[00:00:00] So if you've ever accessed flow states, if you've ever been doing something where you feel just like in total flow, where you're not thinking at all, where everything just feels like it's moving effortlessly, it's almost like you could click back and just like, watch yourself live, that's the energy that we want to access to play the game of life. That's where joy is. That's where flow is. That's where curiosity, creativity, and excitement live.
[00:00:29] Welcome back to Awake with Stephanie Zeller Podcast. I am your host, Stephanie Zeller. Today I have a pretty quick little episode for you that will hopefully break your mind wide open. Now, if this is the first time you've heard the metaphors that I'm going to be using, then my suggestion would be to listen to this episode a few times. Because the first couple of times I personally heard these metaphors, I did not get them. Like, I knew there was truth to them, but it wasn't quite clicking for me. So I had to listen to these metaphors several times. The metaphors that I use in this episode today are fairly common, so you may have heard them before, but if they're new to you, that is so wonderful. I'm so happy to be the one sharing them with you. And I would just really encourage you to bookmark this episode and come back to it several times over the next few weeks. Because I promise you, if you keep listening to it, something will begin to resonate. Just so you know, I am a teacher and a coach. I have many courses. You can find all of my courses and
[email protected] and if you like this episode, you may enjoy my other podcast. You can find a link to that in the show notes below. The name of that podcast is the Magic of Transformation. Now, without further ado, enjoy the episode.
[00:01:57] At night, when you dream, you dream of a version of you in the dream. What people do in lucid dreaming is they become aware that they're in a dream. So I don't know if you've ever tried lucid dreaming or heard of lucid dreaming, but what we do when we lucid dream is we are able to become aware of the fact that we're dreaming. So here we are dreaming, and then suddenly you become aware that you are actually dreaming. Now, when you become aware that you're dreaming, you can actually start to influence the dream. You can change what you do in the dream. You know, sometimes you can fly, or you can go to different places, or you can essentially influence everything. That happens in the dream. Now, I'm about to take a leap with something, so stay with me. Life is very similar.
[00:02:55] So when we think about consciousness and awakening and who we really are and ego and us being more than ego and all the things, this is a really good metaphor. So in the dream, you as the dreamer, are dreaming the dream character. And if we transfer that now to life, it's very similar. You are walking around in life as the ego, as the personality, and you think that you are separate from everyone. And this is your life, you as this character.
[00:03:33] But what's actually happening, what's more correctly happening, is that you are everything. You are the dreamer that is dreaming, the dream character.
[00:03:47] So you are not just this person, this character, this personality.
[00:03:53] You are the essence that makes up this personality. You are the essence that makes everything. Just like in your dream. You often dream, maybe let's say, five different characters in the dream, but it's you that's dreaming all those characters, right? It's the same thing with life. It is you, your essential nature, not you as the character, not you as the personality or the ego. It's you as your essential nature is dreaming up everything in your world, including you as this dream character.
[00:04:28] Now, maybe that clicked for you, maybe it didn't. But stay with me if it didn't, because we are going to apply this in a more tangible way. So if we think about this metaphor and we think about lucid dreaming, when you're asleep, you become aware that you are dreaming, and then you can start to influence the dream. You can do this in life, too. You can become aware that life is but a dream, and you can start to influence your life. I like to call this the game of life, because this is really what we're doing. We're just playing the game of life. But when you can look at it like that, when you can look at it as a game, it frees you up to actually play. Play it in a more free way, play it in a more unattached way.
[00:05:17] Now, when I use this metaphor of the dreamer, I'm not implying that our life as we know it is not real. Like you might think, well, a dream isn't real. So are you saying our life isn't real? No, our life is real. It's just not what it seems. We think that we are these separate characters. Just like when you're dreaming and you're not aware that you're dreaming before you start lucid dreaming, when you are just in the dream, you think that you're the Dream character, and you don't know it's a dream. Same thing with life. When you are walking around identified as a separate self, as ego, you don't realize that you are connected to the whole, that you are not just the wave, but the entire ocean, that there is more going on here. So just like you would become aware in the dream and become a lucid dreamer, you become aware in life, and you become aware that you aren't separate. That in fact there is more to you than what you think, and that you are connected to everyone and everything. And when you feel that sense of connection, when you feel yourself as more than just the character, this story, you become lucid. And then you can start lucid living. You can start playing the game of life more freely. You can do it in a more unattached way because you're no longer attached so much to the personality that you're playing. It's kind of similar to if you were an actor and you were acting in a movie. And this is a metaphor that my favorite spiritual teacher, Rupert Spira, uses a lot. He uses it in terms of a play. But let's take a movie and let's say that you're an actor that's playing a character in a movie. But let's say as you are acting and playing that character, playing that role, you forget that you have a life outside of that character. And for a moment, you actually think that you're the character. So here you are acting as the character in the movie, but you forget that you are actually an actor. That's kind of what happens as we live life. We forget that we are more than just this role, this character, and that we are actually so much more. So if you are the actor playing this character in a film, and then all of a sudden you remember, like, wait a minute, I'm not just this character that I'm playing. I'm actually this whole other person. It allows you to have more fun with the character that you are playing. It allows you to be more unattached, because suddenly you don't have so much invested. And you can play the game of life through them. You can be more creative, you can have more expression. And that is the masterstroke of playing this game of life in a freely unattached way, is to recognize that you are more. You are more than the personal than the character that you are playing. And when you know that you are more, then you're not so attached to outcome, and you're not so afraid of taking risk, and you're not afraid of doing the wrong thing. It just frees you up to move. So now my suggestion to you would be to not overthink this, but to just stay in your body. And if you're feeling any resonance with this messaging, or if something in you is feeling more alerted or interested or curious or alive, stay with that. Stay with that energy right now and just ask yourself this question. If I knew that I was more, if I wasn't so invested in what this character does, if I woke up and started lucid living this life, what would I do differently?
[00:09:20] Who would I be? How much freer would I feel?
[00:09:26] When you can click into those moments, those really are the moments where you tap into this energy of awakening, of enlightenment. You know, a good example of that is when you get into flow states. When you get into flow states, in a way, you are letting something bigger than you, you are letting life itself move through you. You're not clinging to outcome, you're not thinking, you're not doing. You're just living you being. You're just letting life live through you. And in those moments, you get a taste of what it would be like to play the game of life. So if you've ever accessed flow states, if you've ever been doing something where you feel just like in total flow, where you're not thinking at all, where everything just feels like it's moving effortlessly, it's almost like you could click back and just like, watch yourself live, that's the energy that we want to access to play the game of life. That's where joy is. That's where flow is. That's where curiosity, creativity, and excitement live. And that is part of the awakening process.
[00:10:36] So we can do this in all sorts of ways. One, we can shift out of sort of our narrow perspective and vision of the character, and we can shift into a state of open awareness. You can allow your mind to relax, stop focusing on the details, almost like fall back as though you were watching yourself and just get really curious. Like, what would life do if it was just moving through me? What would I do if I realized this was all a dream and I could start lucid living? What would I do differently in this moment if there were no, like, real consequences that I was afraid of and wasn't afraid of getting hurt? What would I do? Who would I be? How much brighter would I shine? How would I live differently? You can also access this energy by finding states of creative flow. When you're in these creative flow states, it gives you a sense of what it would Be like to not be gripping quite so hard and to just be flowing in the dream, playing the game of life.
[00:11:39] And last, you can start to access this state by reminding yourself that there's more, there's more here going on than what meets the eye. There is so much more to you than you know. I mean, truly imagine that scenario for a moment. Like, imagine that you are an actor playing in a movie and you've just forgotten who you are. You've completely forgotten that you are more than this character that you are playing. And here you are just stuck in this character role. This is why I say awakening is a process of just remembering. Because when you remember that you are the actor, it's not like you suddenly become more. You just remember that you always were more. You just forgot.
[00:12:31] You forgot and you thought that you were just the character in the film.
[00:12:38] Why do we want to practice this? We want to practice this because this is the key to joy, this is the key to living a more lit up, fun, flowy life is to not be so attached, to not get lost in the character of this film, but to shift into this game of life energy.
[00:13:02] So if something occurred to you today while you were listening, if you had some sort of energetic or emotional shift within you, stay locked onto that, access that feeling, don't overthink that. That is truth rising up within you. And if you had some sort of idea for how you can shift more into that open creative flow energy, then make sure that you pursue that. Because the more you do, the more you are going to start loving your life. If you feel like somebody you know would enjoy this episode, pass it along to them. And if you enjoyed it yourself, please leave me a five star review wherever you are listening. And don't forget to follow or subscribe to the show so you don't miss future episodes. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time.
