Conscious Living : How To Start Living Consciously
- Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.
- You are the sum total of all the choices you have made in life.
- Living consciously means honestly accepting yourself and the world you live in.
Consciously Living Your Life
In virtually all spiritual and philosophical traditions of the world, there appears some form of the idea that most people are sleep walking through their lives.
If and when these people do “wake up” they are said to be enlightened, as they can now see and experience the world for what it truly is.
Although these spiritual and philosophical traditions may vary in their presentation, they all share the same basic message.
That it is only by becoming more aware of yourself, and your surroundings (by expanding your consciousness), will you evolve as a person and realise your true potential in life.
Why Is Conscious Living So Important?
For all species that possess it, consciousness is the basic tool needed for survival. It allows awareness of the surrounding environment and identification of prey, food and shelter.
Without a certain level of consciousness you would be nothing more than a blob of flesh. Not thinking, not reacting and not living.
Therefore consciousness, and the awareness it gives you, makes the world what it is. For how you perceive the world around you, is ultimately determined by your level of conscious awareness of it.
So by expanding your consciousness, you ultimately expand the world in which you live. Because if you are aware of more, you can experience more.
This in turn allows you to grow and develop as a person, perhaps even reaching the level of “enlightenment” ancient sages and spiritual leaders so often used to talk about.
Are You Avoiding Consciousness?
Consciousness can be sought after, ignored, or actively avoided. In other words, your mind has the ability to manage your own consciousness, by choosing what you think about, and what you don’t think about.
Whilst managing what you think about certainly can be a great advantage, it can also be a great burden. For if you do not bring an appropriate level of consciousness to your daily activities, then the inevitable penalty is a diminished sense of self efficacy and self respect.
This occurs because you cannot feel truly confident and worthy of greatness, whilst conducting your life in a mental fog. So when you sacrifice applying consciousness to your life, your self esteem will also suffer.
The Affect Of Being Conscious In Life
Through the thousands of choices you make between thinking and non thinking, by being responsible towards reality, or evading reality, you automatically create a sense of the kind of person you are.
Consciously you may not remember the choices you make on a day to day basis, but deep inside your subconscious all the choices you make are recorded and added up.
So every choice you make, and every way you act, is all recorded by your subconscious mind. The sum total of these experiences then becomes who you are.
The Reality Of Consciousness
To live consciously means being aware of everything that may have an influence on your actions, purposes, values and goals.
Living consciously means seeking out these things to the best of your ability, and then acting appropriately with what you see and know.
This last point is especially important, because consciousness that is not translated into appropriate action is a waste of consciousness.
Living consciously therefore means more than just seeing and knowing, it means acting on what you see and know.
For example, suppose recently you had an argument with someone and hurt their feelings. You know you should go up to that person and try to make things better, but at the same time you don’t want to admit you made a mistake.
So instead of apologising you tell yourself you are still thinking about what to do, and in the end you never apologise.
This is the opposite of living consciously, and demonstrates one way in which people can avoid their reality by diverting consciousness away from the issue at hand.
In a later article we shall take a closer look at some of the negative consequences that may occur as a result of avoiding reality.
Accepting Reality Through Conscious Living
Living consciously is living responsibly towards reality. You do not necessarily have to like what you see, but you recognise that wishes, fears or desires will not alter the facts.
So living consciously is all about accepting the reality of a situation, rather than looking for excuses and trying to avoid being conscious.
Accepting the reality of a situation does not mean that things cannot be changed, but rather, as you will find out in a later article, it is the only way that something can be changed.
Great post on Self Esteem.
Self Esteem is the value of your own self or your self worth. Loss of self esteem can occur any time and causes more depressive disorder in your life. Loss self value may mean that you lose the goal of your life and do not feel like living. The building back of your self esteem is the first step to lead a pleased and satisfied life. The building of self esteem helps by giving a rise to your self confidence.