Awaken to Your True Self

When we keep the past alive by reviving and resurrecting these stories repeatedly, they don’t allow for what-is to be. We only see what is happening now through a lens of past experiences and meanings: a projection of our interpretations of the past onto the present moment. Our stories keep us bound to the past. They prevent us from having a direct experience of the present; they essentially keep us trapped in time. Your attachment to the past—an addiction to your stories—is what’s keeping you stuck and suffering.

More often than not, they believe they are looking for results when they’re actually looking to validate their stories. The more they focus on their stucky story, the more it becomes the focus. The more they invest in the story and the seeking, the more power they give it. It becomes more about the narrative around finding a solution than actually solving it and finding peace. We naively believe that our addiction to our struggle gives us a higher chance of solving it. You don’t get what you want—you get what you focus on.

As he seeks to fulfill his needs, the narcissist doesn’t find much use for a person as an actual person because he is unable to empathize, relate, or be intimate with them. But an object can be used: they serve their user, giving them purpose. Everything in the now objectified space is classified as either ‘useful’ or ‘not useful.’ The narcissist does not actually let others meet his needs: he uses other people to fulfill his own needs. The narcissist still has other people in his life to fulfill his needs, but they aren’t the ones to fulfill them—he is.

All blame—along with justifying, projecting, and avoidance—keeps us bound to victimhood. These reactive patterns prevent ownership, accountability, and responsibility—which are required to have freedom. This triad is the rectifier of victimhood. They are liberators of the disempowered. Our sense of power is not found in demanding handouts, nor from pity, nor through riots and rage—but in owning our circumstance and taking responsibility and accountability for it. Ending the enabling is loving because that is what liberates.

After twelve years at school—feeling hopelessness, despair, confusion, and apathy—I finally had hope. It was the realization that there were things that I could do to change my situation in life. I didn’t have to “just deal with it.” This saved me from suicide by showing me I could save myself—the power of true hope. Nobody else was going to do it for me. I realized that true hope is the recognition that you can save yourself. That you can bring yourself out of your own suffering. From here, I went all-in.

Our dreams require us to betray who we ‘should’ be for who we are to become. It’s self-betrayal to acquiesce to the demands of a dysfunctional relationship. It’s self-betrayal when we abandon ourselves for a lie. Our loyalty must be with truth, not suffering. We can only give when our cup is full. We can only offer to others what we allow for ourselves. We can only truly love others if we have self-love. We can only truly respect others if we have self-respect. We can only truly be generous if we are generous with ourselves.

As odd as it may sound, both sides of the extremes—selfishness and martyrdom—are making it about themselves. One is making it about rejecting and martyring themselves and feeling undeserving—and the other is about selfishness and unmet needs. The self-centered will keep attempting to fill their void, taking from others—perhaps in hopes that one day they will be filled enough to give. The martyr will over-give and feel drained, justifying with duty, pride, or righteousness, inevitably carrying resentment as their void grows.

It’s the difference between adding to improve yourself and subtracting to remove detriments. Ending suffering is not about adding pleasure and joy, nor learning ‘to love’ or ‘do happiness’—but in the elimination of what we’ve learned to do that is preventing our innate joy, connection, and love. […] The more you add, the further you get from your True Self. The more you remove what’s not you, the closer you get. This is why stopping is the only way—because it is no longer a doing, but an undoing.

This book isn’t showing you how to be like me or help mold you into another generic, idolized clone. What you’re learning here is how to be more you than you’ve ever been. You do this not by mimicking, but by doing less and allowing yourself to just be. You’re learning how to show up differently in your body and the world because that’s just who you are—not because you’re running some technique about what successful people do. We are getting you to stop all the insane things people taught you to do to abandon yourself.