The Rewilded Soul is now read in 102 countries and 49 states in the U.S. Thanks for joining me in exploring what it means to create a life of deep fulfillment on the inside and conscious ambition on the outside. It brings me joy to share this journey with you. If you’re new here, welcome! 👋🏼 If you’re a regular, thank you for your trust.
Today (June 30) marks “half-time” for the year. On this day I like to reflect and reset, to inhabit my own story in hindsight, and sense where the aliveness of life is pointing.
There have been many June 30’s where I’ve felt stuck, lost, or disillusioned. Thankfully, today is not one of them. If you’re in a season for stuck-ness, I want to encourage you with a few ideas that have helped me reset over the years and re-discover the truth of who I am and why I’m here.
On why we get stuck
Feeling “stuck” is part of life, and the cause (at least in my life) can be distilled to a felt lack of one of three things:
1) Clarity
I’m not clear about what I want.
I’m not clear about who I am beyond the limiting stories I believe.
I’m not clear about about the next step to take.
2) Confidence
I’m not confident in my abilities to show up for myself and others.
I’m not confident I deserve _______.
I’m not confident I’ll be supported as I step out and take action.
3) Commitment
I’m not committed to taking full responsibility for my life.
I’m not committed to taking action.
I’m not committed to embracing uncertainty.
To live a life of purpose instead of “quiet desperation” as Thoreau called it, requires that all three qualities operate in, through, and as my life. Think of each quality as a single note in a musical chord. It’s not enough to possess two of the three if you want a life of deep resonance and harmony.
Clarity and Confidence without the Commitment to act is just as worthless as having Confidence and a sense of Commitment to doing something, but no Clarity on what to act on.
Honestly contemplating these three areas of my life have, time and again, yielded more insight into how I’m getting in my own way than anything else.
II.
What if you aren’t clear on what you want?
This is a common challenge those who have become disillusioned with the modern pursuit of happiness, and are no longer motivated by what once drove them.
Not long ago, I was lacking clarity and drive in a key area of my life. One day a friend asked me what I wanted. After a few long moments of thinking about it, I said, “What I really want is to want something.”
It took me several weeks of cycling through my stuck-ness to realize I couldn’t think my way to an answer. In fact, it was my rational thinking that was the problem. The more I tried to figure things out, the more confused I became because, I discovered, the mind is the wrong tool for getting soul-level clarity in life.
Asking the mind what it wants is a recipe for confusion. It wasn’t until I asked myself what I most wanted to feel that I began to gain clarity.
That is a key lesson: I’m driven by feelings. I don’t want anything for the sake of having The Thing, whatever The Thing might be. No one does.
What we truly desire is how an experience, achievement, or pursuit makes us feel. We want to be wealthy for the confidence or self-worth we think it will make us feel. We want to achieve X, Y, or Z because of the feeling we believe it will evoke in us. Every thing is a means to that end, not the end itself.
The question is, what do you want your life to feel like from the inside out? What is your life really about? What is it that you want to feel? Identify that feeling not simply in your mind, but as a felt-sense in your body, and you will have found the beginning of Clarity.
III.
Every human wants to feel the same three things
Understand this and you’ll know yourself and everyone else on planet Earth better.
The three things we all want:
We want to feel safe.
We want to feel like we belong.
We want to feel like our lives matter.
ALL of our pursuits, relationships, dreams, and actions are aimed at actualizing these three primal desires, feeling them, and knowing them at the core of our deepest Self.
I realized that these are the qualities that I truly want to feel. It’s all I want, in fact. It’s all there is. And I’ve never met anyone who is the exception.
Financial wealth is the clearest example. What is it that I (and everyone else) believes an abundance of resources will make me feel? We believe we will finally feel safe, like I belong, and that our life matters.
But what if the truth is that I’m already safe? What if I already belong? What if I already matter regardless of what I do or don’t do? What becomes available to me? Isn’t it possible that what becomes more effortlessly available is Clarity, Confidence, and an inspired Commitment to live with freedom?
Our society has things upside down. We’re told to pursue happiness, and seek out experiences, relationships, and achievements as a way to find our identity, meaning, and a sense of belonging. We all know it doesn’t work, though.
What does work? Knowing who you are already and, from that wholeness, letting your life speak as a creative expression of that Knowing. Not so you can find safety, belonging or meaning, but so you can express the freedom you already have.
You really hit the nail on the head with precisely the right hammer here Kevin. And it is good to be reminded of this and have your words clarify things. I am going to make a note on my calendar to find it and read it again in a few months. Thank you!
Kevin, love the way you think and the ability you have to selflessly share for the growth of the soul❣️When I have felt stuck in my life, it’s because I was in the agitation cycle and by that I mean that I was in a place of churning, knowing I needed to be finished with where I was, but unable to finish the cycle. That is until something breaks free inside of me allowing clearer vision and space to clear up the block. But, maybe that’s what all the hard knocks do, right? They cleanse and make us better, leaving us a little more worn but free for a fresh new start.