Staying awake is harder than waking up
“What is at the end of your tunnel vision? What you focus on will become your truth… your reality… and your destiny. And – sadly – when you wake up inside the horror of your own making, you will think that you had nothing to do with any of it.” - Louise LeBrun (from Living at the edge of distinction)
This question sparked a powerful line of inquiry inside me: what does it take to stay awake?
The women I work with are, by all accounts, “awake”. They are mindful that something more exists in their life other than the status quo. They have read all kinds of consciousness-expanding books, they have practiced the work and maybe even regularly meditate. But, in what I call the push-comes-to-shove moments, they spend their lives trapped in the familiar hoping for different results.
For those of us who are lifelong seekers, we feel in our bones that more exists. So waking up from the culturally conditioned comma is not hard, it is inevitable. But the question I am running into is: now what?
What does it take to stay awake?
In my experience, unless we each wake up and stay awake to the living godForce that we are, we feel trapped inside a reality that assumes we are victims to our life’s circumstances.
This horrible thing is happening to me, as if we have no say in how it all unfolds. Looking outward, constantly, for someone or something to show up and save us from ourselves. Waiting for the right circumstances. Waiting for clarity. Waiting for permission. Waiting for something — anything — to become the invitation for us to act on our own behalf.
But without claiming personal responsibility for our lives, all that’s left is waiting...
And what we’re waiting for is an illusion. A lie. It does not exist.
So what happens to our internal state when we believe and spend our lives waiting for something that does not exist...?!
Waking up is not the biggest challenge
I know what it takes to wake up, but it’s far fucking harder to stay awake. Most women I work with have had many layers of awakening. They have had many insights. Many breakthroughs. Many moments of spiritual awakenings. They have had many retreat highs.
But what does it take to live what we’ve discovered?
How do we stay intimately related with what we’ve discovered?
What bridges the gap between awakening and living?
In my two decades of devoted commitment to living from the truth of my experience, I have discovered that awareness alone is not enough. Awakening is only the beginning.
We must learn how to live from our Signal from Self.
If we want to stay awake, we must become deeply attuned to our own Signal from Self. The simplest way to think of this is the animating life Force that courses through your body. It is the intuitive impulse that you feel in your body. It’s the voice of wisdom, clarity and certainty. It’s the voice that says yes or no, left or right, up or down, cross the street, turn left, don’t get in your car. This voice speaks to you in very soft whispers and yet it is definitive. It’s the voice that allows you to trust without being able to predict the outcome.
Your Signal is as unique to you as your fingerprint. There is no one — ever — that is exactly like you. This matters, because without individuation from the collective, you will be trapped trying to fit in rather than live from your unique truth.
The Signal from Self is the voice of truth.
Now, you might be thinking what happens the moment that that voice shows up? Well, within a nanosecond, there will be other voices that come in.
Voices that invite you to stay small so you stay “safe” (aka predictable). These voices sound rather effortlessly self-deprecating. Things like: Don’t be ridiculous. That’s inappropriate. What will people think? Better do as you’re told. Save time. Remember what happened last time you thought like this? Why do you have to change things up? Who do you think you are? Don’t be embarrassing. You can’t.
All of these unconscious belief systems also live in the body. Your body is the repository for everything that you have ever experienced in the past. It stores everything at a deep, unconscious level that is, by definition, out of your awareness. Your body stores your history, your beliefs, your perceived limitations. It stores so much stuff that is out of your awareness. And because it runs in the background rather than in the forefront, it leads.
This is why it is so hard to stay awake.
Our belief systems say that if we do the “hard work” and understand our patterns, we should effortlessly live our new discoveries. But how many of your have had massive shifts and breakthroughs in an experience, only to go back to your daily life and discover nothing has really changed?
Here’s the hard, liberating truth: staying awake is harder than awakening. Awakening is fleeting — it might be a moment, a realization, a discovery. But staying awake is a an ongoing process. It is a practice, not a one-and-done.
Staying awake demands you live every moment from an intentional, courageous, curious, mindful, awake, aware, engaged, inspired, devoted, unshakeable, focused, connected inner space.
It demands you accept that it is a choice made in every moment of your waking life. And THAT is what makes it so hard.
But what’s the alternative? Lulling ourselves back to the familiarity of sleep…
The alternative, for me, is decay. Slow, painful, withering of the potential that I carry. A gradual shrinking into smaller and smaller “containers,” seeking to keep me managed. A life organized around managing outcomes rather than living. A dried, shriveled-up raisin version of myself repeating what I’ve been told instead of discovering what is true for me.
I do not wish to spend myself passively waiting and watch my life pass my by while wondering where it all went … abandoning our connection to our Signal is the single most painful thing we are taught to mindlessly do.
Staying awake requires devotion to the Signal.
In all honesty, when I look back at the almost decade I’ve been immersed in these life altering conversations with you all and myself, I notice a pattern: the women who choose to live unwavering in their commitment to their Evolution by Intention™ live meaningful, expansive, incredible lives.
They realize that evolution is a choice, and choice is a an ongoing process in every moment. Every breath is a choice point. Every challenge is an invitation. Every trigger is information. Life is an unfolding, ongoing process that we live either awake or asleep: there is no in-between.
For myself, I take what this body of knowledge teaches and I fully and wholeheartedly embody it, over and over, because it has NEVER led me astray. Why? Because it teaches me how to stay connected to and live from the Signal that I AM. That is the highest order context I know to live my life from...and it’s truly amazing.
I imagine a world where every person on this planet actually THINKS about their Signal every. single. day. They consult their Signal with every single breath, in each moment that presents as difficult.
I imagine that we teach our children to never capitulate to the smallest possible “container,” seeking to manage the outcome rather than LIVE the authentic expression of the experience.
I imagine a world where we all live deeply connected to our Signal … and we trust that life is abundant, plentiful and meaningful. And create from that inspired internal space!
The bottom line for me is simple: if you want to live a meaningful life, be yourself and tell the truth of your experience. The rest unfolds exactly as it should ... the question becomes: who will I choose to become in the unfolding of it all?
Your Signal is always communicating with you.
If you’re curious to explore the Signal more deeply, I invite you to begin with the first audio in the Decloaking series, a complimentary introduction to the Signal.
And if this left you reflecting on your own experience, hit reply and tell me: What helps you stay awake? I’d love to hear from you.
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