WHAT WE NEVER LEARNED IN SCHOOL
YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU KNOW!!!
There is so much that we were never taught in "School".
Though... there is so much more that we can learn from the "School of Life".
From the day we were born... we are all "Nurtured" to perceive what "Life, Relationships, and Socially accepted behaviors are" from our immediate environment and the people around us.
A majority of us in the U.S. went to some kind of socially organized "School" to learn a variety of curriculum given to us by our teachers. Though we were taught a fairly wide variety of subjects, we were never really taught "How to live a Life of Becoming", that "Life" is a constant act of creating it, how to successfully tend to the internal "Life" struggles that we all face, nor how to become successful with money, relationships, and the various complexities of this World.
There is SO MUCH that could be said here... and so many different directions I could go with this concept. Though, what I would like to offer here are a few different simple insights that I have found very useful in my attempts to understand my experiences and growth towards something greater than the "Egoic Self"... trapped by the matrix of our Social Reality.
"SCHOOL OF LIFE" LESSONS
* The environment (people, places, and things) around us is a "Fasad"... or "Matrix" of our thoughts and expectations - For the most part... I am referring to people and material objects that we interact with in our daily life. Everything around us can be seen as an Illusion and the only thing that is "Real" is how we experience and interact with that Illusion.
I know this may be a paradox for some. Yet, think of the social masks you yourself wear in Society when you feel it is a necessary tool for your immediate environment. When you go into "Nature"... are you experiencing "Nature", or are you experiencing how the environment around you makes you "Feel"?
When we step out into "The World of things" with our understanding of what Society is based on... everything around us (outside of the raw natural environment) is a "Man-made" structure or concept that was created by someone else's imagination that said "This is what the environment should look like, this is a good place for this, a good place for that, creating this community in "this" way would be a good idea... etc". All of which systematically working together to create a kind of structured environment for you to experience your life through.
* Life is not a race with an "Un-foreseen Finish Line"... and is rather a game with unlimited choices, pleasurable and un-pleasurable experiences, and you are rarely the key player when it comes to the act of "Winning" the "Game" - Though you are the Star of your own movie and your choices absolutely determine the outcome of your life... it is those that you bring into your life that heavily influence the underlying patterns and directions your life takes.
Ultimately, it is up to you to decide what you want to pursue, allow in your life, and what your desires to learn and grow through are. Weather through embracing / rejecting change, circumstances, and lifestyles that will bring you closer to "Winning the Game"... or neglecting them and remaining stagnant; it is those around us that inspire or directly impact the direction our Life takes in the external world.
* Subconsciously... every single person (knowingly or unknowingly) that we come into contact with wants something from us and-or wants to give us something, on one level of Intention or the other - Weather it is money, attention, resources, possessions, admiration, sex, power over time and energy, etc.; we use these intentions as a way to distract us from (or add pleasure to) our own "Inner Realities".
Basically... our internal desires and thought patterns heavily influence our reality to a large extent and a great majority of our conscious attention is spent to fulfill those desires in every moment of our lives.
Because of this, we all seem to go through-out our lives unconsciously chasing desired outcomes towards what we believe we want for our lives, and we spend a good majority of our conscious attention trying to hold onto these things.
* Becoming "Self-Aware" (Growing in conscientiousness of your-self and the environment around you) is the key to take back control and creating your reality - The more "Aware" you can become of yourself and the immediate environment, you may begin to find that the external Reality is constantly offering multiple ways to find sources of "Self-Awareness" through-out the day, depending on what draws your conscious attention the most in the environment and within your psyche.
When we are able to consciously understand the "Map" that is laid out in front of us, we can find the best ways to navigate what is going on in our internal and external experience. Using this map, we can live in alignment with our goals and create the experiences that we want to live, depending on how we chose to interact with the immediate environment around us and the thoughts that are running loops in our subconscious mind.
These insights can be obtained by learning to understand what the "Cause" is that created the Reality we find our-self in, what our contribution is, what the true intentions of those around us are, and how to be understanding of the Reality of others and the role we play in theirs.
This process will give us the ability to subtly re-write our understandings of our internal experience and external environment, where our "Life" can become created by our own conscious "Will" that leads us towards the outcomes and "Life" that we consciously want to create for ourselves.
* One of the most important things we can learn how to do in Life is to learn the "Art of Letting go" - There is so much profound truth to this. I am referring here to "Letting go" of thought patterns, emotional experiences (positive and negative), toxic people and relationships, ideas of who we "think" we are (Ego), anxiety, expectations, internal tension, and patterns of behavior. There are many reasons I recommend this... and SO much power and growth that can come from it!
I would like to start with the idea of allowing growth to happen by embracing change, allowing Life to teach us what we are capable of, and what the value of uncertain growth can be. This helps us to open ourselves to the various potentials around us and the experiences we may never have known were available; because we may still be holding onto previous experiences, outcomes, or expectations.
Letting go of Toxic Relationships is CRUCIAL for finding and maintaining a state of peace, inner security, and being free to move on to more nurturing interactions that will allow us to create the "Internal Experience" of "Life" we desire to live.
Think of "Why" we may experience anxiety, fear, and insecurity. Anxiety comes from a cycling pattern in our mind of expected and anticipated outcomes that we want or do not want. Fear, basically, comes from the same thing... yet on a more intense internal scale. Insecurity comes from habitual thought patterns thinking we are not enough in some way. These all can be dead weights holding us down... and we can learn to let them go.
* Our parents, grandparents, friends, piers, and random coincidences all have their own "Reality" completely different than our own- They have their own perspectives, paradigms, thoughts, desires, fears (triggers), personality traits, internal dialogs, and expectations from what they were "Born & Conditioned" with (Nature / Nurture) to believe is the sum totality of "them" and their environment.
Simply put... they all live with-in a completely different Reality than you may perceive as your own. We all think, interact, understand, and perceive the World around us in our own unique way.
Using a simple Analogy... even though we may agree "this is a tree"; we both will have a completely different view and relationship to that "tree" depending on the collective experiences of our lives based on our "Point of Reference" (Point of Reference Essay).
We all also have various "Roles / Personalities / Behaviors" that we play in our lives (friend, lover, parent, co-worker, alone, etc). Yet, we all have our own unique "Reality" within our psyche that we experience, relate to, and echo into the external world depending on the roles we are playing in each moment.
We do this threw our external expressions adapted to the environment that we find our selves in, in any given moment, and how we "Feel" about it. These things combined stimulate our mind-body complex to take "Action / Non-action" to respond to our environment in any given way.
The paradox here is... we all pretty much (more or less) "Experience Life" in the same way Internally. We simply express ourselves (Action) and view the external world differently (Perception)... motivated by our Beliefs of our-selves (Ego / Self) and our chemical memory of each environment from our collected experiences (Subconscious / Un-conscious Memory).
We can do this in many different ways... depending on our internal energetic make-up (Expressions of internal patterns), our internal beliefs, our perceived external circumstances, patterns of our behavior, and the inspired direction we want to go in any given moment.
* One of the most dangerous things we could do in Life is put a "Tittle" (I am this job... I am that... I have this... I have that... etc.) on ourselves, claim to be our thoughts and possessions, and spend all of our conscious attention, time, and mental power seeking to hold onto these things - Everything in this life rises and falls, comes and goes, "Ebbs and Flows", and dissipates into a memory of a past experience we can never have exactly the same again.
There is nothing wrong with experiencing these things, expressing these talents, embracing what we feel called and inspired to do, nor to be present with aspects of life that bring us joy, peace, expansiveness, and purpose.
Yet, it is the holding on to, seeking to control, identifying with these things, or not allowing these "external experiences" (and associated emotional sensations) to dissipate in each moment that leads us to "suffering" (un-fulfilled desires and expectations).
* Every single organism, animal, human, plant, and "Living thing" rejects perceived "Pain" and un-desirable experiences - Weather physical, emotional, or psychological... we initially seek out "Pleasure" and reject perceived "Pain".
Weather it manifests in physical sensations (cuts, bangs, etc.), Conscious thought patterns (Anxieties, Fears, Insecurities), or "Energetic overwhelms" (Emotions... and Energy in motion in the mind-body complex {thought patterns and sensations}) ... we all feel like it is a direct disruption of our state of "Homeostasis" and sense of comfort in our environment.
Though we may respond similarly (fight or flight) in most experiences, it is important to learn to discern what is a "Practical fear" of potentially dangerous moments (being chased by a lion) ... and a feeling of fear we create in our mind that is constantly reacting to thought patterns / expectations that are not true in the Reality of the external experience of our Life.
One way to potentially learn how to adapt to both of these aspects of life is to change the way we perceive them. If we change the perception of "Pain" into an opportunity for growth, and the experience of "Pleasure" to be a reminder of who we are and what we enjoy about Life, then we can all find ways to navigate the inevitable ups and downs of our experience of "Life".
* The only things in "Life" that are "Real" exist by what I call "Divine Nature" ... or could be expressed as "Patterns in life that do not change dramatically over time" - To use an example... I would like to use the topic of a "Tree". It is constantly subtly changing in its growth and molecular structure. Yet, it operates mostly un-biased to its external stimuli. It simply evolves, adapts, and will continue to "do its' thing" at all times, in all conditions, and is ultimately un-swayed by what happens to it.
Its' only objective is to survive and perpetuate its patterns moving "towards the light" (Sun) to live the "Fullest life" that it was programed to have since the first moment it changed from a simple seed to a "thing" in growth, motion, and affected by what we call "Time" and cycles of its environment.
All animals, insects, plants, and physical objects operate in this way. Some may call it by design, instinct, purpose, or destiny. Yet, it is simply the act of "Life". To grow upwards towards a peek of experience, reproduce (pass on its' information), then collapse back into the one-ness it sprang from... "All potentials".
* It appears that the "Human Race" is the only species on the Planet that can experience the desire to "Hold-onto" various aspects of its experiences and not flow in absolute harmony with the duality of "Divine Nature / Change / Evolution" - I believe it is our naiveite to the complexities of our experiences, outside of what we spend our attention seeking information about or entertaining ourselves by, that keeps up from being aware of our inner selves and the presence available (state of mind) that brings closure to experiences.
It is typically due to the lack of experiential closure that leaves experiences "Incomplete" (in a way of looking at it) that creates an unconscious desire to hold onto experiences.
Because LIBRARYS ARE FILLED discussing the various interpretations of "Attachments"... I want to preface this with the notion that I only desire here to give a general sense of a few reasons why I believe we neglect change and may have a difficult time acting in accordance with "Divine Nature (Flow of Life)".
A few reasons we can attribute to this are: Our Internal / External Subconscious expectations and habitual behaviors, being over-stimulated by our environment and mental thought loops, a lack of a sense of fulfillment in our experience, and our innate fears passed down to us since birth, as it appears only the human race is conscious of its own mortality.
So, one solution could be to learn how to be fully present with each moment, allow the presence of that moment to rise and dissipate into the next moment, enjoying / experiencing the sensations of what arose in the previous moment, then to bring our awareness back into the next "present moment"... consciously, constantly experiencing and letting go. This is one perceptual way of living in alignment with "Life". Though, "Life" is an experience of all potentials... So, take each moment as you will... Live free. There is always growth and opportunity for each moment, if we can consciously find and be aware of it.
* We are all a single "Point of Awareness" for a much larger Source of Consciousness in which everything around us is a reflection of the information flowing through our collected experiences of Life - There is no "Beginning" nor "End" of "You". There is no "place" that you come from and no "Destination" that you are headed to. We are all simply single points of reference... ever changing, evolving, and expanding into more and more Awareness.
There is no "time" in relation to the source of "You" in which religion calls "Spirit", the "Atman", and the many other titles (I am) we call ourselves. In a way of looking at it... WE ARE "TIME", always "Becoming" ... ever expanding into itself through this vessel we call the human body and in this Reality that we experience.
From this point of view, we can only experience this finite version of ourselves, in this particular experience, from our relationship to where we are in our conscious awareness, previous experiences, and in the realization of the infinite possibilities that we have available to us in each moment.
Though it may seem we are limited to the single point of reference that we came into this Life to perceive... it is difficult to comprehend all of the potentials that we have available to us as to grow closer and closer to become in harmony with the "All" that is at our core.
(EXAMPLE) In Anatomy, a single cell can only be aware of a very limited perspective of the overall body that it is contributing to. Yet, it is comprised of the exact same information cluster (DNA) of the whole organism... which is a system built upon a feedback loop of each individual cell, inspired / guided to do its function by the "Reality / Experience" of the whole organism.