the consciousness of possibility

Hosted By: Ida Covi, MA is an ecopsychologist and the CEO of iRewild Institute. She is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence from Pacifica Graduate Institute, CA.

6 minutes

TRANSCRIPT

It all begins so innocently. It’s sometimes difficult to even find the beginning.

We often don’t give much thought to all the biases, beliefs, and assumptions that are structuring the ways we see the world. Fixed ideas paralyze our abilities to change, adapt, and appreciate other views.

Professor and author, Dr. Susan Rowland explains, 

“We are beings that seek meaning. If you are too full of certainty, then you feel dead because the meanings that you have, you have unconsciously, they aren’t real and you feel empty because you are not interacting with meaning, and not creating meaning. Creativity is at the heart of who we are. We have to be creating in order to go on living.” 

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we tend to live our lives with a list of ‘certainties’ and instinctual snap judgments. We are inclined to interpret information with a tendency toward reinforcing preexisting convictions.  

When we suspend the beliefs, opinions, and judgments that we subscribe to, we suspend our egos, allowing possibilities for new relationships, for new understandings between different perspectives to take place. We need to turn off our mind’s rhetoric, which can become the center of our own prisons. We step beyond the impulsive “Yeah, I already know that” and the judgments reconfirming our opinions.

It is essential for human growth, development, and wellbeing to be open to new perspectives. You can then interact and create meaning in your life. 

It may useful to divide our certainties between those that stem from knowledge and those founded on blind acceptance. Certainties can appear intrinsically, from our inner life, or extrinsically, based on the authority or personal observation of others. Often, without pause and reflection we blindly follow the majority without checking the facts for ourselves. Whether from our inner world or outer world, our biases’ unconscious hold on us needs to be questioned: are they true, based on fact or an illusion, based on twisted information to support our existing beliefs or expectation. Gone unquestioned, they affect our decisions, outlook on life, and hold us back.

Becoming aware of our inner worlds, to witness our thoughts from where our central operating principles maneuver could potentially be one of the most critical leverage points for shifting people toward creating a world without prejudice, toward an ecological consciousness, because it is something that most of us have complete control over. 

Staying glued to our belief systems gets in the way of the truth when we encounter an-other different from us or new information. When we remain flexible and reach beyond the long list of our expectations, indifferences, cultural and societal beliefs, opinions, judgments, habitual cynicism, minimal empathetic understanding, and knowledge of the world, then learning begins. A fresh vision is nurtured. We make room for new experiences. We begin to create meaning.

Be prepared to be astounded! Because, this sort of life experience is nothing short of amazing!

When we value curiosity over certainty, we create a completely new world. When we ask more questions, when we check our biases at the door, each of us, every one of us, has the opportunity to change the world.

In fact, that’s what we need to be chasing! Start asking more questions and we just might change the world.

So I ask you: To what extent would putting your biases on hold for a while change your life? To what extent would putting your biases on hold for a while change the world?

iRewild would like to acknowledge the contributions of other writers, philosophers, and scientists for their inspiration, words, and research used in our podcasts. For a complete list of sources, please see our eBook, Rewilding The Senses: Bringing The Human Soul Back Into A Conscious Relationship With Nature.