Managing One's Energy and Learning to Step Away

Tolstoy wrote that “truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” Thus by cleansing ourselves of the distractions and distortions we may help to clean the lens of our perception. Our collective consensus reality is a bewitching spell. It is a hallucinatory shared “reality” that both fascinates and beguiles.

Our “civilized” societies often direct attention away from the need for an individual to act authentically — that is, driven not by externally motivated desires but from genuine internal impulses. This necessitates the formation within a person of disciplined intention. The intention involves the capacity to direct oneself in life without imitation or need for recognition and approval. The cultivation of inner intention can itself lead to knowing “right action.” This is when conscience is operating in balance with the creative imagination of a person’s interior life.

When we act in balance with our inner nature, our outward actions often appear as if directed by a form of conscience and feel right. When conscience and genuine intuition are operating together there is an intention that is not thought, wish, or an object. It is an intention that can override the thoughts of conditioning. It creates a form of internal strength and control that can resist the daily barrage of social memes and manipulative impacts.

However, power is not the force we have over others but rather the force we have within ourselves. It is through this force that a person is able to manifest sincere intent through their actions and behavior.

Connecting Our Intentions with the Shift in Human Consciousness

It will be necessary during the years ahead of sociocultural change that our intentions connect with the accompanying shift in human consciousness. What we are currently passing through is another revolution of the human imagination. It is a time to be open to changing the rigidity of our embedded thoughts, beliefs, and “sacred” attachments. What enslaves a person is what holds her attention externally.


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Breaking out of our many and varied social conditionings requires that a whole new system of perception be brought into being. It calls for mental, emotional, and energetic reserves of concentration that can replace a person’s old conditioned terms of reference for new terms of reference, which are more positive and useful. It also involves knowing when to include and when to exclude.

With lesser energy a person can often feel helpless in the face of external influences and impacts. It is necessary to hold some disciplinary power over those things, people, and events that we wish to either include or exclude from the realm of our daily world. In other words, we need to rearrange our storage of experiences.

Learning to Filter by Asking: "Is This of Benefit to Me?"

Managing One's Energy and Learning to Step AwayWhen an encounter, event, or impact is received we should immediately ask ourselves about its nature and whether it is a benefit to us.

The question of conscious-level storage is sometimes more of a question of what to throw away. Failure to activate this filtering only adds to our loss of internal power and discipline. From this a person can become weaker within his or her life, pushed around by the influence of arbitrary forces.

By being an independent presence in the world we are being asked to assume responsibility for this gift. The average person far too often acts on his thoughts and desires without taking responsibility for them. Thus we need to assume the responsibility of our presence in the world: in this time, now, and through each moment and encounter.

By taking responsibility in this way we make each moment and encounter our own. By not taking responsibility we let events drift away from us and are powerless to defend against their disruptive influence. In each moment is the opportunity for the reciprocal exchange of energies; such exchanges are the binds that serve to arrange a person’s life.

You Can Break Your "Cultural Spell"

A person’s “cultural spell” can be broken. New and creative perceptions, thought patterns, and behavior can be brought into focus.

In a way, we need to learn how to learn. And we need to refresh our sense of self — our convictions and inner feelings. Revitalizing these energetic and creative capacities is thus about managing one’s energy, being vigilant with oneself, and learning to step away.

©2012 by Kingsley L. Dennis. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission of Inner Traditions, Inc.
www.innertraditions.com

Article Source:

The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution and the Battle to Control How We Think by Kingsley L. Dennis.

The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution and the Battle to Control How We Think
by Kingsley L. Dennis.

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About the Author

Kingsley L. Dennis, author of the book: The Struggle for Your Mind--Conscious Evolution and the Battle to Control How We ThinkKingsley L. Dennis, PhD, is a sociologist, researcher, and writer. He co-authored 'After the Car' (Polity, 2009), which examines post-peak oil societies and mobility. He is also the author of 'The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution & The Battle to Control How We Think' (2012). Kingsley is also the co-editor of 'The New Science & Spirituality Reader'(2012). He is now collaborating with the new paradigm Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University, is a co-initiator of the Worldshift Movement and a co-founder of WorldShift International. Kingsley L. Dennis is the author of numerous articles on complexity theory, social technologies, new media communications, and conscious evolution. Visit his blog at:http://betweenbothworlds.blogspot.com/ He can be contacted at his personal website: www.kingsleydennis.com.