Why Should We Wake Up?

Dear Friend,

Welcome to Waking Up. This is a newsletter where I hope to share a modern path to enlightenment with you. I’ll take everything I’ve learned about personal development, psychology, spirituality, and mindfulness to help you live as your true self.

I’m excited you’re here. 

I’ll share personal reflections and frameworks from my journey toward finally accepting myself after 30 years and transcending this self-acceptance to achieve self-love. Through these stories, I hope to inspire you to examine your own life and strive for the very best.

Because I truly believe you deserve it.

But today, I want to propose (and answer) a very simple question. A question that supports the existence of this very newsletter you’re about to read. 

Why “Waking Up?”

See, I think “Waking Up” is more than just a name for this newsletter. 

Waking Up is a way of approaching life that aims to get us out of our indulgent ruts of only wanting the best for us (or those exactly like us). 

Waking Up is recognizing just how much anger, hate, and divisiveness there is in the world (especially in politics) and how we can all love each other better and bring about a kinder, more compassionate world.

While suffering is an inevitable part of life, we don’t have to suffer as much as we do.

There is a path that allows us to transcend our suffering to achieve greater happiness and contentment. A path that allows us to “Wake Up” to our true nature.

But before we start that journey, we need to discuss why Waking Up is so important.

We are at an inflection point

If we’ve learned anything from the last few years, it’s that our world is in turmoil.

AI. Climate change. A global pandemic. The rise of authoritarian and extremist governments. Unaffordable housing. Increased violence and racism. Rights of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community being stripped away in alarming fashion.

People are scared.

People are angry.

These are totally normal things to feel. We have every right to feel whatever feelings come up.

But we need to react better. We need to be better. We need to react and be in alignment with our true self.

It’s so easy to see a news story or piece on a political issue that you disagree with and become filled with rage. I know I feel my blood boil when I see injustice. It’s part of why I try to limit my exposure to the news as much as possible.

If we let all the world’s problems affect us too greatly, we lose touch with our true nature (most of us have already lost it years ago).

What is this nature?

Being embodied as a compassionate, kind, limitless, and open being that is capable of immense love.

When we let the world’s problems come knocking on our front door and let them in uninvited, we’re opening ourselves up for trouble. We can have opinions, we can even have ambitions to improve these problems through volunteering our time, donating our money, or focusing our energy on making the world a better place to live.

But if we aren’t mindful of our reactions, we can hurt those we love, or even damage ourselves in the process.

The tense holiday dinner

Does this scene sound familiar?

You’re back home visiting your family for an important holiday. You gather at a relative’s house, perhaps the matriarch or patriarch of the family. Inevitably, a discussion about current events breaks out.

Someone (usually grandma or grandpa) talks about the President and how bad he is. Or how it’s all his fault that gas prices are so high. 

You roll your eyes at first. The President doesn’t control gas prices, people.

Then, the relative brings up something a little closer to home. Perhaps a racist comment or how the world is going to hell and how urban areas are war zones. 

You start to feel hot. Your jaw clenches. You want to put this person in their place and tell them what’s what. 

Maybe you do just that. Maybe you say nothing.

Speak up, and you potentially fracture the relationship if you don’t express your views in the right way.

Say nothing, and the outspoken relative is free to keep spouting their opinions. These opinions filter out into the world and the people they’re speaking about continue to suffer from false prejudices and continued injustice.

Whether you tell them off or not, you’re also suffering inside.

You might have friends exactly like the people they’re talking about. If you’re gay and closeted (like I was), comments about your secret identity deeply upset you. Mainly because you can’t even tell anyone why you’re upset. 

This suffering you feel spills over into how you interact with others, too. 

You bring that angry energy to your next conversation with your friends. And on and on the cycle goes.

We are all one

Divisiveness, anger, and hate are not our true nature.

They just happen to be easy states of being based on the way our world works and how we grew up.

We’re so busy striving to be what others want us to be that we never ask ourselves who we actually are or what we actually want. So many of us don’t even accept ourselves, let alone love ourselves.

I know, because it took me 32 years to truly accept and love myself. 

But what if we truly loved ourselves? 

What if we could accept every part of ourselves, good and bad?

And once we built a refuge within ourselves, we would not only relate to ourselves better, but relate to every being, and our world better, too?

That’s what I believe we are all capable of. 

It’s so much easier to love others, feel compassion, and show kindness when we’ve built a home of love within.

Because the reality is (which I’ll share in future newsletters), we’re all one.

While we live everyday thinking that our “self” must navigate or “deal” with the “other” of the outside world, what if I told you that there was no “self” and “other?” 

Trust me, this will all make more sense as we go along.

What if we started living our lives believing that everyone (yes, even the monsters of the world) deserved happiness? 

What if we strived to erase suffering for everyone? What would our world look like then?

We’re all human. We want to be safe. We want to be happy. We want to be healthy. And we want to live with ease. 

If most of us can agree that this type of world is worth building and living in, just imagine the problems we could erase. 

Those pesky nuisances I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter? We may not completely erase them, but we’d go a long way in becoming aware of these problems and taking proud action against them.

And if we do nothing?

Our problems will only get worse. There will only be more suffering in the world.

The Bodhisattva path

Before we close, I want to touch on why this work is so meaningful to me.

Earlier this year, I visited Thailand on a group trip. I was enamored with the various Buddhist temples we visited and enjoyed hearing our local guide speak about what the Buddha’s teachings meant to the people of Thailand.

I first encountered Buddhism and meditation in my twenties and was very intrigued, but let my curiosity slip over the years as I focused on writing novels and rising in my career (before I came out and changed careers later on).

When I got back to the states, I became hooked on meditating and do it every morning now. I’m much more calm, present, and less reactive now that I’ve incorporated meditation and mindfulness in my daily life.

After attending a silent meditation retreat this summer, I’m even more convinced of the power of awareness to end suffering, and want to align my very being (and my life’s work) with the path of a bodhisattva.

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is someone who wishes to liberate others from suffering. Ideally, a bodhisattva will emancipate all others from the suffering of the world before they themselves become enlightened. 

While I have not taken the bodhisattva vow, seeing these words inspires me and serves as my purpose for writing this newsletter:

Sentient beings are innumerable; I vow to save them.

Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.

The Dharma teachings are boundless; I vow to master them.

The Buddha Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

It’s time to wake up

I hope this first edition of Waking Up inspired you.

Or, instead of being inspired, maybe you’re questioning why there’s so much suffering in the world and what you can do about it.

Maybe you want to finally learn how to accept and love yourself. So that you can be the best version of yourself and inspire the rest of the world to strive for the same.

No matter your reaction, I hope you stick with me for future newsletters. 

We’re going to get a lot deeper into this stuff. I’ll share this path that can ease our suffering, starting with the next issue.

I hope that my experience can help shine the light on what it means to Wake Up and build a kinder, more compassionate world.

If you haven’t, subscribe today, so you don’t miss a future issue.

Waking Up comes out every Sunday morning.

Wishing you love and happiness,

Spenser

P.S. I’d love to know more about you, my dear reader. Let me know what you’re struggling with in life or what you hope to get out of reading this newsletter by taking a short survey (I know, surveys suck, but I promise it won’t take more than 2 minutes; you can skip any question you want).

Or, better yet, just respond to this email and let me know :)