The year 2020 brought with it deep realisations that demanded old and outmoded structures, institutions, thinking and disconnected realities be cleansed and cleared. With this global clear-out, the global shadow has also risen. We’ve seen aspects of humanity that have made us question who we are, where our priorities lie and where exactly it is that we’re heading. And now, a few years on, we continue to live in what can feel like the eye of a storm… with rapid changes on muliple levels and catalysing events happening all around the world.
Things are changing at a cellular level. Within the next year, 95% of the cells in your body will die and be replaced. In just 365 days, your body rebuilds itself into something better (or worse), depending on how well you treat it. Equally, you are not who you were a year ago or who you will be soon. You are in between, emerging, half risen, half falling. Keep doing the work. Know that you are transforming. It is time to confront your fears, dig deep into your subconscious, and bring to light any hidden aspects of yourself that may be limiting your growth. Old childhood patterns are rising up to be healed. As you allow yourself to observe them and feel them without attachment, they loosen their grip and fall away. During this process, you are being called to find new ways to self-soothe. This energy calls you to embrace change, explore new ideas, and boldly pursue your passions and dreams. It’s time to trust your intuition, tap into your adventurous spirit, and unlock the infinite possibilities that today has in store for you.
Over the coming weeks and months, you may feel called to turn inward and compelled to confront your deepest fears, darkest secrets, and unresolved trauma. The Hero’s Journey into the depths of your subconscious to face your emotional baggage and work toward healing, self-discovery, and soul growth comes with immense rewards if you do the work. Your friendships and romantic partnerships may be put to the test, prompting you to reevaluate your connections and let go of any unhealthy patterns. This can involve establishing healthy boundaries and nurturing relationships that align with your values, ultimately leading to more fulfilling, loving and supportive connections. In reality, you don’t have relationship problems; you have childhood problems that are disguising themselves as relationship problems. The real opportunity right now is to turn inwards to heal old wounds. This is your chance to elevate. You will look back at this time with awe. So much is happening in your inner world and within your cells. Now is the time to release old ways of being that have kept you cycling in negative repetitive patterns. Let anything that is not in your highest good fall away. Choose a new way of being, where trauma is not the driving force.
“Self-love is a good thing but self-awareness is more important. You need to once in a while go ‘Uh, I’m kind of an asshole.”
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How old are you? ...psychologically speaking.
Trauma keeps you stuck in a loop of your past. You might be 25 with an 8 year old mindset and process. That’s why you people please or overextend yourself or stay in places longer than you should have. Your inner child is screaming out “Finally someone loves and accepts me!” While physical maturity is inevitable, emotional maturity is not. The vast majority of people are stuck in their emotional growth process somewhere in their early adolescent years. Taking responsibility for your actions and decisions is an empowering and necessary step toward personal growth and evolution. It requires you to examine your choices, reflect on your intentions, and hold yourself accountable for the results. Becoming the Conscious Leader of your own life means first acknowledging your role in creating certain outcomes and learning from them so you can make better choices in the future.
Addictions, greed, immaturity, fear, blame, shame, resentments, anger, confusion and suffering can all be signs of arrested emotional development. When we get ‘stuck’ in our emotional development, we cease to learn how to take responsibility for our actions and our lives. We get stuck at the point of some trauma that happened in the past because we don’t know how to process it or release it. Arrested emotional development is being stuck in (or anchored to) an emotional level of development even though we continue to physically grow older. The ‘negative’ beliefs we created around the event generate underlying and unconscious commitments such as, I’m not good enough, I was a mistake, I’m dumb, etc.. The roots of arrested development are past traumas or disturbances in our family of origin – specifically, problems in the parent-child relationship in each childhood developmental stage. For example, it is believed that narcissistic personality disorder is created before a child turns three years old. This early origin is thought to explain why narcissists are so difficult to treat later in adult life (and the reason that some adults act like children emotionally).
“You can change the place you live, your clothes, your interests, your friends, your religion and even your partner. But, if you forgot to change your mind, attitude, beliefs about the world, how you treat people and how you plan to be different this time around, why did you even bother?”
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Pavlov’s Law
Do you remember learning about Pavlov’s dog when you were at school? In the 1890’s Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, discovered that behaviours can be triggered by signals. Pavlov was measuring levels of salivation in dogs. He basically rang a bell while simultaneously presenting dogs with food. Before long, the dogs ‘learned’ to salivate to the sound of the bell, without the food. The bell became a ‘trigger’ for the response of salivation.
Let’s face it. Many of us had childhoods that were not ideal. The main reason is that our parents, themselves, had unresolved emotional issues that they then passed on to us. Just as we inherit eye colour and hair colour, we inherit behaviours, patterns, and beliefs from our parents that don’t always serve us as adults. Abuse, neglect, accidents, death of loved ones, or even an unkind word can all cause arrested emotional development in a child. When we stop growing emotionally, life becomes overwhelming. Psychologist, Dr. Erik Erikson (1902-1994) found that unresolved childhood developmental tasks “leave a life-long residue of emotional immaturity.” In other words: your original, immature, unidentified subconscious issues are controlling your behaviours, and even your thinking.
“The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.”
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Normal Adult Thinking vs Arrested Development
Critical adult thinking involves logical reality-based thinking and reasoning. This includes skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesising, and critiquing. The bottom-line is that arrested development can block these skills in adults through unconscious beliefs that are programmed responses in fight-flight or freeze.
The great thing about a thought is that it’s ONLY a thought, and a thought can be changed. If you learned something, you can unlearn that same thing. Beliefs are malleable. You can change them through introspection, practice, and confrontation. You can beat any habit and break through negative repetitive thought loops if you are prepared to do the work. Conscious Leaders choose to undergo that personal overhaul and examine the way they communicate, manifest and express their highest potential to themselves and to others. They know their value and set firm boundaries on what they will and will not accept. Personal integrity is the foundation of Conscious Leadership. To slay your mindset, you must first slay the negative repetitive cycle.
“The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”
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The Solution is All in Your Mind
In order to integrate, and thereby transcend arrested emotions (rather than systematically controlling and, in effect denying them) a shift is necessary toward the ‘seed or root (soul) and not the tree (behaviour)’. We can’t understand the depths of human nature to any significant degree if we don’t learn how to engage in dialog with, rather than fear, the deep and mysterious parts of ourselves hidden in our ‘Soul’…or psyche. Integration of the unconscious mind’s subconscious programming into consciousness is the goal. This is the beginning of the process of profound personal transformation. Recognise that emotional problems (which cause behavioural problems) are often ontological problems which need to be integrated, not managed. Ontology…is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality, or how the mind works. How the unconscious and conscious work together to manifest new behavioural skills, management, knowledge or more “Good Programming”.
“Your own Self-Realisation is the greatest service you can render the world.”
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Follow the White Rabbit
If you are Alice (or Alec – whatever floats your boat), the white rabbit is your subconscious cues. The intricate patterns of your words, thoughts, body sensations, actions and behaviours are subconscious verbal cues. Your limbic system runs on these verbal cues. It sends signals that bypass your rational brain and trigger automatic responses. Subconscious cue analysis can uncover the reasons for the existence and persistence of perversions, obsessions, compulsions, fixations, and addictions. Here’s the thing: it’s not necessary to discover the origin of an issue in order to discover why it exists and persists. To put it simply, knowing why you have an issue is different from knowing what origin or source it came from. In the end, nothing is changed by the knowing – even though the human mind wants to know why. Do not allow that to distract you. Your point of power is ALWAYS in the present moment.
Your subconscious cues reveal what is being ‘attempted’ to be voiced on an unconscious level through your uncontrollable and compelling repetitions of fantasy, thought, and behaviour. The transformative power of this process is that it is necessary to discover what is being attempted to be expressed subconsciously in order to carry out the process on a conscious level. This is why wise sages, ancient texts, and personal mastery academies and Conscious Leaders essentially all say the same thing: KNOW THYSELF.
“You’re growing and that scares people, it frightens the shit out of them because they know if they don’t step up within themselves you’ll move forward with out them. When this happens, don’t you dare settle to suit the mould – have courage to live without one.”
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Your Mind Will Try to Trick You
In order to really understand the cues, it is necessary to look at the subconscious as a separate mind…a double mind. A mind that has the power, through instinctual reaction, to overpower our conscious desires using deception over the conscious mind. This is called subconscious ‘Self-deception’ where we deny or rationalise away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing yourself of a truth (or lack of truth) so that you do not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception. This process does not teach you how to be happy but it does teach you how to recognise, take personal responsibility for, and appropriately respond to the directives you are consistently suggesting to yourself from the literal perspective of your powerful subconscious mind.
How you meet your challenges makes all the difference between the promise of success and the spectre of failure. Life is not random. There is a pattern and purpose inside every existence. The reason challenges arise is simple: to make you more aware of your inner purpose. The answer doesn’t lie at the level of the problem, even though most people focus all their energy at that level. When you can take your awareness outside the place where struggle is ever present, two things happen at the same time: your awareness expands to a higher perspective, and with that, new answers begin to appear.
“We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.”
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3 Levels of Awareness
When awareness expands, events that seem random actually are not. A larger purpose is trying to unfold through you. When you become aware of that purpose, which is unique for each person, you become like an architect who has been handed the blueprint. Instead of laying bricks and fitting pipes at random, you as the architect, can now proceed with confidence that you know what the building should look like and how to construct it. The first step in this process is recognising what level of awareness you are working from right now. Every time a challenge comes your way, whether it is about relationships, work, personal transitions, or a crisis that demands action, there are three levels of awareness. Become aware of them, and you will take a huge leap toward finding better answers for a better life.
LEVEL 1: CONTRACTED AWARENESS
This is the level of the problem, so it immediately grabs your attention. Something has gone wrong. Expectations have turned sour. You face obstacles that don’t want to move. As resistance mounts, your situation still doesn’t improve. If you examine the level of the problem, the following elements are generally present:
Your desires are blocked.
Something you want is meeting with opposition.
You feel as if every step forward is a battle.
You keep doing more of what never worked in the first place.
There is an underlying anxiety and fear of failure.
Your mind isn’t clear. There is confusion and inner conflict.
As frustration mounts, your energy is depleted.
You feel more and more exhausted.
You can tell if you are stuck at the level of contracted awareness by one simple test: the more you struggle to get free of a problem, the more you are trapped in it – like quicksand.
LEVEL 2: EXPANDED AWARENESS
This is the level where solutions begin to appear. Your vision extends beyond the conflict, giving you more clarity. For most people, this level isn’t immediately available because their first reaction to a crisis is fear, which causes them to contract. They become defensive and wary. When you allow yourself to expand, you will find that the following elements enter your awareness:
The need to struggle begins to diminish.
You start to let go
More people connect with you. You allow them more input.
You approach decisions with confidence.
You meet fear realistically and it starts to lessen.
With clearer vision, you no longer feel confused and conflicted.
You can tell that you have reached this level of awareness when you no longer feel stuck: a process has begun. With greater expansion, unseen forces come to your aid. You move forward according to what you desire from your life.
LEVEL 3: PURE AWARENESS
This is the level where no problems exist. Every challenge is a creative opportunity. You feel completely aligned with the forces of nature. What makes this possible is that awareness can expand without limits. Although it may seem that it takes a long time to reach pure awareness, the truth is exactly the opposite. At every moment pure awareness is in contact with you sending creative impulses. All that matters is how open you are to the answers being presented. When you are fully open, the following elements will be present:
There is no struggle.
Desires reach fulfillment spontaneously.
The next thing you want is the best thing that could happen.
You benefit yourself and your surroundings.
You feel completely safe and ‘at home’.
You view yourself and the world with compassion and understanding.
To be completely established in pure awareness is enlightenment, a state of unity with everything in existence. You are already the architect of your own reality and, ultimately, every life is moving in that direction. Without attaining the final goal, you can tell that you are in contact with pure awareness if you feel truly yourself, in a state of peace and freedom.
“The outer world is a reflection of the inner world. Other people’s perception of you is a reflection of them; your response to them is an awareness of you.”
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Awareness - The Greatest Agent for Change
Each of these levels brings its own kind of experience. This can be easily seen when there is a sharp contrast or a sudden change. For instance, love at first sight, takes you without warning from contracted awareness to expanded awareness. Instead of relating in the normal social way, suddenly you see immense appeal, even perfection, in one other person, In creative work there is the “Ah-ha!” experience. Instead of wrestling with a blocked imagination, suddenly there is a flash of insight. The answer presents itself, fresh and new. These epiphanies can be life changing.
What people don’t see is that expanded awareness is actually our normal state, not a moment of extraordinary difference. Making it normal is the whole point of choosing love over fear, of becoming a Conscious Leader and actively choosing growth, learning and expansion over fear and contraction in every moment. No matter how intensely you feel your situation is, if you look to the right and left, you will see others who are just as caught up in their situations. Strip away the details, and what remains is a general cause of suffering: lack of awareness. This is not a personal failure. Unless you are shown how to expand your awareness, you will have no other choice but to experience that state of contraction.
“People who repeatedly attack your confidence and self-esteem
are quite aware of your potential, even if you are not.”
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Awareness Precedes Choice & Choice Precedes Results
Just as the body flinches when faced with physical pain, the mind has a reflex that makes it draw back when faced with mental pain. Your awareness in the moment is key.
Identify Limiting Beliefs
You may have been unconsciously programmed to believe certain things about yourself and the world from your family, friends, partners, bosses, teachers and others. You may have internalised negative thoughts without even realising it.
“There’s no way you can do that.”
“Why don’t you go for something easier.”
“You’re not good enough.”
We’ve all heard statements like this at some point in our lives. They might seem harmless, but these are the very thoughts that can easily hold us back. Worst of all, many of these beliefs might not even hold a shred of truth – yet, we allowed these thoughts to define our actions, behaviours, and future opportunities. By becoming aware of these things, we can with time and practice, release these patterns and become more physically and emotionally healthy.
“Most of us self-sabotage through unresolved conflicts or childhood trauma. Society doesn’t give us the right tools to heal those emotional conflicts, and they can continue to play a narrative in our present time. So, it’s of utmost importance we find the best ways to heal those unresolved traumas, so they don’t play out now in our career and relationships. Once we heal those things, we can bring into balance and harmony and receive the opportunities in our career and life we deserve.”
– Ryan Whitewolf
Realise How Your Fears Play Out
Sometimes, your mind’s limiting beliefs manifest in ways you weren’t aware of until they actually play out. For example, a student might make up excuses for not finishing their assignments because they secretly fear the teacher won’t like their completed work. These thoughts can remain in the student’s subconscious, and only manifest when they have to complete a project. Look for the deeper meaning behind your actions and how it relates to your inner feelings and desires. This type of self-introspection is never easy, but it’s always worth the effort. It can be very uncomfortable to confront your worst fears or guilt, but it’s the only way you’ll truly understand why you do what you do.
Eliminate and Re-write Your Thoughts
Before you can transform anything, you must acknowledge your limiting beliefs. Only then can you begin to create a different or new empowering belief. Practicing mindfulness through journaling or meditation will bring awareness to your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Mindfulness will help you catch the unhelpful thoughts or behaviours. Write down all your defeatist thoughts and examine them. Do they really reflect reality, or are you exaggerating?
For example, someone might say, “I never do anything right,” when they mean to say, “What lesson can I learn from this experience?” Use this time of reflection to re-write your remaining beliefs. Turn them into something positive. Use “because” statements, such as, “I made a mistake, “because” I’m still learning. “Making mistakes means I get to learn lessons from them. It’s my chance to do better next time.”
“Insecurities have the ability to shape and mould our minds to live with everything that’s bad; like crying on the inside, while smiling on the outside…thus creating pain…but, alas, I have the answer; forget about what you thought and enjoy (embrace) what you feel”
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Rewiring Your Mindset
As you develop self-awareness you are able to make changes in the thoughts and stories you tell yourself. Changing the interpretations in your mind allows you to change your emotions. Remember to practice being kind to yourself when breaking patterns that have been playing out for years. It’s hard to rewire something as deeply ingrained and abstract as your mindset, but it’s entirely possible to make it happen. Rewiring your mindset isn’t something that can happen overnight; it requires plenty of conscious thought and effort. And the rewards are insurmountable.
On a global level, there is no doubt that ‘end-times madness’ is bringing up old trauma for the collective. Our safety in the world is constantly being threatened and this is emotionally activating. Many of us are living with some form of arrested development. The reaction in your body is very real. When we are challenged and unconscious to old patterns, we resort to old coping mechanisms and the spiral continues. This affects how we show up everyday for our work and our relationships with others. Any issues will then feel exasperated.
“Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence.”
― N
Superlative Self-Care
Conscious Leaders know that the concept of keeping small promises to yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do. You can start out by making attainable promises, such as waking up 10 minutes early or going to bed 10 minutes early, drinking a glass of water every morning upon waking, meditating for 5 minutes, or journaling for 10 minutes. These small acts of self-care help to establish trust with yourself and build the foundation of self-trust. With commitment, these tiny acts bring about massive transformation. It’s starts with you.
Because we are individuals, self-care means different things for different people. The past few years have left people feeling devastated and scared. The first step is to identify those feelings and accept your emotions. So many of us have these rules about how we should feel and we cause ourselves a lot of additional suffering by thinking this way. Some people feel lonely and yearn to connect while other people may feel lonely and want to be left alone. There is no right or wrong way to feel. Once you accept your feelings, find a way to care for yourself. Does going for a walk out in nature make you feel better? Perhaps a nice long bath will provide a sense of comfort? Breathwork is incredibly powerful because it regulates the nervous system. Learning to love and care for yourself is a way of re-parenting your inner child. This journey is something you must be an active participant in. Be gentle and compassionate with yourself during the process, rather than judging where you are at with it. Acceptance is key.
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”
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Curious and Curiouser
Curiosity is a powerful way to navigate the uncertainty of the unknown. There is no fear in curiosity, only an alert and gentle intuition desiring knowledge and wisdom. Conscious Leaders know that curiosity is essential when wandering in unknown places. In curiosity we are right-sized and a part of, rather than a conquering marauder in someone else’s territory. It relaxes and soothes while at the same time allows a sharp respect for our surroundings. It brings everything into the present moment, into radical acceptance. That alone is so healing. Awareness is the ability to observe, take note of, integrate, and make use of the information presented for the purpose of expanding your perceptions of reality. New realisations offer renewed opportunities for personal growth and expansion of consciousness.
As the energies of these fortuitous times continue to accelerate, it is important to remember that everyone on Terra is immersed in a steep learning curve, a fast-track course for understanding and respecting the basic cosmic laws for living in balance. Once you can see through the script of beliefs and ideas that entrap your use of energy, you liberate your mind and free up your energy to be managed from a more consciously empowered position. When you take the time to notice and observe, to pay attention and to reinstate your curiosity, then your awareness will flourish – like a well-tended garden catching the latest news from the sun. A season of super-enhanced awareness is now upon you, and understanding that everything is a symbol for an expression of energy will reveal new and exciting levels of the game. Conscious Leaders play with the creativity of the naturally curious mind. This serves us well as we process all that is churning deep inside, in preparation for another round of awakening. Together we rise!
“If you are driven by fear, anger or pride nature will force you to compete. If you are guided by courage, awareness, tranquility and peace nature will serve you.”
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