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Person Sascha

Existential Therapist | Holistic Coach | Philosopher
Sascha Heupel | AMOR FATI

SASCHA HEUPEL: EXISTENTIAL THERAPIST, HOLISTIC COACH, PHILOSOPHER

I have been traveling the world for many years now, living a minimalist, free, and nomadic lifestyle without a permanent residence. I combine this lifestyle with my work as an existential therapist, holistic coach, and philosopher. I’m inspired by powerful books, existential philosophy, deep psychology, the ideas of Nietzsche, beautiful nature, unique locations, and Ruhrpott humor. And also how to live a free, authentic, and fulfilled life with flow and ease in all areas of life. That’s why I love, live, and teach the holistic and pragmatic AMOR FATI philosophy. AMOR FATI aims to create stable and authentic personalities so people can live a fulfilled, free, and happy life. With my work, I want to spread AMOR FATI and make it accessible to other people. I want to pass on some of the fire that burns within me for AMOR FATI and “an awesome life.”

I have been working with people for more than 16 years in the form of coaching, therapy and mentoring. I help my clients to finally kick out the trash, develop themselves, overcome inner blockages and fears, realize their potential, declutter their lives, do their own thing and become stable, clear, authentic and free. Because:

“Wrong Life Cannot Be Lived Rightly.” – Theodor W. Adorno

You can find more details about my coaching and therapeutic work at: Coaching & Therapy with Sascha. You can also check out the coaching reports and video feedback. Here clients talk about our work. In addition to my work as a coach and therapist, I also manage our website, publish articles on the blog, help with our community trips and host the AMOR FATI podcast.

After all these years, the following areas have emerged in which I help people – the transitions are fluid. They are also good to describe me and my life:

  • Philosophy & Therapy: Become who you are!
  • Health & Fitness: A healthy mind in a healthy body!
  • Vocation & Finances: Do your own thing!
  • Freedom & Travel: Become a global citizen!

GNOTHI SEAUTON – KNOW THYSELF!

If you combine Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Become who you are!” and Seneca’s “Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak.” we are already pretty close to my own story in the area of philosophy and therapy. Because as my favorite comedy icon Stromberg would say:

“Life hasn’t thrown anything into my pocket either.” – Bernd Stromberg

What is calm, fun, easy and clear today was once: pure chaos. The sudden death of my mother in 2009, the subsequent distancing from parts of my family and friends and a few other factors caused me an existential crisis. Everything was turned upside down and questioned. Disorientation, powerlessness, meaninglessness and lack of clarity dominated my life at that time. I fell into a depression and, according to the doctors, I also had a burnout. I thought twice about whether I wanted to continue living at all. I completed a total of three classical psychotherapies, was on psychotropic drugs for more than five years and at times i took anti-anxiety drugs, like children Smarties. This combination made me more or less “stable for everyday life” – but by no means happier, more playful, more relaxed or more fulfilled. I also had about 50,000 euros in debt, an unfulfilling job and relationship problems. If I had known Tyler Durden at the time, I would certainly have remembered his world-famous quote:

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” – Tyler Durden

Sascha Heupel Person | AMOR FATI
Sascha 1

Because that’s what it felt like: lost. But somehow, deep in my being, there was a warrior-like spirit to live and the drive to get out of it. Today I am very grateful for that chaos inside me, in my body and especially in my soul, because it sent me on my journey. As absurd and contradictory as that may sound: it made it possible in the first place. #trustchaos

Or as Fritz the Nietzschmeister says:

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

He also highly recommends …

“You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?” – Friedrich Nietzsche

So I let go – trusted – and worked intensively on myself and my situation. In addition to therapy, I tried many different things to become more relaxed, to find myself, to do my thing and simply to live an easier and happier life. Few of them worked for me, many didn’t work at all. “Patient stable, therapy successful”, said the therapists and doctors. I said: “True, but only stable enough for everyday life! But who the fuck wants that?”

I could have kept living like this until the day I died, building a career and making good money. I was very grateful that I was doing better, but something inside me still felt “unfulfilled”: “That’s it? – That’s fucking all?” I didn’t know how to interpret this inner voice back then. Today I know that the years of working on myself and listening were worth it. Because when a mutual friend introduced Dr. Christian Zippel into my life years later and with him the AMOR FATI philosophy, I was hooked: inner resonance. Since then, I wanted to know everything about this powerful and free philosophy from Dr. Z, trying it out for myself and, if appropriate, adapting it to myself and integrating it into my life. I felt like a child at play, just playing for the sake of playing – because that’s what children do. When was the last time you felt like this? #energeia #fatitakescare

So I constantly invested several years, completed several coachings with Dr. Z and traveled about 20 countries with him – lived with him for many months, made him my mentor and teacher and learned to live, love and teach the AMOR FATI philosophy for myself. Today I would say that I received a philosophical and therapeutic training from Dr. Zippel and applied it individually to myself, my life and my clients. It was a wonderful and very formative time. I also completed a training in existential psychotherapy and I read the relevant specialist literature. The combination of my own life experiences, the AMOR FATI training with Dr. Z, the study of specialist content and over 16 years of working with people allows me to bring the topic of philosophy and therapy into AMOR FATI and to my clients. #imakeyourinsideshiftthatismygift

Sascha Heupel Bodybuilding Transformation | AMOR FATI

LETTING GO & SUICIDE ONLY COSTS A LIFE – AND A LOT OF COURAGE!

Long before I had anything in common with AMOR FATI, I was passionate about fitness and bodybuilding. I trained with friends at a private gym nearby and was looking to gain muscle and lose fat. Over time, I became more and more interested and started reading lots of books on the subject. After a few years of training, I completed various trainer licenses at private academies at weekends over several years – at the same time as working part-time and studying full-time. In addition to the classic Trainer B and A licenses, I also completed a personal trainer and nutrition trainer license and worked with several trainers and coaches in this field.

I never planned to turn this into a business, but over time, more and more friends and acquaintances asked for help, so I started offering my services. I started sharing my knowledge and giving coaching sessions when I was 18. I read a lot of specialist literature on the subject, lost 20 kg of fat, put on 15 kg of muscle, and started my own fitness business while I was still studying. I set up my own supplement store with a partner and soon I was doing fitness coaching full-time.

I also trained six days a week, gave personal training sessions, competed in bodybuilding competitions, and used anabolic steroids for three years in a row at the end of my bodybuilding days. I was my own lab rat, having extensive hormone and blood tests every two months and talking to specialists. It was an intense time.

After about ten years, I felt that I had outgrown the “fitness & bodybuilding” game. It felt like it was time for me to move on. A good and mutual friend of Dr. Z and myself is the multiple German Champion and World Bodybuilding Champion, Peter Baers. I sat down with Peter for a joint project and revealed to him that I wanted to get out. Out of the supplement business, out of my job as a fitness coach, out of bodybuilding, and out of steroids. I told him that I felt like I had to take this leap, even though it felt like “suicide” because I had worked and invested years for this. I was worried about the loss of identity and purpose that would come with it.

Peter and Christian knew each other very well and personally from traveling together. Peter gave me the advice to talk to Dr. Z personally, because that’s what he would do in my situation. No sooner said than done! So I went to Rügen for a coaching session with Christian and got to know him personally. We discussed my concerns and after two days of philosophical work it was clear to me: “I’m out! I informed many of my fitness clients on the spot, left the supplement store and stopped all steroids in a way that no doctor would normally recommend: cold as ice, without any supporting medication. Bodybuilding was dead! The personal trainer and bodybuilder Sascha had died with him, and I had killed him myself. Philosophically a very formative event and it felt good – very good.

Today, I incorporate my knowledge of fitness, health, nutrition, physiotherapy, fascia, blood and hormone levels, yoga and meditation into my coaching sessions as a holistic component.

“Many are afraid of the small, social death and hardly dare to step out of line; even more are afraid of the great, absolute death – although they should only be afraid of a dead life.” – Dr. Christian Zippel

 

LIVING IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR NATURE IS THE WAY TO A FULFILLED & HAPPY LIFE!

After completing my apprenticeship as a marketing and communications specialist, I wanted to go to university, but my grades weren’t good enough to be accepted directly into university – just as my teachers had predicted. I changed my plans and started working in a traditional advertising agency and later in a newspaper publishing house.
My position was client/project manager and sales. After a few years I tried to go to university again and spent five semesters studying business administration with a focus on marketing. I also completed training as an online marketing manager. I used my skills and knowledge to build my supplement store and fitness coaching business as described above.

Along with coaching, fitness and all my other interests, digital marketing has always existed in parallel in my life. After leaving fitness and bodybuilding as described above, I focused more on it. I wanted to dive deeper into digital marketing and work on exciting projects in an agency environment with great people – learning and growing together. So I got a job as an online marketing manager with sales trainer Dirk Kreuter. I was the fourth employee in the newly founded marketing agency, sat on the floor in the hallway for a few weeks while the office space was being renovated, and started my work. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

As a team, we realized performance marketing projects with the goal of helping our clients generate more sales and customer inquiries online. We handled the strategy, positioning, website implementation, graphics, communications, digital ads, and everything else that was necessary to make a project successful.

At that point in my life, I was working sixty to seventy hours a week, and I loved it, although I knew I couldn’t do it forever because the volume and pressure of the work would not tend to decrease. But by far the most important thing that came out of all the hustle and bustle was that I made a very good and close friend. #qualityoverquantity

After about a year of kickstart agency life, I started my own business with him and we started our own online marketing agency with two other partners. We wanted to do our own thing, be independent and free. At the same time, I shared my expertise in marketing, sales and psychology with my clients through coaching and training. Even after I left my residence in Germany and started traveling the world, I continued to do digital marketing projects from time to time. My career as an online marketing manager reached its peak when I was responsible for twelve online stores in ten different countries and coordinating eight international freelancers / employees – while I was constantly traveling and giving my AMOR FATI coachings simultaneously.

Financial success came my way and I was able to pay off my 50,000 Euro student loan early. But what was more important than money: I was amazed at what you can achieve with clarity, focus, digital work organization and having fun. Today, I use my experience and expertise in digital work exclusively in my AMOR FATI coaching sessions to help my clients build or grow their own businesses.

Part of figuring out who you really are is asking yourself what you love and what you would do if you only had a year to live. Doing more digital marketing and stressing about it, chasing money, consuming more, or being ” successful” was not a worthy answer for me. Therefore, digital marketing had to be overcome and let go. Instead, I now had more time to do the things I wanted to do in the last year of my life: travel and see the world, organize crazy and profound AMOR FATI trips, help more people with coaching and therapy, fire up the barbecue with my friends, drink a bottle of Dortmunder Kronen beer and laugh about the same stupid things as I did back then. Why? Because that’s me – it’s my nature. That’s the way to fulfillment and happiness: living in harmony and resonance with your own nature! Then the question “Is this still life or can it finally be removed?” also fizzles out.

We are thrown into this life as human beings. No, you can’t be or become everything. For reasons of time alone, you have to choose, because – spoiler alert: you will die… And that’s a good thing!
In addition to temporal transience, you don’t choose your genes, your parents, your early influences and maybe not even your breast or penis size. In some cases, the zip code you were born in says more about your life perspectives than your GPA and IQ combined. Sad but true. #hesaidpenis
Nevertheless, you do have influence: to recognize your own nature and essence, to accept it and not to try desperately to square a circle – just by hitting it harder and harder. This means knowing yourself, accepting yourself and living authentically. As long as you try to be someone you are not, or run away from your compensations, traumas and fears, you will have more and more complicated problems and painful symptoms in your life. Stop whining and make something out of it – make yourself out of it!

Everyone has to live with this “thrownness” and the fate it contains, whether they want to or not – life doesn’t ask. In addition, we have to learn to deal with the supposedly “hard” aspects of life: death, illness, disappointment, guilt, loss, change, suffering, meaninglessness, loneliness, freedom, responsibility, existential fears, income tax returns, tomorrow’s strawberry prices, etc. The philosophical and therapeutic approach: In spite of being thrown and your inherent fate in life, with all the burdens you have to bear, you should still say “Yes!” to life. You should gain clarity, throw off ballast, establish ease and authenticity, clarify your personal purpose and, of course, why you want to stay alive at all. And that is how you learn to: laugh and dance!

“And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity – through him all things fall.
Not by wrath, but by laughter do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!
I learned to walk; since then have I let myself run. I learned to fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a spot.
Now I am light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself. Now there danceth a God in me.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Speaking of dancing … I dance too, and I dance freely through the world – and it’s wonderful. In November 2019, I deregistered my apartment in Germany, buried my traditional life and have been living without a permanent residence ever since. I sold all my possessions and reduced them to two bags and about twelve kilograms. I feel where I’m attracted and if I like it, I’m happy to stay longer. I have a international travel health insurance and fixed expenses of about 200 Euros per month. While traveling, I work with a handful of wonderful clients for no more than 20-25 hours a week. The rest I invest in myself: reading, writing, meditation, exercise, yoga, psychology, philosophy, walking and just being. Does that sound crazy and too good to be true? I used to think so too. Today I know it is possible and an indescribable freedom! When was the last time you made a date to drink a cappuccino in the sun with yourself for a whole afternoon and felt unstressed, relaxed and happy? #thinkaboutit

As part of my AMOR FATI work, I also help my clients to kick out the trash, minimize and live a free life. If desired, I help them to deregister, to emigrate and to lead a permanent traveling lifestyle. I not only coordinate and help with the organization and implementation of the emigration, but we also work together on any emotional issues that may arise during the process of becoming free. Because: Being free has to be learned!

“Freedom means: Free space. Free time. Free life. Free death. Or as we say at AMOR FATI: live easy, die happy. Of course, this is not a standard model in such an extreme way. But a philosopher wouldn’t be a philosopher if he didn’t live his ideals.” – Dr. Christian Zippel

”What can you lose that you won't lose anyway? Nothing - and nothing should stop you from risking everything to live the best life possible.

Dr. Christian Zippel

DARE TO BE YOURSELF!

Dare to become who you are and stop stressing about small shit. Look into your dark corners, look at your fears, patterns and compensations and don’t forget the torch: who else should bring light into your life if not you? If you’ve read this far: respect. I only did it because I wanted to know how it would end. Don’t worry, we’re done now. Dr. Z, do you have anything philosophically sophisticated to add?

“What can you lose that you won’t lose anyway? Nothing – and nothing should stop you from risking everything to live the best life possible.” – Dr. Christian Zippel

With this in mind …

AMOR FATI
Become who you are!
Yours Sascha