My Subjective Reality Experiment

I’ve been reading the latest blogs by Steve Pavlina (www.stevepavlina.com), a very popular personal development blogger. He’s talking about his 30-day trial into Subjective Reality. You have objective reality, where the universe exists and your consciousness arises within it, and then you have subjective reality, where your consciousness exists and that’s all. You create everything around you: the coffee that you buy at Starbucks, the annoying co-worker, the traffic jam, and even the ants crawling on the sidewalk. They are all creations of your consciousness.

It’s a radical departure from the way most people see life and live life. We have a collective belief that the world is a fixed framework and we are beings born into this environment. We claw and fight our way through life because, in objective reality, you don’t really control anything. The ways and whims of the world are forces beyond your command, and you simply do your best to deal and keep up. In objective reality there are divisions of people, schools of different thought, and “the other side”. You are separate from the world, merely existing, sometimes observing, sometimes responding, but never becoming one with the environment around you. How could you? It was here before you, and will be here when you are gone.

In subjective reality, all this changes. There was no world before your consciousness illuminated since you are the creator of your world. There is no traffic jam or annoying co-worker – these are reflections of you. As Steve explains, seeing life as subjective reality is like having a dream. You are both the dreamer and the creator of the dream, and all the characters in the dream are creations of you.

Objective and subjective reality are two perspectives in which to see life. There’s no way to really ascertain if one is the truth and the other a falsity. But when you have a choice of perspectives, it’s key to be able to see and experience all of them, because it enriches your life in unexpected ways.

I’ve been inspired by Steve to do my own experiment into subjective reality and live my life for 30 days with the constant reminder that everything I encounter is a reflection of me. This includes people, circumstances, events large and small, and so on – everything. I’m going to report on my discoveries about once per week and share my revelations or frustrations with you. I’m not sure what to expect since I, like most people, have been living life as though I am not in full control of my world. So, here goes…

08/10/2010: COCONUT JUICE FOR RECYCLING MAN

I just heard the recycling truck pull up, and, instead of ignoring the man who’s working hard to pick up my junk every two weeks and save it from the landfill like I usually do, I decided to bring him a cold can of fresh coconut juice. I gave him the drink and thanked him for working so hard. Was it weird to applaud the recycling man? Maybe. But in the end, it was me that I sent gratitude to, since he’s just a creation of myself. And I do like a cold coconut juice on a hot day.

08/09/2010: VINDICTIVE NEIGHBORS SUCK

My wife and I started a weekly community yoga class at our neighborhood clubhouse a few weeks ago. We went to the homeowners meeting, proposed the project and got approval to post signs around the complex. After the second class, a horribly vindictive and crabby neighbor decided to tear down our signs. We got very upset over this.

I finally ran into the petty thief, a resident of the community who spouted claims that we were defacing the neighborhood and sullying its beauty with our adverts. I countered back that we intended only to bring a healthy weekly activity to the community. Outwardly I beamed diplomacy and good motives. Inwardly I wanted to wring her neck.

For the next few days I replayed various scenarios in my head of how I could scare her just enough to pack her bags and move out of the complex. Her vindictiveness became mine and the cycle of inner aggression began to play out its ugly dance.

I was living in the objective world where she, a dirt bag, was separate from me and doing something to hinder me, hurt me, put sticks in my spokes. But when I switched on the subjective reality filter, then I saw that she IS me and represents a part of me that is vindictive, disrespectful, and petty. I wish this filter was only rose colored, but as it is, it reveals the ugly truth very quickly.

Since she is me, I couldn’t remain angry at her or lay voodoo curses on her every time I walked passed her house. It would be like insulting myself or wishing harm done to myself so I stopped very quickly. Then my wife and I sent silent prayers to her by saying “I’m sorry, I love you.” Sorry for the pain and suffering in her (in me) that gives rise to vindictive aggression, and love to hasten the necessary healing that needs to take place in her (in me).

I haven’t seen her again, but I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of interaction we’ll have this time.

08/08/2010: ATTACK OF THE ANTS

I know it makes some sense to see reflections of you in other people (recall the various proverbs – the eyes are the mirrors of the soul?) but would you be able to see yourself in non-human life forms, like ants?

We’ve been having an ant infestation lately and I’ve been the crazy ant killer. I crush them with glee when they crawl on my kitchen sink and I stomp them with delight when they cross my front patio. It’s a killing party.

The other morning, when I woke up and saw them attacking a little chunk of watermelon in my kitchen, I nearly exploded into a fury of ant termination when I reminded myself of my experiment. I asked myself, what part of me do the ants represent? As ridiculous as that sounds, I discovered an answer.

My wife Jaime and I talked about how the ants came because we didn’t always do the dishes right away and left them in the sink overnight. I’m clean but not a tidiness freak, so I’ll let things get out of hand once in a while. I realized then that the ants represented parts of me that I let get out of hand.

I realized that I could pay my bills more promptly. I realized that I could update my finances more regularly. I realized that I could stay off my computer more and be more focused and productive when I’m on it. I realized that when I get in a rut and start doing things out of routine and not out of passion, I let things slide. I realized that I always need to focus on expressing my deepest passions and truest nature, so that things don’t start to slide.

Within an hour, we had come up for a game plan for the kitchen, and life. We decided to do a better job of cleaning the dishes, and to begin an active strategy to find someone or some organization to help us market and distribute our creative products – our instructional DVDs, music CDs, both of our books, and our fitness and developmental workshops. Yesterday Jaime called a few production agencies, and we’re starting to take steps towards aligning our passions and our finances.

All from a few ants. It’s only been 48 hours, but I haven’t seen them back yet. Coincidence – or just a remnant of my self that’s been heard and met with compassion and understanding?

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I’ll follow up with more observations into my 30-day experiment with subjective reality next week. If you’d rather receive my blogs (since I’ll be sending out the next few weekly) by RSS feed, sign up for a feed in the top right corner of this site. Then send me an email and let me know you’re set up with an RSS reader.