We’re humans. Some special category. Apart from animals. We are thinking, rational creatures. We conceptualize. We categorize. We analyze. We master ourselves and our environment. And we live our entire lives in our heads. And it’s killing us. Individually and collectively. We’re traumatized and we’re sick. Our planet is on the brink of ecological destruction. Because we live in our heads and have forgotten the wisdom of the body and the wisdom of nature and the wisdom of the planet and the wisdom of the universe.
It’s incredible how detached we’ve become from everything. We have access to our thoughts and to our emotions. But we’ve lost access to most of our sensations (except the crudest ones). We’ve lost access to each other and the energies that bind us together. We’ve lost access to nature and the planet. And it’s killing us.
But it’s very easy to connect back to these things, because it’s our birthright. The pathways are there, in plain sight. We just have to stop actively ignoring them. We can slip back in with incredible ease and when we do, the universe will encourage and reward us.
The ape I call Jorma has taken some of these steps and it’s been amazing. Nothing short of wondrous. I would love to take you along this path a bit to see for yourself. I guarantee that you won’t regret it. I’m still in the process of integrating what I’ve learned and will document my findings here, but for now I’ll put down what I’ve found so far.
Stop wasting your attention on garbage. Your attention is your primary resource in this process, don’t piss it away on social media or tv or some other form of media drugs. This will not come easy, because you’re addicted. So go outside and walk, leave your phone at home or at the very least put it on silent and leave it in your pocket. No listening to music or books or podcasts either. Go for a walk and liberate your attention. Step by step.
Next, bring that attention outward. On your surroundings and out of your head. Those thoughts… just leave them be. Now, observe. Look, listen, smell. Just let the stream of experiences flow through your consciousness. No need to judge anything, just be aware. Your thoughts will calm down and you’ll settle into some form of peaceful tranquility. Enjoy it.
Bring the attention that you’ve liberated thus, into the body. And, observe. Just like before, just let the stream of experiences flow through your awareness. But this time those experiences are internal. No need to interpret or judge here either. Just stick to the actual sensations. Some people call this the felt sense.
Next, change your relationship to your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are not the truth. Often, your thoughts aren’t that nice. Thoughts are just thoughts. They come and go and often they’re shit. Don’t take them so seriously. Hold your thoughts and opinions a bit more loosely. And most importantly, understand that thinking is not for decision making!
Thinking is for modeling and understanding. It is for creating a perspective, that you can reason about and communicate. That perspective is never true. It is just a story. Everybody else’s perspective is likewise, just a story and likewise, never true. So hold your perspective loosely.
When it comes to decision making, forget about thinking, that’s what your intuition is for! Start using your intuition for small decisions. If the results are good, start using your intuition for bigger decisions. Keep going as long as the results are positive. You will never turn back. Just try it, you’ve got nothing to lose.
Keep bringing some of that attention that you’ve liberated thus liberated into the body. Onto those sensations, that felt sense. Now, when you’re using the mind to create perspectives, check those perspectives against your felt sense. There are techniques to do this, which I’ll elaborate later. But for now just understand that you can check for dissonance. If you feel dissonance then your mind has more modeling to do. Your perspective has been rejected by your being. It is not yet good enough for the situation or isn’t fitting in some way. Just repeat the process and check the results with your felt sense. You’ll arrive at a perspective that is healthy and balanced after a few iterations.
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There’s more to write, so much more! But I don’t have time now. So I’ll continue later. Cheers.