What most people get wrong about life.

(the reason behind your suffering)

EFFORTLESS LIFE LETTER 35

reading time - 12 minutes

You know how much I love to explore and talk about emotions but for today’s letter I’m going to challenge the cerebral aspect of you.

 

My biggest achievement to date is to love life.

 

Not because I am happy all the time or because life is easy, but because I’ve come to accept the nature of it.

 

This hasn’t always been the case.

 

If you are familiar with my story, you probably know that I grew up in an abusive household that led me to develop an addiction to self-harming, a deep level of shame and self-hatred.

 

I went from one toxic relationship to another and spent years considering suicide because I didn’t know how to understand and make sense of what I had gone through and acknowledge the suffering I was in.

 

About 5 years ago, I got to a place of so much despair that I needed to make a decision.

 

Leave or stay.

 

I remember coming across this video on YouTube about suicide.

 

For the first time in my life, it felt like someone was able to understand, see and feel the pain I was in. The parallel reality of infinite torment I was living in whenever I wasn’t acting as Olivia the girlfriend, Olivia the employee or Olivia the friend.

 

It made the Olivia, who was suffering, ashamed, desperate and lost, exist.

 

To come back to what I said at the start of this letter, I am only in a position of acceptance towards life because I understand life.

 

So what exactly does that mean?

 

What does it mean to accept life?

 

and what does it mean to understand life?

 

One of the most common feedback I get from the people I get the chance to work with through my Open Conversation Sessions is that they have seen therapists who helped them validate their painful experiences by listening to them but weren’t able to see any long-term positive impact just from sharing what they have been through.

 

Coming from a place of someone who has felt trapped in their own pain for so long, I can deeply relate to this feedback.

 

I am in no position to criticise or downgrade the essential and very valuable work of a mental health professional or mental health facility, but there is something absolutely crucial every human being needs if we want to alleviate our suffering.

 

We need to be able to understand the story and mechanisms behind our suffering.

 

It’s not enough to just acknowledge, feel and validate the pain.

 

You need to understand how it happened, why it happened and the consequences of it.

 

Taking someone through the process of understanding the story of their painful experiences will naturally bring them to a place of acceptance. It’s the only place where true healing and integration can happen.

 

It’s a process that feels like puzzle pieces you put together. Every memory, every emotion, every reaction, every trigger becomes a key piece to that puzzle and it’s only when all the pieces are put together, that the real story is fully revealed.

 

The puzzle piece story is usually very different from the initial story we tell ourselves.

 

Only having that initial story is the reason why I was stuck in pain and torment for so long. I didn’t understand all the components of what had happened to me and the roles I was playing in my own story.

 

You cannot accept, welcome or allow in something you don’t understand. The instinctive reaction we all have is actually to do the exact opposite.

 

We reject, judge and push away what we don’t understand because it represents a threat to who we think we are.

 

This creates resistance towards what we don’t understand. Which then prevents us from accepting it.

 

It’s why a democrat will resist anything a republican says and vice-versa.

 

They both lack the awareness and open-mindedness to detach from their single perspective to consider and understand their opponent’s views.

 

This is also why grief or the abrupt end of a relationship without explanation or closure are such painful experiences, you are forced to accept reality without being given the opportunity to understand the full story.

 

Okay, now that we found out how crucial understanding is to acceptance, let’s try to understand the concept of life and find out how much of life you are currently resisting.

 

This is where we are going to get very technical and logical, so buckle up.

 

The structure of life

 

Life is a system.

 

If we remove the magical, mystical, and spiritual meanings humans have given to life, we are left with a set of systems, principles and natural laws.

 

…not very cute right?

 

The thing is, if you want to enjoy a game and give yourself a chance to get better and potentially even win, you are going to have to understand the rules of this game.

 

You could deny the existence of rules and approach the game hoping for luck, or good fortune, or cheat your way to winning, but then you can’t act surprised when the consequences of your ignorance make you lose everything you have.

 

If you want to enjoy and get good at playing the game of life, you need to observe, study and understand the rules of life.

 

Let’s start with the most obvious one.

 

1) Life is an infinite cycle of beginnings and endings

 

One of my favorite ways to observe that is by spending time in nature.

 

Winter, spring, summer, autumn.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn.

 

Death, birth, growth, decline.

Death, birth, growth, decline.

Death, birth, growth, decline.

 

A never-ending repetitive process of cycles.

 

Each cycle comes with its own characteristics, behaviors, duration,  qualities etc.

 

The reason why I love to sit with and learn from nature is because it emulates one of the most honorable values, I try to build my life upon, which is truth.

 

Nature doesn’t resist reality.

 

It fully surrenders to life and knows exactly how, why, and when to let go of the leaves of a tree because it’s time to welcome the winter.

 

It respects the cold, death and silence that comes with the winter because resisting it would be resisting every other season that comes after.

 

This universal rule is being applied to absolutely everything that has ever existed.

 

The leaves that fall off a tree just before the arrival of winter don’t just die and disappear. They decompose into the earth to become fertile soil (rebirth) for when the spring arrives.

 

Many of us struggle to accept this rule.

 

We actually have quite a conditional relationship with it.

 

“If only life was just the sun, summer, love, holidays, happiness, excitement, abundance, beauty, and light.”

 

You have turned your expectation of happiness into a constant state of being, an end goal to get to and stay at, to the point where you can’t even fully enjoy a good moment, because you don’t want to let go of happiness, light and joy every time the next season approaches.

 

Imagine nature holding on to summer the same way you are holding on to happiness.

 

Nature’s whole system would completely get out of balance:

• certain places would get way too hot
• we would have more severe storms
• we would lose certain plants and species
• certain populations would struggle to adapt

It would create a lot of changes, disruption and short-term damage that will then affect everything and everyone else in the world (the economy, people’s health and well-being etc).

 

Life itself is a cycle.

 

With a

• beginning (birth)
• expansion (growth)
• ageing (decline)
• end (death)

and within this macro cycle of life, you can find an infinite number of micro cycles that respect this law.

 

- Every cell of your body goes through this cycle.

- Every emotion you feel goes through this cycle.

- Every relationship you have goes through this cycle.

- Every job opportunity you take goes through this cycle.

 

Absolutely everything.

 

If you take the time to observe, reflect and integrate this law, it will bring you immense peace.

 

You won’t make happiness, another positive emotion, person, job or goal your ultimate destination because you understand that it is just a season.

 

And like every season, it is meant to pass so that you can welcome and embrace the lessons and qualities of the next one.

 

2) Contrast

 

Everything in existence has its opposite.

• Love doesn’t mean anything without fear.
• Life doesn’t mean anything without death.
• Success doesn’t mean anything without failure.
• The yin doesn’t mean anything without the yang.
• Beauty doesn’t mean anything without ugliness.
• Happiness doesn’t mean anything without misery.

The deeper you explore one side of the coin, the better you will be able to understand, appreciate and respect the other.

 

But if you fear one side of the coin, you will also reject its opposite.

 

I have contemplated, sat with and explored death deeply, especially during my suicidal years. I became so familiar with death that when I decided to commit to life, I couldn’t help but fully allow myself to embrace everything that comes with life.

 

I said

• yes to fear
• yes to pain
• yes to failure
• yes to misery
• yes to ugliness
• yes to imperfection

which allowed me to say yes to love, progress, courage, healing, happiness too.

 

It’s what got me out of this No man’s land I was stuck in for so long, which is this painful place where suicidal and depressed people live.

 

We go there to escape the pain we are feeling, but we simultaneously escape everything we desperately need to heal.

 

It’s a place where there is nothing, because it’s not an actual place.

 

A lot of us shy away or fear everything that isn’t presented as good, right, perfect and lovable by the environment we grew up in and society.

 

But this also means that we close ourselves off to the full human experience.

 

The human that you are and the life that you live are not just only about this one side of the coin.

 

It’s about all of it. And especially the side you avoid looking at, pretending it doesn’t exist.

 

By doing that you don’t only reject the truth of reality; you reject life itself.

 

You postpone or forget about the dreams and goals you have because you don’t want to acknowledge that time passes and that death is real.

 

You fear looking at the dark aspects of yourself, which prevents you from stepping into your light.

 

You are obsessed with perfection and being a good person, so you fail to see and accept everything imperfect about you, other people and the world.

 

And you know what, you actually end up in a kind of no man’s land too, by numbing the stress, anxiety, and internal turmoil you are feeling with endless distractions (cigarettes, alcohol, porn, social media, Netflix, work, sports, going out).

 

But, I have good news for you.

 

This law of contrast also means that for every problem you have in your life,

 

there is a solution.

 

The solution to each of your problems will reveal itself to you if you are willing to explore, observe, understand and embrace the other side of the coin of life, love, light and happiness.

 

3) Entropy and progress

 

This leads us to the last law we are going to explore together.

 

Entropy is the tendency to go towards chaos and disorder if left alone or unattended.

 

Disorder is the default state of life. Order is artificial because it requires a lot of energy and effort to maintain.

 

Think about a fire you made to keep you warm. If you want the fire to keep burning (order), you will have to put effort into gradually adding some wood to it. If you stop adding the wood (allow chaos to creep in), the fire will die off.

 

The same applies to everything in life.

 

You need to keep “adding wood” to:

• your health
• your skills
• your knowledge
• your relationships
• your house or apartment
• your work or personal projects

otherwise, it will tend to chaos and disorder before dying off (to then get reborn into something new – refer to law 1.)

 

That is why your room becomes a mess (chaos) if you don’t regularly clean it (order).

 

That is why your relationships fade (chaos) if you don’t actively evolve together (order).

 

This is why you don’t achieve your dreams and goals (chaos) if you don’t consistently work towards them (order).

 

To avoid entropy (chaos, disorder, death) for as long as possible in any aspect of your life, you will need a lot of energy.

 

This is very difficult for most people because they fail to address and fix everything that is costing them a lot of energy (aka The broken leg analogy from last week’s letter).

 

If your health is a mess, your relationships are full of drama, and you are dissatisfied with your job, how will you find the energy to push against the law of entropy to make this big dream of yours come true?

 

If you want to get serious about achieving any goal, you need to learn how to control your attention and energy (the wood) and intentionally pour it into yourself (the fire) instead of wasting it on people, places and situations that are close to death (it’s you adding wood to a fire that is already out).

 

I created a free course where I help you gain clarity on what and who should deserve your energy and attention so that you can save your limited and precious energy for what really matters to you. You can access the course here.

 

Becoming aware of this natural law of entropy is essential to understanding how to prioritize and organise how you are living your life and what you want to make out of it.

 

It allows you to create stability and make consistent progress. You will quickly find out that overcoming entropy will become one of the main sources of happiness and meaning your life.

 

Falling in love with life.

 

Life is a very ordered system ruled by many different laws and paradigms (more on this in the coming letters).

 

They constitute the rules of a game most of us have no idea how to play, despite some of us having been in the game of life for 20,30, 50 or 70 years.

 

I highly invite you to sit with, question, observe and explore the laws we have discovered together.

 

Then, I want you to take the time to ask yourself,

 

- what aspects of life am I still resisting and struggling to accept?

(which law am I resisting the most?)

 

- And what are the beliefs attached to that resistance that don’t allow me to accept life for what it is?

 

The answers to these questions will help you understand the nature of life and guide you down the path of acceptance.

 

Which is where you will encounter a never-ending appreciation for life and deep internal peace.

 

I will see you in next week’s letter,

Until then, take care.

 

Oli.

 

If you find this letter valuable, please consider sharing this letter with a friend. I appreciate you supporting my work.

 

If you want help to start your journey towards healing your relationship with yourself, getting to know who you are and a life aligned with your authentic self, consider my self-love course CHOOSING ME.

 

You will learn how to choose yourself (and not feel guilty about it) instead of letting the world choose who you have to be and what you have to do.

Inside, you will get:

• The CHOOSING ME curriculum composed of 5 modules
• A Clarity Card set sent straight to your home to support each module
• 2 Personal Projects guidelines and templates to keep making progress in your healing journey

So that you can:

• Build deep awareness around who you are.
• Know exactly what you want for your life.
• Set strong boundaries and inspire respect, peace and presence through your energy.
• Create a life built around self-love and confidence that just keeps getting better and better.

Click here to read more about it.