Shift into Freedom: The Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? MARY OLIVER, FROM “THE SUMMER DAY”1

A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest

In fact, many of the opportunities for initial awakening come during periods of transition, crisis, loss, and chaos in people’s external and internal lives. This is a time when the ego-identification collapses because it can’t maintain control or handle life’s intensity.

Living an awakened life also requires waking-in, waking-out, and growing up.

culturally unacknowledged.

You can wake up, but still not grow up.

Second, in this day and age, it’s actually more difficult and dangerous to try “holding it together” and “doing the best we can” from the level of ego-identification than it is to begin the journey of awakening.

Our choice today is to break down, shut down, act out—or break through and wake up.

Identity moves from ego to self to Being. This awake-identity process is only available when growing up and waking-up meet. The awake-identity stage of development allows us to detox our repressed emotional storehouses and rewire our brains so that we can respond to life rather than merely reacting.