So what do we do about it?

The Relief of Suffering  – Phase One Practices

The resulting consciousness for any animal experiencing threat is suffering. When a predator hunts prey, the prey is in a state of suffering. How could its experience be considered anything less? 

The much worse condition for humans is that – due to our consciousness – we are painfully aware of our suffering. When we are triggered into a fight-or-flight response and overproducing stress chemicals, the result of this experience is the sensation of being in pain. We might feel angry or sad or any of the other negative emotions you can imagine and this is suffering.

But there’s good news. What no one tells us – maybe because they don’t really see it – is that we can completely alter our brain function and therefore, not only the consciousness it creates, but the effects those resulting consciousnesses have on our overall health and wellbeing; not over decades or even years, but in just weeks to months. 

Whether you currently are suffering or not, if you are a person who is experiencing anything less than the bliss you deserve, having the ability to first recognize your states of consciousness and then adjust them, is vital

In phase one of the Inspired Evolution Project, our goal is to first help you understand your experience of life as a side effect of brain function. The second is to educate you on the brain functions that organically pull us from these fight-or-flight responses, so you can easily restore states of rest-and-digest. 

Most of us know how to relieve suffering. Opportunities to learn coping mechanisms are readily available from your doctor, therapist or a plethora of options on the internet. Moving from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest is inherent to our development and a commonly understood shift in brain function. 

It is only the first phase of our practice and though it is just the beginning, it is vital. Without it, we can make no other progress. When we are able to both identify and then willfully move from a state of fight-or-flight to a state of rest-and-digest, we will have the foundation to access the higher functions of the brain easily. Without this skill, maintaining a state of balance is difficult. We will tend to experience life as an up and down rollercoaster of events rather than the opportunity it really is to live a thriving, vibrant life.

The biggest issue we face is this early work is the fact that the brain believes the things it thinks. You may not feel that a better life is possible for you. Conditions may seem too inherent to overcome, but the thing we must ask ourselves is; is our anger, our fear, our pain worth dying for or are we willing to feel better?

The question may sound harsh, but most of our experiences come to this simple choice. If we are unhappy, it is part of a trigger and that trigger is wreaking havoc on our body. Whether we believe a good life is possible or not, it must become worth it to at least try.

There is a question I ask everyone who works with me. If your process could make your life just a little better every day, would you commit to it? Would you be willing to commit to just twenty minutes a day if it meant today – regardless of how bad your suffering – is the worst you will ever feel? Even if life is amazing, would it be worth it if you knew it could get even better every day?

If you are willing to commit to that, it is all you need. If you are willing to do your practice every day, for at least twenty minutes, your life will improve. If you do it and do it accurately, I guarantee it will work. If you fire the correct chemicals in your brain, it will respond with a change in your experience in life. 

Even in the most extreme cases, this method will work. This is why I stress the importance of taking each step. If you do them accurately, they will respond with the same certainty as breath in your lungs or blood coursing through your veins. 

This practice is not a practice of consciousness. It is a physical exercise of the brain. It is a lesson in the anatomy and biology of your body. If you work to strengthen a muscle, it will get stronger but it is the muscle we must work, not the condition.

There is a massive movement currently happening in the realm of self-realization and self-healing, but little of it has considered the effect dehumanization has on the sensory systems of the body. The lion-share of programs focus on the thought, on perception or even on the emotion.

Thinking and even implicit feelings are not involved in the process of chemical reaction, except as a byproduct of the trigger. Our experiences are a result of sensory triggers, not the thoughts we have. Thoughts happen later. 

Everything we experience as reality is the byproduct of the chemical released. To focus on the level of experience is to have no significant effect on the cause of the experience. This approach is always treating a symptom and not the original cause. This is why we can commit ourselves to years of practice to yield very little progress in improving our overall state of well-being. 

To take a different approach opens us to an opportunity for a faster, more permanent healing. It is time for us to learn a whole new mechanism, beyond that of just surviving. It is time we learn to thrive.