LLI 61 You Are the Wonder – Devotion, Boundaries & the Mystery of Being Fully Human

Show notes

Find the written iterations WRITERATIONS here: https://www.facebook.com/hongsang.christmann/

What does it mean to live in devotion without getting caught in spiritual language or bypassing? In this episode of Love Louder, Sang explores the deeply human path of becoming—where the tension between resistance and surrender, yes and no, faith and form lives inside us all.

We speak to the quiet wisdom of:

Honoring your humanness without apology

Why devotion isn’t about belief, but about embodiment

The balance of yes and no as a sacred leadership tool

The spark in beginnings and the temptation to chase “purpose”

Letting the mystery of life move through you without needing to fix or frame it

This one’s for the seekers, the creators, the parents, the lovers, the leaders who know they’re still becoming. And who sense—beneath all the systems and concepts—that there’s something essential that can’t be named, only lived.

“You are the question. You are the answer. You are the prayer.”

Show transcript

00:00:00: Hello, lovers, hello, leaders.

00:00:03: This is iteration number 61 of the Love Louder podcast,

00:00:07: "Iterations on Becoming Human".

00:00:09: Now, what is this about if it's neither religious nor spiritual?

00:00:15: That's a question that I asked myself during the previous episodes,

00:00:21: because there was one where we would really clearly say,

00:00:25: "This is not religious, this is not spiritual".

00:00:28: Now, it comes clearer through the iterations,

00:00:31: through the old themes, through this becoming human.

00:00:35: It is devotional.

00:00:37: It is living a life, being fully human in our humanness.

00:00:46: And not getting distracted, whatever there might be,

00:00:51: distracting us from living this life fully.

00:00:54: And it does mean to open our hearts.

00:00:57: It does mean to surrender too.

00:00:59: It does mean having boundaries too.

00:01:03: Now, here's the thing.

00:01:05: It does not matter how you want to label it,

00:01:08: because we talked about truth, about God,

00:01:12: and it is pure devotion.

00:01:16: You know, there's a saying.

00:01:18: There's a saying, "I do come originally from air traffic control,

00:01:22: so I like metavis and analogies that are connected to aviation."

00:01:29: And the saying goes, "There is no single person without faith

00:01:36: or not believing in God on a crashing plane."

00:01:44: [Laughs]

00:01:47: That's a tough one, isn't it?

00:01:49: But can you feel it?

00:01:51: Can you visit that space in yourself?

00:01:56: And here's the thing.

00:01:58: It doesn't matter if we just make it public how we see this,

00:02:03: let's say how our worldview is on being human and how it is embedded.

00:02:09: And I do not feel like that.

00:02:11: We all have to talk about it.

00:02:13: It's just, you know, we want this to be lived through us.

00:02:19: So when we feel the pressure of our humaneness building up,

00:02:26: getting too high, as in the example,

00:02:30: we intuitively, we instinctively turn towards that,

00:02:36: which is greater than the form itself, if we believe it or not.

00:02:43: So here's the thing.

00:02:44: We do not, it's not about believing in God.

00:02:48: It's about letting God live through you.

00:02:53: It's about removing the friction.

00:02:56: It's that devotion to divine will to whatever you want to call it.

00:03:05: It's really that simple, and we do not have to get distracted

00:03:09: with all the words that are used,

00:03:12: because we're well aware that there are many preconceptions

00:03:19: with the words "religion" and "spirituality"

00:03:23: that as soon as we dive into these topics,

00:03:28: there are worlds opening up for every single person,

00:03:32: and they look very different.

00:03:34: Yet they do point at the same thing.

00:03:38: And here's where we add with the Love Louder podcast,

00:03:42: to removing the friction, to surrendering,

00:03:48: to becoming more human.

00:03:53: With all that is human, with all the emotions,

00:03:59: with all the thoughts, with all that,

00:04:01: whatever is connected to this form.

00:04:03: And that also means removing the friction

00:04:08: that we sometimes put ourselves in,

00:04:10: that others have objections against,

00:04:16: like, you know, there are ideas coming,

00:04:19: and you are given ideas how to approach this life,

00:04:23: how to live this life.

00:04:24: Now, do you want to resist it?

00:04:26: Do you want to resist it out of fear?

00:04:31: Because the idea has come to you now.

00:04:36: You can ditch it, of course.

00:04:38: It's yours to discard, to, you will know,

00:04:42: but sometimes there's, you have that feeling

00:04:46: that there must be another way.

00:04:50: There must be another way.

00:04:54: And that's what it's all about.

00:04:56: It's devotional.

00:04:57: The Love Louder podcast is about devotion.

00:05:00: It's a devotional practice.

00:05:02: It's about self-expression.

00:05:03: It is about leadership.

00:05:05: That is not only the direction,

00:05:09: not only the guidance, but also the surrender,

00:05:13: but also the intimacy,

00:05:15: because that is what humanity encompasses,

00:05:21: what being human encompasses.

00:05:23: And if we try to cut away some parts of our humanists

00:05:28: out of certain areas of our life,

00:05:30: because we think this is how it should be done,

00:05:36: we deprive ourselves from our complexity.

00:05:45: And it is like this.

00:05:47: Human beings are complex.

00:05:49: We cannot simplify it more than that.

00:05:54: Now, one, do you want to make it more complex

00:05:57: in the attempt of simplifying things,

00:05:59: by establishing more systems,

00:06:01: by establishing more beliefs and how-to's and should's?

00:06:06: And you name it.

00:06:09: And you might have a journey behind you

00:06:13: where you tried all these concepts out.

00:06:18: And every one of us is on a journey

00:06:22: on finding their own concept of this.

00:06:24: Getting their mind, it's about our mind to understand while what we inertly know that

00:06:32: this year is a wonder, we are the wonder and sometimes we are reminded especially when

00:06:39: we are witnessing families, consciously or when we start our own family, it's all of

00:06:53: the sudden that we get brought back to what is essential.

00:07:00: It's in these moments of beginnings, not just in starting a family, not just in witnessing

00:07:05: other families but also in the beginnings of a new relationship, romantically but also

00:07:14: in business, a cooperation, there's always this inert spark of the beginning.

00:07:25: So can we devote ourselves to this spark without trying to fix it, without trying to grasp it,

00:07:36: to holding it on, to start running for whatever we think that our purpose is?

00:07:44: There's such a huge discussion on you have to find your purpose, you have to find meaning

00:07:52: in your life especially like you have to leave legacy in the world.

00:07:58: A purpose is not what you do.

00:08:04: It's not about doing more, it's something that you emanate.

00:08:11: And when you are just fully, fully living your life as the wonderful human that you are because

00:08:22: you are full of wonder, you are a cluster of stardust, dust, like what is the chance that

00:08:30: the universe piled up in the form of you, God created you in His own world.

00:08:40: His own image.

00:08:43: You are that.

00:08:48: You are the question, you are the answer, you are the prayer, you are God too.

00:08:56: And try to hear this with ears that are not confined in the restrictions of religion or

00:09:09: spirituality.

00:09:11: It is just what it is, it's really simple.

00:09:15: And here's the thing, we get sometimes so caught up in all that, let's say love and

00:09:20: light language that I've heard and it is easy to bypass it.

00:09:25: It is easy to escape in a world that does more relate to our fantasy than our imagination

00:09:33: than what we are living as a reality.

00:09:40: It's not about saying yes to everything.

00:09:44: While it is a part of surrender to surrender to what it is, what is, but it also means

00:09:57: to say no.

00:10:00: It is equally as valid as the yes.

00:10:10: When you start finding the balance between the yeses and the no's, where you give yourself

00:10:19: and where you find yourself having to place a boundary just because of your own preferences,

00:10:29: that is good, it's important too.

00:10:36: That is too part of becoming and being more human.

00:10:41: It is part of finding the golden mean.

00:10:47: And we will try different things on, you will explore one extreme, you will explore another

00:10:55: extreme.

00:10:56: Sometimes it will look like going from zero to 100 and from 100 to zero again, you will

00:11:01: say yes to all the things and then you will reject everything that comes your way.

00:11:06: That is okay.

00:11:10: It will come very naturally, then you cannot sustain that fixation of the mind for long.

00:11:20: If you allow it, here's the thing, if you allow it, if you surrender to it, if you relax

00:11:29: your body into it, and it is very tangible, the more you relax, you are in your body physically,

00:11:40: the more you are open to see what there is and to face anything that comes your way, even

00:11:52: if you perceive as challenge.

00:11:57: And that is devotion.

00:12:02: That is divine will, living through you.

00:12:09: What is you as the wonder?

00:12:15: So my invitation for you today is just to look at where, how does the balance for you

00:12:24: look like right now with the yeses and the noes?

00:12:28: Is there any area you want to practice more?

00:12:34: What is what also means to love like Alida?

00:12:43: Now love a little louder.

00:12:46: Shang.

00:12:46: [BLANK_AUDIO]

New comment

Your name or nickname, will be shown publicly
At least 10 characters long
By submitting your comment you agree that the content of the field "Name or nickname" will be stored and shown publicly next to your comment. Using your real name is optional.