It’s easy to fall asleep. To tuck yourself under blankets of cultural trance woven of safety, approval and control—and drift away from what your soul remembers and longs for…

There’s a lot of reinforcement for going to sleep.

For ignoring what your soul remembers and longs to realize, embody and express.

You’ll often be rewarded for letting your deepest gifts lie dormant. And even if you’re not actively rewarded, few people will challenge the practicality—the validity!—of following a culturally approved path rather than making the journey of awakening.

Why won’t they disturb the culturally sanctioned dream state?

Because they’re asleep.

Yes, they are asleep. But, something deep within you isn’t. That which is already and always awake within you goes by many names.

We call it Wisdom Heart consciousness. It’s awake. Right now as you read these words.

It’s not drinking the conditioning Kool-Aid. No matter how many six-­packs of the stuff you pour into your soul, the deepest place in you, the Wisdom Heart, never takes a drop.

The Wisdom Heart never forgets who you are and why you’re here.

It offers the invitation of awakening with every breath

Inhale (wake up)

Exhale (be present)

Inhale (wake up)

Exhale (be present) 

But, what does it mean—for you—to wake up?

Don’t answer too quickly. Just let the question move into your body. Let the question settle in; let it drop like a gem sinking into the depths of the ocean.

Feel this question—not abstractly, but as a felt sense in the body. What does it mean for you, right now, with this very breath, to wake up?

Breathe your way into an experiential answer.

A living answer that shifts and deepens with each breath. Not a final answer.

Even if the inner game show host (a proxy for the impatient inner judge) asks, “Is that your final answer?”

Let the soul respond.

“No,” answers the soul, “No final answers. Only the ever-­present revelation of living the question.”

Breath…by…breath.

Get familiar with feeling each breath as the invitation to awaken. Let the simple, straightforward sensation of the breath bring you back to the Wisdom Heart. So that even when you fall back asleep, which happens oh-so-often, you can simply come back to life with a breath.

Take a breath, right now, and breath by breath peel back the layers of cultural conditioning to reveal what it means for you to be awake.

What are you aware of now? Share it below.

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Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Author’s Own