– by Søren Lauritzen
Our, humanity’s self-created discomforts – such as e.g. low self-esteem, a reduced quality of life, scarcity thinking, unrestrained greed, violence, war, and environmental destruction – they all stem from something.
Have you ever thought about where they come from?
The answer is NOT that they stem from human nature; That would simply be an inadequate response based on insufficient information about who and what we are.
No.
Our self-created discomforts primarily stem from a lack of consciousness.
In other words, they stem from a …
Constriction of Consciousness: A Serious Affliction most of Us Suffer from
When something is constricted, it’s smaller than it should be, meaning more restricted than its natural state. And this usually means that what ever is constricted isn’t functioning as well as it should. It’s dysfunctional.
This is how our consciousness is. So is mine, yours, and that of the vast majority of other people.
We have many limitations on our consciousness, which constrict it and make it ‘smaller’ than it should be (and in a moment we’ll see which ones). These limitations of consciousness make our consciousness less functional than it naturally is, in fact, so much so that it becomes dysfunctional.
And since our free will is part of our consciousness, it will also be restricted. The less consciousness we have, the less free will we have. Furthermore, we’ve automated our will and thus our choices; more on that in a moment.
We create unpleasant things like low self-esteem, scarcity thinking, greed, violence, war, and environmental destruction because we don’t have enough consciousness.
We don’t create those things because we are evil, or “sinful,” or because our nature is something unpleasant (such as destructive). No. We create those things because we aren’t conscious enough.
Most of us suffer from a constriction of consciousness.
This is exactly what it sounds like.
A constriction of consciousness is when our consciousness – and thus our free will – is restricted and automated, and therefore not functioning optimally.
How may we know that we have that problem? It’s very simple:
The primary symptom of a restriction of consciousness is a poor quality of life – a non-optimal life experience.
Other typical symptoms include, for example: feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, meaninglessness, loneliness, hopelessness, greed, aggression, hatred, fear (or just unease and dissatisfaction), as well as stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental – and physical – illnesses.
Yep, a constriction of consciousness does not only result in unpleasant states of being, a lack of “intelligence”, stupid behavior, and poor results, it also leads to what we understand as illnesses.
Furthermore, the simple fact is that a small and limited consciousness can comprehend, understand, and handle less (= it’s less “intelligent” and it’s “dumber”) than a large and expanded consciousness.
So, a constriction of consciousness leads to various forms of non-ideal behavior, which again leads to non-ideal results.
If we go to our doctor (or psychiatrist) and tell them that we’re afraid we’re suffering from a constriction of consciousness, we’ll most likely get an interesting but not particularly helpful reaction. (By all indications, most doctors and psychiatrists aren’t exactly interested in consciousness, even though it would undoubtedly make an incredibly positive difference for our healthcare system if they were).
Strangely enough, we probably won’t get a significantly better or more appropriate reaction if instead we go to a psychologist.
Sidenote 1: Why Can’t Doctors, Psychiatrists, and Psychologists Help Us with Our Constriction of Consciousness?
The reason for this is because a constriction of consciousness is “normal,” which simply means many people have it. So most of our government-recognized experts ALSO have a constriction of consciousness, and their idea of “healthy” isn’t what works best, but rather what’s “normal,” which of course isn’t very useful. And those things are because our government-accredited experts are trained in – and live, think, and work from – a very limited worldview, a limited and outdated understanding of everything. In other words: an outdated paradigm.
This is the old (reductionist) physical-mechanical paradigm, where the world – and our body and consciousness – are seen as a machine, and what’s physical is considered primary, while, for example, consciousness is seen as secondary – a random byproduct of that which is physical. This is an outdated – and very limiting – view.
But change is underway.
Sidenote 2: We Are in the Process of Shifting Our Outlook on Life.
We ARE already well into a paradigm shift, and the new paradigm emphasizes things like consciousness, wholeness, interconnectedness, and life. It does NOT emphasize that which is physical.
In fact, the basis for the new paradigm is that consciousness is what is primary and creative, while the physical world is secondary and created.
In the new understanding of everything, in the new paradigm, it’s consciousness that creates reality, and the physical world is a function of consciousness.
A key driving force behind the shift in our outlook on life, the paradigm shift, is quantum physics. So even though the new paradigm doesn’t have a name yet, we might call it “the holistic quantum-based, consciousness paradigm.”” – or something along those lines. And the new paradigm is in the process of revolutionizing virtually everything, but more on that another time.
Do We Want to Fix Our Problem?
Back to our unfortunate state of lacking consciousness. Here’s a question we can all – or rather, should – ask ourselves:
Our constriction of consciousness destroys our quality of life and life experience and causes us to behave in non-optimal ways – do we want to do something about it?
Because we can, but we need to WANT to. (Because we need to WANT that change (improvement), we face a challenge with our will, which is typically limited in the same way as the rest of our consciousness, but more on that in a bit). Choosing to do something about our state of consciousness constriction is a choice we can make – or rather, must make, at least if we want a happier and more meaningful life experience.
And when our official experts and helpers can’t help us, it’s a good thing that we can actually help ourselves.
Can We Treat Our Constriction of Consciousness?
Yes, absolutely, because it’s quite simple: When something is constricted, it needs expand.
The cure for a constriction of consciousness is expanding our consciousness.
Expanding consciousness?
Yep.
Is the Expansion of Consciousness Dangerous?
For some people, the term “expansion of consciousness” may trigger an automatic reaction, namely that it’s a “bad” and “dangerous” thing. For these individuals, an expansion of consciousness may be associated with “hippies and LSD and psychosis.” This is not the case.
An expansion of consciousness simply means giving ourselves more consciousness.
Most of us have so many contrictions on our consciousness that …
The simplest way to expand our consciousness is to remove or let go of the contrictions we have put our consciousness.
There’s nothing strange, scary, or dangerous about it. And there’s certainly nothing bad about it; on the contrary.
Now, to take an example from real life:
Example of a Contriction of Consciousness: The Fear of Flying
A woman asked me for help with overcoming her fear of flying. She couldn’t travel to places that she couldn’t reach by car or train because she was simply terrified of setting foot on an airplane.
We used a method I developed myself, the Let Go Method, which is also described here and in this book), and when we were done, she had not only gained insight into why she had the phobia, she had actually completely let go of her fear of flying. For obvious reasons, we couldn’t immediately test if the phobia was completely gone, but she was very confident that it was.
This woman’s phobia was a contriction on her consciousness, which resulted in a limitation in her life, namely in her ability to see the world, visit friends abroad, go on business trips, etc.
When the constriction on her consciousness was lifted, so too were all the other limitations resulting from that.
Constrictions of Consciousness: What Limits Our Consciousness and Will?
A wide range of things limit our consciousness and will, including:
• Various types of traumas (both physical, psychological, emotional, energetic, and spiritual)
• The programming of consciousness (and automation) (such as beliefs, habits (automation), expectations, culture, norms, ego, etc.)
• Shadow selves (parts of ourselves we don’t want to acknowledge)
• “Attention thieves” of various kinds (such as social media, fear-based news, etc.)
• Various stressors such as problems, information overload, general busyness, and stress
• Imbalances (in body, mind, spirit, emotions, energies, etc.)
These things, these constrictions of consciousness, make us … consciousness-constricted, and they destroy our life experience, our quality of life. And our lives in practice. And make us behave stupidly.
This is obviously bad. But there are also good news.
The Possibility of Liberating our Consciousness
Here’s the good news:
Our constrictions on our consciousness, such as traumas, consciousness programming / habits / automation, shadow aspects, imbalances, etc., are under our own control. We can examine them, make decisions about them, and implement these decisions in our lives.
In other words, we can reduce or completely liberate ourselves from ALL of these limitations!
In other words, we can heal our consciousness.
If you look up the word “heal” you will discover that the word “whole” is an etymon (earlier form of a word in the same or an ancestral language) for heal.
So, to “heal” is to “make whole” that is, to bring something or someone back to a state of wholeness, which is the same as health.
(Yep, wholeness = health).
Basically, a constricted consciousness is still whole, of course, but it doesn’t function as it should – because of the constriction.
The Beach Ball and the Belts: An Analogy for Constrictions on Consciousness
Having constrictions on our consciousness is a bit like putting on a belt – or more precisely: a bunch of belts, both large and wide as well as small and narrow – around a beach ball … the belts will make it function poorly as a beach ball.
Our consciousness functions (much) worse than it normally would when we have all the aforementioned constraints on it. (That is, traumas, consciousness programming, shadow aspects, imbalances, etc.)
But for every constraint we free ourselves from, our consciousness functions more as it should.
Deep traumas or highly limiting beliefs, for example, are like a large, wide, and heavy belt around the beach ball.
If we can remove most of the major constraints on our consciousness (or all of them), leaving only the minor ones, our consciousness will function significantly better.
More elaborately and concretely put, we can, for example, heal feelings of inferiority, helplessness, meaninglessness, loneliness, hopelessness, greed, aggression, hatred, fear, or just unease and dissatisfaction, as well as stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental – and physical – illnesses by freeing ourselves from traumas, programming of consciousness, shadow selves, imbalances, etc.
How Can We Treat Our Constriction of Consciousness?
It’s easier than you might think.
Here’s a huge and very important “secret” that many of our state-recognized health experts (doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc.) haven’t discovered … yet:
At the fundamental level, where it matters most, namely in consciousness, we already ARE whole – we CAN’T be anything else. Our consciousness is whole and will always be so.
Therefore, we are self-healing.
This is true in ALL ways:
We are both physically, psychologically, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually self-healing.
This phenomenon is sometimes called the “automatic drive towards wholeness,” and that’s also descriptive of it, but it doesn’t provide us with the important background, as mentioned above, which we’ll come back to in a moment.
The Automatic Drive Towards Wholeness
“The automatic drive towards wholeness” has been described, for example, by psychiatrist and prominent researcher in consciousness Stanislav Grof who has even made a term for it, namely” holothropic“, based on the Greek words for “wholeness” (holos) and “to move towards” (trope / trepo).
Yes, more than that, Grof even invented a therapeutic method which he coined using that word, namely Holothropic Breathwork.
Holothropic Breathwork: The Method Where No One Does Anything
The interesting thing about Grof’s therapy is that no one DOES anything.
There’s no therapist, no conversation, no exercises or techniques; in fact, there’s nothing but a room, some loud music (of specific types in a specific sequence), and a place to lie down with eyes covered, where you breathe rapidly and deeply, while a silent helper sits nearby without interfering, ensuring one’s well-being.
It probaly also has an effect that there are others in the room doing the same thing, however, there’s no interaction with them.
In this way consciousness is provided the opportunity to expand – and thus to heal.
You don’t do anything as such, it’s your consciousness that does ALL the work. Spontaneously. Automatically.
And it works.
The deeper and faster breathing modality has the effect of freeing consciousness, and the music guides one’s consciousness through a journey lasting a couple of hours – there’s a beginning, a climax, and an ending.
The experience is that each participant’s consciousness deals with what it’s ready for. Old traumas, for instance, can sometimes be healed in just one session – and other times, in a few sessions.
Some people are ready for a lot to happen in a single session, others are not, and their sessions are “calmer,” but that doesn’t make them any less interesting or healing.
A few people, like myself the first several times I tried Holotropic Breathwork, don’t experience much because they’re too controlling of their consciousness; so much so that it’s stuck. These people, like me (back then), need something else and possibly more/stronger, but more about that another time.
The Truth About Consciousness and Health: More Than Just a Movement Towards Wholeness
Stanislav Grof is one of my (Søren’s) heroes. He is a giant, almost a force of nature within consciousness research, and we all owe him a lot. Some of his books can be a bit heavy to read because he typically maintains a strictly scientific approach, but that’s also what makes him trustworthy.
From his books, it’s quite clear that Grof is well aware that the description “automatic movement towards wholeness” is only part of the truth. A limited way of describing the facts. The IMPORTANT thing is actually the nature of consciousness itself and the existing wholeness within our consciousness.
Again:
onsciousness is the foundation of everything. Of the physical world, the non-physical world, and everything else.
Our consciousness is the foundation of our body, our emotions, our thoughts, our beliefs, our habits, our needs, our practical life, and our entire life experience.
And our consciousness IS already whole. It has always been whole, and it will always be whole because it is part of a (much) larger wholeness – which is whole.
Using the analogy from before, the beach ball is still a beach ball, no matter how many large or small the belts we have strapped around it are.
When and if we remove ALL the belts, the beach ball is exactly as it was before: fine, round, and functioning well as a beach ball.
It’s the same with our consciousness.
We just need to free our consciousness (and will) from all the many old constrictions and limitations. (That is, traumas, stressors, programming of consciousness, shadow selves, imbalances, etc.)
Allowing Wholeness and Wellness
How does one do it? How can we “remove all the belts from the ‘beach ball’ that is our consciousness”?
To heal various things, we must first and foremost STOP limiting our consciousness and ALLOW healing to take place.
Do we not normally allow healing to take place? Yes, with our bodies, but less so with everything else (our mind, emotions, energies, spirituality, etc.). If, for example, we stub our toe and it turns yellow, blue, and sore, or if we cut our finger, we expect the body to heal itself over time. Which it does, as long as we give the injured area rest and do not actively work against healing (no picking at the wound!).
But what about the mental, the emotional, the energetic, and the spiritual parts of us? There we have some … inhibitions, or whatever you want to call it. Some (consciousness) limitations.
Examples of Consciousness Limitations
A good example would be beliefs, which are a type of consciousness programming, thus one of the consciousness limitations on our list above. Let’s take a handful of examples:
– If someone has an old trauma and the belief that they can’t handle dealing with it (by, for example, facing it head-on and allowing consciousness to process it), they may not be able to heal it. (But when they let go of their limiting belief that they can’t, they can.)
– If someone has stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental – and physical – illnesses, and the belief that these things have a physical basis and can only be treated with various pills, they may not be able to heal these things. (But if they release the limiting belief, it becomes much easier.)
– If someone is convinced that life is a zero-sum game (where there isn’t enough of something, and one can only “win” by taking from others) and not a ‘plus-sum game’ (where there can be many “winners,” and, for example, cooperation can increase the value for all), and therefore believes that power and money are the paths to happiness, inner peace, and love, they have a problem. In that situation, they may not experience the happiness, inner peace, and love they long for until they drop their misconceived beliefs, so they can rid themselves of their blind ambition, scarcity mindset, and unrestrained greed.
– If someone is spiritually “lost” and feels unholy and disconnected from others and life, but they believe that the only thing that exists in life is what we can see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and measure with instruments, they may not be able to address their feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and meaninglessness. But when they drop the outdated, reductionist, physical-mechanical outlook on life, the path is open for holistic experiences that give meaning to everything.
– If someone is convinced that they themselves are inferior and that life, the world, and other people are evil and dangerous, and therefore is filled with fear – and perhaps also hatred and aggression – they may not have a better life experience … until they let go of their misconceived beliefs about themselves, others, the world, and life.
As we can see, there’s a certain tendency for the problem to somewhat loop back on itself: Sometimes, we need to let go of certain limitations of consciousness before we can drop others.
That’s why …
The most critical factor, aside from consciousness and awareness, is our free will.
For change, improvement, and healing to occur, it’s not enough to just KNOW certain important things; we must also WANT to create wholeness and wellness within ourselves.
We need to be willing to “sacrifice” / let go of some old things, some limitations of consciousness, that hold us back.
And then act accordingly.
So, how exactly should we act?
The First Steps
The first steps in rasing our awareness (expanding and healing consciousness) is always to look at and possibly address the basics, the fundamental things, namely:
1. Freeing our will
2. Taking full responsibility
3. Getting a handle on our needs
4. Bringing ourselves into (somewhat) healthy balance
Let’s delve a bit deeper into each:
1. Freeing our will (from, for example, automation) and consciously train and strengthen it – for example, through awareness and by making new, unusual choices that show ourselves who’s in charge.
It’s good to notice every time in our lives when there’s a choice (and there will be!). Just notice it. Then we can notice all the unconscious choices we make: our choice-habits, so to speak. There are SO many choices we DON’T make actively, even though we could, but instead, we make them on autopilot.
To strengthen our will, we must – for a period – drop the autopilot and make different choices than before. In all areas of our lives.
What we achieve in this way is: a) bringing more awareness into our choices and b) strengthening our will. Our will is like a muscle – it can be trained, and our lives get better when we do that thing. We become stronger – more empowered.
This first point is crucial to the outcome of everything that follows but it is surprisingly often (almost always) forgotten or ignored, even by leading experts in personal and spiritual development.
2. Taking full responsibility – for our own development, life experience, and life in practice – this includes dropping all ideas that our own situation is someone else’s fault. It’s not something we’re used to, but it IS necessary.
Most of us are kind of experts in avoiding taking responsibility, and it’s a bad expertise to have. Some of us are even experts in wanting to take responsibility for things and people we have no real power over. That’s just as bad an expertise to have.
The good expertise to develop is the one where we take responsibility for ourselves, our lives, and our life experience.
3. Getting a handle on our needs – by knowing what our basic needs are, prioritizing them, and – most importantly – choosing what “enough” is.
Depending on how you “slice the cake,” there are around 10 basic needs of four different types, namely: a) basic needs, b) social needs, c) self-actualization needs, and d) the need to transcend the personal dimension (unity, wholeness, spirituality). (These needs are actually polarities, i.e., there’s a “positive” and a “negative” version of them, but more on that another time).
When we don’t know our basic needs or have decided what “enough” is, we mistakenly believe we have loads of unlimited needs and we end up wasting a lot of time and resources trying to fulfill them … which, of course, we will never succeed in because we think they are endless or unlimited.
4. Bringing ourselves into a (somewhat) healthy balance (both physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually, for example, through diet, sleep, physical activity, and various methods for achieving mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual well-being – such as yoga, meditation, healing, etc.).
This also includes reducing – or completely removing from our lives – a good portion of the “thieves” that steal our attention and color our consciousness with negativity, division, and fear, such as social media (especially Facebook, which is a major culprit) and most of the so-called “news.”
Yep, those are the four fundamental things, the basics, and the first steps in awakening/expanding and healing our consciousness.
These things are so basic that you’d think we would have learned all about them in elementary school. But we haven’t. Not even close to put it nicely. So now we have to do them ourselves. All four of them.
The Awakening Process of Consiousness (Simplified):
Disclosure, New Choice, Letting Go, and Positive Change
Once the basics are somewhat in order, the process of freeing ourselves from our limitations of consciousness is quite simple; it can be described in four points:
1. Reveal your limitations of consciousness
2. Evaluate and make a new choice about these limitations
3. Let go of your limitations of consciousness
4. Create a positive change, both internally and externally
Let’s also briefly look at each one of them:
1. Reveal your limitations of consciousness – each and every one of them. This is an investigation, an exploration, and it can be as simple as sitting down and making a list of areas in your life where you are dissatisfied and/or feel limited and/or uncomfortable – areas where you experience a discomfort are usually filled with consciousness limitations.
Then check with yourself whether the cause of the limitation is trauma, consciousness programming/automation, shadow selves, attention thieves, stressors, or imbalances, which you also note down.
You can also buy yourself help from a professional, for example, a therapist or coach. After that, you have a detailed list to work with.
2. Evaluate and make a new choice about these limitations. Assess these limitations. Notice the difference between true versus untrue, but also, for example, healthy vs. unhealthy, useful/desirable vs. useless/undesirable, and limiting vs. liberating. Clarify what these limitations do in your life and what they do to your experience. Then decide if you still want to have them.
It’s up to you. You can choose to drop them one by one, and you can even choose to drop nearly all of them at once (which is what so-called spiritually enlightened individuals like, for example, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie or Adyashanti have done). When you can wholeheartedly say, “I’ve had enough of this limitation and now choose to get rid of it,” you’re ready for the next step.
3. Let go of your limitations of consciousness so healing can take place (by itself). What you’ll likely choose to let go of is everything you’ve realized is untrue, unhealthy, useless/undesirable, limiting, etc.
It’s just a choice, and you can make it anytime, but since we haven’t learned anything about this extremely important topic in our educational system, it can be very helpful at the beginning to have a technique for it, for example, the one previously mentioned Let Go Method (as a book her) or The Work, The Release Technique or The Sedona Method – or maybe PSYCH-K, The Lefkoe Method or The Journey. You may also use hypnosis, and in any case, various forms of inner journeys can be extremely effective, even though they are typically a bit less focused as a method.
Afterwards, healing occurs on its own – discomfort and problems diminish or disappear completely. You are then ready for the fourth and final step …
4. Create a positive change, both internally and externally. Inner change includes having fewer – and better/more useful – beliefs, mindsets, expectations, etc. – perhaps even a shift to a new and larger paradigm. Outer change includes things like new actions, new habits, and overall, a new life in practice.
And finally, a personal reminder: Remember to enjoy yourself, have fun, and make it exciting along the way! 🙂
Conclusion: Let’s Drop Our Constrictions of Consciousness and Expand Our Consciousness
Almost all of us have a constricted consciousness, and it diminishes our life experience. Worse yet, it can lead us to harm ourselves, others, and the world around us.
This is why raising our self awareness is so amazing: because it expands our consciousness and makes us “wiser,” so we can embrace, understand, and handle more – in a better, more desirable way. Various afflictions and problems tend to disappear on their own in the clear light of consciousness. Indeed, we can even use our discomfort and problems as “fuel” in the process, as is done in some of the methods mentioned in this article.
Increasing awareness and expanding of consciousness are the essence of personal and spiritual development, usually occurring in two stages: ending / letting go and development:
1) Ending and / or letting go of consciousness limitations, which expands our consciousness by allowing it to return to its basic, natural state.
2) Further expansion of our consciousness (which we’ll delve into another time).
Freeing our will and consciousness from constriction and limitation, thereby expanding our consciousness – and perhaps even expanding it further – is one of the best things we can do for ourselves, for others, and for the world around us. Expanding consciousness helps us in all sorts of ways, not least with insight and a better life experience, and it makes us function better and behave more lovingly.
There are plenty of ways to expand our consciousness; we just need the will to do so and then take the first small step in the right direction. It could be, for example, by taking a closer look at – and trying out – the methods mentioned in this article.
What Would You Like to Read Now?
 Go to the ‘Mother’ Page” for Consciousness: What Is Consciousness, and Why Is It so Important? |
Other Pages Related to This Topic
The Programming of Consciousness Controls Us! |
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