December 18, 2003

• Waking Up

  
  

  Part of the growth process I've been undertaking over the past year is to understand my own level of consciousness and to wake up to life.  People who follow the principles of Buddhism are familiar with the metaphor of wakefulness as a spiritual goal.  Siddhartha was the man who woke up.  (He's also one of two people in history of whom others asked not "who are you?" but "what are you?" - I've always been fascinated by that bit of trivia.)

  
  

  This morning in my email there is a thought for the day from the Higher Awareness site about consciousness.  They define four levels of consciousness. 

  
  

  Not conscious - instinctual, follower
  Subconscious - habitual, robotic, reactive
  Conscious - aware, intelligent, conceptual, reflective
  Superconscious - intuitive, guiding, truthful, loving, universal
  

  
  

  As I evaluated myself, I decided that there are very few areas of my life in which I am not conscious.  I think that as a general rule, I'm too cynical to be a follower.  How do I know that the person I'm following has any idea what they are doing?  Or why they are doing it?

  
  

  The thing that I've been most conscious of trying to overcome as been my tendency to be reactive without losing my ability to be responsive.  I don't want to become insensitive, I want to hear, understand and adapt within relationships to all different levels.  But there is a difference between a conscious ability to respond and the unconscious reaction.  When I'm caught in reaction, I give away my power to someone or something else.  I forget that I have both freedom and responsibility for myself and my behavior.  I start to feel trapped by circumstances. 

  
  

  I flatter myself that for the most part I am conscious.  I'm thinking now about the adjectives used to describe that superconscious state.  Intuitive knowledge is knowledge that isn't discussed or valued much in classic philosophy.  Intuitive knowledge is that which you are able to know because of who you are, because of what you have felt and experienced.  No one else can ever know what I know intuitively because no one else is I.  For most of my life, I have not wanted to trust that intuitive knowledge, I haven't wanted to trust myself because without an external reference to check myself, what if I'm wrong?  I have never been much for following my heart.  One of the things I've learned over the past year, and especially in the last six months is that my heart is trustworthy. 

  
  

  Yesterday, I woke up feeling sad and overwhelmed by my circumstances and my life.  But I've done so much thinking that I couldn't see allowing myself to spend another day in reflection, my heart said it was time for a break, time to feed my soul with something different.  So - I decided to drive to Walmart.  It's not a three minute hop over to the store.  From my home, Walmart is a 40 minute drive through beautiful countryside.  Yes, I needed the laundry soap, but even more, I needed to see the formation of icicles from stone outcroppings. 

  
  

  Then I got a call from my friend, Barb.  I told her what I was doing and she had a suggestion - how about after my kids are out of school, we drive over to Madison.  It's a picturesque little town which sits in a bend of the Ohio River.  Old Victorian homes and quaint little shops are the order of the day.  With everything decorated for Christmas, it's a quiet invitation to walk, enjoy the season, and visit the old soda shop for the best potato salad in Southern Indiana.  That's what I did.  And I'm glad.  Makes waking up a lot more pleasant today. 

  • 7:36 am
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