Wednesday, April 17, 2024
I have to admit, I sometimes awaken a bit down, thinking about “my life.” Stepping into the fresh air helps. Smelling your morning coffee helps. Our overdeveloped brains forget that we are lifeforms, intuitively grounded in nature. These sophisticated brains of ours fall asleep in the thoughts of the separate “me,” or “mine,” or “my life.”
Before humans could understand that they understand, they were connected at the gut level. We didn’t have the capacity to know that we know. The drawback is that you can become unconscious and get taken “out” of present-moment connectivity, and that’s how depression takes hold.
Empowerment works by awakening to the part of yourself that knows that you know. From there, you have a vague notion of how to get out of a slump when you get into one. Rather than reaching for the phone, turning on the TV, or engaging in mindlessness, engage in the act of living.
The act of living is stepping outside and hearing the birds and feeling the breeze. Coffee on the porch is a miraculous act of life. Just one minute of that, and I snap out of it. That’s how you charge your batteries. You engage in ancient rituals associated with simplicity. But first, you must recognize that you’re in a slack-jawed malaise. Note your rituals, not your compulsions. Pet the cat, inhale deeply, go outside with bare feet, stretch your limbs, smell the flowers. The senses are channels to aliveness.
Social media, noise, TV, etc. bring me down, so I’ve given that up. Porch time, solitude, stretching, breathing, and feeling the outside air ground me, that’s connecting to aliveness. You might be asleep or out of tune with the universe. Tablets, bills, work, and “your life” may be in the way of real living. If you want to be alive, stop worrying about having “a life.”