading it. And who knows what happens next? Who knows who comes into my life as a result and where it leads to?
After decades of running after a certain life, wealth and outcomes I am, for the first time in my life, in a place of peace and serenity and could not be more excited about what life will bring and what I will be creating from here.
I have no idea what it will be but I know it’ll be fun and exciting because I am just being myself. And I am realising that this is a very powerful place to be because life wants me to be my true self, authentically expressing my uniqueness. And when I surrender to be that, magic can happen.
What life would you create if nothing really matters?
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For most of my life, I have been both chasing to make more money and trying to spend less money and save more. Not even consciously. Money never really mattered that much to me but then it also really mattered to me. What do I mean? It consciously did not matter that much but it did in my subconscious mind.
I can now see how so many decisions I have made have been influenced by money. And you might say that’s normal. But I wasn’t conscious of it. If you would have asked me: Vincent what is most important to you? Money would not have made it onto the list. And yet, it was a profound driver, maybe even the driver. Secretly, in the background.
On a subconscious level, completely different games are played by my mind that I am not aware of on the thinking level. Yet my subconscious runs most of my life while I erreneously think I am in the driver's seat. That is until I start picking my behaviour apart.
As I am sitting in my meditation, imagining myself in nothingness, I am feeling perfectly happy in this place of meditative darkness, where I can stay for a long time. And when I am imagining what other people might be doing like attending a party or having a tasty lunch in great company, I am thinking, cool, but I don’t need to go anywhere. It is perfect right in this place of nothingness.
You might think, I hear you but that’s not what I want to do with my life. And yes, my message is not go meditate and you don’t need money. I do recommend meditation though. Money is a distraction because it makes my entire life about thinking about how I can get more as I subconsciously believe that when I have more money my life will be better and I will feel better.
And so three things happen: I am always living in the future, I am always chasing what I hope to have tomorrow and therefore I am never really present and the now, this moment now, is the only thing there ever is. The future has not yet arrived and the past is already gone. So when I am thinking about money, I am not present and hence I am not living. Instead, I am thinking and that's usually not the happiest place to be.
Secondly, not only I am thinking about it, I spend most of my time thinking about it. Because money touches everything. I buy something, I eat something, I go on a holiday, everything involves money and every time I have to pay for something, I think about it. Oh, this is cheap, this is expensive and this is such and such. And then I might talk about it with my family or friends.
Money, money, money all day long. There’s barely any time left for living. I am exaggerating but if I pay close attention to my day and thoughts, I will find money very present, maybe the most present category of thoughts.
Thirdly and most importantly, money makes me do things that I otherwise would not do. I might be working a job just because of what it pays because of the lifestyle I want to enjoy. So I am spending most of my waking time doing something that I don’t want to do just so that I can earn money so I can have a richer future. Bur I can't enjoy the presence much as a result.
Suddenly my whole life revolves around money though I never made that decision consciously. I never sat down and said, money is the most important thing because of such and such. No, it is something that I have been told, trained and educated into and everyone around me is living and doing it the same way so we follow each other like sheep never questioning why I am doing what I am doing and whether it makes any sense. It seems the normal thing to do.
But it is not. Money is a distraction from the life I could be living, from the life I actually would like to live. A life where I am doing what I love to do and yes, maybe I am less affluent but I am enjoying my entire day because I am doing something I am passionate about.
And I might even be more affluent because when we do what we love we get pretty good at it. And at the same time, I don’t care so much about material wealth because I don't need to escape my life as I am happy being right where I am doing what I love.
What a life that could be.
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I encourage you to listen rather than to read this episode. I got goosebumps while recording it.
Today, I am sharing with you an excerpt of a social media post of a friend who suddenly found himself in hospital. It is a powerful account of how everything is put into real perspective when you are not well and therefore goes to show how much drama our minds create when we are well.
My mind is not interested in finding joy in life but constantly looking out for what’s wrong. Until something is so wrong that it forces me to recalibrate, like getting really sick. My mind is just doing its job therefore I proactively need to take charge and put it into its place because the stories my mind makes up about life are fiction. The moment I realise that I can embody that wisdom without having to undergo pain to gain that insight. Though physical pain will drive that point home every time again.
That is what my friend is conveying to us through his account of suffering. He wrote this on his fourth day in hospital after having been first misdiagnosed and been moved between three different hospitals. As a result, he might loose one of his kidneys.
In these four days I have experienced some of the most intense pain one can experience. There were times when the pain was so severe that I had hallucinations and uncontrollable spasms all over my body, and even morphine was not enough to quell them.
However, in between sharp pains, I occasionally found moments of peace. Sometimes even for a few seconds, I felt immeasurable pleasure: the relief of being able to take a breath without pain.
At that moment I realized how important it is to live without suffering.
Yet, each of us constantly lives in a state of suffering, a suffering that is not physical, but generated by ourselves, our heads and our thoughts.
One day someone asked the Buddha what nirvana was. He answered simply, "the end of suffering."
There is much suffering in the world, but the greatest is the suffering that each of us inflicts on ourselves.
It is that voice in our head that never quiets down and keeps judging, worrying and planning. It is that voice that keeps us constantly in a state of apprehension, anxiety and fear. Because the present moment is never enough. We always have to think about what the past was like or make plans for the future.
That voice that, when we are enjoying a delicious meal, says "yes but last week I ate better at that other restaurant."
It is that voice that when we see a person immediately adds a judgment to them. We never see the person, we see the mental image we have of this person and we miss their true essence, their true value.
And so it is with our life. We almost never see our life as it is, instead we see our mental image, the mental projection of our life, and we miss the most important thing, the life force within us.
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Since episode 7, you can also listen to me reading the burst by clicking play above or look up my name or the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Stitcher.
Unconsciously, I am continuously looking for myself outside of myself. I am looking at what other people do putting myself into a box that I know because I have seen it outside of me, in the external world, how other people do things.
And that’s my fatal mistake. I am unique, just like everyone else is, and hence I am meant to express myself uniquely. I am not meant to label myself or put myself in a box together with everyone else. That is the idea of society but not of life. None of us is here to be like someone else and none of us is meant to carry a label like “I’m an accountant,” “I’m a banker,” “I’m a retail customer service employee,” whatever…
I am meant to be me. There’s only one version of me which wants to express itself in its very own way. Not because that's cool or en vogue but because I am by definition unique and hence so must be my expression. And it, me, doesn't like boxes or labels.
Deep down we all know that but the compulsively worrying mind of what others think and the conditioning I have been experiencing through school, society, advertising, Hollywood, Netflix, etc. made me not only forget who I am but look for a new me outside of me, one that is like others.
Deep down it’s there and waiting to be fully expressed, not bound by labels, what “one does” nor what is normal. All I have to do is the courage to be me and everything will start falling into place. Can it be so simple? And if it is that simple, why did I make it so complicated?
First, society as a whole does not want me to be happy, it wants me to be a productive, rule-abiding member of society. That’s why in school there is an authority in front of me telling me what is true and false, what I need to know and what I need to memorise. Critical thinking is not that important. I am meant to serve the larger organism without asking too many questions.
That’s the status quo. And so I try to fit into a box that I kind of came across and that looked good and then I strive a life long to find happiness and that ease of being but it never quite arrives. And I wonder what I am doing wrong. I seem to have done everything by the book. And that’s exactly what has gone wrong.
I am not meant to do anything by the book but by my book. I am meant to be me not what someone or something made me be. I have been evolving myself away from who I am, really, I have estranged myself from who I truly am. And that’s why happiness seems ever so far away no matter how successful or how many things I achieve, I never seem to quite arrive.
Luckily, the solution is a lot simpler than I thought: All I want to be is me and once I let myself be me, things start falling into place. Not necessarily immediately, it might take a while, but I will start remembering why I wake up in the morning, I will feel that I am being myself again, that I am not wasting my life doing something that does not light me up.
What does it mean to be myself? First, it means I stop thinking about what is the smartest way to be and I start feeling how I would like to be. What comes naturally to me, what is innate to me, what makes my eyes shine, what gets me excited? And then I just start doing me, taking one step at a time, one baby step.
Maybe I enjoy writing as I do right now, maybe there’s a topic close to my heart like this one. So then I simply start writing and have the courage to share it. Yes, maybe no one will like my new me. But life is about taking risks, that’s how you reap the rewards. That one they actually teach us.
If I stay in my safe comfort zone bubble I deprive myself of that feeling of aliveness that I have been craving for all along, that I am here to experience, to be and feel alive. But more likely, some people will say I love your writing. I can’t wait for your next piece.
And it doesn’t have to be a book. All I do is sit down for 15 mins a day when I feel inspired, usually after meditating, and then I just let it flow out, whatever wants to come out. And here you are reading this short piece of hopefully inspiring content that will somewhere resonate within you and maybe take you one step closer to letting you be yourself with ease and joy.
And you can do the same thing. Write, paint, sing, code, coach, garden, share your knowledge on youtube... People make a living with all these things. And they have fun writing, or whatever they choose to do. You can just do it, then put it out into the world and see what happens.
And if you didn’t find this piece inspiring or thought-provoking, then look out for the one tomorrow, or read the one from yesterday. Or write your own piece. But start doing one thing today, right now: Start being less who you thought you need to be and start being more who you really are. It might seem difficult but it's easy. All it takes is to take one first step. That’s it.
The no. 1 regret of the dying is not having lived a life true to myself but one others expected of me. I don't want to fall into that trap. All it takes is a first step, and then another one, and another one. Don’t worry about where you are going, just take that first step. That’s all there is to being who you really are. It really is that simple.
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I can do whatever I want but I know that there’s only one path to seemingly illusive happiness and that is... drumroll... by being myself.
How do I know who I truly am? Let’s start with who I am not as I'm painfully realising myself. I am not the construct of my mind, the version of who I think I am. That one, the one I think I am, is just a creation of my mind through conditioning since my first day on this planet, through childhood and everything that I have experienced.
I am a product of my life experiences, I mean the I who I think I am is. And that is a very limited me. And worse, it is not actually me. And until I reconnect with my real self, it will be very difficult if not impossible, I think it’s impossible, for me to live a happy and fulfilling life. Or let me say it differently: I will never be able to live a life as great as what I could be living from that little I or self. I will stay short of my potential and things will never flow quite like they could and I want them to.
Life is meant to be effortless rather than efforted. I have been lied to all my life starting with what my parents taught me to everything I was told in school about how life works. You don’t need to work hard, rather you want to work effortlessly plugging into your genius, where, just as I am typing these lines, things flow, there is no effort required, they just flow out of me. No thinking needed.
I am just typing what flows out of me, that’s it. And after 15 mins of writing, I’m using an app that deletes everything I wrote if I stop writing, you get this piece in front of you that you can read and digest in 5 mins. Yes, I am doing some minor editing to make sure it's understandable but the content and flow are untouched. That is an example of effortlessness. It comes natural. It just flows.
Now how do I connect to my true self? By getting my mind out of the way. By stopping to think about what I am going to do and let myself be guided by my body, intuition, heart or whichever it is for you. One of my therapists challenged me to wake up in the morning with amnesia and just follow what I intuitively feel doing rather than following any routine or what my head says and thinks I should be doing.
Now that might be difficult for you to do given your life but you can sit back, close your eyes and imagine getting up tomorrow morning, having forgotten who you are, where you are and what you do. What would you do? How would that day flow? Play it out in your mind, and as much as you can in real life. Or maybe do it on the weekend, where it should be a lot easier.
Life is meant to be effortless, and then life’s magic can happen when we let ourselves be who we truly are. We are that person when we don’t go thinking our way through life but rather when we just flow through it. Yes, it is difficult at first and it's scary to do that because of what I won’t do anymore, because of what other people like a partner, girlfriend, wife, dad, etc. might think but that doesn’t matter.
I don’t have to abandon my old life all at once but to start following my bliss, play with life, explore and see what unfolds because only I know what is right for me. I am unique as we all are. My talents are unique and so is their expression. And I have them for a specific reason, to give them as a gift to the world.
The world wants to experience our talents, not our learnt knowledge of accounting or whatever. I used to be a banker and an entrepreneur and I think I can do those things well. But who I truly am is an explorer of life and I have gone deep into the recesses of my mind to understand how I am standing in my own way.
My passion has been to empower myself and others, and that’s what I am doing, by writing about it. And I have no idea where this takes me but this is who I am, this is what comes effortless to me, it’s my blueprint. While I can be many others things, we have free will in the end, what comes effortlessly to me and what I’m passionate about is what I am here for.
I believe that's true for all of us. Until I “follow” my true self, I will never find the happiness I am seeking. Why? Because I am playing someone else’s life.
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After a lifetime of using my mind and thinking as a way to navigate life, I am learning the art of nothingness. One of my teachers challenged me to close my eyes and imagine myself in a pitch dark space with nothing in it and to stay there as long as I can. And when a thought arises, to notice it and let it go.
Pretty much like a meditation practice in silence but with the added challenge of putting myself into pure nothingness. And to extend the practice into the rest of the day, to let action precede thought rather than letting thinking guide my actions.
I am not going to say that this is hard because such would manifest exactly that, that it’s going to be hard but I’ll say that this is a completely new way of being and that it’ll take a minute (as my coach likes to say) to get acquainted with it, to make it a new way of being or at least to see where it takes me.
Another therapist challenged me to wake up in the morning with amnesia and let my body guide me on what to do next. She said if it’s masturbation then do that. I have put myself on a regimen to contain my sexual energy and to exactly not do but that’s for another time. The idea here is similar, to follow my body’s intuition rather than the rational mind.
Not to do what I think I need to do but rather what I feel to do intuitively and to learn to live like that, to let myself be guided by my higher self, by my intuitive, natural way of being. They are basically all telling me the same: To find back to my true self, I have to let go of thinking before doing and instead be and follow what organically comes up rather than controlling, survival-driven acting that comes from the mind and that I have been educated and socialised into since early childhood because this is how Western society works. All that needs to go.
We are thinkers first then doers. And I am realising that that is one of the causes of our skyrocketing depression and mental health issues. We are trained from early on to remove ourselves from us by thinking rather than naturally being. It took me a long time to get to this realisation despite having been seeking a more whole way of being for years.
Unsurprisingly, I have been looking for that way of being through the mind, through knowledge and intellectual understanding. But what I actually want is to live from a place of wisdom which is embodied, intuitive knowledge rather than intellectual, thinking knowledge.
Spending time in pitch black nothingness is about reconnecting with who I truly am detaching from the egoic self construct of the mind that has been created through upbringing, conditioning, education and excessive thinking.
As my healer put it: My mind wants a f*g break from thinking, and so does my soul. I am, and we as a society are abusing the mind for something it was never created for and as a result, we have created a mind-abusive world and then we wonder why we are all suffering from one form or another of mental disturbances whether they are stress, anxiety, excessive worrying, overthinking, mental health issues, depression, you name it.
I’m sure most if not everyone is familiar with at least one of those disturbances to an extent where they say that it is negatively impacting the quality of their life. And so here I am, learning not only to do nothing but to spend time in pitch black nothingness to break up the egoic construct and its pathological behaviour of overthinking and to reconnect with my true, higher self, one that is guided by intuition, trust and love and thereby rides on the wave of the beautiful unfolding of life with ease, how it is meant to be.
It’s going to take a minute to be comfortable to flow without thinking and worrying about the future and I am confident once I do, it will be a new, beautiful way of being and everything will flow from there.
I know that this place exists. I feel closer to it than ever before. And I feel surprisingly confident that I will eventually “get to it.”
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As I reviewed today's burst, I noticed it is repeating itself. I am taking a deeper look at the content for my inner process. You are free to dismiss it, if you feel called to do so.
I was having lunch with a friend sharing with her my journey of waking up. In between the motions of waking up to Reality, letting go of fears, realising I am not my body and connecting to my true self vs. thinking I am going crazy, I should stop this never-ending seeking and spiritual journeying and go back to doing normal things.
How I am flip-flopping back and forth - we were laughing together. Though the struggle is real. Yet, there is a deeper knowing that the spiritual journey, the awakening is something real and that I ought to do it and surrender to the reality of who I truly am. And that my ego will be shattered and broken down in the process. Or rather, that the dissolution of the ego is a necessary step for waking up.
And ohhh, it is hard. My mind, where the ego resides, tries to find all the reasons why this doesn’t make sense, why it’s crazy, why it’s irresponsible and why I should just get on with "normal" life. Fear keeps me stuck in between those two worlds, the world where I need to go, the awakening me, and the old conventional, mind-based world.
I keep walking that path but I never really fully let go of my old self, the conditioned Vincent that has a certain idea of who he is in the world, what he knows, what he’s good at, where he should be at and what type of life he should live. And those two poles are continuing to tear me apart inside.
I laugh about it because I know there can only be one outcome: to let go, surrender and awaken with a new sense of self, the sense of a higher self, of the true self, of unity and oneness. From the little I know it’s a beautiful place to be but the very entry card for it is to surrender this ego, the thing that keeps me small and limited and in a box that I have unconsciously created for myself.
A box that defines Vincent while he, just like everybody else, is limitless and undefinable. We are all so much more than we think we are. Because the limits of thinking and reflecting keep me in this self-created box of self. We all have this opportunity to wake up to our true selves, a truly free and fearless way of being, acting from a place of love and surrender to what is. No more fighting.
From that place, I can create the most magnificent and powerful life because it is built on a fearless, true, authentic self rather than a mental construct where I am wearing a mask, playing a role, trying to be someone but never be my real self. I might not even realise anymore that I am playing someone because it has become so much of who I think I am.
But when I drop into who I really am, through meditations, through psychedelics, through therapy looking at the limiting beliefs that define and constrain the Vincent me, I, step by step, realise that I am more, I am not what I think because my thoughts just pop out of the subconscious and then I follow, attach to and engage with them and that’s how I let them become "real" and thereby let them define and constrain me.
But I really am unlimited in my possibilities. Yes, there is a physically limited reality to my being but even that one is malleable beyond what I believe. Seemingly miraculous healings of terminal diseases like cancer are possible. It sounds unbelievable from a conventional point of view but they are possible from a higher level understanding of who we truly are.
So despite all these “miracles” accessible from an awakened way of being I keep myself held back in my limited sense of self defined by my ego because its hold on me is strong and it, myself, keeps controlling me through fear. The fear of the unknown of living a full, liberated life.
Yet that is the very entry card: To have faith, let go of fear to live in paradise on earth. And I’m starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. But until I let go of who I think I am, I keep myself in self-imposed bondage of the limited, half-lived life.
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When I become still, I connect with my true self, my eternal self vs. the psychological construct and finite ego self. And I recognise that while I can do what I want in life, there is only one path that makes sense, that deeply resonates within me, that is me, and all the choices collapse into one choiceless choice. There is only one authentic way to be and do.
It’s not the easy path, it’s not the obvious path but it’s the only path that makes me light up, that makes me thrive, that leads to a fulfilling life vs. a life that might look successful from the outside but leaves me empty inside. That is because I don’t get to choose who I am. I am who I am before I come down here and slip into a body. And I am here on a mission. On a mission to wake up to remember to learn my lessons and thereby to expand and grow and recognise my true nature.
Maybe I am just making this up. But what I do know is that one’s I started connecting with my true self, it became clearer and clearer who I need to be in this life. I might be scared of it, I might resist it, it might seem inconvenient, it might require me to change my relationships and my life but deep down I know that it is the only path, the only way to be authentic and true to myself and the reason why I am here.
And yes, sometimes I pinch and ask myself, am I making this all up, am I going crazy? Should I not simply go back to being “normal” and do normal like getting a job or building a business? I can do that and I have enjoyed doing that. But then I realise that I have a far more powerful skill: I can help people on their journey of healing, of recognising who they are so they wake themselves up to their greatest power and most beautiful life. Just as I have been and am doing with myself. I have learnt: In authentic being, the messenger and the message are the same.
And isn’t that the most beautiful gift? Why would I throw this away and do something seemingly safer, more accepted, easier or materially more rewarding? And on many days it's not a clear answer because the conditioning of my ego is strong. I’ve been educated into using my head and reason for navigating life and it seemingly has served me well in many occasions, or has it?
Maybe it has been really good at detracting me from the path I am here to walk and at last, as I am listening less to my mind and more to my heart, intuition and inner calling, I seem to be on a path that is in alignment, fulfilling, more rewarding, more peaceful, calmer, less fearful as I am making peace with life and trust that it will bring me everything I need when I need it.
I am still struggling with these things as I am transitioning from trying to understand and navigate with my head to the faculties below the neck. It’s a seemingly hard transition because it requires a lot of un-conditioning, a lot of letting go of old habits, a lot of surrender, trust and going against what I’ve learnt and been doing all my life. And it’s hard. But something keeps pulling me.
Incredible people suddenly turn up in my life supporting, guiding and encouraging me on this journey. And as I am writing these lines, I am realising again, yes, this is it. I can feed my ego with all the great things I could be doing on the material plane or I can feed my soul and surrender to the path that I came here to live. As Wayne Dyer said: “You can either be a host to God (your true self) or a hostage to your ego. It’s your choice.”
When I write these lines or when I talk with someone or leave them a message about how they can navigate the difficulties in their life, it just pours out of me, I don’t have to think, it’s effortless, it’s clear and it strikes a cord, it resonates with whoever the message is for and it elevates them in their journey and it enriches mine. In that moment I am reminded that this is who I am.
I can do a lot of things and as human beings we have the freedom to choose whatever we want to do. And yet the calling to the this journey is strong and I can’t ignore it nor the feeling that there is some profound work to do. And it feels like not doing that would be a huge missed opportunity, a failure.
So choosing this path becomes a choice-less choice. And I believe deep down we all know who we are and hence finding and connecting with that truth and then living it every day is the path to a fulfilling life. It’s both beautiful because no more choices are needed and it’s hard because it might go against everything you have been telling yourself.
But when you get really still and quiet, you know who you truly are.
That’s it for this week. I hope you had an inspired one. Have a wonderful weekend and see you next week.
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How often do we find ourselves in indecisiveness, whether it is what should I pick from the dinner menu or whether it is should I marry him or her? Decisions can be agonising and drag on for years or even decades of matters unsettled in the mind. Whenever there’s indecisiveness, there’s suffering as I cannot progress with and enjoy life.
I can delay the decision but that doesn't really work, procrastination just adds to the suffering, it just drags it out. How beautiful would it be if I never really had to make a decision because I am so clear that I always know what to do? Is that an impossibility, a fantasy? I don’t believe so and I’ve been on that very journey trying to get to that place.
I am most certainly not there yet and all kinds of matters keep popping up or continuing to be present in my life. Me looping in them is not just annoying but weighing down on the quality of my life because they seem to be present all the time, they pop up as thoughts when I am in the shower or trying to enjoy lunch. These thoughts…
I’ve become better at letting them pass and not jumping on those trains of thought but because they are never really gone they keep taking me out of presence and make it hard to enjoy the moment and be happy.
What’s the solution? The only way I know to get out of this is to sit myself down, become very still meaning no distractions or escapes, and stay there until I’m so fed up with it that I put my foot down and take a stand, that I become clear about the matter and choose a way of being that feels true to me. No more running away.
It's grounding myself until I am committed to a higher way of being. Sitting still lets me work through the myriads of stories that play up in my head about who I am, need to be, want to be, could be, and all the blah blah and thereby helps me sort myself out and get clear. Silence reveals to me the deep-seated truth of who I am and how I want to show up in the world - and as the chattering mind starts fading away, clarity arises.
The awareness bit, that’s the first step. The second step is a little harder. It is for me to have the courage and commit 100% to this way of being, that means becoming so clear and coherent in who I am that whenever I am presented with a decision, whether to turn left or right, what to eat, how to spend my time and with whom, whether to take that job or not, who to spend my life with, how to prioritise my day, to choose freedom over money or not, there is a place in me where all things are clear.
The hard part of this second step, the embodiment bit, is to have the continued courage to choose integrity and authenticity 100% of the time over what feels easy, convenient or what other people do - not to fall by the wayside by temptations to take the path of least resistance.
I am no longer drinking because I realise that it is not in alignment with who I want to be, it takes me away from my journey, from what is important to me and it is a distraction. So I gradually drank less and less until I was seeing someone that didn’t drink at all and I said, ok, let me drop it completely and that was it.
This obviously leads to a very different social life and that is okay because it is who I have become and how I want to show up in the world. When you become clear about who you are, you adjust because the price of not being yourself is too high, it creates suffering because I then have to play and do someone else. Unconsciously or not.
That is the power of knowing who I am and my way of being simply becomes an expression of that and so do decisions. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy because there are tough decisions in life and that's exactly why it is so important to sit down to become still and then clear about who I am.
Because once I am 100% clear, no temptation will take me off my path and I can flow through life without agony about whether to go “left or right.” From that place, I am no longer compromising who I am, no matter what’s on offer. I am standing on solid ground. And so I am sitting still while the nagging mind keeps saying: “Hey, you gotta do, everybody else is doing, you are falling behind.” But I know that that’s bulls**t and the mind creates a lot of it.
When I am in total inner alignment with myself, things are so clear, that not only I move quickly and decisively but everything starts falling into place because clarity is powerful and it attracts the very people and things into my life for it to unfold in the most magical way.
Clarity is priceless. I can run around all day like a crazy man doing, doing, doing but not knowing why I am doing whatever I am doing and whether it gets me where I need to go. Or I can sit still, patiently, until I am so clear, that I just walk straight down the road that I need to walk down.
That’s the choice I have and once I see it as such, it becomes a choice-less choice, it becomes clear what needs to be done. And so I am grounding myself until I am.
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There’s nothing to fear. Everything I’ve ever been afraid of is an illusion. My fear of running out of money, my fear of being a failure, my fear of missing out on life, my fear of not mattering, my fear of being alone. I could go on and on.
All of these fears are illusions because they are born out of the psychologically wounded Vincent, wounded by all the painful things that happened to him like the divorce of his parents, getting kicked out of his company, his heart being broken, being made fun of when little, losing a lot of money, all of these are adverse, in the moment very painful experiences until I start waking up to the blessing in disguise they are.
They are all here to not only show me my wounds and thereby teach me what I need to learn and heal from, they are also here for something much greater: To wake me up to the illusion I made myself into: The idea that I am just Vincent in his physical body, with his certain looks, personality, story, etc. This is a very limited version of me. And one that feels wounded because it feels little and therefore it needs to become someone in this unsafe world.
It has to fight to survive, to make it and live a life free from pain and suffering. That life already exists but it does not exist within Vincent. Vincent can heal these wounds bit by bit whenever they are triggered, and every trigger is a gift, showing him these wounds.
Or Vincent can take one big liberating step realising that Vincent is just an illusion. It is a construct of his mind based on all that has ever happened in his life. It’s a construct based on the past. And the moment he realises that he can take a big, bold step and step out of these memories and this construct entirely and realise his true self: Pure, eternal consciousness.
I am simply the witness of Vincent experiencing life through his personality, his body and his senses. I am the witness of Vincent. I am not Vincent. And once that sinks in and by sinking in I mean once I actually start embodying this profound Truth then things start changing. I start seeing that, really there’s nothing to fear. I am simply consciousness having an experience through the avatar of a body.
And as it says in my currently favourite book Three Magic Words: My body is a product of pure spirit. And spirit is perfect hence my body is perfect also. Once I wake up to that reality, and this is what waking up really is, it is the realisation that nothing is as it seems and that I am not my body but that my body is an expression of pure spirit and that I, who is perceiving everything is pure consciousness expressing itself through my body constrained by time, space, my senses and my limiting beliefs.
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So when I not only realise but fully embody that Truth, my body can start to heal because all the limitations I am thinking, the grievances I am holding, and the fears I am having are reflecting themselves in my body and perpetuating themselves in my thoughts which I then, unconsciously, follow and these thoughts then manifest itself again in my physical reality around me and inside my body.
There’s nothing to fear because Reality is upside down, inverted, the other way around, reversed. I am not my body that has a limited shelf life and a mind, an ego that is thinking and needs to survive in a resource constraint environment against other bodies with similar limitations.
No, I am pure consciousness that has taken on limited form to have an experience and to wake itself up from the very limitation it has imposed on itself. And when it does, it realises there is no limitation to it in the first place. And there’s nothing to fear. Death is simply its return to pure, unconstrained consciousness.
Therefore everything is a gift for Vincent to wake up from the limited self that he thinks he is. Whether it is heartbreak to heal from the wound of thinking I am not enough myself or whether it is from losing money to wake up to the reality that I can create my own abundance if I think, believe and live it.
Yes, some of these things still seem a little crazy, a little far-fedged for the little Vincent to grasp - though slowly but surely, piece by piece this is becoming ever more clear in moments of deep prolonged meditation where the borders of my body seem to disappear. Or in daily life when I am observing my thoughts and seeing how they come out of nothing, that they are not me and that the ones I choose, whether consciously or not, are the thoughts that are creating my limited reality.
I am becoming ever more conscious in choosing my thoughts very carefully and thereby my reality keeps expanding and expanding until one day I am fully embodying life as a limitless being of consciousness having chosen a limited experience in this body.
And on that day there will be no more worrying and suffering but life will effortlessly flow like water in a river bed. And upon encountering an obstacle, it simply notices it and gracefully flows around it continuing its journey. As it says in Three Magic Words: There is no obstacle in the mind of God (Universal Consciousness), which is in me, around me and serves me now.
Who would you be in a place of no fear?
If this inspired you, here's an interview with a nurse describing her near-death experience.
Before you go, please help me to make your experience better and answer the below with one click:
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Having finished a 40-day twice-daily hours long meditation streak, I sat down for the first day of my next 40-day cycle. And what came up was “living an awakened life.” Living an awakened life means living from a place of wonder, love and possibility. Going through life with an open heart and a sense and deep feeling of conviction that everything will fall into place and great things are going to come if only I go through life with that very feeling.
I literally manifest the life I live through the thoughts I think and not the other way around: I am not a victim of circumstances but rather I am continuously creating my circumstances through my way of being which is informed by what I am thinking from moment to moment.
My subconscious mind keeps presenting me with thoughts based on the past, challenges and obstacles as well as thoughts of a beautiful future, the one I have been dreaming about. It is me who chooses which thoughts I engage with and my habituated selecting needs to be broken. A new habit needs to be built that choses and explores the positive, empowering thoughts that come up rather than the ruminating, negative and full of limitations ones.
If I want to live an awakened life, I have to awake to the reality that thoughts create my world. I don’t choose the thoughts that pop up in my mind but I do choose which one’s I accept and engage with. Thoughts are like trains coming into a train station. I don’t control the trains but I can choose which train I get on and how long I ride it.
And the very trains I ride determine where I am going and how my life is unfolding. Living an awakened life means being very conscious about this process and choosing my trains with a lot of care. This is a skill that needs to be learned, it’s not innate, and that takes time and effort. Without training, I naturally follow my thoughts on autopilot as they pop out of the seeming nothingness of my mind, errounously believing I am my thoughts and they are reality.
As I am getting more conscious about which thoughts, the empowering rather than the limiting, negative ones, I want to ride, my subconscious is learning in the background overwriting my old programs that are the origin of all these negative thoughts in the first place. And so little by little the thoughts that pop out of my subconscious mind are changing and it’s becoming easier and easier to just ride positive ones.
And there comes a day when that’s what all thoughts will be. That is living an awakened life, one of being empowered, truly being in the driver seat. And not being determined by my past and my past thinking, conditioning and memories but creating a new version of myself every day, that is ever more empowered, freer, lighter, more expansive and set in the future I envision.
This is not about so-called “positive thinking.” This is not about suppressing negative thoughts. This is about consciously choosing which trains I ride rather than being in denial saying that I’m no longer thinking negative thoughts. Pushing those away only gives them more power because I am engaging with them. The brain doesn't understand not. If I tell you not to think about an elephant, you will most definitely think about one now.
So life becomes like a meditation: A thought comes up, I just notice the thought and then let it move on. I am in the train station and not getting on any train, that is what I am doing in my meditation, no matter what the thought is. And sometimes, and sometimes more often, I will get on a train unconsciously and when I notice I step out of it again and let it go. Standing again at a train station observing my thoughts without riding them.
That is why meditation is so powerful. It helps me to see my thoughts for what they are rather than me becoming them. Meditation is the training to learn that I am not my thoughts but that they simply arise from my subconscious which is a product of my memories and past experiences. If I want to create a different future, instead of a continuation of the past, I have to let the old thinking go and ride new, consciously chosen thoughts.
Bringing that skill into daily life means intentionally picking the thoughts I want to ride thereby feeling better, making different choices, creating different outcomes and thereby life becomes a consciously created one rather than one that happened to me.
Even better, this new life is creating new empowering memories and thought patterns that feed back into my subconscious mind and suddenly the thoughts that I am being presented with are the very ones I would have consciously want to pick myself. I no longer have to deal with those negative ones, a new Vincent has been born.
And the life he has been meaning to live is now unfolding by itself. Effortlessly. And that’s the promise of living an awakened life.
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I was feeling I am ripped apart again, not physically but inside myself. There are two worlds and it feels like I am straddled between them with one leg in each. And it’s a very unnerving place to be. Really, there is only one world but the other world, the one I am coming from and where most of the world operates within, is an illusion - yet a very powerful one.
It’s the world of the mind. It’s a fictitious world as it is solely made up by my mind. It’s not real but it feels very real. It’s also the world of control and one that is driven by fear meaning if I'm not in control something bad will happen. It’s also the world of worries, anxieties and not being myself.
And then there’s the other world, the real one, the only one, yet the one that is so hard to see from the world of the mind which I am coming from because I have been educated and indoctrinated into that world of so-called reason, logic, intellect and thinking - and that that what I perceive is truth.
Nothing could be further from the Truth. The real world is one of surrender, of trusting the heart, of being connected with one’s intuition and body, one of flow, of letting go and of peace and bliss and full presence. Being in the moment because that’s the only thing there ever is.
Tomorrow and yesterday don’t exist. They are memories, figments in my mind, but there really just is right now and if I cannot be present, I am never in the now and that means I am always somewhere else, existing rather than experiencing life.
Maybe not even existing but suffering, worrying and being anxious about what could go wrong, making the wrong decisions, worrying about how it could play out and what other people think. That’s the world of the mind and it’s an illusion.
So I find myself in this place aware of the "situation" but so married to my mind that it feels very risky to let go of it because that's the unknown and who knows whether I might survive in that place. Typing these words down I realise how utterly ridiculous it is and yet, in this moment, that’s how it feels. And it’s exhausting.
But this is the only world I know, the world I have been operating from all my life. I’m told that I am not even a mental person yet I’m operating from that plane most of the time because I don’t know any better. I’m told I’m a heart-based person and I’ve been running around in the wrong outfit all my life.
I guess that’s why I am here and typing these words. Deep down I’ve been realising it and it has dragged me to this very place I'm in showing me that I am not being myself, that something needs to change. But this is not just me. Really, nothing is as it seems because the whole world, with very few exceptions, is stuck in the mind.
This mind, my mind, creates this illusion of the character named Vincent that is such and such and does such and such and worries about such and such and is perceived as such and such. It’s all a construct, it’s not real.
And so the things I worry about are not real either. They are creations of the subconscious mind that keep popping up at the surface as thoughts and the mental me attaches and elaborates on them rather than just noticing them, saying thank you and letting them go. No need to think about it. And soon, they would become lesser and lesser.
And they already are. Meditating hours a day every day has been eye-opening. There’s nothing more powerful in my experience than creating a strong meditation practice. I used to think when I felt very clear and life was running smoothly that I don’t need one right now - but I know better now.
No matter how I am doing, I meditate because only there I am confronted and presented with the messiness of my mind, how ridiculous it is. And it makes me wonder how could I trust this entity to guide me through life. Only through my meditation practice, did I let sanity back into my life.
Really, we are all insane. If I would speak out loudly what is going on in my mind it would not be long until I was locked up. That is a powerful thing to contemplate. To look at my thoughts, every single one of them, as an objective observer.
And so I am realising that nothing is as it seems. My mind creates that world for me and I take it for real, continuously presenting me with all the dangers and things that could go wrong because that’s what the mind mainly is here for, to keep me alive. And it does its job really well: It comes up even with the most remote and unlike possibilities. And yes, pretty much all of them are fictitious.
My whole existence is a fiction. Vincent is just a label, what I do is changing all the time, my cells are dying and birthed all the time, nothing in me is stable and my physical existence is a manifestation of spirit and so is the mind.
So the mind keeps me in bondage creating a world of illusions, that is until I let it go. Until I say thank you for keeping me safe and bringing me to today in one piece. And now, I no longer need your guidance. I love for you to be creative and come up with ideas but as the driver of my life, you are not needed, there is someone much better than me and that is trusting myself, my heart and intuition to guide me through life.
From there on everything will become effortless and beautiful. But until I am ready to surrender my illusion, the battle continues.
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Today, I am giving you and me a break and instead I am sharing a powerful meditation from the book Three Magic Words. It talks about the paradigm shift from thinking to knowing, from chasing to being, from controlling to trusting. It gives us a glimpse of how an awakened life looks and feels like. It might not speak to your mind but maybe it does resonate with your heart, gut or soul. You will know.
I know that I am pure spirit, that I always have been, and that I always will be. There is inside me a place of confidence and quietness and security where all things are known and understood. This is the Universal Mind, God, of which I am a part and which responds to me as I ask of it. This Universal Mind knows the answer to all of my problems, and even now the answers are speeding their way to me. I needn’t struggle for them; I needn’t worry or strive for them. When the time comes, the answers will be there. I give my problems to the great mind of God; I let go of them, confident that the correct answers will return to me when they are needed. Through the great law of attraction, everything in life that I need for my work and fulfillment will come to me. It is not necessary that I strain about this, only believe. For in the strength of my belief, my faith will make it so. I see the hand of divine intelligence all about me, in the flower, the tree, the brook, the meadow. I know that the intelligence that created all these things is in me and around me and that I can call upon it for my slightest need. I know that my body is a manifestation of pure spirit and that spirit is perfect; therefore my body is perfect also. I enjoy life, for each day brings a constant demonstration of the power and wonder of the universe and myself. I am confident. I am serene. I am sure. No matter what obstacle or undesirable circumstance crosses my path, I refuse to accept it, for it is nothing but illusion. There can be no obstacle or undesirable circumstance to the mind of God, which is in me, and around me, and serves me now.
If you enjoyed this, you will love listening to Wayne Dyer narrating it including a short introduction why it is so important what you do before we go to bed and how listening to a meditation like this is putting you into your highest state:
Dr Wayne Dyer - 5 Minutes Before You Fall Asleep
And if you liked that too, here is the meditation on repeat to which I have listened to many times while falling asleep.
Have a beautiful weekend. ✨
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Waking up is f**ing exhausting. I feel I’m in a constant place of undecidedness but it’s not that usual place of indecision. It’s the biggest “decision” there is. And if my striping naked Ayahuasca experience is of any indication (you can listen to it here), the decision has already been made.
I am just dancing around it as I am trying to avoid completing it. And that is creating the very suffering - both in real life as well as at that time in my Ayahuasca experience. I had to let go, surrender and strip naked to experience the liberation of doing that yet I could not get myself to do it. That is, until I did. And oh boy, was it freeing. Not only because I was no longer stuck in limbo land but also because it was easy.
The idea of striping naked kept me in bondage because it felt like an impossibility to do but when I took off my last piece of clothing in front of a group of 20 people, so what, I stood there naked. No big deal. Next…
And that’s the very situation I am finding myself now in again. There’s a deeper calling to surrender to the trust my higher self and there’s my earthly, psychological version of Vincent that doesn’t trust, worries about the future, needs to make and hoard money, doesn’t want to let go, or cannot, and needs to control. And the fight between these two seemingly very opposing "I"s of juxtaposed realms and understandings is tearing me inside apart.
Because until I “strip naked” aka go through the door of letting go of wanting to control life and outcome, I am stuck in limbo not knowing what to do because it touches every aspect of my life. Do I take the surrendered, possibly divine route or do I take the material, controlled, fear-based route?
And I know the answer, of course, after all these years of seeking, it can only be the former yet in four decades of habit forming and conditioning, Vincent and his mind only know the latter and he's winding and whining to let go of it because uncertainty is where that leads me into - and that’s exactly the place I need to go, where all the magic happens.
And this being in between worlds is literally driving me insane as my mind is trying to decide what is right and wrong, what is the right, the best path. But the place I am going the mind has never experienced, it doesn't know nor understand it, because it has never been and because it is the place of no mind.
It's the place where it surrenders its domain, its grip, where it is no longer in control. How could the mind be in favour of such a place where it no longer has much importance nor leadership, it kind of becomes obsolete for navigating life. So of course, I, the mind, am scared. And yet there is no way around it.
I can keep stalling, thinking, trying to avoid, dancing around that door that I choose I will ultimately go through. And I know deep down I will do it. It's not if but when. And I know when I will do it, it will be easy, just like when I was fighting with myself whether to strip naked or not, yet I seem I can't quite yet take that step.
It feels like such a leap, such a dangerous step to take and so I keep dancing around it in between worlds, a painful place to be because it’s neither one nor the other. It's carrying the burden of an unmade decision that is constantly on my mind.
I know I cannot and won't go back to the old ways so there’s only the option to go forward, to surrender - and yet, I can't quite do it yet. My mind is still too powerful or rather I am still giving power to my mind rather than my heart, my knowing deep down where I know what I need to do.
So I keep on suffering and am thinking myself insane until I am finally taking that step. So I keep on stalling, hiding under the covers, procrastinating with decisions, holding back, trying not to think of what I “need” to do, kind of stopping to live life - at least from the perspective of how it could be.
And maybe that’s the process I need to go through. Maybe this is the dark night of the soul. And if my striping naked experience is of any foretelling, taking the actual step will be very easy. The moment I am ready, I can just do it and it’s done. That's it.
But for now the mind is still firmly in the driver seat, driving me insane, keeping me suffering, until I had enough and go through the door that I know I will go through. Until then, my suffering will keep showing me what I need to see so that I can do what I need to do. And once I do, I am taking a step back into the Garden of Eden being my true self. What a beautiful place that will be.
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I found myself on a call where a friend complained about a friend of hers who kept reminding her of her ex-boyfriend and this brought back painful memories. This is a gift in disguise. Because when I put myself in a place of suffering, the suffering is there to show me what I am doing to myself. Not the suffering is the gift but what the suffering teaches me. Her friend was her gift because it showed her a wound that she is having. Her friend played the "bad guy" to point it out to her, unconsciously, just by being herself.
I can build a life around trying to avoid the things that trigger me, that make me uncomfortable, but no matter how sophisticatedly I do that, as I keep carrying that wound with me it stays a burden because it limits my freedom and my self-expression as I constantly have to navigate life avoiding it getting touched.
There’s no way around the work I am here to do which is to heal my wounds and thereby realise I was whole all along and that there's nothing that needs to be added for me to be complete. Rather the opposite. As Rumi said: You don’t have to seek for love but merely remove all the barriers that you have built within you against it.
Wounds are trauma or past conflicts that we are here to heal. If someone or something brings that wound to the surface, it’s painful, but it’s a gift because it offers me an opportunity to see that wound (again) and, if I do my work, to heal it so I no longer have to suffer from it. And from that place I expand, become less constrained and freer and I don’t need to avoid that friend or tell that friend not to mention my ex.
Wounds like these make life extremely complicated and yet that’s what we are doing all the time. I experience something I don’t like and then I try to avoid it to not have that negative experience again. Little by little I thereby constrain my life more and more and at some point, I can barely move anymore without freaking out.
It turns out my neighbour has a cat phobia when Lexi (my cat) explored the garden and curiously entered his apartment. I didn't even know that cat phobia was a thing and upon looking into it I found there's also zoo-phobia - fear of animals in general. Can you imagine?
These are unusual examples but it speaks to how we constrain our lives, consciously and unconsciously until we need everything to be a certain way or otherwise we get angry, frustrated, anxious, worried, annoyed, jealous, you name it. And thereby making our lives miserable.
I cannot and am not supposed to control the world, rather I am meant to explore and flow through life just like the water in a river bed, to surrender. And when there’s an obstacle I don’t fight or try to avoid it, I notice it and just flow around it, gracefully. But the more I am trying to control the world and try hard to make sure that things are exactly how I want them, the less enjoyable my life becomes because the harder it will be for me to be pleased.
And the less open I become to explore new territory which is one of the most beautiful things and the very purpose of life, to explore, to wonder and wander around, to be full of curiosity about what might happen next, to be present, and in awe for how life surprises me with new experiences - and to expand and grow through them.
So if I am (or she is) ready to grow then this girlfriend situation is the perfect invitation for her to visit that wound she has with her ex and to heal it, to realise she does not need to be triggered, she can just be thankful for her time and experience with him, realising that the difficult relationship showed her something she needed to learn. Relationships are always a mirror for us, to see what she needed to see, and for him to see what he needed to see.
This is not an active act. We are all constantly showing others what they need to see by triggering them so we all can evolve. This is life. It's not to be avoided, it's to be met with humility and the willingness to see it for what it is. Because with every trigger I remove, I heal a wound and I expand, I become larger and I go through life with more love and openness creating more beauty for ourselves and allowing others to heal.
That's why we are here. To grow, to expand and thereby to shine our light. But when I am busy licking and avoiding my wounds, my light is out, it’s dark, and I feel dark with all the negative emotions I harbour. And even if my wounds are not triggered because I have built such sophisticated mechanisms to avoid them, even then I am not shining because these mechanisms constrain me in what I can do, say and who I can be. I've built my own prison.
We all are here to shine, expand, and most importantly be ourselves in an unconstrained way. To share with the world our uniqueness simply through who we are rather than the compromised and limited version of ourselves.
So there’s no way around for me to do this work. It's the most important thing I can do. Because with every wound I heal, I remove some of the clay around the sculpture that is me and once I am done, there will be just the beautiful me left. And I will feel very light, in peace and shine brightly. What more beautiful work could there be?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit myawakening.substack.com