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Consciousness can be described as your internal reality and self-awareness. It includes your relationships to your environment and the people in your life, as well as your worldview — your model of reality. Simply put, your consciousness determines how you experience the world.
Too often, change agents, politicians, activists, leaders of NGOs, and policy makers unintentionally employ methods that are actually counterproductive to what they are trying to achieve. Not only that, people who are working to make change in themselves, their families, or their clients or patients often feel flummoxed by the resistance they encounter.
Limitations in our human consciousness underlie many of the problems we face as a global community. This is why our research at IONS focuses on exploring the fundamental nature of consciousness, investigating how it interacts with the physical world, and studying how consciousness can dramatically transform in beneficial ways.
Ron Pevny, director of the Center for Conscious Eldering, proposes that there is a big difference between being elderly and being an elder. Through his work, he encourages and challenges people coming into their later years to aim high and live a life of deep meaning, purpose, and true elderhood.
Self-improvement is a popular topic with whole sections of literature being categorized in this area. How often do we slow down and ask ourselves, “What self is improving?” Many forms of psychotherapy focus on the development of a healthy sense of self, and this has its place in terms of developing aspects of one’s life and experience.
Shamanism is a word adapted from the Tungus culture, referring to the practice of accessing energetic and non-physical realms for the benefit of individual and community healing. Most people relate it to indigenous cultures. What if I proposed that there is a shamanistic practice natural to western industrialized civilization?
When he returned from space forty-five years ago, Apollo 14 Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell committed his life to supporting a sustainable future. He worked tirelessly to understand and promote what he viewed as an absolutely necessary collective shift in consciousness. To those of us who knew him well, Edgar was an enthusiastic, loving, dedicated, courageous, generous, and brilliant man who inspired us to be bold in our exploration of the further reaches of human potential, to fearlessly challenge inadequate paradigms, and to carry his spirit of adventure into investigating our inner lives.
For years IONS has been translating our research findings on the frontiers of consciousness and interconnection into science-infused experiential education programs to help people enhance their lives. We are excited to offer you programming for all age groups, both in-person and online, as well as special events you can participate in. Many of these programs are completely free!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent campaign! If you missed it, check out the video series we did on imagining a future where noetic practices and principles are infused into our daily lives. We also asked you, our community of consciousness explorers, changemakers, and visionaries, to tell us about the future you are creating and we received hundreds of responses! It is so inspiring to feel that in the face of the considerable challenges we are up against, we are also seeing a massive uprising of vision, interconnectivity, spirit, hope, and purpose rising in response.
With the recent societal regressions toward political polarization, isolationism and nationalism, threats to civil and human rights, reductions in environmental protections and broadening of economic inequality, it can be difficult not to despair. Those of us who are activated to make a difference, including myself, can find it difficult to avoid ranting, raging, and insulting their opponents. Even the most positive people I know can shake their heads, look at the ground, and shrug their shoulders when assessing our current situation. However, it is absolutely essential that people who are working to shift consciousness toward a more just and sustainable future not only resist what is intolerable, but create and communicate inspiring and realistic alternative visions for the future.