The world is a reflection

“It feels like I am always meeting you for the first time,” I told her as I looked at her beautiful smile.“Is that a good thing?” she asked.“Of course,” I replied.

But what I really wanted to say was:

I have died a thousand times, only to be born again a thousand more—just to see myself reflected in the light of your eyes.The beauty I see in you is only the beauty I am able to experience within. We perceive the world from the inside out.

When you meet people who are so unconditional and pure, they reflect parts of us—whether awakened or asleep. They can carry so much light that it scares us.

The ego tries to escape these higher frequencies of awareness.

The ego doesn’t like change. It needs control and fears anything it cannot. So it searches for ways to regain that control—even if it means retreating into the familiar past.

Like water, the ego will find cracks in the container. It will slip back to your addictions, your distractions, your comfort zones.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change.

This includes the people you spend time with, the people you attract—and the people you stop attracting.

On the path of self-development, you will lose people.

Your best friends can become strangers.

There was a time in my life when I created much of this rejection. My victim mind tried to figure out why this was happening to me. But as I grew and evolved, I began to see—these old friends were limiting me. It was happening for me.

When you raise your standards, you start to clearly see where others cross your boundaries. What once felt normal suddenly feels toxic.

Misery needs company. But it's hard to stay in the company of misery when you’re rising like the phoenix from the ashes.

With a sledgehammer, I destroyed any connection not aligned with my higher self.

I became a magnet for drama, and life pushed me into solitude.

Life forced me to purge everything and everyone who wasn’t aligned with who I was becoming.

But everywhere you go there you are.

Guilty pleasures became heavy addictions that I needed to quit. The more you grow, the more consequences your actions carry. You get away with less—because life is demanding more. Because growth can be painful sometimes.

The ego fears change.

Change happens automatically. It is our nature to age and decay.

But transformation is a choice—a choice that comes from Spirit.

Inside you, there is a seed that longs to sprout, grow, and reach its highest potential.

Some souls awaken that fire from within—and rise.

When you become a butterfly, it may be hard to hang out with caterpillars. And maybe, you’d rather surround yourself with other butterflies.

If there is one vital key to transformation, it is environment. I remember how much I transformed when I moved to a new town—or to Costa Rica.

Because in meeting new people, I was able to reinvent myself.

We cannot change the past. But we can change the way we look at it.

And we cannot pretend to be someone we have not yet become—Because eventually, life will present us with the lessons that show us where we still need to grow.

Life will also present us with gifts to show us how far we’ve come. Just don’t attach to them. It is our attachment—to what we call pleasant or unpleasant—that creates the drama and suffering in the first place.

Because at a certain point, the butterfly must be able to be among caterpillars.

Without needing to convince them how amazing it is to fly.

You will change the world simply by becoming the embodiment of what you want the world to be.

You have but one gift in this world—and that is to truly give yourself. Unless you become what you want the world to be, You will never see it in the world around you.

There is no way to bring about the perfection we seek other than by transforming ourselves.

Love and light,Niek