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It occurred to me lately how strong my compulsion is to fix my Unconsciousness levels by the same exact method over and over... the same method that has never worked. Isn't that the definition of insanity or something?? Doing the same thing over and over and over again with the same outcome that failed to deliver your intended goal before?
Now let's talk about "unconsciousness", what is that? I am using this term in a similar fashion that you might hear Eckhart Tolle use it (... it tracks, as I am currently studying his course right now). The way I would define Unconsciousness, off the top of my head, would be about getting lost in thought, getting caught up in the busyness of life or the to-do lists and living in the mind in either the past or future. It also about being identified with concepts as your primary way of interacting and understanding the world, as opposed to sensing the true essence of consciousness all around you through a state of stillness (... how did I do there, Eckhart???). As he puts it, we, as a society, have a HUGE addiction to thinking, it might be the most common problematic addiction out there.
Okay, so now that we are on the same page, I was saying how I have a strong compulsion to fix my Unconsciousness moments with the same method that has never worked before. This method being creating hard and fast, rigid and disciplined new rules for my life that I will (DEFINITELY) abide by. You know the deal, "Okay I'll wake up at 5am every morning, then after my meditations I will always exercise, then I will always do A,B,C by 11:15am, cram in X,Y,Z by 3pm then run a marathon doing jumping jacks the last 5 km by 6pm..." Now I'm not sure if everyone can relate to this way of resetting their schedule to attempt to take control of their life, however, the big issue I face is... it never seems to work. Here's the truth... it hasn't even worked for me for even a few days! Now THAT is a bit hard to admit. Over time, I have tried to simplify my list and simplify it some more, which has helped a bit but not enough so I have to ask myself "Why?".
One big issue that hinders things is a compulsive need to do anything else at all but the main task at hand that I need to do... and another big issue for me, especially over the last year or so, is an addiction to my cellphone. I know I'm not alone here as I see it too in my family members and when I mentioned earlier to someone "the day just got away from me" he said he could relate as he could lose hours of his day to Instagram all the time. Ugh I know that feeling.
Oh the ol' cellphone dilemma. Remember the days when got excited to have a cool new smartphone when they were just coming out? But we were very naive then, we really didn't know what we signed up for, now did we? It's soul-sucking and yet we go back for more. This compulsive state of Unconsciousness that manages to sneak itself into our day faaaaarrrrr more often than we want to admit. I don't know about you but I turn to it when I'm bored, lonely, sad, overstimulated, unsure what to do next, or to see if I'm getting any attention at all from someone, or to just straight up avoid feelings. That last one is probably the biggest culprit. But hard and fast rules like "I won't use my cellphone past a certain time limit" never seem to work either. There is something else behind this addiction, which is possibly chronic low-level anxiety. All I know is I want to find a NEW approach to this issue that gets at the root-cause. I believe Eckhart Tolle would say the only antidote is a practice of Presence. But the mind doesn't want to do that, it wants to learn, consume, latch on to more concepts, thoughts thoughts thoughts!! I am going to contemplate this and revisit it. I don't have all the solutions now, but I feel helped in this moment to even look at it and bring awareness to it.
Until next time, thanks for reading and sending out love to you!
