Being 'Woke' vs. Conscious Awakening

This piece will be a little bit on the deeper end of things, so I thank you in advance for taking a deep breath and diving in with me.

Let's start with the current colloquialism: being woke. This term can mean different things to different people, but for our purposes here we can define it in a fairly open way.

Picture two "hipster" type guys sitting around in a cafe. They are chatting about their knowledge of government and financial corruption and other evils of the world.

They sip decadent drinks and browse their Twitter feeds, at times barely aware of each other at all. A homeless man walks into the coffee shop and sits at a table near the two friends. They glance up briefly from their phones but barely seem to register the man sitting a few feet away.

A woman at the other side of the cafe quietly watches the scene play out. She finishes her drink and brings her mug back to the counter. The woman takes a slow, deep breath and walks towards the homeless man.

He looks up and greets her in a weak, tired voice. She smiles softly and asks him, "What would you like to eat and drink?"

The man's mouth falls open a little bit and he stumbles over his words in gratitude. "I'll... I'll have a black coffee and a blueberry muffin. Thank you, miss..."

The two "hipster" friends nearby have put down their phones and are watching with curious expressions. The kind woman smiles at them as she places the man's order before almost gliding out of the busy cafe.

This scenario summarizes the key differences between being "woke" and being consciously awake.

The woman represents how a conscious or awake person would likely behave in certain scenarios. The two friends represent the mainstream idea of being "woke," but not really doing anything with that knowledge.

I have always tried to cultivate true self-love and self-awareness rather than falling into the trendy or fashionable ideas of the day. I want to offer people the ability to go beyond the surface and get to a point where they are really empowered by their own cultivation of self-knowledge.

Anyone can be woke and anyone can awaken, but it is certainly much easier to get woke than to truly wake up like the woman in the story.

Being woke is all about focusing on the externals. People think and talk about what is wrong, the conspiracies they think are true or false, and how they know better than other "woke" people.

Being an awake and loving presence in the world is all about focusing within, on ourselves. By healing and overcoming our own shadows we will naturally act in harmonious and mutually beneficial ways more often.

Just being woke, on the other hand, can promote a sort of apathy or indifference. Woke folk would rather talk and debate than simply get out there and be a positive change in the world.

On the other hand, someone who has awakened to the inherent connection or oneness in life will be moved to act to benefit those around them. The woman in the story was very quiet, except when she was helping someone in need.

The "hipster" guys were very loud and opinionated, but they did not accomplish anything with their rhetoric. Fortunately, a couple of woke bros were able to see the positive example of an unassuming soul sister.

As you can probably tell, I want to focus on creating as much empowerment and awakening as possible throughout my work and my daily life. In a world where there seems to be so much going wrong, it's comforting to know that we are part of what's right.

www.seedsoflove.ca