Waking Up A Little
What does it mean to be awake?
If, like me, you dabble in self-help, self-development, self-improvement and/or consciousness work, chances are you've heard this concept of being asleep or being awake.
”You are asleep right now”, the gurus and teachers tell us, ”you have to wake up.” But what the hell does it mean, ”to wake up” or ”to be awake”?
For a long time, the concept seemed hazy and uncomprehensible, but recently, I stumbled upon something that made me realize something. I can't remember what it was that I stumbled upon. Most likely, it was another YouTube video, since I spend so much time there. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is what I realized.
I realized that being awake means knowing where you are in life and either knowing where you are going or working out to find out where you could be going. Now, I don't know if this is a perfect and all-encompassing definition (not likely), but it helped me anyway. It helped me to see those situations where I most likely fall asleep, and those situations can be best described as huge, insurmountable problem-mountains.
It's not that difficult (for me, I can only speak for myself of course) to remain awake if all is fine and dandy. If I like who I am and what I'm doing, life is all right. It's those other situations that put me to the test whether I can remain awake or fall promptly asleep.
As you may (or not) know, ”sleeping” takes many forms, but usually it's some kind of low-consciousness, self-destructive behavior, like addictions for example. In my case ”sleeping” most often takes the form of over-eating and surfing the internet. Whenever I find myself with my hand in a bag of chips or watching some mindlessly entertaining YouTube video, I know that there is something I'm trying to escape. (For other forms of being ”asleep”, see my addictions post [in Finnish].)
One way of lowering ”sleeping” time to the minimum is Tony Robbins's advice to focus as little as you can on the problem and as much as you can on the solution. What usually puts me to sleep, I've realized, is focusing on the problem and the problem alone, until all I can see is the problem. I might ask myself ”how can I solve this?” once or twice, but since the problem is usually the kind that I have never faced before, I cannot see any solution straight away, which depresses me.
I'm not a very problem-solving kind of person, no matter what I've written in my work résumé. I've you've seen the movie Inside Out, I'm like that blue chick, who sees a big mountain and stops before it with her mouth and eyes hanging open, like ”this is impossible”. I'd like to be that perky happy fairy, who has a can-do attitude, but I'm not that fairy. Most of the time, I'm the can't-do-it-this-will-never-work-out fairy.
I'm writing this, because I'm taking part in an online training course No Fear 2017, and I have to ponder what prevents me from making my dreams come true. It's a good course. I'm actually starting to believe in myself more, thanks to it. Thank you, No Fear 2017!
It's funny, 'cause you'd think that fear would keep you awake, not put you to sleep. But this is a topic for another day.
If, like me, you dabble in self-help, self-development, self-improvement and/or consciousness work, chances are you've heard this concept of being asleep or being awake.
”You are asleep right now”, the gurus and teachers tell us, ”you have to wake up.” But what the hell does it mean, ”to wake up” or ”to be awake”?
For a long time, the concept seemed hazy and uncomprehensible, but recently, I stumbled upon something that made me realize something. I can't remember what it was that I stumbled upon. Most likely, it was another YouTube video, since I spend so much time there. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is what I realized.
I realized that being awake means knowing where you are in life and either knowing where you are going or working out to find out where you could be going. Now, I don't know if this is a perfect and all-encompassing definition (not likely), but it helped me anyway. It helped me to see those situations where I most likely fall asleep, and those situations can be best described as huge, insurmountable problem-mountains.
It's not that difficult (for me, I can only speak for myself of course) to remain awake if all is fine and dandy. If I like who I am and what I'm doing, life is all right. It's those other situations that put me to the test whether I can remain awake or fall promptly asleep.
As you may (or not) know, ”sleeping” takes many forms, but usually it's some kind of low-consciousness, self-destructive behavior, like addictions for example. In my case ”sleeping” most often takes the form of over-eating and surfing the internet. Whenever I find myself with my hand in a bag of chips or watching some mindlessly entertaining YouTube video, I know that there is something I'm trying to escape. (For other forms of being ”asleep”, see my addictions post [in Finnish].)
One way of lowering ”sleeping” time to the minimum is Tony Robbins's advice to focus as little as you can on the problem and as much as you can on the solution. What usually puts me to sleep, I've realized, is focusing on the problem and the problem alone, until all I can see is the problem. I might ask myself ”how can I solve this?” once or twice, but since the problem is usually the kind that I have never faced before, I cannot see any solution straight away, which depresses me.
I'm not a very problem-solving kind of person, no matter what I've written in my work résumé. I've you've seen the movie Inside Out, I'm like that blue chick, who sees a big mountain and stops before it with her mouth and eyes hanging open, like ”this is impossible”. I'd like to be that perky happy fairy, who has a can-do attitude, but I'm not that fairy. Most of the time, I'm the can't-do-it-this-will-never-work-out fairy.
I'm writing this, because I'm taking part in an online training course No Fear 2017, and I have to ponder what prevents me from making my dreams come true. It's a good course. I'm actually starting to believe in myself more, thanks to it. Thank you, No Fear 2017!
It's funny, 'cause you'd think that fear would keep you awake, not put you to sleep. But this is a topic for another day.
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