If we are not conscious to each moment, are we really living life?

In our everyday lives, it’s easy to get busy or autopilot through our day and sometimes forget to live consciously. If we are not conscious to each moment, are we really living life? When we do things out of habit, from muscle memory like brushing our teeth each morning, how often do we do it consciously? We might be thinking of the things we need to get done for the day while we are brushing our teeth, getting ready, etc., or reminiscing an event that happened the day before. We are constantly living in the future or the past in our minds.

While we do this unconsciously, and give in to each thought, we forget to live in the moment, Now. The only moment there ever is. Everything you will experience in your future, is created by you from the moment you’re living in right now. When we are constantly dreaming up a future that is yet to happen, we are basing it or projecting an assumed outcome, from the experiences we’ve had in the past. This makes it way for a predictable future. As long as we are working from the known past, we can’t create something new or unpredictable in our future. But when you are open and are in the present moment, you are able to tap into your current reality and be in a state of peace. No worries or anxiety can exist in the present moment because in the present moment, your ego/ conscious mind is unable to take over, which is what produces all your fears and worries.

In the present moment, you are able to completely be yourself, the real you, which is an awareness. You become one with the consciousness, allowing space for it to be seen, and allow your intuition to come through. You are able to download ideas or knowledge from deeper parts of your mind in this moment as you are no longer living in the past and allowing the ego to steer you with the limited beliefs it’s already embedded with. When we are not present or as some people call ‘being in the sleeping state’, our subconscious mind runs us with the patterns it’s already hardwired with. We are run by these subconscious programmes we are not even aware that we have.

From the time we are a baby, we have been programming our subconscious mind, unconsciously. This is why we’d always find ourselves getting triggered and reacting without even processing why we are reacting the way we do. No matter which form the trigger appears to us, through a person, a song, or an event, it is only revealing to us a complex we already have within ourselves. It’s showing us where we have resistance within us, where we are not free. No one outside of us, or any external event can upset us unless we allow it to.

Regardless of the circumstance, the way we react to a situation is dependant on our perception of the situation. Our perception of the situation, if we are not present/ unconscious, would be derived from our thoughts of the past, which allows our subconscious programming to take over. Hence why we might find ourselves reacting as opposed to responding more often than we like. We might be in different relationships over the years or do different jobs over time, but our problems or triggers in each of these situations might be just the same. Even if we are in a different country altogether, our problems, though they may materialise in the form of different people, the root of it would not be that far apart.

A certain type of emotion or feeling that is evoked in us through different situations would cause us to react in a similar manner. Meaning regardless of who brings out a certain feeling within us, if the emotion is a feeling of fear of being hurt/ or a fear of inadequacy, etc. and if this is a fear we’ve already encountered as a kid and is already embedded in our subconscious programming, the moment we feel this emotion, our body would perceive this to be a threat and go in to survival mode activating the sympathetic response. Then the defence mechanisms we’ve built up would come into play while our body starts to experience a lot of stress as the stress mode is activated. As these subconscious programming starts happening at a very young age, usually our triggers run deep into our childhood. The way we’ve learnt to feel love, fear, shame, or any other emotion is learnt at such a young age that we unknowingly as adults, are still running from that same programming. The way we have learnt to receive love from our parents or caregivers is the same way we are still seeking love as adults. The defence mechanisms we have built to protect ourselves from pain as a kid is still the same mechanisms that come to play when the same feeling is surfaced.

When we are conscious of our thoughts and feelings, we are able to not allow the subconscious mind to take over, as we are present. We are able to perceive a situation for what it is in the current moment and respond consciously without reacting unconsciously. The next time you catch yourself reacting to a trigger, if you are upset or angry, even if you catch yourself in the midst of an argument, simply allow your mind to be aware. Aware of your thoughts, your feelings, and take a second to notice how it feels in your body. If you get carried away with your thoughts and you find it hard to watch them, that’s okay, try to simply say “Change” in your mind or out loud, and shift your thoughts from worry to coming to the present moment or to a positive thought. As Dr. Joe Dispenza explains in the book "Breaking the habit of being yourself", this would allow you to break that patten in the moment and the more you keep doing that, hopefully the more you are able to catch yourself reacting to thoughts, becoming aware of the patterns and the more and more patterns you'll be able to break with time!

I hope that everything you do today, you bring awareness to it. Here's to being present and living consciously! 💚