How can I turn my day-to-day into a mission-driven game that I love PLAYING and feel fully ALIVE in the process?

The mind needs reasoning to believe in a process; without belief, this won’t work.

So let me share with you how I (and you?) lived most of my life and why I didn’t feel as playful, alive, and peaceful as I wanted.

Thereafter the process of how to create that unconditional life – which I will openly share with you – will hopefully feel like an obvious conclusion and, therefore, will be much easier to implement.

A conditional life is based on desire.

For the desire to exist, there needs to be a perceived lack.

That’s why the main focus of a conditional life is placed on having, getting, achieving, comparing, and so on.

A sense of lack characterizes the first four levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The mind is the tool that perceives lack – based on the belief in one or more core lies – through the interpretation of experiences, comparison, and social conditioning.

I used to start with a conscious or unconscious desire and automatically and unconsciously used my mind to figure out how I could get rid of lack and start having more (see image below).

The mind’s answer to bridge that gap is translated into a want or goal.

To reach the goal, you need to walk a certain path, and when the path gets difficult, you sometimes recognize that you need to change who you are to be able to walk that path successfully.

And so you follow the requirement to change yourself – to develop „your“ personality –  to be good enough to walk the path that will lead you to your goal.

In the end, your goal is to achieve a sense of fulfillment, and you hope to feel whole, worthy, and complete once you attain what you’ve been striving for

The crux is that this strategy sounds perfectly reasonable!

It makes sense, and that is why I can’t blame myself or anyone else for getting stuck with it for so long (or even forever).

But since I had already won the first game, by getting to level 4 and now wanted to ascend to level 5, I needed a different strategy because level 5 is no longer based on lack.

With the strategy I used to ascend the „lack-levels“ until level 4, I would only ever get the fulfillment of level 4.

I wanted more!

Key Realization ➡️ Foundational Principles of the ePlyr Approach

The ePlyr approach builds on a few premises and realizations:

Realization #1: I am not my self

​​Who are you?

No, really, who are you?

Maybe you answer with your name, gender, nationality, and other demographics or psychographics like qualities, values, or your personal history and experiences.

The „thing“ you define and see as „you“ is most likely your created and developed self, character, personality, and identity.

The real you has identified with this identity – this „self“ – so strongly that there is no separation most of the time.

But if one would put you on the other side of the world, changed your style, your profession, and called you Joe Schmoe, you would still be you, right?

Because your characteristics can change (quickly), it can’t be the „real“ you.

Does that make sense?

You would still be „you“ without all of it. You would not be who you are right now, but you would still be YOU.

I don’t have a definite answer to what we truly are – most spiritual teachings answer with „consciousness,“ but that doesn’t matter right now.

You are not your self!

Realization #2: The core lies of the self hold us small

It does not really matter where your core lies are coming from – this is not therapy.

You can see their manifestation in your current experience and therefore discover it without needing to analyze every event of your childhood.

The core lie is something we started to believe in to protect ourselves. Because it became a conviction on the identity level, we never questioned it and therefore we did not consciously base our decisions and behavior on it.

So if one of my lies was that „I am only worthy if I am extraordinarily good or special“, you could probably imagine how that can run (and ruin) my whole life.

It can help you achieve a lot when you compensate for that lie, but once you ascended successfully through the lack-levels 1-4, it stops you from unleashing your full potential and limits the enjoyment and fulfillment of your experience.

In my case, for example, the need to be extraordinary, even the best, made me strive for certain achievements, but at some point – when I needed to go another route and embrace something new, it wanted to protect me from failing at all costs because my worth was so tied to be great and possessing this huge potential, that the fear of losing my self-image of being that extraordinary high-potential, would prevent and self-sabotage any progress towards situations that my mind perceived dangerous for that matter.

The fear of losing one’s own self-image is far greater than the drive to feel fulfillment and aliveness after level 4 is reached when your life is based on a core lie!

Realization #3: Time is not the most important resource

At first, we probably all believed that money was the most important resource. Then we had it to whatever degree, and time became our most precious thing.

But what is more important than time?

Think about having a day off – nothing to do, lots of time – and being unsatisfied and restless.

Or having one-hour white space in your calendar but being filled with inner tension, noise, and overwhelm – like being divided, everywhere, and nowhere.

The most valuable resource is attention!

Why?

Because where we put our attention determines the experience of our reality at every moment.

We know there is truth in the teachings from Eckhart Tolle that „there never was and never will be a moment that is not now.“

Our experience of reality (right now) is really the only thing that matters (and the only thing that is real)!

Where we put our attention (by default) is determined by who we believe to be; our world and self-view = our identity.

➡️ Attention (directed by our identity) is responsible for our experience.

Experience is all that counts.

Therefore:

➡️ Owned attention is the most valuable resource

Realization #4: Goals are means to the unconditional path

If it is all about the experience of the present moment, does „reality“ even matter?

Why try to achieve something if it is not important?

When I first came across the idea that there is no meaning to any event or situation besides the meaning that we attribute to it – that every event is neutral – I felt a sense of meaninglessness for everything I could do or achieve.

But imagine that you already had everything you ever wanted.

Wouldn’t you start to engage in activities that bring you joy for no reason – like a child who plays hide and seek or builds a sandcastle only to tear it down a minute after it is finished?

You would play unconditionally if you truly had everything (material and emotional) that you wanted.

I realized I would approach life as an infinite game, where the experience of the current moment is the main focus.

When we prioritize our experience yet still want to play the game of life actively, goals become a wonderful means to the end of living an unconditional life (= path).

I will demonstrate what that means on a practical level in the following section, where the ePlyr approach is explained.

Conclusion 💡

Experience of the present moment is the only thing that matters. We can be at peace, joyful, and fulfilled right now (or never).

Experience is ultimately determined by our identity through attention.

Because we are not our „self“, not our current identity, we can play with experience – become ePlyrs.

The missing link (in personal development) and the only skill to master is to live in the feeling tone of the chosen experience and consciously embody/play the identity right now, who experiences the infinite game of life in an unconditional manner.

The ePlyr approach is the practice of mastering that skill.