Healthy RGV Issue 107 - October Has Us Thinking Pink

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE · OCTOBER 2017
THE IMPORTANCE
OF BEING PRESENT
Consciousness: Feeling the feelings that
are going through your body as they
come. Being fully connected to that
awareness and not “occupied” be a
roaring sea of thoughts or rapid firing fears and
analysis. Sometimes it’s like facing a roaring lion
because some terrible awful stuff lives inside us
in many moments of our life. Feeling hopeless, or
worthless or afraid of what if’s to come. And yet,
we must allow ourselves to feel those things - it's
the key to building your ultimate life.
This is an episode with three parts. The general
what, why, and then as a tool, I end with a
meditation.
PART 1: THE WHAT
In order to be truly empowered you must
understand your truth, look at it and move
through the shit as it comes. You must be at the
wheel of your life– meaning, be in your body.
You must have presence. In a balanced state that
allows you to be completely tuned in with your
natural, breathing, energy-filled, identity-less body.
WHY IS IT KEY TO DO THIS?
Unconsciousness is where we lose the path we
were walking. To look away, unplug, hyper-focus
on the minutia and avoid uncomfortable feelings:
THAT is what ultimately creates our greatest
imbalances and prolongs pain. When we have a
habit of “being unconscious” we also lose sight
of the path we took to get here – Why do I suffer
in these ways? Why am I so powerless? What’s
wrong with me? In other words, we get stuck. It’s
like forgetting you have hands to drive because
you’re too afraid of looking down.
What you realize when you deliberately begin
staying in your body and navigating through the
muck that comes up, right off the bat - is its not
terrible like you think it is. You realize, You are
capable and you are strong – much stronger than
you think, and you will always make it through the
pain. It won’t kill you, and the pain won’t come all
at once if you learn to MANAGE it properly, and
when you use tools to do so - it’s over a lot faster
than you’d think. The realest pain and greatest
damage comes from prolonged unconscious
running. It’s the slow wrong turns in life that take
us a lot of years to get out of, and sometimes it’s
too late: the years have been lost.
When you’re unhappy and you feel powerless
to change– that’s pain. That’s suffering. It’s what
makes the majority of the population suffer
incredibly: so many feel depressed, hollow,
frustrated, self-loathing, talentless. And that is all
coming from being unconscious. From a feeling of
powerlessness manifested from living away from
the immediacy of your control.
PART 2: THE WHY
01
HYPER-FOCUSING AND NEVER
TAKING A BREAK.
As a society we tend to get hyper focused. “Am I
doing well as a person?” “Am I successful?” When
will I get to the right level? How can I be more of
what I want to be?” There are so many ways to
shut off and plug in to our immediate place. We
stare down and work harder. And quite frankly,
it’s nice to not think about anything else than
efficiency and progress. To not deal with relaxing
and opening and losing control. It allows you to
be void of anything but what you control. Life is
easy that way. And thus we begin a habit that turns
into a vicious cycle. We pour ourselves into things.
Systems. Like work. Or the newest outfits. Or
being at the right parties. Or watching the right
content. It becomes a nonstop focusing on a job
or an identity. All-things-external. That becomes
who we are and what we do.
STRESS RELIEF
02 Part 2 of this habit is the stress that
comes out of that hyper focusing. It begins to rule
us. We chase harder and as a result, want very
much to shut off. We’re heavily attached to stimuli
and what that does is remove us from being just
in one place: our body, feeling our feelings as
they move through us in our current experiences.
It keeps your brain set to “on.”There’s Youtube,
Instagram, TV shows, Email, Facebook, Snapchat
etc, and over all just a “plugging in” to other stuff.
So what happens when you do this for the
majority of your life – never unplugging to say,
take a walk in nature without your phone. You end
up getting locked into a larger system of thought
– that is not your own. It is now a part of a belief
system that continually reaffirms your role and
where you stand. You are not measured by you,
the being – with blood and feelings and laughter
and dreams. You are measured by you while
plugged into this hierarchy that is your “label” or
“role” according to everyone else.
You become same. A part of a mass system of
thought. Manipulated into chasing things as a
collective friend-group – together you pursue
the next awesome purse, you pursue the right
cultural knowledge, watch the right shows so you
can share them with others. You lose yourself
as an individual and without even noticing it you
become a pattern – a loop. A brain that eats and
breathes the system you have subscribed to. “I am
like this.” Everything you see confirms your loop,
everyone’s doing the same thing in every movie
and every TV show – by you just passionately
doing a good job at what you’re supposed to
do: work hard, be social, share a lot, watch tv,
work out, watch the news, strive for nice things
and a house, the right car, etc. And without even
noticing it – one day you are just continuously
unconscious. Almost like an energy saving mode
of thinking designed by others: you go to work,
thrive at your system, reaffirm your worth, you
come home and plug in to something else so you
can shut off.
19 HEALTHY MAGAZINE