Regaining Consciousness by Sam Spurlin
Dedication Dedication This e-book is dedicated to all the readers of The Simpler Life.
You are the reason that I sit in front of my computer day after day and share my thoughts. You are the reason I decided to become more conscious of the way I live my life. Thank you for your inspiration, dedication, and support.
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Contents Contents Introduction Chapter One: Learning How to Find Your Values Chapter Two: Taking Control of Your Health Becoming Conscious Of Your Choices Becoming Conscious of How Much You’re Eating Conscious Fitness
5 11 18 20 26 29
Chapter Three: Doing Work That Matters Focusing on the Positives Re-framing Negatives Forming an Exit Plan
35 37 39 42
Chapter Four: Master Your Mind with Conscious Thinking Challenging Assumptions and Biases Challenging (and Changing) Perspective Acknowledging Ignorance Removing External Decision-Makers
52 54 55 58 62
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Contents Contents Chapter Five: Developing and Nurturing Conscious Relationships Assessing Your Relationships Taking Responsibility for Your Own Attitude Improving and Developing Important Relationships Killing the Vampires In Your Life
68 69 71 72 73
Chapter Six: The Tools of Consciousness: Focus and Discipline What is Focus, why is it important, and how can it be developed? What is Discipline, why is it important, and how can it be developed?
80 81 85
Chapter Seven: Final Thoughts on Living a Conscious Life
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Resources, Thanks and Credits
98
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Introduction Introduction
You’re living, breathing and obviously coherent enough to read this e-book. At the most superficial level, I suppose you’re conscious. That’s a good start. But are you interested in living life only at the most superficial level? There is a deeper and much more nuanced definition of consciousness that provides the basis of all the work I have been doing this past year. Consciousness is so much more than being a proverbial bump-on-a-log. Bumps on logs don’t do anything and they aren’t particularly remarkable. I’ve been figuring out how to liberate myself from the log for the past year and I want to share what I’ve learned. True consciousness is being aware of the external influences on your behavior.
It’s recognizing when your actions are regulated by forces outside your control and learning how to move the root of your action within yourself. Consciousness is what makes you an interesting and passionate human being instead of a lifeless robot. Robots respond to their environment and execute the instructions they have been programmed with. www.thesimplerlife.net
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A conscious human being is influenced by the outside world as well, but does not let this random stimuli exclusively spur their actions. Decisions, actions, and attitudes are regulated by their values instead. Over the past year I’ve become aware of how often I found myself responding to stimuli—being a robot, instead of consciously living. It has been my goal to break out of this mindless cycle and give my life mouth-to-mouth CPR or the shock of a defibrillator to wake myself from my automaton tendencies. So far I’ve been speaking in generalities without giving concrete examples of what I mean. Let me rectify that as I demonstrate concrete examples of my own, and society’s, loss of consciousness. 1. In the United States, political apathy is an epidemic. Most people know nothing
about what is going on in the government, how the government works, what issues are currently important and what they can do to influence the course of the country. The reasons behind this lack of caring are numerous and many of them are rooted in righteous anger, but the result is the same. Instead of having a sense of ownership or control over the governmental decisions that affect them on a daily basis, people resign
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themselves to unawareness and disinterest. Government decisions affect nearly every aspect of your life and yet, most people couldn’t care. This drifting apathy is a lack of consciousness. 2. The obesity epidemic is another illustration of how lack of consciousness is
destroying many people. Instead of taking responsibility for their decisions, many people let the lure of fast food and unhealthy food choices overtake their lives. A truly conscious person would be aware of the relationship between the food they put into their body and the way they feel. Making conscious decisions about what to eat and how to live are constantly overridden by convenience, by short term pleasure, and overbearing advertisement. 3. In my own life, my lack of consciousness mired me in a funk of unemployment and
unproductiveness. After college I moved home with my parents and began to look for a teaching job. I couldn’t find a full-time job, so I continued to live at home while substitute teaching. The money wasn’t much and the job satisfaction was non-existent, but I didn’t
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do much to change my situation. I started my blog, The Simpler Life, during this time but I did not devote to it the type of attention it needed to truly grow. Finally, I regained consciousness long enough to find a cheap apartment and move out on my own, even though I still didn’t have a full-time job. That was several months ago and even though you could technically still call me unemployed, I’m not homeless. In fact, I’m loving my austere and Spartan apartment more than I ever could have imagined. Becoming conscious of how my environment affected my mood and productive output allowed me to make changes that enriched my life beyond measure. Lack of consciousness is a malady that spans across every aspect of human life. It affects your decision making, your mental and physical health, your outlook on life, your relationships—consciousness rules all. In this e-book, I’m going to address some of the most
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important parts of life that require a healthy level of consciousness. As I said before, consciousness is the overriding principle to every area of life. Because it’s so all encompassing, I could easily spend months trying to address every last piece of relevant information. Instead, I’m going to focus on a few of the most important areas. Improved consciousness in these areas will give the largest return on investment: 1. Conscious Health 2. Conscious Work 3. Conscious Thinking 4. Conscious Relationships
The good news is that becoming conscious is something that you can learn and practice. It’s a matter of articulating your values, practicing constantly, and developing the abilities of focus and discipline.
I’ve experienced incredible growth in my own life by doing the very things I write about in this book. It has allowed me to move into my own apartment despite not having a
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steady job, make enough money from writing online to live comfortably, and to grow in ways that I never could have imagined. Learning how to become the master of my own attitude, feelings, moods, and outlook on life is the bedrock on which the rest of my life is built. While I have been practicing all of this for a long time, I am by no means an expert. Instead of viewing me as a guru, I would prefer if you envision me as a traveling partner who left a couple weeks ahead of you. I’ve gone ahead and scouted out the best places to stay, the tastiest restaurants, and the coolest things to see. By scouting the way, I hope to guide you in the most efficient way possible. You might disagree with my choice in restaurants, or you might think that one hotel is a little bit campy, but I promise not to lead you into any shady neighborhoods. Pinky swear.
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Learning How to 1. Learning How to Find Your Values You can’t leave for this journey until your bags have been packed with everything you need. Some of it you’ll pick up along the way, but there are some tools that you should never leave home without. Your consciousness journey can’t begin until you’ve clarified your values.
The main cause of unconscious living is an unawareness in what you truly believe in. When you’re floating through life on auto-pilot, your decisions are made by external factors. Your anger is stoked by that inconsiderate waiter. Your eating habits are dictated by the advertisements you see. The situations and reasons change, but the result is the same, not having control over your life. Instead of allowing these external factors to dominate, your values become your new guideposts. As such, it is impossible to live a life of consciousness without first knowing your values. You might value Freedom and so you make decisions and act in ways to
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bring about that value in yourself and others. Personally, one of my most important values is Growth. Whenever I can, I try to do things that will further this in my life. Disappointments, unfamiliar situations, and new people all become opportunities for growth instead of sadness, consternation, or apprehension. You probably already have a good idea of what some of your values are. Even if you’ve never articulated them before, nobody is devoid of values. The point of this chapter is to take some time to truly clarify what they are and what they mean in your life. Values are the ideas or concepts that guide your life. They are what dictate the decisions you make and how you act. You already have values, but they have probably become buried under layers of garbage. Incessant advertisement, negative peer pressure, social pressures of conformity, and a culture of excess all pound against and smother the values that want to reach the surface. Living consciously is about brushing off the refuse and bringing your values up to the level at which they can impact how you live.
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To begin, start listing everything that you care about. What do you get excited for? What do you enjoy doing or thinking about? What, or who, do you live your life for? To get you started, here are a few of the words that came to mind in my own life: Growth, Family, Teaching, Learning, Coaching, Simplicity, Focus, Personal Fitness, Challenge, Integrity, Loyalty, Dedication, Discipline, Perseverance and Honesty. Keep going and add as many as you can possibly think of. Now that you have a list of ideas that symbolize and define your life, it’s time to begin clarifying the picture. While you have many values, only a couple permeate almost every aspect of your life. These top level values are what you’re after. The values that fill in the mid and lower levels of your life are still important, but they tend to be more malleable and transitory. Life situations and experiences might change your lower level values, but most likely your top 3 or 4 will never change. Your goal is to decide what those 3 or 4 everlasting and all encompassing values are. Take your long list of values and begin crossing out the ones you don’t feel a strong dedication to. Maybe you think Political Activism is important, but not that important.
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Chances are it’s not one of your top 3 or 4. Right now, pare your list down to the top 7 or 8 values that you feel strong connections to. These are the values that you get excited about when you see the words on paper. These are the values that the Ideal You would adhere to unwaveringly. Here are my top 7 in no particular order: Growth, Challenge, Integrity, Family, Teaching, Coaching, and Simplicity. Now, it’s time for the hard part. You want to narrow your list of values down to the very top 3 or 4. These are the cream of the crop, the best of the best. These are the ones that cause you the most discomfort if you violate them. It can be tough to eliminate at this point. Just remember that if you eliminate a value from your final tier, it doesn’t mean you think it’s not important. It just means that there are other things that are more important.
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Human beings are complex and can’t be clearly defined by any set number of values. That’s not what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get a clear picture of what your underlying motivations are. To help you pick your final tier of values, start writing about each of your 7-8 values. Clarify what the value means to you by writing a couple paragraphs about each one. You will find that some of them are incredibly easy to write about. You’ll probably crank out two or three paragraphs in no time and still have more to say. Others will be more difficult to write about. If you’re having trouble articulating what a particular value means, chances are it’s not one of your most important ones. Your top values will be the ones that seem most natural to write or talk about (if you’re not much of a writer, try talking about each of your values to a trusted friend or significant other). Now you’ve got your list of 3-4 top values. These are the guideposts that your future decisions are made around. To further clarify what a life dominated by your values looks like, I suggest doing one more exercise. In this exercise you’re going to envision what your life would be like if you lived each of these values perfectly. What would you be like?
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What would you do for a living? How would you treat others? What would your most important relationships look like? What would you do during your free time? In as much detail as possible, describe what this would be like. Use lots of adjectives and don’t be afraid to be very specific. The goal is to create as clear of a picture as possible. This is what you’re striving for. This is what conscious living looks like. You’ve got your list and you’ve got your visualization. The key is to not let them fade into distant memory. You want to be constantly reminded about what these top values are. You want to be drilled with them as much as possible. Make a screensaver for your computer that has your three values floating around, make a computer wallpaper featuring your values, type up your values and tape it above your computer, write out your values with magnetic refrigerator letters—do whatever it takes to keep these three concepts in front of your eyes and in your mind as much as possible.
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My goal is to help you remove the roadblocks that keep you from living a conscious life and your values are what swoop in to fill that void. Don’t forget your toiletries and an extra pair of underwear before you leave for your guided tour of increasing your consciousness.
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