I’m delayed in writing this morning. Usually, I get right to my writing space and my mind space, and I go right at it, but today I got distracted by some interesting texts with friends concerning interpersonal relationships and expectations. And then I got wrapped up in an thought-provoking conversation with my husband about how much the manner in which he works on a daily basis has changed in these last two years since the pandemic. My husband, a banker, now works remotely from home for at least half of the week, and this has never, ever been the case in the previous 29 years of his working in his industry before the pandemic occurred. Neither of these exchanges had much in common except for one thing: conditioned living versus conscious living.
There has been a whole thrust of information and interest about “living consciously”, which mostly means paying attention to what we are doing, and why we are doing it. It means becoming really honest with ourselves about our choices, and what is important to us, and the reasons why we feel what we feel, and do what we do. It means becoming brave enough to live our own choices and our own beliefs, without being concerned about what others think about these choices. Living consciously, means living in awareness, and being true to ourselves. We independent, freedom-loving Americans love to believe that we are renegades who are fully in control of our own lives and destinies, but truthfully, until the pandemic happened, a much smaller percentage of corporations and workers believed that remote work could happen and could happen productively and successfully. We didn’t consciously make this major change in our society. The pandemic forced it on us. If you are interested in this major swing towards remote working, this article is filled with interesting statistics:
Statistics On Remote Workers That Will Surprise You
If I am honest with myself, the times that I best lived most consciously, and most aware and true to myself, happened after major crises in my life. To center myself, and to navigate out of these crises, I had to get really real with myself, about the parts that I could control, and the parts that I couldn’t. I had to get humble enough to seek and to accept help when needed. Nothing will get you out of a “zombie” state faster than a crisis. Even good changes, such as a money windfall, or kids growing up and starting their own lives, or a new grandchild, bring about meaningful transformations that force us to consider our whole state of living – what we do, how we do it and why we do it.
I honestly believe, as awful as the pandemic has been, if each of us use this experience to get really conscious and wide awake about our own individual precious lives, and how we spend our time, and how we live our own individual, unique values (without trying to control others – our lives are our business, their lives are theirs), like all tragedies, the losses which we have suffered in this pandemic, will not be in vain. The beginning of the year is a wise time to get conscious/introspective/honest about everything in our lives: our relationships, our health, our daily habits, our jobs, our finances, where we live, our spiritual beliefs, what we buy, what we eat, what we watch, where we spend our time, etc. In each of these areas, are we living authentically? What changes would we like to bring about? What can we change, and what is out of our control? Are we true to ourselves or desperately trying to impress/control others?
Pondering deeply is never a waste of time. Give yourself the gift of pondering before you consciously move on with the precious gift of another year of your own one life. Be brave. Be curious about yourself. Help yourself to fall in love with your life that you are consciously co-creating with the Divine.
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”– Dolly Parton
“Our time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”– Steve Jobs
“And how can we truly know ourselves unless we get still enough to listen to just ourselves? Unless we give ourselves the time and space to tune in.”― Shayne Traviss
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
