Stepping Outside Your Life Story - The Practice of Placing No Restrictions on Your Consciousness
The Power of Placing No Restrictions On Your Consciousness
Near the end of June, I had begun to feel burnt out and tired.
I felt I was doing the same thing everyday, and I was not experiencing much fun or excitement in my work or in other areas of life.
The creative juices were flowing less, as the ideas for my writing and content creation seemed dull and repetitive.
Despite summer rounding the corner, life had become mundane.
And so, I decided to do a practice that I had only done one time prior in my life.
I did this practice exactly 3 years prior, at the onset of summer 2021, for virtually the same exact reason: Life had become mundane, repetitive, and dull.
In 2021, I called this practice “doing absolutely nothing”, this year I was calling it “living with no restrictions on my consciousness.”
What this practice involves is carving out a set period of time (in 2021 I did 14 days, this year I did 10 days) in which you have absolutely no plans or commitments.
No work, no prior commitments with friends or family, no appointments, no nothing.
Of course, you can work, hang out with friends/family, or make an appointment if your heart so desires during this period of time, but the point of the practice is to give yourself the FREEDOM to do WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU FEEL LIKE DOING during this set period of time.
This is sort of like a vacation, except there is no destination.
A vacation is typically something that you plan, with this practice the only plan is to have no plan at all.
The purpose of the practice is to experience an as free state of consciousness as possible.
The purpose of the practice is to step outside the everyday, human story we spend our entire existence in, and to just BE completely open, free, spontaneous, and authentic.
When you have nothing nagging at your consciousness, where does your mind go? What do you feel like doing? What do you gravitate towards?
What you gravitate towards will likely be the things you were missing out on, neglecting, or repressing in your life.
My Experience of No Restrictions on My Consciousness
In both of my experiences of doing this practice in 2021 and in 2024, similar themes arose.
I naturally gravitated towards people.
In both instances, I spent much of my time hanging out with friends, and connecting with some old friends that I hadn’t talked to in years.
I also had multiple old friends message or call me out of the blue during this time, which seemed highly synchronistic to me.
This year during the practice, I got kava drunk for the first time, played lots of pickup basketball, recorded no script videos of me in my pool, and went on a spontaneous 3 day trip to the mountains with a friend.
I also bought some weed, which was a substance I had hardly consumed at all this year.
At first, because my tolerance was so low, the weed had a different impression on my consciousness.
It was similar to one of the first times I consumed the substance, in which I felt I had access to a deeper layer of my psyche.
As I was diving into my experience, my emotions seemed to have more texture, subtle sensations in my body were noticed more, and I noticed just how damn good it felt to be free.
No obligations. No work. No “trying to get somewhere.”
Just the present moment.
Rather quickly though, the weed lost this meditative/contemplative enhancement as I overindulged in it, and now that the period of Do Nothing is over, I feel zero pull towards the substance.
In being in this state of open, free, flowy, and spontaneous consciousness, I naturally had a lot of fun.
Because really, that’s what fun is.
If you contemplate the nature of fun, it quickly becomes apparent that one has fun when they are in this precisely open, free, flow state, in which things sort of just happen on their own.
And in having a lot of fun, it was easy to see how anti-fun I had allowed my life to become prior to doing this practice.
In both 2021 and 2024, leading up to me doing this practice I had been in a sort of hermit mode of operation.
In 2021, we were in the midst of Covid/social distancing and I was grinding my old YT channel, The Curious Minds, while also being a full-time college student.
In 2024, I had been working diligently and in mostly isolation on building my new YT channel, my coaching business, and working at a part-time job.
During both of these instances, in addition to life feeling mundane and repetitive, I had also felt quite lonely.
My Takeaways From My Experience of No Restrictions on My Consciousness
So in my case, in allowing my consciousness to be free, naturally I gravitated towards a core need that had not been getting sufficiently met: friendly social interaction.
I, an introvert, had been working on my business so diligently that I had neglected this part of my life, and now that I have been reminded of the liveliness of fun, authentic social interaction with people I love, I am now making sure that I integrate this aspect into my experience in my “everyday life.”
There was also something different in my way of expression when I began the practice.
I was more lively, energetic, and free.
I was making more jokes, infusing the social interaction with good energy, and had a carefree attitude that made the setting feel more fun and authentic.
Really, I felt more myself.
While I was in this, I wondered why I did not feel like this all the time.
And quickly the worries of not making enough money, of my business failing, and being forced to work a job I don’t want and live a life I don’t want to live came to me.
Basically, I was reminded of all the restrictions on my consciousness that I had let go during this set period of time.
And so I realized how deeply these worries had been governing my everyday experience.
They had been running in the background informing every thought I have and action I take.
As much as I hated to admit it, I was still in many ways in this fast, incessant, pushing/striving mentality I had sought to let go of in favor of a more calm, present, and grounded way of relating to life.
My takeaway from this aspect is that there is something within me that does not fully trust in myself and in the universe to make the right thing happen for me.
My ego had been causing me to live in a state of worry, even if the worry was mostly in the background, which caused me to always be manipulating Reality in such a way so that I have what I want, so that I am “successful” in my eye.
Where I intuitively would like to be is in this place of deep trust more often, which would naturally allow for this free, open, fun, spontaneous way of being that can only fully come forth.
So these are my main takeaways from doing the practice this year:
Spend more time with friends
Have more fun
Slow down a bit, ground myself, and find that trust
Stepping Outside Your Life Story: Why This Practice is So Powerful
What makes the practice of Do Nothing so powerful is that it allows you to step outside the life story that you live everyday.
Crafted throughout our whole lives, this narrative is running in our minds constantly, informing every thought we have and action we take.
When you set aside time to be completely and utterly free, the narrative’s grasp over your experience dwindles.
The things that you previously felt like you HAVE to do, become shoulds or wants, or they don’t even enter your awareness at all.
As you notice how your experience of reality in Do Nothing contrasts with the reality you lived in an “everyday” mode of operation, you begin to see yourself in a new light.
If you find yourself doing things you hardly ever did in “everyday” mode, you will likely see how your life narrative is limiting you in many ways, keeping you in a box.
The benefits of this practice may be akin to that of meditation or psychedelics, allowing you to enter an altered mode of consciousness that allows you to see yourself “from a higher elevation”, allowing for increased awareness of limiting beliefs, thought patterns, and behavioral tendencies.
From this awareness, you can make tweaks to your life story and behavioral patterns, so that when you go back into “everyday” life, you are more fully honoring the whole of you.
In my case, I knew that going back into “everyday” life, I will create more space for friends, being in “fun” consciousness, and doing grounding practices.
Your case could be something completely different. Maybe you are the opposite of me and find yourself around people way too much, and you need to be alone during your time of Do Nothing.
I recognize that being able to do this practice with absolutely no obligations or restrictions nagging at your mind is a luxury.
Not everyone has the time or space for this, but even if you carve out the majority of your day to have no restrictions on your consciousness, I believe that you can still receive much of the benefits of the practice (I still had a couple shifts at my part-time job while I was doing the practice).
Some Final Words
Really, this practice should be done with the intention of illuminating the whole of you.
It should not be done with the intention of getting away from or escaping your life entirely.
Sure, this practice may be entered from a place of being burnt out and serves as a sort of vacation, but it’s done from a place of compassionate curiosity for yourself.
What you feel and what you are drawn to during this time is insightful because it informs you of what your authentic desires are.
It informs you of what you really want.
And it may inform you of what you may have been neglecting or missing out on in your life.
What you are denying or repressing away from conscious awareness is also more likely to pop up during this time.
While I certainly had a lot of fun during my time of doing this practice, it wasn’t all sunshine, roses, and daisies 24/7.
During the practice, I randomly experienced bouts of intense emotion that popped mostly out of nowhere relating to a breakup I had experienced several months prior.
This was difficult to experience while it was happening, and I imagine for someone who has a lot of repressed material in their psyche (perhaps a workaholic who finally steps outside work for the first time) may have a more unpleasant experience with the practice than I had.
But if this practice is done with the intention of experiencing the whole of you, rather than a form of escapism, it will yield insights that will allow you to live a more enjoyable, authentic, wholesome existence.
All in all, my experience of this practice was highly beneficial.
I learned a lot about myself, and I feel inspired and rejuvenated now that I am back in an “everyday” way of being.
I tweaked my routines a bit, altered my spiritual practice, am allowing for more fun and spontaneity in my workflows, and hanging out with friends more.
I feel great! And I hope this is a practice you consider if you feel burnt out or if life has become mundane and repetitive.
My Offers
If you want to make a wise investment into your growth, build the muscles of mind, and catalyze your life purpose, consider my 10 week coaching program Spiritual Fitness in order to accelerate this process.
This program is more affordable than other life-coaching programs, and results are guaranteed so long as you put in the required 5 hours of exercises per week.
In addition, consider joining the Soulful Synergy Sanctuary, it’s an online community I built a couple months ago with the intention of uniting people on the path of self-actualization and spiritual growth.
We have weekly community calls every sunday, and meditation hour every wednesday.
I hope to see you there!
As always guys, have a great day and peace!
P.S. watch this video to hear more about my experience of the practice in 2024, and this video on my old channel to hear about the practice in 2021.