“What does living consciously mean to you?”
This is a question I ask almost everyone with whom I come into conversation these days. Everywhere I see signs of a collective awakening: in the way mindful practices are spreading; in the the rise of veganism; in the detachment from religious dogma; in the demands for ethical corporate behavior; in the acknowledged need to restore the feminine spirit back into society; and in the renewed interest in ancient healing practices.
Living consciously encompasses an endless universe of interpretations and manifestations, which is why I am dedicating 2019 to exploring this topic in depth. And I invite you to join me on this journey.
Just before the New Year, I sent around a request to friends, colleagues, family and acquaintances to send me a short video in which they share what living consciously means to them. While I am still gathering the videos to create a video compilation, I want to begin the year by sharing my own journey in exploring this question.
Exactly one year ago, I was living in a community in New Zealand, working on their biodynamic farm in exchange for food and accommodation. The community, called New Directions, had the vision of “being a homestay for persons seeking inner peace and a different way of eating and thinking as well as promoting a consciousness of our connection to the earth”.
During my stay there, I said “yes’ to many opportunities that presented themselves, ranging from participating in a sweat lodge ceremony, taking a course in traditional Maori energy healing, and preparing medicinal cactus.
I also said yes to taking a life-changing horse ride on what I later found out was a highly untamed stallion. While I wanted to go for a gentle run, the stallion had other ideas, and within 5 minutes of me mounting, had spun 180 degrees and bolted into a lightning-paced gallop. I tried to stay calm, but fear overtook me. The horse bucked and I fell hard on the grounded. The blackness which accompanied the ensuing concussion made me feel like I would never return to this world.
Luckily I recovered a few days later, but the near-death experience left a mark on me. In particular, it helped deepen my questioning around what it really means to be human and alive in today’s world.
This experience reinforced the purpose with which I had come to New Zealand in the first place: to ground myself and direct my life energies in a way that felt aligned with my true values and purpose before my 30th birthday. I had just finished a Masters at the London School of Economics, and while grateful for that opportunity and connections with classmates, I didn’t quite feel like I had “mastered” anything. Nor did I feel that my program in International Development Management, the sector in which I had been working the previous 6 years, was leading me to the path I wanted following my 30th birthday.
During my time in New Zealand, I was able to connect with myself and the natural world in a way I never had before. Every day felt so intuitively right, from having my hands in the soil and eating what I had harvested, to following the moon cycle and my own cycle, learning how to channel energy between my hands and body, and many other things.
The sense of groundedness this gave me reconfirmed the importance of multi-leveled connection, something which had become clear to me a few weeks earlier during the beginning of a course I was to get certified in called Transformational Coaching. One of the first activities we did was filling out a values worksheet, in which we had to circle the words which most closely resonated with our true values. The value that came up for me stronger than any other one was connectedness.
I realized that all my other top values (authenticity, balance, collaboration, compassion, creativity, growth, happiness, harmony, optimism, presence, trust, wisdom) naturally enfolded into what I saw as the overarching value of connectedness. But I also realized that my strong draw towards connectedness stemmed from a deep-rooted sense that the exact opposite value is being perpetuated by our modern society: disconnectedness.
I see disconnectedness perpetuated at three levels.
First, I see a trend in disconnection from ourselves. I typically feel most disconnected from myself after spending a lot of time in a big city. Constant bombardment of external stimuli ranging from advertisements to political agendas means we are incessantly influenced by external values and narratives. This makes it difficult for us to find space to reflect on our own values for how we want live our lives. In school, work, with family and other social settings, we are also often taught that emotions and feelings are to be discarded, ignored, or to be ashamed of, particularly in the case of men.
Secondly, we are becoming more disconnected from others. I have at many times felt quite lonely and while previously felt ashamed about it, I now know how common it is, considering how the Red Cross calls it the “hidden epidemic” and how countries such as the UK are appointing “ministers for loneliness.” As described in the book Sapiens, the last 200 years since the industrial revolution have witnessed the biggest social revolution the world has seen: the collapse of family and local community. Hyper-individualization has caused people to live in isolating four-walled spaces and to own much more than they actually need. Over-emphasis on negative news and a growing sense of distrust means people don’t even learn the names of their next-door neighbors. And a rise in technology, while espousing many benefits, has in many ways devalued authentic human communication.
Thirdly, we have become disconnected from nature and the wider world. Our hectic lives means we rarely take the time to simply go and be in nature. Public natural spaces have continuously been stripped away from citizens and turned into places of material consumption. (When I lived in Manila, almost every public space had been dedicated for shopping malls. The only square of park left is threatened to be developed as well. This pattern is repeating itself over and over in emerging cities all over the world.) On top of all this, our disconnection from our ancestral roots means we have lost much wisdom in regards to natural healing properties of plants and how to live harmoniously with our natural environments.
In reality, all these levels of disconnections are interrelated. The more disconnected we are at one of these levels, the more disconnected we become from the others.
I believe we have gotten to a point of such collective disconnection that people are waking up to the fact that something is seriously not right. Something is not right with the fact that depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Something is not right with the fact that loneliness is now considered a global pandemic. Something is not right with the fact that the world is getting hotter and hotter. Something is not right with the fact that global overeating has become a bigger problem than world hunger.
Underlying all of these problems is a common thread: a low state of human consciousness manifested in extreme disconnection from ourselves, others, and the natural world.
That is why when I ask myself what living consciously means, my answer always come back to connection. Conscious living to me is about deeply connecting with oneself, with others, and the natural environment. It’s about seeing the interconnection between all of these and learning how to live in balance and harmony. And it’s about being aware of the impact our decisions have on ourselves, others, and the planet.
But that is just my interpretation. I want to hear from you!
When do you feel disconnected? What does conscious living mean to you?
Throughout the year, I will be sharing content, asking questions, and encouraging discussion around conscious living. I hope we can continue to collectively awaken.