Cleaning up time, once more.

A day or three ago I wrote about the nagging victim-style thing I had going on, where I felt the world owes me and I never get what I deserve.

It was hard to accept and admit, but I instantly knew it was mostly a big relief, and a very powerful insight and lesson.

Even in just a couple of days it already changed massively, since I am now SO much more aware of this behavior, and it already made me feel much lighter.

Lately, every time something that has been SO impactful on me and my behavior comes up, I have been given an amazing opportunity to not just see it and get really clear about it, but also get rid of it.

It’s amazing, it’s an absolute gift, almost as if life has decided to put me in college again, rapidly pushing me through really specific personal topics and subjects that have been holding me back for many years.

I didn’t ask for this but got it anyway.

Which makes it extra powerful.

And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the emerging, astounding clarity around these rather stupid and negative psychological habits.

When my ‘poor old me’-style behavior shows up now, it’s a specific energy with a specific taste and a specific feel, and that makes it very easily recognizable.

Somehow I am powerfully assisted in using my immediate attention to scoop it up as soon as it enters my awareness, so I can almost freeze it in time.

From there on, it’s easy to look at it and decide to not take it any further.

And it’s gone.

But that is just one of the major things that have deeply skewed my vision of life and others and myself.

Yesterday I woke up big time to another one, and it took me less than a day to investigate it and start accepting it and become eager to work on it.

It’s an embarrassing one, in a way, but I don’t mind admitting stupid and mostly unhealthy habitual stuff anymore, because I have somehow learned to embrace and even admire all my attempts at living a good life.

And what you don’t know, you don’t know until you do, right?

So this one is about jealousy, or envy, or both, probably.

I wrote about it before in a tongue-in-cheek way (which meant that I wasn’t really ready to get it over with), but this time it’s different.

It’s just a shitty habit and I am ready to release it and have already started that process.

What sparked my deeper realization and started rapid healing, was a podcast called ‘The diary of a CEO’, hosted by a quite brilliant 28-year-old named Steven Bartlett.

I came across it on YouTube, where it was algorithmically served to me, and I watched the beginning of an episode, which made me feel uncomfortable straight away.

Here was this very young dude, an incredibly successful business person, talking to leaders and thought leaders and authors and entrepreneurs and athletes, being generally truly impressive (which I realized but pushed away instantly).

So I quickly dismissed him conveniently as a fraud, a charlatan, one of these typical, horrible ‘Everything Is Mindset’-dudes, and I stopped watching.

Not because he wasn’t cool, but because he was TOO cool.

And I just couldn’t handle that.

This experience haunted me the whole day, and somewhere along the line I just knew I didn’t want to take that route anymore.

Feeling superior as a cheap solution for discomfort felt awful.

Pure envy was exposed.

And I took it from there.

There are multiple reasons why I have used envy as a ‘psychological weapon of ego preservation’ in my life.

I can now see that one of those reasons, and probably the biggest one, is that I have been absolutely terrified to not be special, or special enough.

This is, of course, driven by a deep longing for safety and security, translated into wishing to be better and higher and ultimate and superior.

Deep inside I probably want to be the only one alive with the Secret To Anything, I want to be amazingly unique, and when I encounter someone with many powerful traits, especially someone who is smart and kind and creative and fit and funny, it just feels fucking threatening.

There has been this profound, deeply buried slab of insecurity, based on a flawed premise, that was still in place and still very active.

And every time it was ignited, it felt like being mercilessly exposed for the lightweight individual I somehow seem to be, while at the same time being convinced that the world only has room for one special person.

And this human being I just stumbled upon obviously took that position.

Ugh.

Here’s another telling anecdote, now that I am at it.

I remember when my first book was published, at the start of 2016, and it was pretty successful, especially in Dutch terms.

One of the biggest bookstores in Amsterdam immediately started to promote it, and in the first weeks, my book was plastered on one of their walls, making it stick out tremendously.

It was amazing and special and I can still see myself lurking around that wall, waiting for people to recognize me (my face was on the cover).

Very cool, but…

It was also the time when an American guy named Mark Manson published his book ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck’ (and I am convinced you know it or at least have heard about it).

This was over five years ago, and I still see his bright orange-covered bestseller everywhere I go, in stores and supermarkets, and airports.

Everywhere, still.

I sold a bit over 10.000 copies.

He sold millions and millions.

And I fucking hated him for it.

Every time I walked into a bookstore and saw the piles and piles of striking orange Mark Manson books, I felt really, really miserable.

My relative success was totally obliterated by his sales and the outrageous presence of his book.

It felt like he sucked away the space of fame and success and appreciation I deserved and was supposed to fill.

And my envy was this smoldering, mountainous entity.

I saw it, I felt it, and there was nothing I could do about it, for many, many years.

Until yesterday.

Until I came across Steven Bartlett, a really interesting, versatile young guy that somehow made me feel old and obsolete and useless, like a sharp reminder of how I have been wasting my life.

Until I wanted to crawl away again.

Until I saw my mind doing it again.

Feeling unworthy.

Feeling small, and even smaller.

Not because I am, but because that somehow became a solid part of my psychological make-up, and I never really explored and confronted this basically, totally stupid idea.

And yesterday, I just knew, I just felt without a doubt, that this was the moment to get over it.

So it flipped.

Gracefully.

Mercifully.

Leaving me with a big old, stupid, metaphorical grin on my face.

I am convinced that not too long ago I wouldn’t have had the confidence to share these fucked up ways I show up and respond in life, but taking myself less seriously has left me with enormous amounts of compassion and acceptance.

I can talk about this and be lighthearted about it because I don’t see it as ‘me’, because I recognize it as learned patterns, survival stuff, egoic contractions, and I know that I and of course you too are so, SO much more than all of that crap.

Looking at yourself this way, from a curious distance, with nothing but good intentions and a hunger to learn and grow and thrive and live fully, exposes the toxic, limiting stuff you have been hanging on forever, so you can start to let go.

We ALL do stupid, childish, damaging things, and we can learn to own them and overcome them.

That is like rocket fuel.

Ready to take off?

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(Photo by @lucian_alexe, for Unsplash)