@Vala Thorvaldsd Presence = awareness + intent, what a great definition! 🙏❤️ I consider awareness to be fundamental, moving up the chain you keep adding stuff. So from a state of presence, how would you define consciousness? Or would you consider consciousness and presence to be synonymous?

@Vala Thorvaldsd Hey Vala, I love your approach. So much of what I am reading these days fails to make what I consider to be reasonable distinctions between awareness and consciousness and I think your model is really useful. Your inclusion of the concept of embodiment adds a very rich and nuanced perspective that I hadn’t particularly considered either, but it makes perfect sense. I also really appreciate how you treat depth as a gradient rather than binary. I think too often we fall into the trap of either or, yes no, right wrong. Small question with respect to your formula, though: Consciousness = Awareness + Intent + Embodiment + Depth… did you not mean to include Integration? So if I do the substitution correctly consciousness = presence + depth + integration? Or, since depth (and presumably integration) are multipliers, maybe: C=P(D+I)? I think you could probably get this model published somewhere. 👍 I certainly look forward to reading The Cosmic Joke when you are ready to share. I really enjoy engaging with you on this.❤️🙏

At this moment, just finishing up number six, what I love most about myself is the potential that I have moving forward into tomorrow.

@Ayla Nova that is a super good question. At a superficial level, I was glad that I had been able to complete this, and the irritation of having failed several times fell into the background. But these were more of a minor affect. The overarching feeling was one of curiosity. A feeling that persists even now. When I failed I was curious as to why I failed, and why it was so difficult because I’ve never really had this happen to me before, at least not to this extent. Even after I succeeded I’m more curious than anything about what the difference was, and I don’t really have an answer. But if I drill down even further, I would describe the failed attempts as a mucky mush, and the success as a clear alpine lake.

@Ayla Nova that’s funny, I hadn’t thought of it as FOMO, but I think you’re absolutely right. In business lingo, they call it “opportunity cost“. Its the potential value you leave on the table by not pursuing a specific course of action.

@Ayla Nova learned something new!

@Ayla Nova I have read most of Peter Levine’s Healing Trauma, and the process rings a bell now. After a quick scan of Gendlin’s process I find his approach to embodied knowing/wisdom a bit more appealing than Levine’s therapeutic focus on trauma. However i do find Levine’s idea of pendulation fascinating. I’m curious to look a bit more about how this might relate to something in neuroscience called BSV, or brain state variability, which seems to be closely interwoven with the idea of neuroplasricory, brain entrainment, and neurofeedback.

Dang, this is hard for me. If life is a sequence of connected “now“ moments, then what is a balanced moment? And then I drift off into a bit of philosophy. The Sorites paradox: how many grains of sand does it take before you have a pile? How many moments of balance do you require before you have a life of balance? I love the GIF by the way.