Sven-isms a.k.a. Badass Counseling Wisdom
Badass Counseling represents the cumulative wisdom Sven Erlandson has built over years of counseling, ministry, and corporate coaching. That wisdom translates into ‘Sven-isms’ that you’ll find documented here.
If you’ve done soul counseling with Sven, spent time on this website absorbing the content Sven has written, listened to the Badass Counseling podcast, and/or followed him closely on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, you will certainly have heard some of these Sven-isms. They can sometimes be mantras. Regardless, they are powerful and stick with you.
Here follows a list of Sven-ism expressions grouped into categories. We’ll continue to add to the page and invite you to submit ones that have struck you as particularly valuable to your own soul as you’ve listened to Sven. We’ll add them here, too.
Sven-isms About Self-Discovery
The path to discovering who you are requires discovering who you’re not.
Which is easier for you: to say ‘yes’ to things you hate doing or to say ‘no’ to things you love doing?
Life is fair, very fair…in one big thing: pain. No one escapes life without pain.
The more you dare to be, say, do, and become on the outside who you really are on the inside, the more you start to lose (or walk away from) people who are married to who you used to be, and the more you start to effortlessly attract people who love who you are becoming; and the more sh*t – amazing sh*t! – starts to fall out of the sky.
Is it possible that your parents’ values are different from your values?
I must constantly remind myself I’m part of the problem I’m trying to solve.
If a person can’t control you, they’ll attempt to control the story about you.
“F*ck it!”
Once you cross the ‘F*ck-it point’, you have the courage to do what, just yesterday, you didn’t have the courage to do; and the clarity to see what you must do, when just yesterday, it was confusing and murky. It’s the point after which you no longer give a sh*t.
There’s no success in any venture in life without the capacity to focus your mind.
Inside of anger is the word ‘no.’ Inside of ‘no’ is the word ‘I.’ “No, I don’t like how you’re treating me.” “No, this doesn’t feel good to me.” “No, I don’t want to do that.” “No, that’s not fair to me.” If you were never allowed to express anger, you were fundamentally robbed of your ‘I.’
My vanity exceeds my gluttony.
The evolution of self is king.
In the movement from childhood perceptions of people to adulthood perceptions, the day often comes when villains become heroes and heroes become villains.
Sven-isms About Change
Change will not occur ‘til the pain gets bad enough
Creation is invariably preceded by destruction. Things must die for things to live.
The grand blessing of going through hell is it’s not as scary the second time, and definitely not as scary the third time
Life is constantly whispering two questions in your ear. 1. Who the f*ck are you, really? 2. Do you have the courage to be who the f*ck you really are?
Naming the beast is half the problem
Transformation can be immediate if you go deep enough
You gotta face it, feel it, flush it. And each step requires courage and the willingness to put it into WORDS. Words wound, words heal.
There is no external reality that can make the internal reality permanently go away
Your life; your choice
Knowing it and living it are two completely different things
creation is invariably preceded by destruction
Who owns you?
Statements About Soul Counseling
It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it.
If it doesn’t feel good, don’t f*ckin’ do it!
If you could choose between your adult-child healing, but you never getting to have a relationship with them, or you getting a relationship with your adult-child, but them never healing, which would you choose?
The soul is more powerful than the will.
We’re called (by the soul) to actions, not results.
At the deepest, soul level, the voice of God/Universe is indistinguishable from the voice of self.
Until you have the stillness and solitude necessary to hear the voice of the soul, until you have the courage to heed that voice, and until you can let go of needing specific results, there be no true joy, no lasting peace, no inimitable power, and no sense of purpose.
If it doesn’t scare the holy hell out of you, it’s not your soul’s call for your life. If it’s safe, comfortable, or easy, long-term, it’s not your soul’s calling. Fact!
The precursor to, and the ongoing most important element of the spiritual life is courage.
No man is truly free until he can live as though his father is dead
At the deepest level, the voice of the Universe/God is indistinguishable from the voice of your own soul
Inspiring Your Motivation
Vince Lombardi was wrong when he said, “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” What is Michael Jordan’s Major League Baseball batting average from his years trying to be a professional baseball player after already becoming the greatest basketball player of all time? He didn’t have one. He never made it out of double-A ball. He quit before he reached the majors.
What if your anger is good? What if it’s your own inner GPS saying how you were treated was NOT ok? …now, what you do with the anger is a separate issue.
Lacking motivation? It’s 1 of 3 reasons.
Either there are fears blocking your path;
There are core beliefs you were taught about yourself that are dragging you down, unseen, below the surface of who you are; or
What you say you want isn’t what you really want – i.e., it isn’t what your most authentic self truly feels called to.
>> See Lombardi Was Wrong: The Positive Power of Quitting to Succeed
We are constantly being led to higher ground and greater abundance.
Sven-isms About Healing & Pain
Healing and coping are two completely different things. If you’re still coping, you ain’t healed.
Anything that is experienced as positive attention, even if it’s provided by self, is experienced as filling the Love Cup.
Pain is life’s greatest teacher.
Until the pain is out of you, it’s still in you.
Your pain will increase. This shit doesn’t magically heal itself.
Triggers are good because they reveal to us where we still have healing work to do.
The single greatest fear in life is the fear of the known. Nothing short-circuits more pursuits of happiness than the fear that comes from knowing exactly how they’ll respond when you reveal your real self.
Spite is a powerful motivator and a life-sucking mistress.
>> See Is the Greatest Fear in Life the Fear of the Unknown?
Badass Counseling Wisdom About Love
Love is vulnerability – a constant opening and opening to another person
It’s easy to always speak truth and be harsh. It’s easy to always be cuddly and speak love. It’s infinitely more difficult to speak truth and love simultaneously – to set occasional hard truths within a greater, ongoing context of appreciation and positive attention.
The most powerful expression of love is to show another person who you really, really, really are… to the point where it scares you to do so. The sheer terror of doing so is a testament to the sacredness of the act.
The single surest way to let go (of them) is to hold on as tightly as you can. Eventually, the grip gets tired. Go to your favorite restaurant and the places you loved to go together. Wear their favorite sweatshirt. Welcome the feelings, then flush them out with journaling. Eventually, the longing will empty from you.
Honesty is an aphrodisiac because honesty breeds trust. And, trust deepens connection.
>> See The Ups, Downs of Love and Healthy Loving Relationships
Sven-isms About Relationships
All relationships end for the same reason they begin: One person doesn’t feeeeel it anymore. It’s not about reasons, logic, or ‘You did this’ or ‘You didn’t do this and that.’ It’s about the simple fact that, after all the reasons and circumstances are taken into consideration, ‘I just don’t feel it (for you), anymore.’
Unhealthy people come in twos. Healthy people, by definition, don’t get into, or stay in, relationships with unhealthy people.
Relationship impasses occur and grow because one person (or two) is withholding some truth that they know, if they speak it, would blow up the relationship.
The really ugly and extremely difficult part of life in relationships is having hard conversations before the blowout happens.
Brutal honesty is telling someone else what’s wrong with them. Radical honesty is telling someone else what’s wrong with you or what you’re most afraid of them knowing about you. One is an act of exposing; the other is an act of revealing. Great relationships are built on the latter – radical honesty. Defective and destructive relationships (lover-lover, parent-child) are constructed on some derivative of the former.
Every shared experience is a cord binding two people together, making breaking up tricky
Don’t reward bad behavior.
Red flags always start small.
We let go by holding on until our grip gets tired.
Extreme Taker = Narcissist
Extreme Giver = someone conditioned to attempt to get love by giving excessive amounts of love
Love Camel = someone who can go a long distance in a relationship on a little bit of love. This is not a recipe for happiness long term.
If you’re ever going into a presentation or, perhaps, a conversation with someone who talks over you or runs circles around you, write down in advance your one-sentence takeaway – the one sentence which, if you get lost in what’s ahead, you can always come back to.
Badass Counseling Wisdom About Children and Parenting
Children want to be heard, not fixed. Most adults too, much of the time.
Children shout loudest when feeling heard least. Adults, too. Peoples/nations, too.
Children do not exist for parents; parents exist for children.
Children love parents more than parents love children
Bad parenting says, “You’re a bad boy!” Good parenting says, “You’re not a bad person. You just did a bad thing.” Good parenting divorces the action from the identity of the child.
If a child cannot get positive attention, they’ll settle for negative attention, such as what comes from doing bad things. Why? Because negative attention, such as getting yelled at or put down, is better than no attention. No attention means that You don’t exist. “You’re bad” is a value statement. “You don’t exist” is an existential statement and, thus, far more powerful.
Even good parents can seriously harm a child’s soul
Suggestive selling sells. If you give children mostly positive input, they’ll believe they are good and that they matter. And that one belief changes everything for the rest of their lives.
“The opposite of my parents” is not a smart parenting strategy. Very often, the opposite of sh*t is still sh*t.
What’s the single biggest crime your parent committed against you? What does it all boil down to, in one sentence or less?
The notion that an adult-child is obligated to ‘honor thy father and mother’ when the parent breached that contract, decades prior, by not honoring the child is ludicrous.
>> See How To Be Successful At Parenting
And Family
Family myths exist to protect the person at the top of the food chain… and keep the bottom person down. (Puncture that myth and you’ll endure the wrath.)
What Sven Says About Happiness
We only enjoy something to the degree we’re in it.
The single biggest mistake people make in trying to get happy is they do more things that make them happy. Until you get out the raw sewage undermining the happy, ain’t no amount of happy things gonna stick.
Happiness and fear are inversely correlated.
The difference between happy people and unhappy people is how they define strength.
Until you have the stillness and solitude necessary to hear the voice of the world, until you have the courage to heed that voice, and until you can let go of needing specific results, there will be no true joy, no lasting peace, no inimitable power, and no sense of purpose
Closed doors are greater blessings than open doors
Everyone’s different.
Have a Kickass Day!
>> See The 10 REAL Reasons You're Not Happy & Your Business Isn't Successful: Diamonds and Raw Sewage
Sharing Wise Badass Counseling Sven-isms
Which of these statements do you find more thought-provoking?
I hope at least one motivates you to find your true you.
Thanks for reading.
-- Sven Erlandson, MDiv, Is The Author Of Seven Books, Including 'Badass Jesus: The Serious Athlete And A Life Of Noble Purpose' And 'I Steal Wives: A Serial Adulterer Reveals The REAL Reasons More And More Happily Married Women Are Cheating.' He Has Been Called The Father Of The Spiritual But Not Religious Movement After His Seminal Book 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Came Out 15 Years Ago, Long Before The Phrase Became Part Of Common Parlance And Even Longer Before The Movement Hit Critical Mass. He Is Former Military, Clergy, And NCAA Head Coach For Strength And Conditioning; And Has A Global Counseling/Consulting Practice with offices In NYC, NJ, And Stamford, CT: BadassCounseling.com
