Regaining Consciousness

Sometimes I feel like I am walking through life in a fog where I am half awake and half asleep, just barely noticing the things that are happening in my immediate sphere of consciousness. Other times I feel like I am totally tuned in to even the smallest detail, where the sights, the sounds, the smells and even my more subtle perceptual energies are locked in and fully alive. These are two opposite extremes on the spectrum of consciousness that I live in. 

Of the two, I most certainly prefer the latter of the the two states of consciousness over the former. It is the way I feel after a good night's sleep or a fantastic workout or a really "trippy" meditation. That being said, I also accept the fact that sometimes I need to be in the state where I am more tuned out. It is a protection mechanism for the very curious way in which I experience the Universe: It can prevent me from sensory or emotional overload. It's also very likely one of the main reasons I chose to use wine on a mostly daily basis until I switched to the choice of sobriety just over two years ago.

Slightly tuning down the volume of life in many ways saved me from myself for many years until I was ready to do the actual saving like I am now. That's a bigger story for a different day. If you follow my writings regularly then you already know parts of that story and by the end of this year I predict you will know a whole lot more. Stick around! 

As it relates to today's writing though, I want to keep things focused on this spectrum of consciousness. I'm a big believer in the concept that everything in life is on a spectrum. We are not always or never one particular thing. I am not always happy. It is highly unlikely that I will never have negative thoughts. It is impossible to be in a state of perfect health and at the same time, even when I am feeling my worst it is not as if I will never feel well again. The duality of life will continually offer us light and dark, hope and hopelessness, joy and grief and everything in between those extremes. Everything in life is on a spectrum.

It is also important to remind ourselves that we are active players in this duality of life. The way we experience the Universe is directly related to whether or not we are willing to accept our role in co-creating our life experience or whether we instead choose to sit back underneath our victim's cloak and feel sorry for ourselves for all the things that continue to happen TO us. The circumstances of our extraordinarily complex world have lulled many of us into living in a state of semi-consciousness. The good news is that we can most certainly choose to wake up. The bad news is there are an infinite number of distractions that have been set like traps to keep us unconscious or at best semi-conscious. 

I could write thousands of words on this topic alone. In fact I am sure that many of you are expecting me to do exactly that, but instead I am going to stop writing about this for now and invite you to come and take an active role in discussing how we can all put more intention into living a life where we are fully conscious. Join me this Thursday evening at 7:00 PM central for a 75-minute interactive discussion about Living Consciously in a Sometimes Unconscious World. I will be sharing some of my observations and tools that I use to live more consciously in my everyday life. Those who are interested will have the opportunity to share their own thoughts and experiences as well. 

While this call is being held under the umbrella of MenLiving, it is open to all genders much like the Hero's Journey call I hosted back in November that many of you attended. I would love it if some of my friends and followers outside the MenLiving community joined me for what I suspect will be a powerful and enriching conversation. You can save your free space and get the Zoom information by signing up through Eventbrite at the link right here.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I expect I will have more to share about this topic and other things later this week. In the meantime, blessings to you all for an amazing week. 

PS.... Even though this event has ended, you can look for future similar events by subscribing to me newsletter below to sure to not miss out!