or What happens when you open Pandora’s box

The sunbeams were gently stroking my face. Slowly I started sensing my legs, my arms. Second, by second I was more aware of the rise and fall of my chest. My mind wasn’t fully aware of what was happening. I was in between worlds. That sweet stage of lucid dreaming, when you partly in the ‘awakened’ world and partly still dreaming. 

Until…… the dreams are gone and you open your eyes and with this, you open yourself to another day. But how awakened are we really? Do we truly experience the day?

There are so many things that we aren’t aware of. And even more, are waiting to be discovered.

We don’t realize how much we don’t know. It is like going through life with closed eyes. Many times we aren’t really interested in what is going on beyond our little world. The world we know. Why? Because we feel safe and comfortable there where we are. This world is different for everyone. Remember, we see the world through our own experiences and perception.

This is the stage known as the unconscious unknowing. What I don’t know I don’t know, and it isn’t bothering me. 🙂 This stage occurs before we decided to expand our reality, to learn something new. We live life as everything who we are and have, are the things in the 3D world. 

Then something comes along that nudges us to expand our reality: having an eye-opening conversation, listening to a podcast, reading a book…anything!

I can clearly remember when my uncle recommended me reading a book. I was in my late teens. And this book has started me off on my Journey! The book was Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. This book prompted me to start thinking outside the box. The statement that ‘I believe it when I see it’ began to shake. Then The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho followed what drew my attention to the holistic side of things. But not until years later when I swapped the above-mentioned sentence to ‘I see it when I believe it’, thanks to Dr Wayne Dyer. 

“Because I know that I don’t know, I am guided to find my own way.”

Dr Wayne Dyer

Once you opened your heart to accept that there are plenty more for you to learn and experience, you begin to be more deliberate with your actions/reactions. You might not know what is causing your reaction in certain situations. However, you start observing yourself and make mental notes. 

Let’s look at the following statement: 

‘Oh, I feel so angry when my partner always texts me last minute asking me to meet up. ‘ 

Seemingly this is anger, and it might be right. However, I believe that anger is only a quick resource for us to go to when in the haste of the moment we don’t know where else to go.

According to Dr Marshall Rosenberg when we express anger or any other feeling labelled as ‘negative’ it is simply us not having some needs of ours met. Returning to the example of the angry partner above. The person, who is always being texted last minute,  might feel angry because their need for receiving enough time to prepare or organize themself is not met. And this makes them feel that their time is disrespected. As they would like to see the other person and feel respected at the same time. So in this case, the anger is really a covering feeling for disrespect.

As you are becoming more and more aware that not everything is what it seems to be, you start tracking your behaviour in different situations. And with this, you have reached the Conscious not knowing stage, where you don’t know yet, your triggers, but you are aware of the fact, that you need to keep up the learning. Just when you started learning to drive a car. There were so many things you had to pay attention to in order to become a ‘safe driver.’  🙂

Now you have opened Pandora’s box. You slowly start recognizing your patterns of behaviour and start changing the way you react. Now you are more conscious and you don’t take things for face value. Now you are consciously knowing what is triggering you in what way. As you know the trigger and your default reaction,  you are consciously changing it to a behaviour, that serves you more.  

Well, done. You’ve reached the stage of conscious knowing. 🙂 You are driving your car confidently. Though still need to be consciously aware of the chain of different actions required to operate the car safely. You are practising and this practice is making you better.

Until you reach the stage when you don’t have to think about how to drive a car. You are just driving it. The new behaviour has been embedded in you, so now you can shift your conscious focus on to something else. You have reached the stage of ‘Unconscious knowing.’  

You will remember what you learnt. This is proof that you can change how you act or react.

The choice is yours.

Does this mean that you will never have another bad day? Unfortunately not. You still gonna have days when they don’t go how you’d like them to go. However, now you can see whether you can find the unmet need behind your behaviour. You are becoming more flexible. 

 

“Remain flexible, life is forever changing”.

Anonymous

Life is a journey in which we always have the possibility to grow. The following four stages are part of our journey towards living a more awakened life.  

• Unconscious not knowing
• Conscious not knowing
• Conscious knowing
• Unconscious knowing

You are transforming.

Remember, whichever stage you find yourself at the different areas of your life, IT IS OK! You are exactly there where you need to be at this very moment. You don’t need to be better than anyone else. The only person you should always compare yourself to is the PERSON YOU WERE YESTERDAY. 

Be gentle to yourself. Even though I am not there yet where I want to be, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. 

Take what resonates and leave the rest. 🙂

Written by Petra J.

Date: October 2019