Observing
Conscious Creation
From the second year of association and beyond, communitarians take time throughout the day to focus on consciously creating the instruments and conditions in their lives that have the capacity to contribute to establishing perpetual peace and secure ‘common wealth’ shared provisioning for people and the planet. Daily sessions of deliberate manifesting have the capacity to develop both the conscious and unconscious mind, enabling those who practice it to move closer to achieving their personal as well as local, regional and wider-world communitarian union networked goals and missions.
Through personal and group Gestalt Practice, communitarians increase personal power and effectiveness by taking 100% responsibility for all areas of life. Allocating time throughout the day to focus on consciously creating the lifestyle and lovestyle that aligns with our goals and missions, places communitarians fairly and squarely behind the wheel. The foundations of personal progression requires acceptance of responsibility for steering in the direction of achieving and sustaining health and vitality, harmony within relationships, right use of time, talent and resources, as well as, productive participation in communal life which upholds the principles and practices of ‘love in action’ – sharing all with all.
Developing awareness that we have the capacity to create our reality, places communitarians in the unique position of being co-creators of peace, love, freedom, justice, joy and positive transformation of people and planet.
Defining Conscious Creation
Through experience many learn the hard lesson that little if any personal progression or measurable productivity can be achieved if we live life as it comes – letting the flow of random events and encounters choose our circumstances and experiences. In this frame of mind, we simply exist. Living without a well-thought-out plan, along with strong resolve to progressively acquire skills and knowledge to bring our goals to fruition, is a sure recipe for disappointment, despair and even disaster. If we intend our lives to have meaning, drifting arbitrarily and aimlessly along will not achieve that end.
Besides constantly heading inevitably towards dead-ends, living life purely by instinct incessantly torments the mind with uncertainty; which in turn throws those who mindlessly choose to live their lives without purpose or plan into debilitating depression and often times stupefying anxiety. If and when we assign our lives such little value that we are content to live life dialed into the ‘default settings’ of mere survival and the pursuit of trivial pleasures, life will always be a struggle that returns little or no reward or satisfaction.
Contemplating Solutions
In contrast, conscious creation is a principle practiced by communitarians determined to deliberately create the lifestyle and lovestyle of their choosing. For these reasons, in the early mornings and again before retiring at night, communitarians devote considerable mental effort to discerning solutions to both personal and communal issues as well as broader wider-world problems.
Through Gestalt Practice communitarians hone the skill of orderly thought to move beyond simply focusing on problems without taking the next step to investigate and devise remedies to current and age-old problems.
‘The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.’ – Chinese Proverb
While many carry along ideas that life is a puzzle to be solved, the more progressive and productive view leads toward the understanding that our lives are meant to be treasured – polished like a gem until the rough edges are ground down to reveal a unique work of art crafted by intelligent reason and creative design.
Consciously creating health & healing
Through Gestalt Practice, communitarians become aware that deliberate creation is a lifelong process of placing ourselves in the driver seat of our lives. It is only from this position that we can see the road ahead. Through the ‘proving processes’ communitarians learn to recognise the advantages of taking the lion’s share of responsibility for the lifestyle, projects and relationships chosen, as well as, maintain a willingness to be accountable for the action taken to achieve fulfilment and personal as well as collaborative progression within all areas of life.
Practicing conscious creation is one of the best-known natural stress-reduction techniques. It is the best natural remedy for anxiety, depression and will likely also significantly increase our life span – all for free. It costs nothing other than time and mental focus.
we reap all that we sow
From the moment we make the switch from unconscious creation – just letting things happen, to consciously creating, we immediately gain control of our destiny. No matter our age or circumstances, when we consciously create our life, we are more likely to feel that the future is in our hands and that we have the means to achieve our goals no matter the odds that might appear to be stacked against us. Also, when we deliberately choose our path in life, we are more likely to take action to make things go in the direction of our deliberate choosing.
In contrast, when we just ‘take life as it comes,’ letting time and circumstances sweep us in random directions which more often than not, take us off course, we usually feel that we have no control over life and therefore we are at the mercy of circumstances beyond our control. If we allow ourselves to fall into this hapless frame of mind, we are likely to become intrenched in the belief that our goals are unachievable, and that luck is never on our side. Falling into the habit of living life guided by sloppy thinking and lack of planning, soon brings us to wasting our lives giving into cowardly defeatist attitudes.
However, life doesn’t have to be lived that way. With patience and persistence, we can take the helm, turn our ship around and head for any shore we choose. When we make the switch to living our lives as creators of our destiny and begin to act accordingly, it is then that we begin to live lives that we love.
From the moment we claim and begin utilizing conscious creation, we will no longer feel like victims of circumstances that are out of our control, tossed about on the sea like a toy tub. Soon after mastering just a few basic conscious creation skills, we will go onto feel a rush of motivation to go out and achieve our goals, no matter how big and hairy they initially appear.
Imagining a bright future
‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. – Frederick R. Barnard
Vision boards are ideal tools to help keep our goals forefront of our minds. The more frequently the subconscious mind is exposed to visual representations of the concrete outcome of our goals, the more it is prompted to find ways to bring the instruments that contribute to their fruition, closer to us.
With this in mind, placing a vision board somewhere in our living space where it will be seen many times throughout the day, propels the mind to purposely devise ways to manifest our goals. Vision boards that are regularly viewed also prompt ‘MAKERS’ to look for current and potential resources, including people willing to collaborate as well as spot opportunities to be part of projects able to provide the skills and materials to assist us to take a step toward achieving a particular component of the overall goal.
In the second year of association and beyond, communitarians adopt the habit of rising the hour before dawn to allocate time alone to conscious creation through spending time to plan ‘Next Tasks’. By making visualisation the central focus of morning and evening routines, communitarians naturally expand the motivation muscles that keeps them on track to progressively achieving both personal and collaborative goals.
Creating vision boards also helps develop courage. If we choose visual representations of our goals that include people achieving the same that we envisage, it is sure to give us courage to attempt the same.
Creating Visual Representations of our Missions
Creating vision boards can be as simple as finding pictures that represent the experiences, feelings and concrete material objects that contribute to the overall manifestation of our desired lifestyles and missions. As an example, if our goal is to move into Communal Union, we might create a vision board containing images of a co-living eco-home being enjoyed by a group of people sharing a meal, leisure or undertaking a creative project together.
It is common for communitarians to create Vision Boards that also include inspirational affirmations and quotes, along with words and images that best represent our values, purpose, and intended missions, along with the ideal future. The key here is to keep the vision board simple by deciding what is most important to consciously create in the now, before progressively imagining the future.
For those transitioning to the communitarian lifestyle and lovestyle, it is of considerable benefit to progressively create seven vision boards to visually lay out the path toward fully integrating the seven principles and practices of communitarian union. The idea here is to set direction by envisioning the destination.
Charting a course to bring missions to fruition
Through personal and group Gestalt Practice, communitarians develop awareness that achieving fulfilment and happiness require a foundation of self-knowledge, which includes deciding what we want from life combined with planning to make it happen. Within this context, conscious creation becomes an essential habit to be practiced and honed daily, without let up.
Rather than leaving what happens to us to chance or accident, becoming conscious of what we think, feel and believe, is the foundation of creating life by design. Manifesting that design through daily planned intention, requires that we intentionally direct our thoughts and choose our emotions, along with develop the capacity to modify internal self-talk to align with all we intend to bring to fruition.
For those familiar with the processes of conscious creation, it becomes evident that meaning can only be derived via clarity of purpose. Deliberate manifesting therefore begins with a detailed vision of our intended missions founded on our values and ethics, along with principles and practices. Once we have a direction, from there we must consciously make decisions to take action every single day to bring us closer to that goal until we are literally living our dreams.
Applying the context of communitarian principles and practices, the core of conscious creation involves many concentrated sessions of decision making and goal setting, along with ongoing updating and adjustment of ‘Next Tasks’ and ‘Timelines’.
Formulating Mission Oriented Goals
Through participation in the Gestalt Provings, communitarians progressively and collaboratively create life plans which are not centred solely around manifesting only material items that provide comfort, security or pleasure. On the contrary, the major component of personal and group visualisation and goal-setting sessions, focuses on how we intend to feel.
For example, when creating a vision board intentionally designed to map a path toward adopting a cruelty-free diet and lifestyle, the focus should be on how making these corrections will make us feel – such as healthy, energised, loving, caring and connected with nature as well as all creatures great and small.
Co-creating
Co-creation literally means working together to create a plan, a strategy, or an entire project. Deliberate co-creation provides valuable stimulation able to produce progress not readily achievable through isolated endeavours. Co-creation also recognises the fact that none of us creates anything from scratch, or entirely alone. No matter what we create, nothing is completely original. Instead, even the most experienced creators are always duplicating – incorporating pieces of the known and practiced into their creations.
Local, regional and wider-world collaborative co-creating is a central component of the communal union networks as well as Right Livelihood EcoLab projects. Diverse group perspectives and input consistently deliver expanded vision and greater opportunities for collaborative projects, along with multifaceted innovation and strategic planning on how to achieve positive sustainable outcomes.
planning provides the roadmap to positive futures
Without continuous daily planning, it is certain that we will wander aimlessly through life without a sense of direction. If our intention is to create life by intelligent intentional design then we must make the effort to consciously plan our days to make every day count towards bringing our plans to fruition.
Conscious creation is akin to making travel plans; if we wish to go somewhere, we need a map – we need to know the destination before we can devise the most direct route to take to arrive in the shortest possible time.
Plans will always change and need to be amended; which is why it is necessary to review both short-term and long-term plans regularly – at least once a week. Even long-term plans require regular updating for the simple reason that as we walk the path, it opens before us. Unless we have previously travelled a road we have been down before, it is impossible to know every obstacle and choice before we set out on the journey.
Consequently, initially we must expect our original plans to change. However, the intended destination remains the same.
If we intend to get where we are going by the shortest possible route, then clarity and vision must be maintained at all times carried along by intimate knowledge and memorized acquaintance with the goals that underpin our missions.
playing the future forward
As part of commitment to personal progression and productivity, communitarians make the time and exert the mental energy to create a ‘blueprint’ of the goals and aims associated with their missions, as well as, thoroughly review their ‘life plans’ during seasonal retreats.
Life planning provides structure to our lives presenting a clear picture of our projected future. Without this vision, we become lost; living without hope, purpose or direction.
In contrast, the foundations of communitarian lifestyle and lovestyle ‘Life Planning’ are primarily established by ‘Playing the Future Forward’ – creatively imagining how our lives will be, in the next 40, 20, 10, 5, 3 and current year, if we ‘act’ now.
‘Life By Design’ focuses on creating a larger vision then breaks it down into life-span, clusters of decades, yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and finally, daily ‘Next Tasks’ designed to progress toward the desired outcome.
Long-range planning is proven to provide major stabilizing effects while also establishing the base for daily routines underpinned by ‘Daily Action Plans’ which bring to light the order in which ‘project tasks’ are to be undertaken to align with projected timelines for arriving at the desired destination.
