Something happens when we grow up.

The vast majority of us lose touch with the wonder and mystery that permeates life when we are children.

Childhood is a time when the brain and mind is new to this realm of physical reality. Where just about each turn you make is waiting a novel encounter and experience.

So then, we grow up. For better or worse. A natural thing and a thing of necessity. Through repetition of daily chores and a series of biological changes, we are led to becoming all too familiar with our surroundings and our own inescapable habits. And as you might’ve heard, familiarity breeds contempt.

It doesn’t have to though.

Life as we know it (as human minds) is all about perspective. The inevitable conditioning by the socio-cultural machine is just that, inevitable. We as individual conscious beings become isolated conditioned persons, i.e. we adopt the personal state of mind, and we are gradually hypnotized by this personhood.

Now what I mean with “person”, “personal” and “personhood”, is the socio-cultural conditioning that befalls upon you as your brain is developing. This conditioning gives rise to the subtle yet persistent belief that you are an separate self entity consisting of a mental aspect and a physical aspect. In other words, you believe yourself to only be an skin-encapsulated ego-mind.

Now as you might or might not know, this way of navigating the world and life becomes quite dull and tiresome for some, rather quickly. You can start feeling claustrophobic and inhibited in your own being and range of expressions.

In combination with the materialistic paradigm that dominates most developed societies on Earth today, the growth of the ego-mind and the separate self can gradually lead to a loss of the sense of wonder. In other words, the innate mystery of the Universe loses its power and fades into the background, and what comes into the foreground instead is the hustle and bustle of 24/7 society and of your own inherited projections and ideas.

How to remedy this?

There are many ways, but you can begin by switching gears to…

The sense of presence

The state of presence in contrast to the ego-mind state, is in natural attunement with the mystery and wonder of life. The sense of presence is simply you aligning your attention with the fact that you are an conscious being. A miracle in and of itself. Presence is the cure.

However, the ego-mind is strong, even when you rediscover your sense of presence. Why? Well the ego-mind has a lot of momentum behind it. Its similar to an habit, in most cases, a rather bad one.

So then the cure to the materialistic paradigm and the self-limiting aspects of the ego-mind, is in my humble opinion, presence.

Live more as presence and you will naturally rediscover the inherent mystery and wonder of the universe.

Pay Attention

Simply pay attention. Stop what you’re doing and start paying attention to the undeniable fact that you’re alive and conscious. This meditation can by itself bring you closer to the joy of being alive. You see there is a subtle joy of being, of existing, of living. This subtle joy can become hidden or seemlingly lost over time, but I suspect that it is always there for most of us to recognize and enjoy, only if we have the eyes to perceive it. This subtle joy is closely related to the magic of reality, the wonder, the beauty and the grace of being conscious!

Look up to the sky

Looking up towards the sky in all its heavenly glory is one of the most intuitive ways of reigniting your childlike wonder that’s waiting to pop out. The sky, especially during the night with all the stars and heavenly phenomena, has been an source of timeless inspiration and wonder for as long as we’ve been human. Look up to the sky more often, you not only elevate your gaze but also your mind.

Look at your palms

Simply place your hands in front of you, with your palms facing you directly and just look at them. Look closely at the innumerable details and lines of your hands, and also quietly recognize the fact that you’re conscious of them. You’re subjectively feeling your hands as well as visually seeing them.

Slow down, don’t hurry

Slow down, take a moment or two to absorb or take in your surroundings like a sponge, notice how your internal world interfaces with the rest of the “external” world. Most of us are in such a hurry, a hurry to do things, innumerable things, or to experience certain things. The thing is, when we hurry and stress we’re not really sucking the marrow out of life. By slowing down psychologically and even physically you open yourself up more to experiencing the myriad marvels of life more intimately and intensely.

The point of this message is this: Perspective is reality. A change in perspective can drastically change your experience of yourself and the world in which you live in. And that its never too late for this “exercise” to switch to presence. Its never too late because presence is always present, and I dare say that presence is your original and untouched identity. Your true identity is not your name, not your biography, not your ideas (they mostly ain’t yours to begin with) and not even your physical body, it is your sense of presence.

So then, look up, look within, and slow down.