By Jon P. Frieda, MBA
It can be said that enlightenment is not so much about achieving it, but in letting go of all of the things that no longer serve you, it brings you back to who you truly are. Throughout your life you celebrate the day of your birth, each time adding one year to your age. Think of how amazing it would be to look at yourself in the mirror as the truest, highest, very best version of yourself and say, “Hello again. I haven’t seen you in ages.”
All things being relative, it is interesting to be alive today, as we on this planet are literally experiencing the end of an age. As we know that when one door closes another door opens, we are also experiencing the beginning of a new age. We are nearly twenty percent of the way through the first century. In other words, we are almost two percent of the way through the new millennia.
Life is a classroom. So as we position ourselves to navigate this new age, it is a worthwhile pursuit to brush up on the fundamentals of living life on this planet, and for that universal matter, throughout the cosmos. If this sounds interesting to you dear reader, read on as we highlight and explore the ABC’s of life. In short, it is our Awareness, Beliefs, and Choices that shape how we’ve become who we are and where we are headed in all aspects of who we want to be. Human beings are the most advanced biotechnological entities on the planet that we know of. Just like any technology can be used for good, or weaponized against ourselves, as individuals the choice is ours.
It can be said that distraction is the enemy of vision and action. Life is fractal in nature. The things that we direct our attention to are the things that grow. It takes a certain sense of awareness to intentionally direct your attention long enough towards something to consciously prove that fact to yourself without the influence of unresolved emotional trauma and societal labels to cloud that vision on a subconscious level. Some call it callusing your mind. Others call it thinking for yourself. In short, there is a fascinating causal relationship between mental health and independent thought.
We must protect our ability to be creative by guarding against distraction. We are living in a world that offers an abundance of entertainment. How many hours a week do we spend on our smart phones, on our I Pads or in front of our televisions? It is known and understood that we move into the alpha brain wave state within minutes of engaging with these devices. The alpha brain wave state is associated with suggestiveness and acceptability. It is called consuming content. Is it a wise choice to submit to the influence of such an apparatus? Are we doing ourselves a disservice by limiting our life experience and awareness? To appeal to the illusion of a higher authority, who controls this apparatus and what is their intention?
It is said that with experience comes wisdom. Life experience is among the most influential factors in shaping our beliefs. This life experience begins even in the first moments of consciousness resonating primarily in the theta brain wave state, or the state of hypnosis. As young individuals our minds are downloading and writing programs throughout the first seven years of life. This programming is what becomes our subconscious mind and significantly influences what we believe to be reality throughout the rest of our lives. It is based on these beliefs that we make our free will choices. It is interesting that our subconscious is often referred to as our inner child.
It can be said that for those who are passionate there are no obstacles. It is our choice of whether to enter into the flow state or place hurdles and resistance along our path. The stories that we tell ourselves become the narrative by which we frame our reality. Free will exists. However, like in the scientific method, there is always an exception to the rule. Take for example the possibility of giving your power away to the violation of free will cloaked as the illusion of choice.
It can be said that fear drowns thought. If given a choice, most of us as individuals prefer the feeling of happiness to sadness, anger, hopelessness, or any other negative emotion. Why then would we choose self-sabotage by culling ourselves into alignment with the frequencies of victimhood, scarcity and lack? Why then do we say that we just want to be happy, but then argue for our limitations? We choose to do so based on our conditioned beliefs. If you think about it, thought is also a form of technology. Is it possible that the information presented to us through media programming is intentionally weaponized to hypnotize us into a state of perpetual fight or flight? Not as a judgment and more of an observation, it appears that to be superficial and surface level has become the norm. Is it not true that the bulk of the content we consume is fed to us through mainstream sources of which a narrative is being presented through media programming. Consider the cost of mindlessness versus mindfulness. Stress begets more stress. Pain begets more pain.
It can be said that revenge hurts only you. No matter which media source one aligns with, the core narrative appears to be one of division. The psychology of division applies at all levels of scale. Ground zero of the information war takes place between our ears.
It can be said that this is a war on consciousness. In households throughout our country husbands and wives, sons and daughters, families and friends who thought that they knew one another so well are discovering that they are unable to resist breeding resentment and arguing amongst themselves over the volatility that is being presented in the media. Is a destruction of the family unit really in our best interest? Whose interest does it serve? Should we be questioning whether our minds are being controlled? One thing is for sure, already stressful lives living in the conditional reality have become much more stressful as of late.
There is more that unites us than divides us. We all come from the same source. There is no doubt that we all have things in our lives that no longer serve us. As individuals we can all identify with this. Who we are in this season, which we’ve become, is a direct reflection of how we’ve been in the previous seasons.
From a three hundred and sixty degree strategic clinical nutrition perspective, the whole is greater than the sums of its parts. There are many forms of stress that function as spokes and add up to our body’s energy demand to combat this stress. The more spokes that we add to the wheel of stress, the more the proportion of minerals and nutrients necessary to fuel. Unchecked stress without providing adequate resources necessary to combat and meet its advance results in a systemic disruption of your everything. Would we make the free will choices to go in this direction if there were not such a concentrated force working to lead us there?
When I was a kid in school we studied Greek philosophy and we learned to read and write Latin. It helped us to understand words in different languages as well as how to think, speak and act with more awareness and a broader perspective and understanding of life and how to get along with other people. Over the years, one thing that has always stuck with me is the importance of personal discovery. It has served me well.
I’m speaking specifically about an ancient Greek aphorism and the two maxims that accompany it. An aphorism is an observation about life as a conscious being that contains a great general truth. First, “know thyself”. If you do not yet know that, then to pursue knowing anything else takes you further away from satisfying this fundamental purpose. The first of the two maxims “nothing to excess” evokes more attention to self-exploration and understanding this general truth. But how to live in resonance with this understanding, and to be aware that this inner balance enables you to have a more empathic understanding of others as a result? Explore the abundance in practicing temperance. Associated with the Golden Mean, or golden ratio, “nothing to excess” emphasizes the mathematical relationship between beauty and truth. In Greek philosophy, beauty is composed of symmetry, proportion and harmony. And finally, the third, “a multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind”. A prudent mind is careful and wise, considering how choices in the present will influence the future. Today we use the term mindfulness. In summation, actions speak louder than words.
The mitochondria are known as the powerhouse of the cell. On a mitochondrial level it is well known that stress and negativity burn through the resources necessary to make energy on a cellular level more quickly, leaving us drained and in a lower state of being and feeling. As individuals, who among us would choose to amplify and prolong this dim existence? Surely this is not what the truest, highest, very best version of ourselves would choose. The choice between a vision of harmony or disharmony in our lives is clear. We all see the world through our own lens. When you take a truthful look in the mirror, what do you see?
If you have any questions about the information presented here or would like to explore it further, please contact Jon P. Frieda at Neels Pharmacy, 314-849-3123. Thank you!