Awakening as Re-Discovery

 

Awakening means re-discovering your buried heart and soul. Who is your authentic self?

When awakened, you are curious about your thoughts. Also known as “metacognition,” while it is re-discovered from different paths, you better understand the quality of your thoughts. When you reject the ego’s busy stream of “shoulds” and repetitive negative thoughts, you conclude that you alone are responsible for the quality of your thoughts. You cannot control much of life, including other people, but you are responsible for not letting others overrule your reality.

You can be present and dig up both the good and the bad. You can choose your story.

And life is complicated. No one got a free ride to where they are. We all have pain.

Life is good and bad. How you deal with it is a balancing act between your talents, dreams, and desires and how hard you want to work on accomplishing them. After a while, too much work is the same as self-inflicted suffering. Or numbing. Being busy for the sake of being busy.

But life means we must take action. Simply because a lack of action is an action, too. Your gut knows what to do. Pay attention to the little signs and take action. Awakening means listening to your whole self and going toward fulfillment and away from suffering.

Here are 9 thoughts about action to Re-Discovery:

 

1. Find your heart and soul

Re-discovering your buried heart and soul is the purpose of life. Everything you could ever need is there, already inside you, ready for you to find. You can and should re-discover your true hear and soul.

 

2. Provide room for Hope

Pull that tooth! Get rid of negative energy.

Clutter (in your mind or home), deadweight, and other stuff that drains your resources need to be addressed urgently. If you have too much of something, there is no room for Hope, just like when you have nothing but negativity.

Deadweight can be found all around you. Everything you do that no longer serves you is deadweight. Don’t address your deadweight with numbing. Get rid of it.

Energy Vampires exist in this world. Who sucks the life out of you? Name just one or two and pull that tooth.

 

3. Consideration

Give consideration to both the past and the future when present but know that each step already contains all of the past and future. Like cause and effect, every moment, you either are present or you are on the slippery slope toward living life on automatic.

Consideration is just enough thought about how the present will affect the future. You can think long-term. After all, planning long term is the reaping after sowing.

When the time is right, consideration of both your past and your future can be uselful.

 

4. Just Act (Do Something)

I think it is funny that after The Secret was released on the big screen, they went back and made a correction. What, the secret needs to be corrected? Not much of a secret!

The correction is awesome. It is act. Do something. Just Act.

So the secret to the secret is that you must make it happen. Once you manifest your heart’s desire, after you act as if you already have it, and are greateful that you have it, you still have to act and make it happen.

 

5. One Step At a Time

My intention is equanimity. Life is a series of steps. Each step contains the entirety of the past and the potential of the future all in one quality step.

Because all we have is now, the present, each step matters so much. How much did you enjoy brushing your teeth this morning? Since you will do it either way, you might as well enjoy yourself. But despite that rather mundane hygienic tip (the other tip I got is to stand on one leg while you brush your teeth so you can practice your balance), being present also creates the moments you enjoy. Think about the last time you sang out loud, or laughted out loud, or danced. Where where you in the moment the last time you had one of those moments? When was it? A quality step includes quite a bit of enjoyment and happiness.

But one step at a time also allows for bad days. After all, statistically, half of your days will be worse than the other half.

6. Hate Well

Differentiate hate that is useful from that type of hate that does not serve your purpose. You have every right to hate after betrayal, but ultimately hate directed at something you cannot change or control is prime fodder for letting go.

Rather, give up what you don’t want. Protect what you value and destroy bad things.

Hate only helps when it rids evil in the world. It is best to address non-evil problems in a specific, effective way without hate.

Let go of hate and think about forgiveness. Both for yourself (for hating), and for her, for having a character defect beyond her control.

 

7. Don’t play fair

This might be my favorite one. Don’t play fair because chances are you have given a lot more in your life than you have taken. Well, guess what? You have paid your dues, and the universe owes you a free ride. Yes, you have pre-paid for the universe to grant you a bit of grace.

If you already know what the outcome will be, it is ok to help the tower of blocks fall. You can intelligently apply leverage and get the outcome you want. After all, as the empath of the family, you have taken on other people’s crap for so long that it might be time to take the universe up on that free pass.

It’s ok to cheat a little for a good cause.

 

8. Upset the Right People

As you awaken, you know who is on your side and who is living on automatic or with an agenda of toxicity.

Those living on automatic parrot opinions and try not to attract attention to themselves. There are 8 billion paths to enlightenment, but you cannot make someone understand that they are responsible for their own lives.

And those with toxicity (or emotional immaturity, character defects,  and those with attachment trauma), actually won’t be upset. Remember, they think you are an object rather than something with thoughts and feelings. They are always right and what you say bounces right off them.

It’s ok to upset the right people to get them out of your life. Leave. Ignore. No Contact. Strict boundaries are the only way to deal with toxic people.

Finally, for those on your side, authenticity, self-worth, and self-respect are necessary. Those on your side know it is a two way street.

 

9. Be Humble

 

1: not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive

2: reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission

a humble apology

3:  a: ranking low in a hierarchy or scale : INSIGNIFICANT, UNPRETENTIOUS

b: not costly or luxurious

a humble contraption

 

Humble is hard for me because I was raised with abundant privilege. There is so much about how people live their lives that I cannot understand, but I’m not sure if I like the dictionary definition of humble, as above.

Actually, my initial thoughts about being humble were overly ascetic. I pictured monks in robes, but humble is something that you and I can choose to be.

After all, who wants to be arrogant or haughty?

Next, a humble apology is when you admit to someone else that you have wronged them. Hey—we all do it. Part of forgiving yourself and forgiving others is admitting to them if you have wronged them. They don’t even have to be present when you tell them, or you can write a letter and never send it. But I think it is a great idea to tell people you have wronged them and maybe forgive yourself.

Three above is where I get heartburn. Utilitarian or low on the hierarchy? Any physician’s nightmare. Insignificant, cheap, and “just ok” is not how I want to live my life.

I’ll be humble sometimes and otherwise let my metacognition warn me when I’m asking for too much, not accepting enough, and suffering optionally as a result.