Is your life more reactive or creative?
Most people have an unconscious, reactive identity - an ego/sense of self-formed as a reaction to everything that has ever happened to them - instead of a deliberate, Conscious, Creative I AM, which is organized around adult values and choices, free from subversive conditioning.
Mechanical evolution is about natural selection and adaptation. Plants and animals are entirely dependent on the outer environment and if that changes enough so too will their entire species either change or go extinct. Of course, we have an animal aspect that also evolves this way. But we also have a conscious aspect that most people don’t ever evolve because consciousness can only be evolved consciously, as in: on purpose, in a deliberate way set aside for that particular end, Conscious Evolution.
When we understand all the layers of implications - Body, Mind, and Spirit - this difference between re-active and Creative, between mechanical and conscious...
Is your life more reactive or creative?
Most people have an unconscious, reactive identity - an ego/sense of self-formed as a reaction to everything that has ever happened to them - instead of a deliberate, Conscious, Creative I AM, which is organized around adult values and choices, free from subversive conditioning.
Mechanical evolution is about natural selection and adaptation. Plants and animals are entirely dependent on the outer environment and if that changes enough so too will their entire species either change or go extinct. Of course, we have an animal aspect that also evolves this way. But we also have a conscious aspect that most people don’t ever evolve because consciousness can only be evolved consciously, as in: on purpose, in a deliberate way set aside for that particular end, Conscious Evolution.
When we understand all the layers of implications - Body, Mind, and Spirit - this difference between re-active and Creative, between mechanical and conscious evolution - amounts to ALL the difference between a life characterized more by distress and upset, versus one characterized by Joy, Openness, Love, Kindness, Awareness, Gratitude, Presence and Surrender (“The JOLKA-GPS”).
When you think about it, if our very sense of who we are is defined by our reactions to what has happened to us, then we by definition are “victims.” If, instead, aside from anything that has ever happened to us, we organize ourselves around a conglomerate of values that we prioritize, we are “FREE” to think, feel, act, and experience as we CHOOSE instead of how we are compelled.
In all the world's great philosophies and spiritual traditions - setting aside the non-sense of “religious” bullshit - this difference between being unconscious, reactive, “slaves” of circumstance to being conscious, creative, “masters” of circumstances is the ground of psycho-spiritual freedom and release from suffering (albeit not necessarily pain or hardship). This freedom is also the origin of Joy for no reason in particular, other than that WE ARE, and the springboard of authentic of contribution and participation in the world that is BOTH successful and satisfying.
When we are stuck in our re-active sense of selves, not only do the outer conditions drive the ship of who we think we are, but we are also DEPENDENT on the outer world to “make us” feel “happy” or “whole.” Essentially, with this limited sense of self, we are in a co-dependent relationship with life. And, we know from direct experience that as many times as we think “This will be the relationship, or the car, or the achievement, or the pat on the back, or the amount of money that will finally ‘make us’ happy,” we find that even when we get these things we continue to SUFFER. 

Why? One, because the Joy and Love we seek are not an object or a thing, and we have a tendency to objectify everything for consumption, but only end up feeding insatiable appetites. But, in plain terms, it is because nothing will ever “make you” happy until YOU make YOU happy. When you make you happy, you can accomplish anything else you value and choose and you will be satisfied with what you accomplish because you are ALREADY satisfied.
Until then, anything you “accomplish” will still feel empty of true value - case in point your life up until now.
The Buddha, a veritable Master of The Greatest Game, said, “You are either an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’”. Well, Buddha’s words have been screwed up by religious folks almost as much as Jesus’ message has been desecrated by “Christians.” Buddha did not mean, you are either “in the club” of Buddism, or out of the club, and therefore good vs bad, better vs worse. He meant, that you are either coming from the INSIDE as a FREE person with a Creative, Awakened, Deliberate approach to life, or all of your thoughts, emotions, sensations, actions, and experiences are dictated by a reaction to whatever life has thrown at you.
The Creative IAM and the Neurological Roadmap to the Future We Value and Choose
Until we know Who We Are and What We Are here for, everything and anything will fall short, and like most co-dependent relationships we will be on a path divorced from Life.
This means, we not only need to do the work to Create our Chosen, Value-based sense of self (our Creative-IAM, C-IAM) but we also need to do the work to think, feel, act, and experience what we value and choose by following our Neurological Roadmap to the Future (NRF).
Simultaneously - as we go from thinking to feeling to doing to becoming to being our C-IAM, traveling on our NRF - we also need to “prune”, de-condition, or de-program our reactive habits and patterns that have formed into who we WERE, based on everything that was. I call this our Reactive-IWAS, R-IWAS. 

Progress in the Greatest Game of ALL is both a process of CREATION and DISSOLUTION that needs to be performed DELIBERATELY, methodically, and skillfully by following specific maps, tools, and instructions for how to do so as efficiently as possible.
This doesn’t mean you need to grow a beard, become a Buddhist, or move to the mountains unless that is a unique expression of Who and What YOU are. No, you can be the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker as long as you are COMING from Who You Are and expressing What You Are as Values and FREE Choices. And, clearly, you are also free to keep on wailing and gnashing your teeth. Suffering is the hardest easy choice you can ever make.
On Oak Tree does not have to try to be beneficial in giving off acorns. A mature Oak Tree automatically gives off acorns, enough to populate an entire forest full of Oak Trees that could each populate an entire forest! The benefit is AUTOMATIC and INFINITE if you fully develop from acorn to Oak Tree. 

But in The Greatest Game of ALL, not every kid gets a medal.
Some acorns fall on cement and get run over by trucks. It is up to US to become The Greatest Gardner of our particular ACORN, which is, truly, and absolutely UNIQUE. By tending our garden and nurturing the development of our acorn, we become Oak Trees, which is not only inherently Joyful and Satisfying but also OPTIMALLY beneficial.
Because our Greatest Potential, Greatest Development, Greatest Life, and Greatest Possibilities are discovered in Consciousness, though Conscious means, as a Conscious Being, this unfoldment by definition can not happen UNconsciously, mechanically, re-actively, or automatically. It must be performed ON PURPOSE.
We must WAKE UP and CHOOSE TO PLAY The Greatest Game of ALL.
Who’s ready?
Michael Boyle LMFT, CDBT
Speaker, Author, Therapist
- Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in New Mexico & Massachusetts
- Certified in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
- Trauma specialist trained in EMDR, somatic therapy, CBT, NLP
- Advanced studies in yoga, Ayurveda, breathwork, meditation, optimal performance, biohacking, and just about everything you can imagine about healing and thriving.
- Authorized in the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza and Grace Essence Mandala.
- Founder of the ALL Together Academy, author of the Creative-IAM, Facilitator of "The Future Now Project", "The Relating Renaissance" and Energy of Mind: Secular Spiritual Work for Practical People.
More on Surviving Mode
Unless the saber-tooth tiger is breathing down our necks, Surviving Mode unnecessarily reeks all sorts of havoc in our lives.
The Survival Mode being "on" too much, too often, for too long is the root of all suffering and disease.
Survival Mode is the "default" we are all born with, but we can upgrade to "Thriving Mode" if we know how.
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