Everything is energy and radiates at a certain frequency, including us. The levels of consciousness are simply whatever energy field you are currently emitting. David Hawkins developed the “Map of Consciousness,” which measures the frequency of the levels of consciousness on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 1000. Lower levels of consciousness include energies (feeling, values, and attitudes) like shame, guilt, fear, anger, greed, desire, pride, and so on. These states have longer wavelengths and feel dense and heavy, which is why they are deemed as living in “suffering.” These emotions arise from the lizard brain, based on our need for survival. They are attached to our self-identity and ego that thinks of us as a separate, limited human being. As you move up on the scale, the wavelengths of these energies get shorter and shorter, making life feel lighter. Living in higher states of consciousness means living with more peace, love, acceptance, joy, gratitude, passion, bliss, and of course the exuberant concept of enlightenment. As you move up the scale and your level of consciousness increases, you move further away from viewing life from the limited, ego self and start living more aligned with our abundant, spiritual self.

Why does most of humanity live in lower levels of consciousness? There are many reasons and vast concepts to truly grasp this question, but a simple answer is that our bodies were trained to live in these states from birth. Whatever energy you were shown as a kid, your body latches onto, becoming a part of who you are. For example, if your dad struggled with anger, that may easily be an emotion that you yourself hold onto. If your mom emitted judgment to you, then you will tend to then continue to hold onto judgment and judge yourself. Our bodies essentially become addicted to whatever energies (feelings, value, and attitudes) that were shown to us. However, we do NOT have to stay the rest of our life living in the same energies we were show.

So how can you live in more elevated levels of consciousness? You essentially have to train your body to get attached to different energies it has infrequently or never experienced before, making them more a part of your baseline. As this happens, lower states slowly become less and less a part of your life. This is no easy feat by any means and it does take time and effort. One reason why it is challenging to live in elevated levels of consciousness is because we are so so influenced by other people’s energies and the level of consciousness they are living in. If someone is exhibiting frustration to you, it is easy to pick up on that energy and take it into your own field. Therefore, an easy way to stay in higher levels of consciousness is to surround yourself with people who generally live in more elevated states of being.

However, most humans still tend to display lower levels of consciousness at some point, which is why it is essential to learn how to separate your energy from others, in order to live from higher consciousness regardless of who you are surrounded by. One way to do this is if someone is displaying anger, learn how to reflect back love. If someone is displaying frustration, stay in a place of peace. We don’t HAVE to let other people’s energies affect us. It just takes a little practice. Once we are able to take full control of our own emotions/energies/level of consciousness (all merely semantics saying the same thing) we can truly transform our life. We must understand that we can take full responsibility for what energy we are living in and can choose states that are more pleasing to our being, no matter what the world is showing us.

Even though we can learn what love, trust, acceptance, and joy feels like from other people and surround ourselves with higher frequencies, you can’t live your life trying to get these states from external sources. I have found that learning how to live in higher levels of consciousness really is internal work. Learning how to train your own body to feel love, trust, joy, and peace by creating these energy fields yourself is key. One place you can start cultivating higher states yourself is through spiritual practices like meditation where you can really let go of the ego and free yourself of whatever is attached to you. Once you are able to free yourself from these energies, they are replaced with deep states of bliss, peace, and power. You can set an intention of specifically cultivated a certain energy you want to feel. The next step is to then embody the states outside of just your spiritual practice. This includes making your life choices in alignment with these vibrations. Living in trust requires you to display trust, living in peace requires you to choose peaceful activities, and so on and so forth.

The last pertinent aspect of truly living in higher levels of consciousness is changing your worldview from focusing on your individual, limited ego self and becoming more a part of the collective consciousness. Self-actualization comes from self-transcendence. So living life from a place of service to others and for the greater good is essential. A couple of mantras I will forever come back to are: “Treat people the way you want to be treated. Surrender to the highest good for all. For it is in giving that we receive.” If you live your life from this perceptive, you will automatically be living in higher levels of consciousness and your life will be full of abundance. We are all connected, so let’s raise the consciousness of this beautiful planet, together.