I’m feeling inspired to write about the awakening process. I don’t know how others experience this, so I want to speak from my experience. I want to first clarify that for me being AWAKE means being aware, not enlightened. I’m not enlightened, but I think that in moments of my life I´ve had the experience of overwhelming love and awe and I imagine enlightenment must feel like that all the time. Being awake for me means that we are aware of the conditioning of society and ourselves. It’s very tricky to be aware of this because our social conditioning are so strong. For example, what we are culturally used to in our country might be completely different in another and, unless you travel or become exposed to these differences, it can be hard to spot them. These are social conditioning. And then we have conditioning from our upbringings which makes this even more complex. These are like invisible systems. We have law and order and rules to guide us, but this is an added layer which is hard to see until you crash into it. Then you´ll be taught how this layer works, either through kind suggestions or harsh reactions. So, through love and pain we learn to see and this is the way of life, from our birth till our death. Unless we wake up to this and we learn to understand the social constructs that are in place. Human made. To protect us from danger, like be cautious of nature, behave properly, secure your future etc. Some of these even come from way back. People long before us learnt to be cautious of something and taught their children who taught their children until it was passed down to you. The echo of our childhood is played on repeat in our mind, scanning for danger, keeping us safe. And then we start to notice those voices in our heads. And we start to connect them with feelings in our body. And we start to see that there is so much stuff there! What we do every day is mostly on autopilot. That’s our conditioning! And this is the work ahead, to notice when a thought is inspiring an emotion to lead you into a behavior. The work is to stop behaving in a reactive way and begin living life in a conscious deliberate way.