Conscious living

One of my favorite questions to ask people is: "What makes you feel alive?"

You can sit with that for a moment. What does actually make you feel alive?

I would wish that I could actually hear your answer. Although I can't, it makes me happy to think that maybe you did reflect upon it. Because God calls us to an abundant life and sometimes I don't think we own that truth enough. We don't always dare to dream big dreams of being fully alive with Him. It's a shame, because it may lead us to miss out on the beauty of life. And actually - God may miss out, too. Saint Irenaeus tells us: "The glory of God is man fully alive". It actually gives God glory when we are fully alive. And I know that being fully alive can be understood in various of ways.

My take on it, will of course be - a psychological one. To be fully alive psychologically, with all our thoughts, emotions and behaviors. And for now I will focus on the part of it that is our thoughts, our consciousness.

Being fully alive in the sense of being fully awake and conscious, I think, is both beautiful, meaningful and deeply good - and it is also hard, intense and draining sometimes.

It is easier and tempting to be sleep-walking, you know just a little bit. Go on auto pilot. Be a little less conscious. But sleep-walking is missing out on the good stuff.

In any case, let me tell you about different ways of thinking in relation to this. The American psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, describes these different modes of thinking as system 1 and 2. Maybe you have read his book Thinking fast and slow, then you will be familiar with this concept.

System 1 is the way of thinking where we do things on autopilot, it's fast thinking and intuitive, e.g. brushing out teeth in the morning. I bet you can't tell me exactly how you did that. What movements you made, in which direction. Simply because you were not highly conscious about it. And that is good. You didn't have to. You could conserve some energy for thinking about things that matters more and is more depending on your thinking skills. System 1 thinking is according to Kahneman 98% of our thinking!

System 2 is the slow way of thinking (and the last 2% of our thinking) where we are more conscious, aware and logical. It is also a way of thinking that requires a lot of energy. We need both ways of thinking. It is energy-effective to switch between the two ways.

When it comes to being fully conscious and fully alive, I think we can be that in both systems of thinking. However, system 2 is especially crucial here. Because this is where our control and self-awareness lies. This is where we have the power to change our system 1 thinking. Let me explain.

Let's say my system 1 thinking (so the habitual thinking) is that I eat cookies every time I am stressed. It happens quite automatically, almost as if the cookie is in my body without any effort on my part. If i turn on my system 2, I can make sense of the situation. Oh, I had a long day at work and that led me to being stressed and that led me to craving sugar and fat and that led me to eating a cookie. I can make that reasoning. But in the moment, I may not necessarily be conscious of the pattern. I just do it. So if I sit down and think about it and realize "hey this is not the coping strategy I like to use". I may not help my stress, it makes me gain weight and down the road contribute to decreased well-being. So with the use of my system 2 thinking, I create a plan. Every time after a long day at work, I want to take 30 min. to go for a walk to cope with the stress. Let's say I have done this for a half a year, then probably it has become a habit and I will go on that walk quite effortlessly. It will be "coded" in my system 1 thinking.

This is just an example. It could be applied for the spiritual life, too. I may by my system 2 decide to create a habit of praying 30 min. as the first thing when waking up. Or pray the rosary whenever I feel like I am losing my inner peace. Or fast every Friday to build virtue. In a way, system 2 can be the master that directs system 1 - and we have the power to use it well. To live an intentional, highly conscious life. And honestly, who has ever dreamed of just living on auto pilot?

Don't get me wrong, both ways of thinking are necessary and both can be a way of praising God. We need both. I just think that more often than not we tend to just stay in autopilot and not really open our minds to the deeper, more costly way of thinking. And if that is case, it can be worth to try to go there a little bit more often. To ask those big, deep questions that do hold the risk of us having to change something. E.g. "how do I want my Sundays to look like?" And then striving to make - whatever that answer - is happen. That's not the autopilot way, but it can be a really good way. In order to be...

To be fully conscious and fully alive.