I've been contemplating what it means to be conscious lately, especially as it relates to health. I believe the two things you need to be conscious are self-awareness and intention. After working with hundreds of clients in my nutrition practice I can tell you that only those who are self-aware enough to know that they need to make a change will seek out a healthier lifestyle.
Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don’t align with your internal standards.
The variable here is your internal standards. Often what happens is there is some sort of shift that begins to change your internal standards. Maybe you go to the doctor and get some blood work back that concerns you or you receive a diagnosis that requires your attention. Perhaps you just get sick of not feeling well all of the time or want to lose weight. Health issues and disease don’t happen overnight. They take months or even years to develop which is why it’s easy to live in ignorance about how your lifestyle choices are affecting your health. You can’t see diabetes or fatty liver until it starts to show up on blood tests and your doctor is prescribing prescription medications.
Self-awareness is also necessary for our mental and spiritual health. It requires us to reflect on our limiting beliefs, what we value, how we show up in relationships, our childhood wounds that need inner child work, and what we project onto others that is simply a mirror to the work we still need to do. Once again, there is something that makes us question or change our internal standards such as a divorce, a toxic relationship, the loss of a job, or financial hardship. Some people (like me!) are also born with an innate curiosity that drives self-awareness. Not to say that major life events have not also been a major catalyst for reevaluating my internal standards!
The second part of being conscious is being intentional. You can be aware of your poor diet choices or how you are showing up in your relationships and have no intention of working on it. There is also a difference between having good intentions and BEING intentional. Being is a verb. It’s the embodiment of intention. Sometimes this just means being present and starting there.
Intention is being deliberate about the action that is required to embody a healthy mind, body, and soul.
This is where you actually have to do the work and it’s where a lot of people get stuck. Not knowing where to begin, feeling overwhelmed or depressed, or simply not having the tools to do the work. This is one of the reasons why I love Human Design. It’s an amazing tool that helps guide you to know how your energy works, how to make relationship, career, and life decisions that are correct for you, and even your soul purpose. When you are in energetic integrity being conscious feels much more like floating down a river rather than trying to paddle upstream. Paddling upstream feels a lot like physical, mental, and emotional stress which leads to dis-ease.
Being conscious about what you feed your mind, body, and soul may not come easy at first. You will have to un-learn some conditioning and habits that aren’t serving your highest good. Remembering that this is a journey of discovery and embodiment and not a destination.