How I had a Shift in Consciousness (and how you can too)

Welcome to this video. This one, what I wanted to do is show you guys something that I've just come across. It's a shift in awareness. It's this ability to become more present to the moment and it can completely change the way that we think. It's at least changed the way that I think and I have been embodying more presence than I've ever embodied in my life. You might even feel it in this video right now that the difference is from this video from all the other ones is that you might feel more presence in what I'm saying than in any of the other ones. And that's simply because you can feel whatever somebody is saying underneath what they say. And I believe that I'm more present than I've ever been in my life. And what I want to share with you guys is how I came to this realization, how it ultimately triggered for me a day ago. And I want to speak about the things that I think can help have a shift in your life so that you can ultimately have this shift in awareness. Now, first off, what I want to do is just to give you guys a simple breakdown of what's happened 4 or 5 years ago to what happened now and what that shift was, how the seed was planted like 4 years ago, 5 years ago, and how I've got to this place now. Now, 5 years ago, I was going through something to where I felt like I needed to find something other than what was going on, working in my life. Now, this was the idea of I thought and was labeled as having ADHD growing up, so therefore I identified with having ADHD. And because of that, I needed to take Adderall, at least I thought I did, in order to focus. And because of that, the side effects of Adderall were that you couldn't eat as much and you couldn't sleep as much. And because of those side effects, I decided that I was going to do my own research to try to find out if there could be some type of alternative that could give me a similar effect without the harsh side effects. And what I came across is the benefits and science of meditation showing the effect on brainwaves, on hormones and other stuff. And I decided that I was at least going to try it. And I remember within 1 or 2 days of doing it, I would only do it for maybe 3 or 4 minutes a day. And after about a week of doing it, I got to a place to where I could do it for about 5 or 10 minutes. And after about a week or 2 of doing it just for 5, 10 minutes a day, I started to feel really good. There was something about me that began to shift and it was this feeling that when I did it, I started to realize that even though I'd only do it for maybe 10 minutes, it would leak into the rest of my day and I would I would do it right when I woke up. And then what happened is I started to become more aware of certain ideas. I started to see and watch my thoughts. I would just simply observe my thoughts. I would focus on my breathing. And from that place, I started to see a correlation between the thoughts that I was having, the emotion I was feeling, and the results I was getting in life. And I started to see the pattern of how I identified with having ADHD and how that affected the things, the effects I was getting in life because I constantly thought that I needed to take Adderall in order to balance out my energy. But once I realized that, what I decided to do, and kind of a bold, courageous move, I was like, you know, I'm just going to let go of that self-image. I'm going to drop that self-image and what I'm going to do is see if I can just meditate instead of thinking I have ADHD and need Adderall. What I'll do now is just start meditating because it feels good and see how that affects my life. And as I began to do that, I dropped that self-image and then chose that instead I would meditate. And from that, it completely changed my life. It changed the awareness that I had about who I was. It changed a lot of things that ended up ultimately having positive benefits of. Now, as we fast forward to up until a day ago, uh, what I realized happened was I developed from dropping that self-image of who I was back then, and anybody that knew me will tell you that I completely changed as a person from before I meditated to afterwards. I went from this person that was, uh, I'm still a loud person, but I went from this loud person that was very sporadic, very— I'm still spontaneous, but I was so spontaneous and sporadic that my energy was all over the place. It wasn't grounded at all. Now I have a lot of energy still, but the idea is that I'm much more grounded than I was before. I'm much more focused on what I'm doing, and because of that, it completely changed my energy. What I realized though is that when I dropped that self-image, what ended up happening is I reestablished a new self-image of who I was, and because of that, I was then maintaining that self-image. Now, this is the shift in awareness that I want to share with you guys. What I realized a day ago is that if we simply drop who we think we are and we don't have to defend who we think we are, because a lot of us including myself, am identified with the self-image that I have, with the perspectives that I have, with who I think that I am. And because of that, what ends up happening is that self-image ends up thinking and reacting to everything that happens in life. But this is the biggest con in life. We believe that that is who we are. It's the idea that instead of using our mind as a tool, our mind ends up using us. That's because a lot of times what can happen is we identify too much with the mind, and therefore the mind ends up developing a life of its own. The mind, the ego, wants to keep using itself. And imagine the idea that we are much more vast than just the idea of the self-image that we have. Our self-image is developed through certain choices that we make, through certain experiences that we have, where we reidentify who we think that we are. And then what happens is one of the strongest human desires there is is to remain consistent to the way that we define ourselves. So it becomes a self-perpetuation of who we think we are. Now, a simple way way to simply not care what people think is to realize that we can drop the self-image of who we are. It's so funny to think about, but the idea is that we're constantly projecting a self-image by thinking and reacting to our environment. And the reason we walk around and we might be afraid of what other people think is because the ego does not want to die. The ego wants to survive. As long as we are identified with the ego is as long as we will be afraid of what people think. We've been conditioned to place much value on what other people think of who we are. We've been given all this marketing that shows that this is what the perfect woman looks like. This is what the perfect guy looks like. We think that in order to feel happy with who we are, we have to strive to be that. And because of that, it makes us care what people think, because if we don't measure up, we will then feel that less than. Now, this is where the power is, is in dropping the self-image. When we understand that it's a trap being in this ego, anytime that we are projecting ourselves a certain way, we are automatically setting ourselves up for failure because we are trying to be something that we're not. Now it can still be a powerful thing to use a certain self-image for certain purposes. I have a certain self-image towards obtaining certain goals, but the idea is to use that as a tool but not have that use me, not think that that is who I am. That is simply a part of something that I use to get somewhere, but what I can realize is that even more powerful than that is to just simply be in the present moment now, and that as I begin to shift that level of awareness, that is where all the power is. Let me tell you guys, there is something different about my energy. There is something different about the way that I feel than I've ever felt before, and it's simply because I am not identified with certain self-image. Of course, the ego wants to remain who it is. It wants to survive. It wants to negate what other people think. It wants to close out other options or ideas because those perspectives are constantly being recycled and being trying to be maintained. That's why a lot of times the mind can be the worst enemy of ourself because it will say that this is what you can't do and really all it's doing is preserving who it thinks that it is. Understand that you are much more vast and all the power lies in understanding that you can shift the level of awareness from the reactive thinking, from the projection of who you think you are, and you can then place it into being in the present moment by observing the thoughts. Anytime I catch myself identifying with something and some desire that I have, I realize that that desire, that that feeling is coming from that same self-image. And as I begin to shift that more into the present moment, into observing it, it's not good or bad. It has no meaning one way or the other. It just, as I observe it, that's when I begin to shift into this present moment now and I begin to experience and feel feel this expanded level of awareness. It has completely shifted everything in my life. This simple understanding that I'm sharing with you right now, I believe that if you understand that you are not your self-image, that you are not this personality that's been developed, the personality that I developed up until this point has been based upon the prior experiences. Now, when I had that experience years ago where I dropped the idea of having ADHD and started having this more like meditative Zen-like personality, what I realized was that in the back door came this new ego called a spiritual ego and it's very easy to develop. Now there's this ego that says that, ooh, I've got this new level of awareness. I got this stuff figured out. What I realized is that's an ego in itself. It might be an ego that resonates more or that has maybe a little bit more happiness, but really that happiness then becomes dependent upon that self-image and how it can be maintained. Then it projects itself into the future of will I obtain this level of being able to speak and help people doing spiritual stuff. The idea is that then that ego ends up running itself over and over again. This is what I realized is that if I simply dropped that self-image, if I simply dropped that ego and realize that I am the consciousness underneath that, what I can then do is realize that I'm more expanded than even that self-image could possibly be. And as every time I catch myself getting more entrained into those thoughts, I simply become present and observant that that's what happened. And the moment that I do that, I then become that observer presence, that expanded level of consciousness. The more that I do this, I realize the easier that it is. And what I encourage you to do is to simply realize that the personality that you've developed is not the full vastness of who you are. You are much more vast. You can simply be present to the moment. Now you can observe the thoughts that you have. That is where the power is. When I began meditating, I learned how to observe my thoughts, and when I observed it, I then was able to see it from a new point of view because rather than being in it and reacting, I then became more responsive and with more awareness, and it completely shifted the level of thoughts that I have. It completely shifted the observing that I was able to do, and that's where the shift and awareness is. So what I want you to know is that you are much more vast than you can possibly imagine, that the self-image that you project, you can realize that you can use it as a tool, but is nothing more than a tool. It is not who you are because you are much more vast. You're an expanded level of consciousness, and every time you observe your thoughts, every time you observe what you're doing and what you're thinking rather than react or respond, what you then begin to do is become more present to the moment. A simple way to do this is to bring the awareness into your body rather than being stuck in the head. And the more that you do that, I promise you, you'll start to feel that you are much more vast than you can possibly imagine. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Feel free to like this video if you liked it, share it if you found it of value, and I'll see you guys on the next video. All right, much love. Bye.