Growing up consciously

a nice cheesy title for what I'm about to say

Lately my thoughts have been around quelling my anxiety and on what it means to grow up. For the most part, it is these very thoughts about growing up and the ways I think I’m falling short that have been causing the anxious thoughts which I am now working to minimize.

As a person who has been somewhat trained in yoga, I’m not unfamiliar with ideas of consciousness, mindfulness, and self actualization. One of the more interesting takeaways from my yoga learnings was that these five hundred thousand yoga postures are actually practiced for the primary purpose of being fit to sit in meditation for long periods of time, in order to ‘self-realize’. But what is that about? Self-realization, enlightenment, awakening - to what are we trying to awaken?

I’m just now starting to see that it’s exactly what it sounds like - to realize who you really are. The ‘you’ behind all of the thoughts, feelings and anxieties that can somehow somewhere take over your entire being, leaving you believing that oh well, I guess I’m just an anxious/depressed/hopeless (etc.) person. There’s a little you/me/self sitting there, watching all of this happen, watching you narrate the story of your life.

When I was smaller than I am now, I had this vision, or perhaps a concept, of who God is and what this world is all about. I imagined a cloaked being somewhere up there in the clouds, watching all of us go about our ridiculous human-like antics on a little box television.

This particular image came back to me in the light of my current readings and I thought hey, that’s basically what all of this conscious awareness stuff is about. We’re just watching it all happen. Even in our day to day, just as I am aware of a very pretty morning light falling on a couple on a bench in a park, I am equally aware of my desire to take a picture of them, and then just as quickly aware that I’m not going to do it because I fear they might turn around and tell me off. Instead of getting embroiled in that thought process, I then just let myself appreciate the light and let it go and move along.

Okay to be honest, this letting go business is still a little hard for me. How do you just… let go? Some things are easy, like the park example. But what about real life shit? How can I not remain attached to thoughts like, where I thought I’d be at 25?

Yesterday my mum and I were talking about what it means to grow up, to be mature. Is it to have more children? Is it to throw elaborate dinner parties? Is it to not yell at your family when they make you mad? Is it to make a lot of money and pay your bills? Is it to live and survive alone? Is it to be wise?

Another thought from my younger self that came back to me was about my idea of death. Death didn’t scare me so much as confuse me. I had thought, if I die, then how will I know that I’m dead? Since I know that I’m alive right now, how will I know that I’m dead? How can I not know?

My adult self reads this as a crazy wise younger self thought. Apparently, before I even had the language to describe it, I was on some level aware that my being is defined by the simple fact that I know I am alive. I just know, because I am. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but if maturity and being an adult means to be wise, then I was doing a pretty good job of it when I was 6 years old.

Now mind you, I haven’t figured all of this out. Becoming conscious of my awareness is a powerful thought, but I do still wonder how life unfolds then. Am I just a passive observer? If I’m present all the time, how do I envision a future? Am I not supposed to envision a future, ensure the survival of my descendants and all that? Or is it easy to have a vision, perhaps even the most natural thing for us to have, and really it’s just hindered by the way the modern world works? This world that works its butt off to take us away from ourselves, time and again. That’s why we have to keep coming back.

The only truth I know is that all of life is lived in the present - even the elusive future will just be the present when it finally arrives - and that my anxieties aren’t paving the way for a fuller existence. They’re not helping me out here. If anything, they keep me stuck. So, I suppose, in light of all that I am learning, relearning, and circling back around to, I guess I can just watch them pass me by with a little more compassion than I’ve been used to. Say hello anxiety, nice to see you again! Carry on now! I think that’s a lighter way to go about it - for now. Perhaps I’ll come up with another strategy later, but that’s none of my business just yet.