The Socially Constructed Reality
This is not where my blog post began...
And yet, here we are.
After I typed this blog post and was almost ready to publish it, I decided to search (as per usual) for a picture to go along with it. I searched, in two separate platforms available to me the word "reality". Here is what came up...
As you read the rest of this blog post, I encourage you to keep this visual metaphor of "reality" in mind, and wonder...
Is THIS reality?
What does this say to you about our culture? Our future?
Remember to breathe.
This is a blog post for another day...
To hear me read this piece, check it out here.
Are you even able, to listen to the stillness within?
In an external world filled with demanding energies ... flashing lights, dinging devices, polite conversations, unattainable expectations, unspoken shoulds, demeaning work, endless predicaments, divisive pandemics, constraining rules and regulations ... I wonder, have you ever slowed down enough to hear the voice of stillness within?
"I have no time for that" has become the mantra of our species.
"My mind is too busy to meditate," the mantra of the Westerners meditation.
Perpetually rushing to get nowhere in particular or anywhere of any meaning. Disembodied intellects chasing money and status, a sense of worth by doing. Desperate to escape reality. Drugs, alcohol, vacations, running in place. Listening to the same old news, telling the same old stories, hoping for something...anything else. Bracing against what is, feeling powerless to create ... what else? Strategically vote blue or red, accepting: you get what you get. A servant to the status quo, appeasing the highest bidder. Keeping the unspoken secrets that everyone knows, but would not dare acknowledge... that, would be rude!
When did politeness and niceness become our highest values?
How often does being polite overtake being honest and direct?
How often does what you say out loud match the conversation in your head?
In my world, our western culture is one of nicely polished pretend. We have mastered the art of making the apple look beautiful... while inside, it is rotting. Still, we take a bite. GMOs work, we conclude. They're healthy for you. Swallow, yet another inaccurate and incomplete version of someone else's truth. Your stomach hurts, you wonder what to do.
Looking outside the legitimate box is forbidden. In the back of our minds we wonder, who funded this study? Aka, who funded and claimed ownership over "the truth"? But, for the most part, we push such thoughts aside and in the forefront of our minds we conclude: they know what they're doing. Trust the voices of proclaimed legitimacy. The experts who peer-reviewed.
After all, anyone who's lived through this pandemic knows what happens when you dare to question the fundamental legitimacy of authority ...
Shunned. Shamed. Excluded.
So most of us dare not reveal our truths, even to ourselves. What happens if I hear myself disagree? Terror, rains. CNN knows. CBC does, too. Not those Fox News people, they've got an agenda. Left is right and right is wrong. Until, of course, the majority think otherwise. Then, right is right and left is wrong. I wonder, for how long? Check your smart watch, it knows.
Perhaps you're one of the lucky people who has encountered yoga, breathwork and listens to Ted Talks. Read a book or two, call yourself woke. Now, you know, because your Guru said so. Off to Enlightenment, you go!
But inside, if you really checked, is your blood still boiling? Is your Soul still undernourished? Unfed?
How well do you know your Self? How comfortable are you delving deep in the depths? In the deafness of the silence of yourSelf?
Have you ever noticed, so much of what you repeat in your head, are the same thoughts you immediately before just had?
The same thoughts someone else instilled. If not the thought itself, then the pattern, indeed. Through cultural conditioning, they taught you both what to think and how to think. Have you ever stopped to question, what does this mean?
Perhaps you hold a PhD and know you're very, very smart. You're an expert in your field and everyone turns to you for your thoughts. For that, I congratulate you, I know how hard it is to excel in a field (I, too, have a couple of degrees I'm sometimes proud of). And I wonder...how much of your life have you spent thinking that's real? I know I spent most of mine thinking that, too. And then I discovered...I am so much more than the sum of my legitimized smarts.
And so are you.
I'm finding lately that everyone thinks they know. And what they think they know, they're willing to defend to death. Nothing new, I suppose. That's how propaganda has always worked. But it's more subtle now...more nuanced, more "sane". No longer do we publicly burn people at the stake (we publicly electrocute them, instead).
How often do we make up our own mind about what's real and what's not?
Discovering our own truth is not an easy task in a world that demands pulling our attention increasingly outward and downward (Don't Look Up!). We can barely wait to be integrated with The Cloud. Then, we'll be complete. Then, we'll have access to infinite knowledge. Then, we'll really know ourselves. But for now, we accept: something external always knows better. Check your phone, your fitbit, your book. Check the experts on YouTube. Check with your friends, maybe your mother, too.
But whatever you do, DO NOT consult ... you.
You see, discovering your own truth has been classified as "dangerous to the status quo". Slowly banished from the kingdom of existence, especially as we enter a transhumanist world that is realer than real, plugged directly in to the Metaverse, the future of reality constructed by the likes of ...Mark Zuckerberg?
And so ask him what he thinks, instead! Ask me! I have the answers because I am "trained". By that token, I know you better than you could possibly know yourself! So come to me, and I'll have you fixed in no time. Nipped. Tucked. Enlightened and Plucked!
Where is the wonder? Where is curiosity? Where is discovery?
In my life, curiosity is a biological imperative. It is what sustains me, what fuels me, what allows me to discover and evolve. It is the state of mind that allows me to expand the context from which I live my life. If I think I know everything, I leave no room to discover. After all, it is our mindset that directs how we perceive reality.
It's very bizarre to me, in my life today, to consider how easily we have surrendered our own innate inner knowing to our "all knowing" technology. All we have to do is notice that we don't need a Fitbit to tell us to get up and move, because moving is a biological imperative.
To be honest, I'm bored with the illusions of the world out there. I'm uninterested and I will no longer play. Their games are small, and diminishing to the Soul.
So instead, I choose to honour ME. I choose to choose when and how and if to participate. No matter who is offended or pissed or generally dismissive and not-pleased. I. Choose. Me. I encourage you to do the same.
And if you notice resistance inside yourself with that, I encourage you to sit with that and journal what comes up for you. What's the resistance all about?
I realize that what I write about seems ...bizarre. Yet I know, everything make so much sense...otherwise you wouldn't make it to this line.
Somewhere deep within, we know we all have access to a deeper truth that lives inside this body. Yet our cultural conditioning keeps us looking anywhere but. After all, there's a pill for that!
As I write, I realize, self-discovery is not for everyone. People are on this realm to have different experiences. Consciousness is here to experience any and all possibilities and combinations of sensations and situations. Some people are content hiding. Others are content thinking. Then there are those who are content perpetually seeking. There are as many paths as there are people, and no two are ever the same.
Comfort is a strange phenomenon. It is both immensely limiting as it keeps us in the loop of the familiar, and it is the very space that for so many of us is the propeller to our journey of discovery and personal evolution. While I had everything I ever wanted (everything I was told I should want, and I did want...) I was still miserable. So I searched for ...what else is available to me?
There isn't a day that goes by where I do not wonder with divine curiosity...
How else might I choose to live my life, today?
I love this journey of personal evolution because no matter how many layers I peel, there are always more. Personal evolution is perpetually infinite. It is not a one and done. It is layered. It is multidimensional. It is knowable only through experience. And then, the paradox is that it is ultimately unknowable, because it is infinite! Still, I seek to discover all that I can in this body, in this lifetime.
And as I discover my own Truth that shapes my reality, I become increasingly less interested in giving my power away by trying to convince another who is not willing or able to hear me. My Truth is mine. It is sacred, and it is liberating. It is the very thing I seek. It is the very thing I AM. I AM Truth. Will I choose to honour it by living it?
In such a deeply polarized world, I choose to discover, own, embody, and live my truth, for me. I know how to listen to my body, the vessel of experiential truth (IMO, the only real truth there is).
My life is mine. How I choose to live it my birthright. Yet the notion of choice is unfamiliar to most of us...
The choices I make in my day to day life determine the quality of my life.
So, today...
I choose my expansion, my evolution, my connection, my Truth, my perpetually evolving reality.
I choose to rest in not knowing.
I choose to not have an answer, and instead ask.
I choose to play and discover rather than know, show and tell.
I choose to live in the sacredness of my moment.
I choose to let go of popularity contests and popular opinions, no matter where I am.
I choose a life of connection in real time and space.
I choose what feels real and nourishing to my Soul over what strangers on the internet say they know.
I choose to engage in meaningful conversations (with myself, then others) who nourish my Soul and cherish the sacredness of my existence.
I choose to make my body my brilliant friend, no matter the labels I put on it of what it presents.
I choose to embrace whenever I notice bracing against.
I choose to dare when everything out there demands I lock down.
I choose to notice and trust the intelligence of the moment.
I choose to question every thing I know, integrate and let it go.
I choose to discover what is real to me from my own experience of being here.
I choose to notice how reality is a social construct.
Who is the story-teller?
Last minute, following my impulse, I have decided to make this our next monthly topic of discovery...
So, if you're called to, join me and a small, intimate group of women Monday, April 25th at 5:00 PM EST for an exploration around the social construct of our individual reality.
Cost: $25 ( via e-transfer)
Zoom link to be provided to those who sign up.