Awakening new connections

Learning to live, write and think more mindfully

Hi friends, welcome to my latest Mindful Living recommendation. So far in this series, wordy person that I am, I have only featured books. But this time around, I am sharing a film that had a profound impact on me.

Awakening Mind: Know Thyself features a spiritual teacher who I have been learning from for many years, Rupert Spira, which is what made me watch it in the first place. But it introduced me to many other people who are on the same path, whose wisdom and insights made me feel a lot less alone in the beliefs I hold.

Spirituality is mostly scoffed at here in the UK, in the world I come from. People who are spiritual are considered a bit suspect, or a bit nutty. Many can’t separate a belief in there being more than our material reality from organised religion, or “new age hippy nonsense” as the things I have said have been called.

Since finding myself on a spiritual journey, many of my oldest and closest friendships have undergone a shift. They think I’ve gone a bit weird and woo-woo! That I’m not as much fun as I don’t want to smoke weed and/or get blind drunk anymore. When we spend time together now, which is infrequent, it feels like it’s purely based on history and nostalgia and that we no longer have much in common other than our shared past. Which doesn’t mean that I love them any less but, sometimes, it can feel quite lonely. This is compounded by my nomadic lifestyle which means I’m never anywhere for long to form new friendships.

The questions posed and messages shared within this beautiful film reminded me that my happiness is not dependent on anything external, including the closest relationships I’ve had with people for most of my adult life. That happiness lies within me and is always accessible.

It shows that spiritual awakening is not something mystical or only available to the few, but that it’s just a case of remembering who we really are.

The film also explores questions about the nature of our reality, which if you have been reading my posts for a while, will know is a slight obsession of mine! In feeding this obsession, over the past decade I've been reading many books and watching many films about the different theories about this. I wrote about the holographic universe here, and what I have come to notice is that even though it is shrouded in different language and approaches, the scientists and the spiritual teachers are saying pretty much the same thing about what our reality is, and what our true nature is.

The question “Who am I” has been at the heart of my journey to live, and write, and think, more mindfully. In asking this question, I have expanded it wider to “Who are we?” and these questions are at the centre of this film too.

In asking them, I have awakened new connections in my mind. I’m not my body, my gender, my job, my relationship to others. I am an expression of consciousness having this experience. As are you. As is every being we share this planet with. But that is all I know. How and why this is happening is beyond me.

As I said in an email to a friend the other day, I haven’t got a clue what is going on but I’m having a good time and it’s a pretty amazing experience this human life, whatever it may be.

I didn’t always feel this way. I used to be sad and anxious. But finding mindfulness, then letting that lead me on a journey to spiritual wisdoms and opening my mind to what might be beyond the life I’m living now, has helped me to find the peace and happiness we all want.

Which is not to say I’m totally serene floating around on a cloud of bliss all the time. It’s an ongoing practice. I still have monkey mind moments, I still sometimes wish for things to be different, I still get upset, still compare and judge. But this all happens less frequently now and when it does, I’m able to manage it all more effectively and get over it faster. Progress!

I hope the things I share here can help you, wherever you are on that journey, too.

Do let me know of any books and films you recommend as I love discovering new ones.

Have you seen this film? If so, I’d love to know what you think of it.

With love,

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