Living Consciously

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes. ~Proust

What if you could think differently? What if you could change your perception of your life and put yourself in a state of increased clarity? To expand your view on the world? Would it cast away certain boundaries you set for yourself?

During our lifetime, we rely on two things to explore this world: our senses, to absorb new information and our memory, to recall what we've learned in the past. Although we have no choice but to rely on our senses and memories, they can easily fool us.


Physical Boundaries.

Imagine, If nobody had ever informed you, in any way, that the earth was round and you were living in an age where there was little or no information about the planet, would you think it is round? Or would you believe it is flat? We can answer this question because this situation has happened to mankind before. Unless you are a genius, you will think the world is flat. Not because it is true, but because the earth looks flat, because it is the most obvious answer to give and because you don't have any information to prove it is not. You have no reason to doubt your belief. Until someone thinks... "hey wait a minute... what if we are wrong?"

Before mankind was aware that they were living on a round planet, people were bound to where they lived. They were afraid that they would fall of the earth's surface, at some unknown location, if they travelled around in unknown places. There was danger, but it was uncertain where. On a round planet however, there are no invisible boundaries, there is no drop off and therefore not a single good reason to stay put. So we became explorers and slowly increased our knowledge about our own home. We lost a barrier that was stopping us from experiencing more than we previously believed to be possible. We expanded our world and we did it by changing our perception. We did it by embracing a new truth.

What you should remember from this, is that memories and senses can only give us A truth, they can never give us THE truth.


Mental Boundaries.

The same idea applies to mental boundaries as well. How many times did you believe something, that eventually turned out to not be true? An assumption or a mental block that made you pass up on an experience, because you were either afraid, didn't think it would serve you or felt like it didn't fit in with your current line of thinking? Every time you did this, you created the belief that you are on a flat planet, when in fact, you are living on an round one.

Why do we do this? Why do we allow our own thoughts to rule over us and make us think we have less potential than we actually have? Why haven't we evolved into better explorers of our own capabilities? The reason is: we are programmed to compare everything that crosses our path to the past. It's our safety mechanism. What we know is reliable and safe, what we don't know, we fear.

The main idea of living consciously means to open yourself up to a new you. To move towards the fear, not back away from it. Living consciously is about replacing old, unrealistic invalid ideas with new, realistic valid ones. It's about rethinking what you believe to be true. Even if you believe you are 100% certain.

You can start to live more consciously by making small changes to your life. Changes that are a result of performing small personal experimentations, that will bring you closer to the truth.

To give you a personal example: for as long as I can remember, I have never liked cheese. I simply don't like the smell and taste of it. In the past, I simply said NO to it all the time. But at a certain age, I became curious about what I was missing out on. Surely there would be types of cheese I could like, right? So I started tasting different varieties of cheese and I quickly discovered which types I could eat and which ones I couldn't. Every time I tasted a new flavor, I performed a reality check. If I liked it, perfect. If I didn't like it, I would stay away from it. Although some cheeses make me physically noxious, my curiosity has given me the opportunity to join in on a cheese dish with other people now. It helps me to stretch myself to the outer boundaries of what is true for me.

Another way to change your perceptions is to be open to other people's beliefs. The greatest tragedies in our history are the result of people sticking to their ideas and failing to see that there can be multiple truths to a single concept. Religious wars, for example, are caused by the idea that 2 beliefs cannot exist side by side. The expression of those conflicts are the result of conflicts in the mind's of people. In their perception of the truth. However, by opening up to new ideas, we can expand our mind, create deep personal connections and broaden our experiences, all rooted in the idea of a mutual respect for other people's thoughts.


What about you?

Did you make any shifts in your thinking recently, that increased the enjoyment of your life? Which mental barriers did you break to gain more freedom in your life?

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