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Life wasn’t as easy as you thought as a child, was it?

Being an adult wasn’t what you thought it was. And now you have no one to teach you how to live.

Your parents are probably dead, and even if you’re lucky enough for them to be alive, you know they can’t — and shouldn’t — fight your battles.

And here you are, reading self-help articles to find answers. Or some prescription that might save you.

Spoiler Alert! There are no recipes.

Every life is different, and only you have the solution. But to find it, you must first ask yourself the right questions.

“What’s wrong with me?”

Short answer: nothing.

Long answer: nothing, but you’ve been led to believe it is.

We all are crazy monkeys with a conscience living on a rock called earth that spins at dizzying speed around a ball of fire we call the sun.

The thing is, we are all born into different environments and grow up exposed to different circumstances. And that builds us — so to speak — based on diverse life experiences.

That makes you unique but not worthless.

If you are reading this, you are alive. And if you are breathing, your life, right now, is worth more than Marcus Aurelius’ life.

Why?

Easy, he is no longer breathing; you are. So TODAY, you are more important than the emperor of Rome.

You are powerful. You and Elon Musk are sharing the same air today. Your life is worth the same as that of any millionaire or scientist, or authority figure alive today.

But for some reason, not everyone is interested in you being fully aware of it.

If you were, you wouldn’t consent to half the things you agree to in your work, relationships, and home.

And that brings us to the next question,

“Why am I so screwed up?”

Because you have swallowed the bait and bought the whole package: debt, job, mortgage, you name it. And you’re forced to lead a life that sucks to keep living the life you’re supposed to live: the American dream.

But maybe the American dream isn’t your dream.

Perhaps you want to be an artist, poet, or farmer but don’t know how to do it. And you don’t even think about it anymore, to not suffer anymore.

You accepted your destiny somewhere along the way.

And that brings us to the last question,

“At what point did my life go wrong?”

You may have chosen the wrong career, the wrong dream, the wrong partner, or the sinful life.

What difference does it make?

If you’re alive, you can always make amends. No matter how old you are or feel. It’s all up to you. You are one decision away from the life you long for.

You have to take that step; everything else will happen like a domino effect.

Deep down, you know it. But you are afraid. So let me tell you something,

No matter how hard you try, you won’t last forever. So, Why fear so much?

It is better to dare to live fully-even if it is risky than to live kneeling, without illusion: dead in life.

Bonus

Fall in love with someone who is both your refuge and your greatest challenge. Fall in love with you. And that will change everything.

P.S.: I do my best to create meaningful content and turn this space into a hub that helps lighten the load and provide spiritual and emotional support. Paid subscriptions are the lifeblood of The Disturbing Blog, and of my writing and life in general, as they allow me to devote myself to it as a full-time job and express myself without editing, censorship, or annoying advertising.

This weekend, it would be great if you could consider that a subscription costs less than your afternoon at Starbucks.

And in addition to helping me, you’ll get unlimited access to the archive and courses. And you’ll help me continue to create it.

I know that not everyone can afford to be a paying subscriber, so I always put my content available for free for a few days before locking it down. However, if you can upgrade your subscription, I would greatly appreciate it. With everything that’s going on this year and the rise of AIs, professional writers need help—it’s definitely a precarious job!

Subscribe now

Thank you again for collaborating with me on this work.

May peace be with you.

AG

Subscribe now

The Spiritual Path is not a path; it is a combination of a roller coaster, the circus, and the house of terror.

Along this peculiar path, you will meet various characters that make you feel like Alice in Wonderland chasing the white rabbit through the rabbit hole.

And it’s helpful to know how to distinguish the Mad Hatter from the Queen of Hearts.

Let’s start

1. The veteran know-it-all. They tell you they are spiritual guides, but they are not. They are imposing people who want to dominate you mentally so that you end up doing what they say as they say because their word is law, and there is only one way of doing things (although each person is unique): theirs. There are different degrees of a veteran know-it-all, from your brother-in-law who wants to save you time and insists that you do kundalini because the yoga at your gym is not enough to the toxic one who tells you, “If you watch Netflix, you will burn in the flames of hell.”

2. The early adopter. This type of spiritual person is mainly found in the New Age world. And they try anything new in the spiritual world without thinking twice. They are those who were digital nomads before the word digital nomad existed. They are the ones who started with Mindfulness before everyone became a mindfulness teacher. They are addicted to novelty, and that gets them into all kinds of trouble because they often take too many risks, but they are people who can make their way in the spiritual jungle. An example would be Ram Dass.

3. The shapeshifter. These types of people have what I call “A fluid spirituality.” Today, they are Buddhists; tomorrow, they are Catholics. The day after tomorrow, they go to Peru to worship the spirits of the jungle. They have no defined spirituality. They do not go deep into any spirituality and go from one extreme to another until they either get bored of spirituality, or they get bitter and leave it and want to infect you with their disappointment with the spiritual world, or they end up with a mental cocoa in their head that the only thing they do is to confuse you. My advice is to stay away from them until you find your identity within the spiritual world.

4. The superstitious. For this type of people, spirituality is based on asking for things and getting them through rituals, amulets, promises, and prayers. They look like Jack Nicolson in As Good as It Gets; they have all kinds of rituals, scruples, and aversions that make them peculiar. Whatever religion they practice, they only seek the favor of the goddess fortune. (We are all a bit superstitious. :-)

5. The merchants of the temple. These are the parasites of the superstitious. Bloodsucking limpets that adhere to people to get as much money as possible in exchange for selling them smoke. They are pragmatic and usually sell you anything: stones, incantations, energetic cleansings, holy cards of saints. I am not saying that using stones or tarot does not work; I am stating that these people are dedicated “exclusively” to making money, and the person who requires their services does not matter to them. They are the ones who give a bad name to the spiritual workers who do their work well and do not sacrifice their values before the altar of the money God.

6. The wise who do not know they are brilliant. They look like empty shells that suddenly activate like water sprinklers and shower you with their wisdom. They say things that make no sense except to the person who needs their wisdom. In the middle of a sunny day, I once met one who told me, “Rain is annoying, but it’s good.” He seemed to have channeled the message for me because a storm had broken out inside me. And it was true: rain makes the fields bloom, and my storm made my life bloom.

So, little Alicia, enjoy your stay in the garden of wonders, but avoid the Queen of Hearts.

P.S.: I do my best to create meaningful content and turn this space into a hub that helps lighten the load and provide spiritual and emotional support. Paid subscriptions are the lifeblood of The Disturbing Blog, and of my writing and life in general, as they allow me to devote myself to it as a full-time job and express myself without editing, censorship, or annoying advertising.

This weekend, it would be great if you could consider that a subscription costs less than your afternoon at Starbucks.

And in addition to helping me, you’ll get unlimited access to the archive and courses. And you’ll help me continue to create it.

I know that not everyone can afford to be a paying subscriber, so I always put my content available for free for a few days before locking it down. However, if you can upgrade your subscription, I would greatly appreciate it. With everything that’s going on this year and the rise of AIs, professional writers need help—it’s definitely a precarious job!

Subscribe now

Thank you again for collaborating with me on this work.

May peace be with you.

AG

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Life is not about having but being.

About being the one who cares when no one cares.

About being the one who persists when everyone gives up.

About being the one who makes the impossible real.

The one who wins when the odds are 1000 to 1 because it tries 999 times, if necessary.

But why don’t we dare to be the best version of ourselves?

I have an obscure theory.

The dark theory of attachment.

“Fearing life is fearing yourself”. — Alan Watts.

We attach the life we have because we don’t want to be pointed at the finger every time we fail.

That’s why you don’t want to get fired.

That’s why you don’t want to get divorced.

That’s why you don’t want to change your friends.

You don’t want anybody to say you are a loser.

Even if that means staying at a job you hate, remaining in a dead relationship, or hanging out with people you haven’t had anything in common since Obama was president.

You don’t want anyone to discover your dirty secret: you’re unhappy. — Because that would be admitting that you’ve got the wrong life.

You stick to your labels so they can’t hurt you.

“The more attached you are, the more limited you become.” — Dalai Lama.

The harsh truth is that you attach things because things (and labels) are your armor.

That’s why you never let go of the old to welcome the new into your life.

That’s why you don’t write that novel you know is in you.

That’s why you shouldn’t try a YouTube channel.

That’s why you don’t open that little store you always dreamed of.

It is not the same as receiving criticism about your labels as your soul.

After all, when someone criticizes your label, they are not criticizing you but your avatar.

The problem comes when you expose yourself to honest criticism, to criticize who you are behind all your labels.

That’s why you don’t dare to pursue your dreams and settle for daydreaming without moving from the couch. (Although living like that is more dangerous than sitting on jelly in the middle of an earthquake: in the end, you fall on your ass).

Your dreams are the manifestation of your soul.

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” — Carl Gustav Jung

Therefore, when someone criticizes something you have created from your essence, they are not criticizing your label but your authentic self, your soul.

And that hurts.

Because it’s like going into battle without armor and fighting bare-chested, and it’s terrifying.

• It’s terrifying not to be liked.

• It’s terrifying to feel rejection.

• It’s terrifying to no longer be validated.

• It’s terrifying to find out who you are.

That’s why you don’t try to achieve your dream and get attached to your labels and all kinds of stuff: you’re afraid your dream will pop like a balloon against a pin.

That’s why my unsolicited advice today is to prick the balloon.

“Do not worry about the fruit of your actions: be attentive to the action itself. The fruit will come when it is due. This is a very powerful spiritual practice.” — Eckhart Tolle.

Reality will never be as you imagine it (sometimes it can be infinitely better).

It’s not about achieving your goal; it’s about the process.

You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s true.

• Writing a bestseller doesn’t make you a writer; writing daily does. — Even if your book was only bought by your mother and a few strangers.

• Having a YouTube channel bigger than MrBeast’s doesn’t make you a YouTuber, but learning how to record, write scripts, and promote your content does. Even if your videos only get a thousand views.

• Having a store that turns over 1M a year does not make you an entrepreneur; learning customer service, resource management, staff management, service excellence, and creating a good product does—even if you end up billing the exact amount you earn in your 9-to-5 job.

As I said at the beginning, it’s not about HAVING but BEING.

If you DETACH yourself from the old to manifest what your soul longs for, professionally and personally, I assure you that you will feel alive. You will finally be who you always wanted but never dared to be.

P.S.: I do my best to create meaningful content and turn this space into a hub that helps lighten the load and provide spiritual and emotional support. Paid subscriptions are the lifeblood of The Disturbing Blog, and of my writing and life in general, as they allow me to devote myself to it as a full-time job and express myself without editing, censorship, or annoying advertising.

This weekend, it would be great if you could consider that a subscription costs less than your afternoon at Starbucks.

And in addition to helping me, you’ll get unlimited access to the archive and courses. And you’ll help me continue to create it.

I know that not everyone can afford to be a paying subscriber, so I always put my content available for free for a few days before locking it down. However, if you can upgrade your subscription, I would greatly appreciate it. With everything that’s going on this year and the rise of AIs, professional writers need help—it’s definitely a precarious job!

Subscribe now

Thank you again for collaborating with me on this work.

May peace be with you.

AG

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Sometimes, you do everything right, and still, everything goes wrong.

And you think: “Nothing makes sense in this cruel world.”

When that happens, you need to stop, turn down the noise, and listen to the voice of your soul.

You probably don’t want to listen to painful truths, but you must.

These five are what the voice of my soul told me when I hit rock bottom.

1. You are not the wine; you are the glass. You are the container of the mind, not the mind itself. And just as your glass can be filled with cheap wine, you can empty it, wash it, and then fill it with 1945 Romanée-Conti at 25,000 euros a bottle. In other words, the thoughts you allow to occupy your mental space determine whether you live a cheap or luxurious life (and I’m not just talking about money).

2. Pain is kept in motion by thought. Your mind is like a washing machine. Overthinking is like filling it with crystals and starting the spin cycle. Pushing the stop button is the only way to stop the crystals from pricking you. So stop ruminating, hit the stop button, and even if the crystals are still inside you, they won’t bother you.

3. Pleasure is just another room in the mansion of pain. You smoke, you drink, you sleep with strangers, you even eat noodles with hot sauce and, for dessert, ice cream with Oreo toppings because it’s your way of pinching your cheeks to feel you’re not dead inside. Wouldn’t it be better if, even if you fail, you pursue the dreams of your heart? That way, you could feel alive and not spend your life searching for happiness at the bottom of the bottle, in the next cigarette, in the wrong bed, or carbohydrates.

4. Why does the truth hurt? Because you fell in love with a lie, and the truth punctured your fantasy’s balloon, breaking your heart. But don’t be angry with the truth; little by little, you will feel better because when you accept reality, it stops hurting. And, in the end, the meaning of life is to find your truth; when you see it, it will give you peace. Remember: if something does not lead you to the truth, it is a lie and, therefore, fiction. And fictions lose the power to harm you when you remove their mask.

5. Love for others that do not pass through the love of oneself is a scam. Going through life with a t-shirt with the slogan “Look how good I am” on your chest only serves to attract the wrong people into your life. Love cannot be bought. The only thing you get that way is to attract upstart people who pretend to love you out of interest but don’t love you. You can’t give love when you spend all day looking for it outside of yourself. You need to love yourself, your inner child, so that you can selflessly decide to whom you will give your true love. Only then will you attract people who will willingly and selflessly reciprocate. Remember: Identifying the problem is 80% of the solution; the remaining 20% is to act accordingly. So now that you know the problem, get your act together.

P.S.: I do my best to create meaningful content and turn this space into a hub that helps lighten the load and provide spiritual and emotional support. Paid subscriptions are the lifeblood of The Disturbing Blog, and of my writing and life in general, as they allow me to devote myself to it as a full-time job and express myself without editing, censorship, or annoying advertising.

This weekend, it would be great if you could consider that a subscription costs less than your afternoon at Starbucks.

And in addition to helping me, you’ll get unlimited access to the archive and courses. And you’ll help me continue to create it.

I know that not everyone can afford to be a paying subscriber, so I always put my content available for free for a few days before locking it down. However, if you can upgrade your subscription, I would greatly appreciate it. With everything that’s going on this year and the rise of AIs, professional writers need help—it’s definitely a precarious job!

Subscribe now

Thank you again for collaborating with me on this work.

May peace be with you.

AG

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The child who was told he had no talent is the adult who today does not dare to succeed.

That child grew up full of doubts and insecurities.

That child grew up conditioned by emotional deficiencies and filled his life with frustration and false needs.

That child did not heal the wounds caused by the people supposed to love and support him.

That’s why he grew up distrustful, introverted, and lonely.

That child is me (and maybe you)

That’s why when I heard that Rick Rubin had a book out, I bought it immediately and read and reread it until I wore it out.

I owed it to my inner child, who always wanted to be an artist but never dared because he was discouraged.

I want to share three sentences from that book that reshaped my brain and helped me heal.

1. Your gift is your fruit; if you don’t harvest it, it rots inside you (and you will stink).

“Just as trees bear flowers and fruit, humanity creates works of art. The Golden Gate Bridge, the Beatles’ White Album, Guernica, Hagia Sophia, the Sphinx, the Space Shuttle, the Autobahn, Clair de lune, the Colosseum in Rome, the Star Screwdriver, the iPad, the Philadelphia cheesesteak” — Rick Rubin.

As a child, I wrote poems, but my father told me that writing was a girl’s hobby. Real men, he said, were into other things.

And I believed it (I was a kid).

And that lie that my father told me filled my life with pain.

I studied industrial engineering because my father nicknamed me “the engineer” since I was a child.

I wasted years in that career, and worst of all, because my father abandoned my family, I had to pay for studies that I hated.

It was like torturing myself and paying for the privilege of doing so.

My life became dark, and as I needed to escape, I fell into drugs and alcohol.

Sometime later, I heard Jerry Seinfeld say something that changed my life, “Having a creative gift is like someone just handed you a horse. You have to learn how to ride it. Because either you learn how to ride this thing, or it will finish you.”

Please don’t do it like me. Learn to ride your horse. And that’s because, as Rik Rubin says, whatever you “believe” is art, it’s your fruit.

And if you refuse to give it to the world, it will rot on you inside you.

2. Ideas are more cheaters than Pablo Picasso

“If we have an idea that excites us and we don’t capture it, it would not be unusual for the idea to be expressed through another creator. When that happens it’s not because the other artist has stolen the concept from us, but because it’s time for that idea to see the light of day.” — Rick Rubin.

I’ve spent my life thinking of ideas that others made real before me.

In the beginning, I was self-deluding myself by saying things like,

• “You were too young (or old) to do it.”

• “You didn’t have the money (or time) to do it.”

• “You needed more knowledge (or contacts) to do it.”

But something inside me whispered in my ear, “You could have been the one to make it happen, and you know it.”

And the thing is, I’ve always had the strange theory that ideas have a soul of their own and that they inhabit a parallel dimension, the dimension of ideas.

And that these ideas use us as portals to incarnate themselves in 3D reality.

And I guess “Ideas” are not dumb. That is to say, they will not choose a doorway they cannot enter through.

Ergo, the only possible conclusion is that despite all our limitations, when a good idea recurrently comes to our mind (knocks on our door), it is because, although we do not see it, we have all the necessary resources to carry it out closer than we think.

So, if you have a good idea, make it a reality because if you don’t, the idea will look for another portal to enter this reality.

As Rick Rubin says, “We are all translators of the messages sent to us by the universe” (including you).

3. Being famous doesn’t matter; being self-aware does.

“The universe will be as big as our perception of it. When we cultivate consciousness, we expand the universe. In doing so we expand the scope not only of the material we have at our disposal to create, but also of the very life we live.” — Rick Rubin.

This phrase blew my mind.

And it is that the greater your consciousness, the bigger your universe.

Ergo, if you become rich and famous and shallow, aka less conscious, your universe will shrink instead of expand.

One might think, “What do you want a bigger universe for if the time to traverse it is finite?”

And in Rick Rubin’s very phrase, I found the answer.

I realized that while we can’t make life longer (stretch time), we can make it richer (densify time).

Increasing the density of time = being more aware of the here and now = having a richer and happier life.

Ergo, the more you increase your awareness of reality, the more you expand the quality of your life because you expand your universe and your ability to enjoy it.

Deep down, we are like sponges, walking through this world and absorbing reality at every step.

Think about it: to live a good life, you don’t need to be richer than Elon Musk or more attractive than George Clooney.

Just be less superficial and more conscious.

Becoming more conscious is the equivalent of moving from a one-room apartment to a palace.

Because what good is fame and success if you are drunk with power and live in an altered state of consciousness, where you absorb little or nothing of reality?

It’s like eating your favorite dish quickly and not enjoying it.

It’s like ending the night with the person of your dreams and not remembering when you wake up because you were drunk.

It’s like those guys addicted to success who achieve goals but never stay long enough to enjoy them. They turn into donkeys who spend their lives chasing a carrot and telling you you’re a loser for not living like them.

So do yourself a favor and soak up life. Absorb the abundance of information that the present offers you. And your life will be enriched like never before.

As Rick Rubin wrote, “A deep look is the basis of creativity; seeing beyond the ordinary and prosaic to grasp what would otherwise be invisible.”

P.S.: I do my best to create meaningful content and turn this space into a hub that helps lighten the load and provide spiritual and emotional support. Paid subscriptions are the lifeblood of The Disturbing Blog, and of my writing and life in general, as they allow me to devote myself to it as a full-time job and express myself without editing, censorship, or annoying advertising.

This weekend, it would be great if you could consider that a subscription costs less than your afternoon at Starbucks.

And in addition to helping me, you’ll get unlimited access to the archive and courses. And you’ll help me continue to create it.

I know that not everyone can afford to be a paying subscriber, so I always put my content available for free for a few days before locking it down. However, if you can upgrade your subscription, I would greatly appreciate it. With everything that’s going on this year and the rise of AIs, professional writers need help—it’s definitely a precarious job!

Subscribe now

Thank you again for collaborating with me on this work.

May peace be with you.

AG

Subscribe now

Previous chapter

Welcome to chapter thirteen of this course titled Stoic Spiritual Exercises (S.S.E.), specially designed to bring Stoicism into your everyday life in a practical, simple, and entertaining way.

Every Sunday there will be a new exercise you can practice throughout the week.

In today’s chapter you’ll learn how to make peace with yourself like a true Stoic.

Let’s get started.

How are you going to love yourself if you never make peace with yourself?

And above all: how are you going to love yourself if you never prove it with action?

Not loving yourself is the fastest way to wreck your self-esteem.

And when self-esteem drops, you start believing you deserve less than you actually do.

And when you believe you deserve less, you end up settling for people and situations that hurt you. Because, deep down, you think that’s the most you can hope for.

Wherever you see a narcissistic predator doing damage, you’ll almost always find someone with low self-esteem suffering next to them: as a partner, a client, an employee, or a friend.

To keep from falling into their clutches, the most powerful thing you can do is learn to be okay with yourself.

Yes, you read that right.

As Seneca wrote:

Because it doesn’t matter where you go…

You’re always in the same place—inside yourself.

But since your mind can lose itself in other people’s business—living everybody else’s life so you don’t have to face your own—that’s what you do.

And that, according to Seneca, is what drives us straight into vice:

In a universe of cause and effect like ours, the root cause of many of our vices is simple: not being content with ourselves.

Boom!

That’s why we look for contentment, validation, and happiness in the wrong places…

Numbing the pain or chasing immediate pleasures that impersonate happiness instead of building it organically.

Being angry with yourself condemns you to live in an inner hell you want to escape at any cost.

Weekly exercise…

Make a date with yourself to seduce yourself again and fall back in love.

1. Think of something you genuinely want to do, but that embarrasses you or makes you feel guilty: playing video games, going to the movies to see The Odyssey, sitting down with a 5,000-piece puzzle, or building Lego when you’re already past forty.

2. Then put it on the calendar as if it were a dentist appointment.

3. And when the day comes, act the same way you would if you had to have a tooth pulled: you do it, no matter what.

Got it?

If you write it down first and then keep the appointment, the brain starts getting the message: you’re beginning to take yourself seriously.

You keep the promises you make to yourself.

That rebuilds self-trust and improves your relationship with your inner child.

And, as a result, your self-esteem goes up.

If you repeat this exercise every week, even if it seems like a silly little thing, miracles start to show up: you quit smoking, you stop eating too many carbs, you stop going out with the wrong person.

Why?

Because it’s impossible to treat yourself better without loving yourself more. It’s impossible to love yourself more without raising your self-esteem. And it’s impossible to keep treating yourself like trash if you love yourself instead of hating yourself.

Boom!

P.S.: I do my best to create meaningful content and turn this space into a hub that helps lighten the load and provide spiritual and emotional support. Paid subscriptions are the lifeblood of The Disturbing Blog, and of my writing and life in general, as they allow me to devote myself to it as a full-time job and express myself without editing, censorship, or annoying advertising.

This weekend, it would be great if you could consider that a subscription costs less than your afternoon at Starbucks.

And in addition to helping me, you’ll get unlimited access to the archive and courses. And you’ll help me continue to create it.

I know that not everyone can afford to be a paying subscriber, so I always put my content available for free for a few days before locking it down. However, if you can upgrade your subscription, I would greatly appreciate it. With everything that’s going on this year and the rise of AIs, professional writers need help—it’s definitely a precarious job!

Subscribe now

Thank you again for collaborating with me on this work.

May peace be with you.

AG

Subscribe now

Every time I think of my crappy childhood and my later youth (no less horrifying), a voice inside me whispers:

And that voice is right. Besides, if past lives exist, that would explain why I have so many déjà vu moments :-)

Although, if I’m honest, I think it’s less about past lives and more about encrypted information our ancestors passed down to us in our DNA.

Be that as it may — whether you’ve lived many past lives, or your ancestors lived such intense lives that they were etched into your genetic line — if you’re what people call an old soul, you almost certainly grew up struggling with these three things.

1. Adults avoided you.

You were bored with people your own age, so you preferred the company of older people. But adults avoided you.

Not because you were a kid, but because they knew you weren’t just a know-it-all. You were a little Jedi master who asked awkward questions.

Questions like these:

• “Dad, wouldn’t it be better not to put the vacation on the credit card and stay home this August, instead of staying home all year just to go away for fifteen days?”

• “Mom, why is it that every time we celebrate Christmas we kill a tree and decorate its corpse with little balls and colored lights? I feel sorry when it ends up in the trash on January 7.”

• “Grandma, why do you make Mom cry? Don’t you know that by hurting her, you’re hurting yourself?”

Nobody wanted to listen to you at 8, or 10, or 14, or 20, because you made them feel smaller than you. And even if older people like doing stupid things, they don’t like younger people noticing.

That’s exactly what happens when you grow up as an old soul: you become the fluorescent light that highlights all the crap in the adults around you.

2. Your intuition was not always welcome.

Read more

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According to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, “Pain has two levels: the pain you create in the now and the pain from the past that still lives in your body and mind.”

It all forms a negative energy field, which keeps you stuck.

The pain of now is unavoidable.

The accumulated pain of the past is. You have to process it.

That is why highly spiritual people do not repress their emotions.

And they don’t care if they are labeled as extremely sensitive.

They know that when a seed of pain is about to emerge, the worst thing you can do is to repress it because instead of blossoming outward, it blossoms inward, like a cystic hair, turning your inner realm into a pus-filled garbage can.

Ergo, one of the secrets of highly spiritual people is not to reject their negative moods, to know how to externalize their emotions, to embrace them, and to use them in their favor and not against them.

That’s why, paradoxically, they are happier than most: because they don’t repress their tears.

Here are four more secrets.

1. They don’t take things personally. Mark Twain used to say, “Never argue with a jerk; he’ll bring you down to his level, and there he’ll beat you by experience.” That’s why highly spiritual people don’t take things personally. They know that each person sees life in their way, and it is tough to change the mind of someone who does not want to. Because they do not listen; they only look for arguments that validate their pre-established opinions due to their prejudices and their biased view of the world. Therefore, in the spiritual realm, the maxim applies: “The master comes when the pupil is ready.” This saves spiritual people a lot of aggravation, as they do not spend the day wondering why such-and-such a person did such-and-such a thing. They know that people are imperfect and that they cannot act better with a basic level of consciousness.

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Don’t chase, attract

Highly seductive people don’t spend their lives approaching …  they’re the ones leaving.

People who chase others aren’t likable.

But people who seem like they don’t have time?

They’re likable.

I’ve seen this in all kinds of professional fields.

Think about it… who gets trusted with important tasks, busy people or idle ones?

Busy people, because you think… “If they’re so busy, they must be good at what they do.”

So, if you want attractive clients, don’t look desperate.

Remember: seduction is about attracting, not chasing.

(This tip came from my former boss, a guy who was a dead ringer for Scrooge and owned the biggest law firm in my country.)

Talk about trivial stuff

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Hell is like an underground Mall you enter through an elevator. The lower you go, the higher the horror you experience.

Floor (-1): you lost your job.

Floor (-2): your partner asks for a divorce.

Floor (-3): you lose your friends.

.

.

.

Floor (-100): you are broke as f*ck: no money, lonely, and with multiple addictions.

I was in the room (-100) for a decade. Partly for being a manic depressive with OCD and a lot of childhood trauma, partly because of me.

And let me tell you something: “When you are at that place, no one wants to give you a hand.” Normal because you are as toxic as the devil.

And at that point, if you want to get out of the hell and escape, you need every drop of hope you can obtain.

That’s why I’m a big defender of the attraction Law.

The attraction Law is not a hippie-dippie thing. It works.

The problem with being in hell is that you identify yourself with the victim you think you are.

And it would be best if you were less rigid about your perceptions of yourself. It would be best if you had a new identity, a hero one, to fly out of your hole.

How to do that?

With faith.

And that’s what the Law of Attraction is all about: faith.

Read the following carefully

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We are living amid a pandemic of loneliness like never before in the history of humanity.

We look at each other with suspicion.

No one trusts anyone, and no one wants a real friendship because we prefer the liquid friendships of the internet, which don’t stain, smell, or bother. If they do, we can block XYZ person’s profile and move on.

That’s why I read Murakami; he understands loneliness and today’s society better than other authors.

Reading his latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, I came across three sentences that blew my mind and reset my way of seeing certain things.

Let’s start.

1. The problem of goals.

“It is enough to wish for it. The problem is that wishing for something, from the heart, is not so simple. It takes time to achieve it. And during that time you have to let go of a lot of things. Things that are important to you.” — Haruki Murakami.

Murakami is correct; it’s not enough to wish for it. We have to pay the price for the life we want to live.

If we don’t, we will pay the price for the life we don’t want to live, and that price is usually regret, frustration, bad mood, victimhood, and guilt.

And worst of all, we don’t avoid pain. Because pain is not only part of the process of pursuing our desires, pain is as inherent a part of life as breathing, and that makes it inevitable.

So, well… Yes, that dream you have will indeed cause you to change your life, friendships, even your partner or city, but if it beats inside you and you let it die, it will become crystal and prick you all your life.

Robert Walser once said, “No one is proud of joys and pleasure. Deep down, the only things that give pride and joy to the spirit are brave efforts to overcome and patiently endure suffering.”

So get going, pay the price, and fulfill your purpose.

2. Your secrets are a fundamental part of your identity

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Paradoxes are things that are not as they should be.

Paradoxes are things, concepts, or situations that have no logic.

• That ice that burns in your hand when you hold it for too long.

• That enemy that ends up being your friend (or that friend that ends up being your enemy).

• That vegetable dish you hated as a child and becomes your favorite.

The world is full of these little and big incongruities called paradoxes.

That’s why living a simple life is the most complex.

Here are eight of those paradoxes that complicate our lives.

1. Giving is planting outside of you the seed of what will bloom inside. That is why the artist and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky says that luck is nothing more than sowing in the outside world what you want to harvest in your inner world. It also applies to bad luck, which is only sowing outside what you don’t want to harvest inside. Remember: you may not be able to change others, but if you change, you will change everything.

2. What is useless is useful. Light illuminates, but shadow protects from the sun. In this world, nothing is futile; everything serves a purpose: dirty water puts out the fire. The rain that makes the day gray and melancholy makes the fruits sprout in the field. That is why we must value the little things, no matter how insignificant they seem. Things like non-productive time, because the happiness you get from that time that you think is wasted time, is what allows you to dedicate yourself seriously and efficiently to your work in your active time.

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Welcome to chapter twelve of this course titled Stoic Spiritual Exercises (S.S.E.), specially designed to incorporate Stoicism into your daily life in a practical, simple, and entertaining way.

Every Sunday there will be a new exercise that you can practice throughout the week.

In today’s chapter you’ll learn how to reclaim your internal locus of control and empower yourself like a Stoic.

Let’s get started.

Let me tell you a true story.

Jack Canfield wrote on the back of his business card a seemingly impossible goal: sell one and a half million copies of his book before December 30, 1994.

Then he put it in his wallet so he would see it every time he opened it.

Specifically, he wrote the goal in the present tense and in the first person like this:

His partner and co-author, Mark Victor Hansen, did exactly the same thing.

Did they achieve it?

No.

They sold 1.3 million copies—200,000 copies short of their target by the planned date.

Was it a failure?

Not at all.

To this day, the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series has sold more than 500 million copies worldwide.

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Spiritual life can be sexier than vanilla ice cream with KitKat toppings drizzled with caramel syrup.

Spiritual life is more than yoga pants, Tibetan singing bowls, silent meditation retreats, and collecting colored crystals.

To be spiritual is to wake up one day and discover that success is not about having a million dollars, a mansion, and a Ferrari. It is to prepare breakfast without haste, to watch it rain through the window. And drinking your coffee and being grateful for the new day — one of those days with the smell of wet earth.

To be spiritual is to be yourself.

It’s feeling good about being yourself.

Sexy, isn’t it?

But to get to that level of consciousness, highly spiritual people have learned to avoid these three mistakes.

Mistake number 1: Getting used to miracles.

If we went back to the year 1700 and were crowned king of England, it wouldn’t take us a week to want to go back to our 40 square meter apartment and 9 to 5 job.

George I of England was king in those days, and he lived with no heating, air conditioning, internet, or food delivered.

Imagine life without Amazon, Uber, Google, Alexa, and GPS.

Imagine life without electric lights, no toilet… Can you?

Such a world would be like living inside a dystopian apocalyptic horror movie.

Anyone today lives better than the most influential people of antiquity. That’s a fact.

The thing is, most of us have lost the ability to value what we have.

But highly spiritual people still do.

Highly spiritual people always remember that turning on the shower faucet and getting hot water is a miracle.

Highly spiritual people know that technology is the new magic.

Lesson: Normalizing good things prevents us from seeing how good life can be. Amazement and appreciation put the spice back into things. And that makes your life sexier than having a six-pack at forty.

Mistake number 2: Confusing success with happiness.

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many years have passed since my grandfather’s death, and every time I close my eyes and think of him, I remember our last phone call,

“Dear grandson, with 9 months I came into the world, with 2 years I started to talk, with 10 to work, with 16 I met your grandmother, with 30 your mother was born, with 35 I thought I knew everything, with 50 I discovered that I knew nothing, with 92 I would go back to squeeze more time. Live today, tomorrow is too late”.

I remember his voice and his advice. Thanks to them, I was able to get out of addiction, poverty, and sadness.

His were not “smile and be positive” advice; they were like sweet and sour sauce and always had a touch of pain.

And it is normal because the truths sting but heal like alcohol that cauterizes the wound.

Here are three of those tips that, although they can be scary and painful, helped me to stop being so ignorant and get out of the shit.

Let’s start.

1. “You’re not learning, you’re remembering”.

My grandfather believed that life put you in labyrinths to show you that you already knew where the exit was.

It sounds very creepy to think that the solution to our problems is always within us, but we don’t see it.

It is like believing you have left your keys inside the house, and you panic, but you have them hanging around your neck.

According to my grandfather, the trick was to relax deeply and connect with the wisdom we carry inside.

A part of you always knows what will happen even if nothing has happened yet, even if you can’t put words to it.

There is a part of you that can see the future, as scary as it may seem.

When life hits you, that part makes you sigh and say, “I already knew that.”

In the words of my grandfather, “The pieces of the puzzle of your life were always inside of you. You just had to fit them together. And believe it or not, reality is just the picture of the puzzle that comes in the box.”

Lesson: everything you need to solve your problem is already in your possession; you must calm down and assemble the pieces.

2. “Never, never, never share your secrets with others, especially friends.”

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You may think you are prepared for everything, but the blow always comes from the blind spot where you don’t expect it.

It’s those little things you didn’t count on or give importance to that produce the most significant changes in your life.

This is one of the most brutal truths that life teaches you over the years.

Here are six more.

1. Darkness is not black. Because black is a color, you can see it when there is light. So darkness is absence, absence of light. In the same way, ignorance is the absence of information. Or hatred, lack of love. And anger an absence of empathy. Absent does not require effort, so it reigns in the world. Light, information, love, and empathy require action and effort. And it is that energy, which we prefer to save by not understanding others, not loving others, not explaining things to others, or not enlightening others, that keeps us in darkness.

2. The mask. The most dangerous mask you can wear is not that of “pretending to be who you are not.” That one is easy to remove because wearing it makes you uncomfortable, like a pair of tiny shoes that bother you when you walk. The most dangerous mask is the mask of yourself or, rather, the mask of “a curated part of you.” Everyone wants you to wear that virtuous mask 24/7: the good friend, the efficient worker, the leader, the tender and understanding lover, the patient parent. It’s a dangerous mask because it mutilates the rest of your parts: the vulnerable part, the flawed part, the part that makes mistakes, and all of the parts that have a right to exist. And that perfectionist mask that for others is an angel for you becomes a demon that does not approve of your weak parts and condemns them to loneliness, sadness, and oblivion. And that all gets repressed in your subconscious, making your shadow bigger. Please do not allow it.

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At the end of his long life, my grandfather always remembered something disturbing.

A lesson that is constantly repeated in my life and the lives of others.

A few hours ago, I saw it again.

The case of the mysterious smoker

A few weeks ago, the neighbor on the first floor of our apartment building caught my mother’s and my attention as we walked outside.

He said, “Someone is throwing lit cigarettes into my yard.”

We politely explained that it had been more than five years since I smoked my last cigarette.

He added, “Well, I’ve seen you smoking”.

We didn’t want to argue. We went for our walk.

It got worse.

The neighbor not only accused me of throwing cigarettes in his yard, but he also did it with the rest of the residents of the building to get the truth and find the culprit.

He did not find the culprit, and the thing went to more, and in his yard began to appear yogurts, leftover food, papers, etc.

I assumed it would be some neighbor outraged at being wrongly accused, but no.

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Yesterday, a reader wrote me the following,

“I feel so alone right now. I am terrified to experience this feeling that I have never felt before. The feeling of connecting with others is gone. I pray every day and every night for strength to be strong. I try to find the way forward.”

The same thing happened to me before I stumbled upon Howard C. Cutler’s book The Art of Happiness.

Howard C. Cutler is a psychiatrist and neurologist who visited the Dalai Lama for several years and shared their conversations in this book.

One of his conversations is the key that helped me feel less lonely.

The Dalai Lama’s secret method for not feeling lonely.

Howard C. Cutler: Do you ever feel lonely?

Dalai Lama: No.

Howard C. Cutler: No, what do you attribute it to?

Dalai Lama: I think one of the reasons is that I tend to look at every human being from a positive angle, I try to look for their positive aspects. That attitude immediately creates a sense of affinity, a kind of connection.

Boom! That’s the key.

Don’t spend the day on the defensive.

Fear of others produces rejection and suspicion, and that causes us to isolate ourselves.

The Dalai Lama works to remove that suspicion from his heart, which, on the one hand, can make you quite naive but ultimately benefits you (I tell you from personal experience).

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Sometimes, I feel like an armadillo, hard as stone on the outside, soft as tender fruit on the inside.

That’s what happens with the years: the skin gets tough and dry as leather, but inside, you’re a teenager who dreams of someone picking him to go to the spring dance.

And I still believe in happy endings (although I’ve lived through so many goodbyes, I know such a thing rarely happens).

Let me give you a life spoiler

There are only two types of endings.

1. Slow and cruel.

2. Fast and furious.

The first ones take up 80% of your life, and if you learn to detect them quickly and turn the page fast, you will live twice as many things as the average person.

The second one is more violent than a traffic accident.

You feel that life hits you like a moving truck, taking your soul out of your body.

You stand there, watching yourself from the outside as the spectator of your movie, not knowing whether to laugh or cry because your life is a tragicomedy that, when it seems to go up again, ends up going to hell.

It’s like that fine snow that falls on the city and, before covering everything in white and becoming a Christmas miracle, fails to curdle and ends up as dirty mud.

The history of my life.

Then, the years go by, and the confusion increases when you look back.

Thinking about why I did the foolish things I did in my twenties is like trying to understand my handwriting when I review the journals I wrote by hand in old notebooks in those dark days: frustrating.

I saved a phrase I read in an old book by Carl Gustav Jung in one of those notebooks, and I think it’s the key to happiness.

“It doesn’t matter how isolated and lonely you feel. If you do your work truly and consciously, unknown friends will come looking for you.” — Carl Gustav Jung.

The secret of happiness

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Welcome to this eleventh chapter of this course titled Stoic Spiritual Exercises (S.S.E.), specially designed to incorporate Stoicism into your day-to-day life in a practical, simple, and entertaining way.

Every Sunday there will be a new exercise that you can practice throughout the week.

In today’s chapter you will learn why it sometimes seems that the universe gives you exactly the opposite of what you asked for.

And how to use it to your advantage.

Let’s begin with this eleventh exercise.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a magician who went from town to town granting wishes in exchange for a couple of coins: one you handed over when making the wish and the other when you received it.

In a certain town, the magician helped three people.

• The first asked him for a slim and healthy body.

• The second, for abundance and prosperity.

• And the third, that love would reign again in their home because they spent the whole day arguing with their partner.

All three paid their coin and left. But the next morning everything seemed to have gone wrong:

• The first person felt heartburn every time they ate their favorite dishes.

• The second had all their belongings seized and ended up living on the street.

• And the third one’s partner asked for a divorce.

The three looked for the magician so he would give them their money back, but he had already left.

A year later, the magician returned.

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