A Note Before You Begin
If you are presently in a state of fight, flight, or freeze, this article might not be for you at the moment.
When we are in survival mode, it can be challenging to lean into what is Real and our personal ideals of life. In my experience, both personal and professional, a moment may come when suffering becomes so intense that known territory no longer offers the safety it once did. As a result, the unknown of one's ideal begins to feel possible. I trust you to discern whether continuing this read is supportive for you.
Reconnecting with What is Real for You
Let's first clarify what I mean by Real and Ideal.
For me, the Real is what endures—it is my foundation. I might call it my values, my virtues, aligned with Something Greater: a higher vision, my faith, hope, and belief in myself, others, the world, and a Loving Intelligence—an Intelligent Love.
How do I know when I've tapped into the Real? I feel at peace, plain and simple. Confusion, fear, and isolation dissolve.
The Ideal, on the other hand, shares something with the Real, yet in my experience, it takes more effort, time, and work to strip away the conditioned notions of what we’ve been taught to see as ideal. If we are each a unique ray of the Sun—an extension of its light, yet distinct in our own way—then I suggest that we carry what is Real for us and bring it into our lives to shape our Ideal.
The Disconnection
With the advent of AI and its infiltration into music, film, photography, literature, customer support, and more, you may find yourself—like me—checking to see, or even feel, whether content is truly created by humans or generated by machines.
It’s not just the rise of machine technology that prompts us to pause and question reality. The incessant 24-hour access to social media, news, gaming, psychedelics, and entertainment has shaped our neurology with concepts our bodies and senses cannot always verify as true, possible, or real.
Layered onto this are snippets of spiritual teachings, polished niceties, and out-of-context quotes—fragments of wisdom that, while potentially valuable, are often stripped of their depth, context, and lived experience. When spirituality becomes just another consumable, flattened into digestible sound bites, it can lead us further from our embodied Real and Ideal rather than closer to it.
Add to this the abundance of eye-catching reels, infographics filled with psychological concepts, and self-diagnosis quizzes that promise solutions for becoming a better, more functional human. This creates the illusion that perfect humans exist, effortlessly embodying these ideals, while in reality, these addictive messages are both misleading and crafted for the benefit of those who have merely learned to ride the waves of a dazzling social media landscape.
None of these influences, on their own, are inherently bad—some can be very useful. However, my focus here is on the steady stream of these inputs entering our nervous systems, leading me—and many of my clients—to question the relative objectivity of both our personal and collective experiences.
I often check in with myself to see if I am walking around with a potentially distorted picture of who I am, what life is, and how to live it—an image not necessarily rooted in the biology and organic trajectory of humanity as part of the natural world. My remedy for this was to get down and dirty with the question: What is my Real, my Ideal?
Trusting Ourselves to Navigate What is Real
It would be beyond the scope of this post to dive deeply into the philosophical or scientific aspects of reality, illusion, perception, and absolute objectivity. So please bear with me as I use some of these words in a simple, practical way, allowing them to gently land in your daily life contemplations. May these reflections support you in achieving a state of peace and wholeness, stemming from a balanced understanding of what is your Real and Ideal—rather than a state of confusion and unworthiness shaped by a potentially illusory hypnosis.
After years of personal reflection and three decades of working in the field of wellness, I offer you some signposts that may help us reorient toward what is our Real, our Ideal, coming from our deeper Self:
There is actual contact between all five of my senses and experiences. Sure, our senses can deceive us, but it’s hard to fool all of them at once. Can we step away from the outer world and engage in direct experience happening within?
We can apply and trust our felt sense—a deep, bodily awareness of a situation, experience, or meaning before it fully forms into words or thoughts. A felt sense arises from direct bodily experience rather than abstract concepts or external influences, helping us distinguish between lived reality and mental illusions.
If we pause, breathe through the heart, and move toward heart-brain coherence (HeartMath), we more easily find solutions and feel empowered rather than confused or impotent because our values and virtues rise to the surface. What happens when we remove ourselves from the noise, slow down, and realign within?
Mirrors can be found in nature. We are nature. When something is acting in opposition to natural law, it is likely not reflecting the Real. Have you ever been immersed in nature and sensed a flood of metaphors for everyday life? For example, watching water move around stones in a stream reveals fortitude. It shows the beauty that comes from maneuvering around obstacles, yielding, flowing, and allowing. I, for one, leave deeply changed, reminded that I am nature and these lessons belong to me as much as they do to the stream.
Many First Nation peoples hold the worldview of Respect, Responsibility, and Reciprocity. These principles shine a light on what is true and natural. Does my life experience check all these boxes? Are all parties involved honoring these principles towards themselves, each other, and the natural world?
The integrity of the individual as well as the whole, at a minimum, remains intact, and optimally flourishes.
The sense of separation diminishes, and the sense of wholeness increases.
Life takes on more meaning—without any price tags.
Justification, rationalization, and explanation are no longer necessary when sharing what is alive within.
My will, feelings, and intellect are aligned, and my feet follow, creating a desire to fully live life, which is more likely aligned with my soul.
The reliability of my ideal can be tested by being an adventurer—acting, exploring, seeking new worlds, a new way of living.
The capacity to detach from my sense of ideal so that I might be able to be objective, realign, and avoid dogma or confining concepts.
Please forgive me if this sounds cliché, but when our experience is connected to big "L" Love, we are moving closer to what is really our Real, our Ideal.
Questions for Reflection
Am I following my heart’s knowing or what I have been taught about how I ‘should’ live?
What do I serve? What do I trust in? What am I feeding? A big machine that only gets hungrier—or my big Ideal and therefore the Greater Good?
Do I feel free? Who is in charge of my freedom? Do I feel free to turn off technology and spend the day in the woods? Do I feel free to go against the grain?
Embracing Wholeness and Meaning Beyond Illusion
There are countless variables that shape what each of us perceives as really Real for our deepest self. Yet, I believe we can all benefit from cultivating deeper trust—both in ourselves and in one another—as we strive for a shared understanding of what is our Real and our Ideal.
As I rest my head on my pillow at night, I envision us co-creating a land of 'milk and honey.'
My heart tells me that this is Real.
Yorumlar