Awareness is not “Normal”
"And the day would come that the strength it took to stay tightly closed in a bud would be more painful than the risk it took to bloom."
-Anais Nin
Childhood
No human being escapes childhood and early adult life without encountering a variety of situations that scare us, disappoint us, confuse us, or make us angry. Similarly, we have experiences that excite us, make us feel comfort or pleasure. These affect us psychologically. Not necessarily negatively but they do influence our development. As a result, volumes upon volumes of information as well as a variety of professions exist attempting to explain it. Struggling individuals ingest millions of dollars of information each year looking for answers and it’s very difficult to measure the results. If you look far and wide enough you’ll find there’s a clinical study, book, or program to oppose almost every other study, book, or program you find. You could easily stall your transformation by getting caught in the bypass of too much information. Until you experience transformation—defined as a new reaction to life, the world and its occupants—the whole process is only a concept. The most powerful resources will teach you nothing, but rather remind you of what you already know.
It doesn’t matter if you grew up rich or poor, where you lived, your race or ethnicity. It doesn’t even matter if your parents gave you the “right” amount of attention or not. The reality is that you were affected. While some insight into how could be helpful, you can only make changes now.
For example, as a child if your father praised you more as you learned how to play baseball versus the time you painted a picture, most likely you played baseball more. Why? Because you interpreted his reaction and commentary, “wow great throw,” as approval and safety. To you it simply felt good. That is how our emotional and mental faculties are experienced at first—if it feels good, do it! Even if drawn to painting or creative expression, you may not have developed that talent or spent more time doing it because it didn’t fulfill your quickly developing emotional needs that were met when you played baseball—i.e., receiving more praise from your father and feeling good. On a related note, your father may or may not have actually cared which activity you would pursue, yet you interpreted that he did.
It’s also possible that you were abused or neglected. If so, professional resources may benefit you and I support that. However, it is “normal” to develop unconscious reactions, thoughts and behaviors that lead us away from who we truly are without a categorically traumatic event. We all experience perceptions of disapproval, lack of love, or confusion from people we are seeking acknowledgement. The degree to which we feel these and how we mentally process them varies from person to person.
Back to childhood—at an early age, our innate and unconscious mechanisms kicked in. We were not experienced enough to discern someone’s possible disapproval from our ability to get our emotional needs met (again, to feel good), so we quickly learned to do whatever would. Doing what others wanted us to do (or what we thought they wanted) earned us responses like, “great job” or “you’re amazing,” or “we’re so proud of you!” Those made us feel safe and loved. Very simply, it felt good so we developed patterns of doing more of whatever produced that feeling.
Becoming a Normal Adult
Without knowing it, we began the process of exchanging who we really are for a modified version influenced by our reaction to our world. Given our limited experience and skills at that early developmental stage, it made sense. Unfortunately, this is how we continued to learn to do a lot of what we did as we got older—without knowing the real why we were doing them. We were unaware of the emotional and mental cycle growing inside us. Our minds developed strategies to produce more of that basic good feeling without knowing that it wasn’t authentic or sustainable. There are so many examples but some are:
Getting really good grades and lots of degrees, and/or pursuing a certain occupation in order to receive continued praise as an adult
Over-emphasis on being physically attractive
Over-emphasis on being successful as defined by erroneous social consciousnesses
Spending money you don’t have to create an image of yourself
Any form of lying including exaggerating, manipulating and omitting details
Conforming to any social, political, religious, or other group’s norms for the purpose of validation
Disconnected from our genuine interests and personal source of inspiration, we head into our relationships and careers motivated by perceptions of what the external world says we should do or be. Effectively, we repeat the original pattern over and over again into our adult lives or “real life.”
That little boy who learned to play baseball instead of paint repeats the pattern in dating & relationships by telling women (or partners of any gender) what they want to hear to get his needs met, rather than revealing who he really is and seeing if there’s a match. Little girls, as they become women, arguably face an even more challenging situation. Often physically smaller than men, and frequently dealing with male reactions to sexuality, they must account for their physical safety while learning to authentically express themselves. By the time we are adults, humans (men and women) have lost touch with their original essence. Instead, we operate primarily from unconscious motivations and self-protection mechanisms.
What is considered “normal” is: disconnection from our authentic desires, surface-level relationships, and limited joy in our work and occupations.
This limits our experience of what is possible in real life—personal fulfillment, deep intimate relationships, meaning-filled work, plenty of money, joy and contentment.
I’d like to add that most parents and influencers do their best. The reality is that very few humans awaken to the unconscious patterns in themselves. Fewer put in the effort to make significant changes and even fewer yet understand how simple it is to teach this to others. What’s important right now is that normal has become absorbing belief systems from the generations before us, conforming, experiencing mediocrity, sometimes depression, and in many cases treating our emotions with alcohol and pills rather than with sustainable healing.
Awareness is not “normal”
Normal is the finite, mind-only perspective from which most people live. It has strong opinions on what is “right and wrong,” or what is “appropriate” or not—each of which can be traced back to someone or something, other your Awareness, attempting to control you.
It’s almost abnormal to feel your feelings, know what you really want, and then enjoy your love-life and work-life consistently. It is certainly rare. We spend our lives doing uninspiring work and in unfulfilling relationships.
Normal is not bad, but it is a different experience than Awareness consciousness.
I am not here to portray this as a catastrophic situation. It’s not. But it is an opportunity for a new and powerful experience.
Life with Awareness includes becoming aware of your unconscious patterns, evaluating them, making choices based in your highest consciousness, and then taking action to create your life with your new perspective.
If you are interested in moving from normal to Awareness in your life, email me and let’s talk.