When Ambition Falls Away Upon Awakening

What happens to your ambition when you wake up from the belief in a false, conditioned self?  A significant shift regarding my own personal drive changed immediately in the beginning stages of the awakening process. Pushing beyond my comfort zone had always been important but fell away very suddenly. Let’s begin by reviewing some of the core false beliefs about ambition that are programmed into us at a very young age:   

1. We are separate and need to prove our worth.
2. “Doing” is superior to “being”.
3. Doing more and always working harder is necessary.
4. If we accept that who we are is enough, and that what we have is enough, we must be lazy, not trying, somehow failing, and/or worthless.
5. Our value comes from what we achieve and what we have.
6. How others see us is important.
7. We must succeed in order to feel good about ourselves.
8. MORE is always better.
9. The simple things in life, and the SIMPLE LIFE are somehow lacking.
10. More things, more money, more everything (a big home, going on expensive trips, a perfect body, having many followers/friends on social media and/or large social circle we spend time with), proves how worthy we are.
11. We need to STRUGGLE in order to succeed.
12. We need to SACRIFICE our happiness in order to be a good person.

Are any of the above actually true? Or have they simply been imprinted on our psyches from society, from the world? How might they have influenced your life in the past, or be influencing your life today?

Before the awakening process kicked into full gear, I was so out of balance with my True Nature that I kept pushing my body and mind until I was exhausted. For example, while writing a dissertation for a PhD in depth psychology and somatic studies, I decided to take a six week break a year into the research and writing process. My topic was “cultivating resilience amid climate change” and as you can imagine, the research findings were quite heavy. So, I stopped my research and decided to rejuvenate. But instead of taking a real break, I wrote a book! This was clearly not the respite my body-mind needed. And though the book was on nighttime dreams, a topic I have been passionate about since I was 16 years old, the pressure only added to my burned-out adrenals and alarmingly high levels of cortisol.

Now let’s look at what happens to our ambition post-awakening. Post-awakening means we are no longer identifying with the conditioned, separate self. This is when ego-ambition falls away. Though the undoing of core egoic beliefs continue to arise before they dissolve, the life we once knew appears to end and gives rise to the following lived experience:

• The mind’s restlessness that used to keep you doing, doing, doing is replaced with more and more stillness.

• Future thinking and planning are replaced with the FREEDOM of residing in pure Presence.

• The body is deeply felt. Before awakening, we tend to be disconnected from our bodies and live in our heads. Post-awakening, we are very aware that our bodies do not lie, nor will they allow us to push them without breaking down in some way shape or form. Tremendous pressure is taken off the body. During post-awakening the body begins to reorganize itself including where the vital life force energy flows. Places that were constricted from the tension created by the mind (from the belief that you must do more, and from focusing on the future goals and results), are now being loosened. Kinks and knots from these conditioned beliefs and behaviors begin to unwind themselves.

• Having to make life happen is replaced with I Am Life Itself.

• Falsely believing we are not enough is replaced with reverence for the simple things: hearing a bird sing outside our window in the morning, seeing the happiness radiate from our dog’s wagging tail as she greets us at the door, sharing a spontaneous hug with a beloved friend or partner, witnessing the last slice of sunlight in the evening sky, gazing at a candle as the light flickers across a darkened room?  

• Responsibilities still get done and get done more easily. What needs to be completed is taken care of more efficiently because the mind is no longer convincing you that “you” are making it happen. This causes stress. “Doership” is clearly seen for what it is. And when the doing is done, your body and mind are not tired because the energy flows through more spontaneously, clearly, and creatively.    

• You spend more and more time resting in the Heart of Awareness, abiding in your True Nature. When you know that you are Infinite, Loving Consciousness, what could possibly be missing? When you accept that it is your birthright to awaken to this Truth and it can happen right now, old conditioning falls away. You do not need to do anything to make it happen. The old “you” that you identified with wasn’t enough because it was based on a false character. But as you realize you never were that character, that you were simply playing a role, then the fullness of your True Nature can shift to the forefront of your awareness and provides genuine, lasting contentment.

Namaste.