The cave you fear to enter has the treasure you seek

What I’m curious about, is the social fabric within our humanity where we find ourselves navigating a set of cultural norms that we have all either knowingly or unknowingly, agreed upon.

Careful many are to not step out of the norm within their tribal group to ensure that they don’t have to deal with what appear to be dominant opposing views.

A palpable fear of "who am outside of this social mind" if I do not follow the order, is a bell that strikes with alarm.

Everything that we are from our gender to the clothes we wear, and our personality or personal reality is informed by ideas.

These ideas are then given energy, attention, and momentum to then sculpt our personal reality.

“That’s life.”, often a remark made with a contemptuous acceptance of what is occurring but powerlessness in the desire to change anything within oneself to make the reality being experienced any different.

The mind looks on to see how others are experiencing the world, then sculpting their own personality reality based on sources of information that pertain to ideas, values, and beliefs that are most popularly accepted.

Everything ranging from political views, lifestyle choices, and interpersonal & cultural views, and connection to the land.

What I’m curious about is the origin point of where these ideas are being formulated? and how much thought is being put into the design of actual harmonious human systems of living?

Let me give you an example. Jump onto YouTube and search Cardi B - WAP.

This song has 437 million views.

You don’t need to be Allan Watts to see that the totality of what this music video is about is harmful to youth and is possibly the most disempowering form of media for those in the coming of age process that are looking outwardly for guidance on how to be in this world.

It’s a great example. Listen to the lyrics, look at the symbolism. Ok. So now that this is done.

This is my main question.

Who are the key decision-makers that are influencing this narrative?

Which process do they use to design the process in which these cultural norms are being established within the western world?

Even if Cardi B wrote this song, what is the proponent that created the stimulus for this song to begin in the first place?

These are the types of questions we need to be asking and the type of design thinking we need to apply to our own lives in order to grasp an understanding of who we truly are and from which place we make our decisions from.

It is from this place that we are able to build our own awareness to take back the reins to become conscious of how we are creating our lives.

Otherwise, we will continue to be swept into a sea of string-pulling, feeling as though it’s all out of our control and that we just have to accept things as they are.

I can’t see why one would feel motivated to make any change if they continued to stay in this state of feeling powerless in the face of change.

How about bringing our awareness to the idea that there is another possibility to awaken to how we live by bringing a daily focus to our thoughts, feelings, and actions, to observe ourselves and understand where the source of who we are is being generated from?

It is from this place that we can begin to start making changes and create new possibilities to live our life by our own design, rather than being swept into continuing on a path of disempowerment and limited thinking.

We are somewhat like computers. We need to get an understanding of what operating system we are running and which programs we have downloaded and whether some programs need to be deleted or updated.

Otherwise yes, everything will seem sluggish and feel like it’s not working.

Sometimes catastrophic events come into our lives to challenge our programming, what is seen as a curse could within 3-6 months time be seen as a blessing.

There is an intelligence to our world that I believe needs to be acknowledged in order to be felt.

The only way out is in.

So the invitation here is to go inward and to ask yourself the questions that you may have been hesitant or afraid to ask to this day and perhaps there is now an opportunity here for you to take small courageous daily steps toward a new life.

Because perhaps: “The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.” Joseph Campbell.