(XXL) Spiritual Journey (Part 1): The beginning

KIMZO

Apr 10, 2023 • 9 min read

Hello friends,

Happy Easter!

Today's blog post will be a philosophical one. Last week, I spent a lot of time on analyzing what tasks I am doing that don't help me to become the person I want to become, especially with doing last week's challenge (which btw. helped me get even more time to produce music and write this blog). And during this time, I realized that the spiritual habits that I do are probably the most important ones that I started last year. I started to journal, to meditate, to read and to spend more time with just myself. With that, I have a deeper understanding and sense of purpose than ever before.

Last week, I had an opportunity to go to a church. And even tho I am not a religious person, I found the experience really refreshing. It was so refreshing, that it got my thinking about the different religions there are, and the practices that people can do, regardless of religion, that can improve how they experience life.

And this experience really got me thinking: How do people experience spirituality around the world? What does everyone try to achieve? Are there differences between being religious and not religious?

Be open minded while reading this blog.

I realized quickly how insanely big this topic is. I have been on a spiritual journey myself for a while know, and I also want to share my experiences with you. In this first part tho, it will be less about me, but more about how I define spirituality and about how spirituality tries to give you tools to truly feel happy and free. It will be very interesting, and you'll learn a lot. Pinky promise.

Let's begin.

Seeking happiness

People that think they'll be happy with a million dollars, 5 super cars and two hot chicks in their arms, have dependent their well-being on external factors. The fastest car can only give you validation and boost your ego temporarily, as will those chicks and the amount of money you have, without ever making you feel complete. It's temporary fun, not long-term happiness. You may feel proud about your car, but it will become normal after a few weeks. With that, you will always be chasing the new dopamine hit: Another car, Another house, another girl.

You'll become a collector of things you'll never need, with the hope of feeling like you have achieved something in life.

If your life lacks fulfillment, you'll never feel complete. No matter the amount of money in your bank account.

Money can give you temporary happiness, but will never make you a fulfilled person.

Social Media is insanely good at portraying that "rich" or "successful" people "have" it extremely well. They post this pictures of themselves chilling with beautiful woman (status symbol) on a yacht (status symbol), while drinking some expensive champagne (status symbol) while everyone is happy.

But here I am questioning something: If you would really be so happy and free, why would you post it on something like Instagram to show the world? I think that most people use it to show themselves from their best sides. In other words: They try to portray a picture of themselves for others to see. They are searching for validation and to feel even better about themselves. Proving themselves to others.

Seeking validation is completely ego based.

If you were truly happy and free, would you really need to show off what you are doing to some strangers on the internet?

And the sad part is, that many people nowadays think that posting everything should be normal: They try to live a life aligned to their ego (showing off, sharing their opinions about everything ever, trying to impress everyone), not their purpose.

With following your ego, you will be attached to some outside validation so much, that you slowly and steadily start to care more about what other people think about you, than what you think about yourself.

This is one of the reasons why many people feel so insecure nowadays.

If you follow your ego, it will enslave you and make you act out of fear. And it will try to judge everything you do, think and feel. You will always feel like you need something more in your life. One more Instagram post, one more like, one more girl and so on.

True freedom is to feel complete. Unconditionally.

Your ego is your enemy.

Your turning point

You shouldn't need ANY validation. The only one who has to approve of yourself is you. That's why you need to be in charge of your own life.

How do you get to that point?

You need to work on yourself. And especially, you need to work on your personality, your emotions and your life. If this sounds overwhelming, no worries, I'll be breaking it down for you. In this blog post (part 1 of this series) we will be getting to know one of the things that can help you get there. It is the most important habit you can build in your life. But before we get tho that, I need you to understand something essential.

Get rid of that "I need to become confident", "I need to become rich" or "I need to become happy" thinking. The first step to happiness is becoming more aware of what you feel and think. Awareness and realizations go hand in hand. And this also means to realize, that those statements are wrong.

You can not become good enough. You can only realize that you have been good enough from the beginning.

This is also why many things that people advise is absolute trash. Example: Let's say you don't like yourself and you start doing self-love practices. If you are doing self-love practices, what does that imply about yourself?

It implies that you don't love yourself.

And you may argue that you want to learn to love yourself by doing those self-love practices. But here the same principle comes again: You cannot become a self-loving person, you can only realize that you are and have always been a self-loving person. Even tho it's hard to believe for a few people: The fact that you never decided to kill yourself and committed suicide, means that you love yourself. Even if it's only for 0.0001 %, you love yourself. The rest is being suppressed by trauma and other shit that is going on. This is a thing that you have to let go of. But this is a topic for another blog post.

So now we know that we shouldn't practice some random things that we read on the internet just for "feeling" better or loved. You need to get to the root cause, not just treat some symptoms.

And here spirituality comes into play.

My definition of spirituality is nothing else than personal development: Trying to find your purpose, learning how to deal with your emotions and ultimately, become a loving and free person.

There is a sentence that really helps you understand spirituality. But you may need a while until you finally realize what it really means.

The sentence I want to share with you is:

"There is no finish line. You have already passed it long ago"

You'll never have to become good enough, because you are. You just don't know it yet.

And this doesn't mean you should abandon everything that you are doing to stay healthy, become more mindful or to become wealthier. It just means, that all of those things you should do for a better life, but not to feel better about yourself. If feeling "good enough" or "confident" are your main goals, you'll never ever get there with external work. If being wealthier or healthier, external factors can help you a lot.

Let's take a little side step to something that a friend once told me and makes for an interesting transition. He told me:

"Sitting with yourself can't make you happy."

He is refering to a challenge that I told you once to do: Sit in a room for 15 minutes alone and see what comes up. Sitting alone with yourself is sometimes exactly what you need. He had so much resistance doing that, so that he started to search for excuses: Your mind is fighting back. Why would I sit here for nothing? Why would I waste 15 minutes? And back on Tiktok we was.

When you are spending time with you alone, you will feel resistance, I can guarantee you that. I want you to feel into that resistance and breath into it.

You need to be able to spend time with yourself to become happy.

Spending time alone is literally the number one habit that I started and helped me accept who I am. It is so simple that everybody thinks that it is bullshit.

Let me tell you this: If you can sit by yourself, you'll feel some kind of sensations that will tell you exactly what you need. You'll feel signs that your body and mind have been given you, and that you potentially missed because of time you'd rather spend on your phone. It can be quite intense actually.

Learning to feel truly again is one of the aspects of spirituality. It's something that you can achieve by meditation or some prayers in church. It's probably the most overlooked step ever.

Getting to know yourself truly is one of the biggest forms of respect towards yourself.

Really trying your best to learn who you are, listening to your emotions and to become aware of yourself again is the first step to truly getting to know yourself. And with knowing who you are and what you need, you can find out what your purpose is. And your purpose is one part of you feeling happy.

You can only work on yourself when you know yourself, and when you can feel what your body is telling you.

This is the beginning of a very interesting journey. Brace yourself.

Our challenge

This challenge will be easy to describe, but hard to do.

I want you to spend time with yourself, and only yourself.

For this challenge, you can do two variations.

For 15 minutes, I want you to put every distraction away, and tell everyone to not bother you during this time. Do one of the following things during this time.

1) Close your eyes and focus on your breath

2) Look at one point at your wall and focus

You can set yourself a timer so that you know when 15 minutes are over.

After that, you should be feeling relaxed, and if it's one of the first times meditating, you may feel bored.

Trust me when I say that this will change your life overtime. Sitting with yourself will make you happy over time. It's so unreal that nobody teaches you that.

I thought it was a huge lie the first time I heard this, and after doing it for a while, I am now confirming: This is probably the most important habit that I started in my life.

I challenge you to do the same.

Do you feel committed to this challenge? If you want someone to hold yourself accountable, reach out to me via Mail (kimzo.blog@gmail.com) and write "xy"

My Song of the week

German song again. But one that sticks with me for a long time. And I made my girlfriend addicted to it, even tho she hates german songs. Checkmate.