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To wake up and live consciously.

I’ll admit, I’m a little nervous hitting publish on this post. Partly because I’m about to tell you that you could be asleep, it’s not an insult. So am I.

The question I’ll ask you to ask yourself at the end of this post, is the question I ask myself…daily! And I don’t want to be the next mini dictatorship in your life, or false messenger, telling you what to think or what to believe.

These are my thoughts. My understanding, because it’s all I have, so have a read and think for yourself.

If you haven’t read the introduction to this post you can do that here.

Wake Up

If you find the courage to wake up, and question everything, to become fully aware of the real world around you, and the one within you, you not only will ‘find’ who you are, you’ll never fall back asleep.

That’s a massive claim for me to make.

In my experience it’s easy to get sucked back in and have a snooze.

But once you begin to ask, there is no turning back.

Are we asleep?

Filters up.

Head down.

Plodding.

Following the herd.

• Some people accept jobs and enter careers, asleep.
• Some people get married, asleep.
• Some people have children, buy homes, move countries, asleep.
• Some people cook, clean, drive cars, asleep.
• Some people start businesses, asleep
• Some people watch TV, asleep.

You might think that you cannot do any of these things asleep.

Have you ever said ‘what was I thinking?‘ to an event, experience, where you have no idea why you did what you did, said what you said, or behaved how you behaved?

I have.

= 100% asleep! On automatic, plodding along, running the software to others programs not my own.

… I wasted too much of my life not being me! I was afraid, I guess. You know how it is. You keep your head down and you hustle and hustle. Then you look up one day and wonder, “How did I get here?”

Most of us don’t know ‘how we got here’ because we’re in, what I’ll call, a Walking Coma due to the result of a lifetime of conditioning from the ‘fake’ messages assaulting and bombarding our senses, creating our perceptions and giving us perceived realities.

Then, for some, there comes that moment when you’re aware you’ve been sleeping, you wake up, even if it’s just for second to ask ‘who the f*ck am I?‘ or declare ‘I have no idea who the hell I am anymore!’

Scary time? You bet.

To realise that everything you thought about you is a lie, of course it’s scary.

To have no answer though, is beyond terrifying.

To go back to sleep, no!

It really is no surprise to me the majority of people are miserable, stuck, and unable to move in any direction.

We continually are waiting for the ‘instructions’ dealt out by others because we don’t trust our own.

For the majority of us we live in a permanent state of ‘fear’, worrying and concerning ourselves to distraction about what others think, if we’re being ‘normal’ enough, are we acceptable to the masses, are we acting in accordance to the rules set down by the herd?

From the Internet to television, newspapers to magazines, social pressures to group thinking, advertising to governments, coaches to goo-roos, systems to rules and regulations, soap operas to society, religions to peers and family all of them fight for your attention so that they can give you their script on how to run your life.

All consciously and planting subliminal messages saying:

This is who you are and this is how you should think

• This is how you should look and this is what to wear.
• This is success, this is failure.
• Here are the strange and crazy people, here are the ‘normal’ ones.
• This is what you should be fearful of, this is what’s safe for you.
• This is normal society and behaviour, here are the misfits and losers
• Here are the nasty people, here are the good ones
• Here are the pillars of society, these are the freaks
• Here are the beautiful people, here are the ugly ones
• Here are the terrorists, here at the good guys
• Here are the unsafe people, here are the safe ones
• This is acceptable, this is non-acceptable

Is it any wonder you ‘feel’ lost?

Some churn out, we have 80,000 thoughts a day. I ask, how many of those are our own? Not the thoughts pieced together by the false messages above.

You want to ‘find yourself‘ right?

You want to know who you really are?

Then I believe the first step is to deconstruct and question everything you’ve been taught and led to believe about your life.

Unlearn. Then relearn.

And I believe, it could take you and I a lifetime.

You don’t need to put on a white gown, sit at the top of a mountain, not eat for 40 days and 40 nights, practice meditation, do yoga or eat only berries and you certainly don’t need to ‘go off and find yourself’ – nobody needs to physically go anywhere. The ‘real you’ isn’t out there, it’s not an external quest, it’s an inside job. 

It’s not thousands of miles away.  Wherever you are. That’s where you’ll find it.

It takes no special technique, you don’t need anything else, you have all you need.

When you wake up and finally realise that the vast majority of messages are fake, a con, an organised plan to keep you asleep, you can’t go back to the old you. (Again, my opinion, my experience.)

How can we wake up, if we have no idea we are asleep?

Ask yourself  at every conscious opportunity:

Are these my own thoughts, or someone else’s for me?

Remember just that one, ask it daily, but here are some more:

Are these my own goals, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my own beliefs, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my own opinions, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my idea of success, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my concept of meaning, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my regrets, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my fears, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my dreams, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my own life blueprint, or someone else’s for me?
Is this the standard of my life, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my own rules, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my own path, or someone else’s for me?
Are these my passions, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my full potential, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my strategy, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my happiness, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my joy, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my story, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my knowledge, or someone else’s for me?
Is this my truth, or someone else’s for me?

History is full of examples of how easy it is to control, manipulate an individual (entire societies) on what to believe and what to think.

Wake up.

Question everything placed in front of you.

Try this: why not assume you’ve been asleep?

With the question ‘are these my own thoughts, or someone else’s for me?’  in your mind, answer these:

• Who am I?
• What am I?
• Where am I?
• What are my strenghts?
• What are my achievements?
• What path am I on right now?
• Where do I want to be heading  next?
• What do I want my life to look like?
• What are my goals, my values?
• What would make me happy?
• What does flourishing mean to me?
• What will give meaning to my life?

Your Turn

What are you thinking? Is it your thoughts, or someone else’s for you? :-) 

When did you last feel complete, whole, happy, brimming with joy, at peace, in full creative, sparkling go get’em working order, unstoppable, in the flow, flourishing, achieving, thriving and fuelled by passion and purpose?

Today, before lunch?

Yesterday?

Last week maybe?

Oh.

Should I cue the sounds of crickets as you try to hazard a guess?

Too long ago, you can’t remember?

Take Comfort: You Aren’t Alone

Ohhhhhh, you so aren’t.

The lovely people who sign up for the “Nearly a Newsletter”, all get asked: ‘What are you struggling with right now?’

Not everyone replies. From the ones who do, about 90% are one-liners (thank you for being brave and hitting reply) and the rest are essays.

They are passionate. Deep. Sometimes really funny and quirky. Sometimes I need to take a break to digest the story I’ve just read.

I ask people to ‘get off the starting blocks’, not to worry about creating a written masterpiece, but just to get their content or ‘story’ out.

Here’s the thing, the same replies keep coming up time and time again.

One line or an essay.

“I’m stuck. I’m lost. I have no idea who the hell I am anymore. I’m unsupported. Overwhelmed. I’m worried about what others will think. I’m scared I don’t have the time left. I’ve made so many mistakes, I can’t make any more”

People then go on to describe what they really want their life to be like.

They talk about their dreams and wishes for their future, but sometimes they introduce me to their family, their friends, their children, their community and the legacy they want to leave for them.

The most repeated reply is:

I want to find me again

For the most part, the writers describe a struggle, an adversity, an experience that has left them washed out of any sense of self.

And at first glance they do appear to know what they want their life to be, what they want life to mean to them, they do have answers.

Sure, they may not have the finer detail (strategy, plan, tools, some techniques, the focus) of how to make it happen, but for the time they are writing, they are remembering why they need to return to who they truly are.

Waiting for The Lights to Change

I get the feeling, when reading these replies, many people are waiting for the red light to switch to green.

The go ahead, the permission, the starter’s gun.

The visual I have in my head is a line of cars with people sitting in them, with one foot on the accelerator, ready to move, the other on the brake.

But they allow the lights to switch back and forth, unable to put their foot down.

Not because they don’t want to, but because they’re scared.

They sit, wait, hoping someone will get into the passenger seat and take the journey with them, to say ‘it’s okay, go create, do it, you’ll be just fine, we’re here, your supported, go do your great work.’

You know, to hear the words ‘It’s okay’, I believe is really powerful, to say them to ourselves? Priceless.

But I’m not naive, it’s not that easy when you feel you haven’t got a clue who you are anymore.

When you’ve lived a little, taken a few risks and they haven’t worked out the way you planned, it’s no surprise (to me anyway) we become wary, cautious and spend too long hanging out at the red lights.

The emails almost always end ‘How can I find me again, Dawn, can you help?’

My answer is yes and no.

Yes. I can give you my thoughts.

And no. I can only give you my thoughts.

I’m wary.

See, I don’t believe that any human being is ‘lost’. I also believe that ‘finding yourself’ isn’t a just a task carried out in times of chaos, uncertainty or when life isn’t playing the way you want it to.

It’s a constant conscious act. A continual questioning. 

I think we’re easily distracted, because of our programming, and it’s too easy to be sucked back into, what I call, the ‘Walking Coma’.

I also know that I am not expert about your life.

I may give you an answer that in your eyes is a pile of hoohaa, or you may feel I have offended you in some way.

Or I may say a few things that fit with ‘your map of the world‘ and then (worse) you believe what I say is ‘the truth’.

I believe we follow the thoughts, opinions, ideas, beliefs belonging to others far too easily and it’s the biggest reason why we haven’t got a clue who the hell we are.

But I’m here, ready and willing to give it a go.