Becoming More Conscious: Ascension or Integration
For most of my life, I have been trying to answer a question.
What allows a human being to participate more consciously in the present moment?
That question has taken me through beliefs, patterns, identity, energetics, ancestral influences, soul memory, relationships, the unconscious mind, and consciousness itself.
What I eventually realized is that most people are not responding to reality.
They are responding to their experienced reality.
There is a difference.
An experienced reality is the world we have come to experience through our personal history, ancestral influences, energetic patterning, unconscious interpretations, identity structures, emotional responses, physiology, relationships, and countless other influences.
Over time, that experienced reality becomes familiar.
The familiar becomes automatic.
The automatic becomes unconscious.
Eventually, the experienced reality becomes mistaken for reality itself.
This is why two people can experience the same event and live in completely different worlds.
This is why someone can intellectually know they are safe while still feeling unsafe.
Why they can know they are loved while expecting rejection.
Why they can know they are capable while expecting failure.
The issue is often not what is happening.
The issue is the experienced reality through which what is happening is being interpreted.
The goal is not to eliminate thoughts.
Not to eliminate emotions.
Not to eliminate sensitivity.
Not to transcend being human.
The goal is discernment.
The ability to recognize what is actually present while also recognizing the influences shaping how it is being experienced.
The ability to distinguish between present reality and experienced reality.
The ability to participate consciously in life rather than unconsciously through accumulated interpretations.
To me, that is where freedom begins.
Not in escaping the human experience.
But in becoming conscious within it.
-Michael