Radical Presence – An 8 Week Program to create a life you will mostly hate, occasionally love & definitely not feel indifferent about anymore

This is the saddest picture of me on the internet. I think it’s also the most honest one. When I see this picture, I feel happy and scared, because, with the help of the photographer who took it, I didn’t “modify” my facial expression in any way. I just let it hang loose and this happened to be my expression. Just looking at this picture has helped me develop tremendous acceptance for my sadness. When I see this picture I think there is little difference between what I’m showing you and how I’m feeling on the inside – sad, lonely, lost. Poof – it’s just there!

I’ve been on a journey for a few years since I got rich, a little famous, and a little tired. I got tired mostly of playing a game that’s not in line with my intuition for what I’d like to do day today. I feel a bit psychotic to write this, but 4 years ago on this day in 2017, my life looked like this:

• I worked on a product I didn’t like anymore, with people I didn’t feel connected to
• I had multiple conversations every day with people about things I didn’t care about
• I was in a relationship with a woman I didn’t admire
• I lived in a city that was crowded, dirty, and noisy (NYC), where I felt completely miserable about the concrete jungle surrounding me.

Basically, I was spending 90% of my daily waking hours doing things that I didn’t like! That’s fucking crazy!! Why did I do that? Why are so many people doing that? Why are you doing that right now in multiple aspects of your life?

Well, because the real problem was this: I had no connection with myself to make conscious that I didn’t like 90% of the things I was doing day to day. And next, I had no clue how to change it. I’m only able to write up the above things now, after having learned to become present to the sensations that point to that. I couldn’t have told you in 2017.

Have I figured it out now? Well, yes, some parts of it:

•  I love 90% of the conversations and people I’m spending my time on day to day.
• I work on something that I feel deeply, personally connected to
• I’m in a relationship with women who I admire and feel I can open up to.
• I live on the outskirts of a much less busy city with immediate access to nature and parks.

So yeah, I’m not totally there, but 80-90% of the choices I’m making these days I feel are in line with what feels right and good to me.

Does this mean I’m happy? Absolutely not!

This morning, May 19th, when I’m writing this, I felt horribly depressed after waking up with a big pit in my stomach, then later on completely confused and lost, wondering in my mind whether what I’m doing has any value at all. Then, I felt ashamed about 2 messages I’d written the day before and haven’t gotten a response to. Then I felt scared to ask my co-founder for a call to brainstorm what to do next. For a few moments I felt grateful to see the trees outside my house. And now as I’m typing this I feel part excited, part scared in my chest and tingling in my feet, wondering if anyone out there will be interested to join this program. As I’m reviewing this, I feel energized, elated and happy.

Although I can’t say I’m “happy” in the “I feel warm, bubbly, cuddly, excited, lovingly in my heart” sense of the word more than I was before, which is an illusion as a goal in my mind anyway, I got something else for you. It’s tremendous confidence in having learned to become more present to life:

Present to its ups and downs – to shame, to desire, to hatred, to aliveness, excitement, elatedness in its most radical form

Present to my dreams, my imagination for the world I long to see

Present to my ideas, tactical and grand, to turn them into reality, bit by bit

Present to other people around me, their sensations, and my curiosity for how they are doing

Present to nature, the trees, the leaves, the rain, the sunshine

Present to the rumbling in my belly, the tightness in my lower back, the clenching of my jaw, the openness in my heart.

What I will teach you to teach yourself is this

To become aware. To begin to notice what a giant fucking mess you’ve created for yourself. And how it is up to you to begin to dig your way out of the hole before you make it any bigger.

We will do this together, in a group of 20 people, by being honest with each other. By noticing our bodies and by taking tiny steps every day that expand our awareness and allow us to live more freely together in our lives and as a group.

If you join this group, I wish for you to feel more pain than you’ve ever felt in your life in my presence. And to feel more aliveness, expansion and joy on the other side of it.  And then pain again, and then joy and then every other sensation under the sun, together with every dream your mind pops out. And then incredible, stupid, tiny, big action steps that will propel your life toward something you can be proud of day to day. Something that no one else might understand other than you.

How we will meet together during the 8 weeks

• 3 times over the 8 weeks we will meet on Zoom for 2 hours – discussing together what a big fucking mess life is and how we can make some sense of it together and take steps to a different life. (You will not have access to me outside of the Zoom calls unless you want to pay me an extra $500/ individual session)
• 3 times a week, you’ll receive a prompt from me via a video to reflect and interact together through the new app I’m building, called Here. You’ll need an iPhone or iPad for it.
• 1 time a week, you’ll have a call with your buddy for 30 minutes to practice radical expression & body sensing with a protocol I will share.

What I need from you if you want to join this program: 

• A hate & love letter: detailing as clearly as possible how and where your life is a mess right now – what you hate about it and why. What makes you despair and annoyed and sad and angry and ashamed of yourself and all the fucking twats around you that don’t get you. Take your time with this – really tell me about how fucked up things are for you and then in the second part, tell me this: What kind of life you’d like to have instead of the mess you currently own. How will it be beautiful? What you will do day to day that will make your life amazing? What’s joyful, enrealing, exciting, expansive about it? This letter of yours will then be shared with every other member of the program and you will get to read everyone else’s letter before we start. If I judge your letter as not grasping its intention as stated here, meaning, if it’s not real enough, you can’t join the program.
• $2000 from you in my PayPal account or 0.62 ETH in my Coinbase account. I will send you those details after I’ve reviewed your letter – this is to make sure that you really really want this. And for me to get a little bit richer again. Win-win!
• A mental commitment to show up to the 3 program points I’ve outlined above and excitement that you want to live a better life.

One more thing – there are only 20 spots for this. Once it’s full, it’s full, first come first serve through the letters I’m receiving.

If you’re fed up with the life you have and are interested in joining this program, send me your letter to l.widrich@gmail.com and I’m excited to review and get this baby on the road.

We will aim to start this program by June 1st – so best to send me your letter for review at least a week before so I can consider them, ideally, if you’re interested, sit down today and type it up.