What the world needs now is not a different way of doing, but a different way of thinking

If you could describe how the world feels right now in one word, what would it be? Chaotic? Disconnected? Frightening? I doubt many people would choose a positive adjective, and yet you may struggle to pinpoint exactly why things feel so discordant.

We’ve found ourselves in a soup of calamity that keeps getting heated to boiling point. First it’s a pandemic, then wars, then political discord, followed by more war and conflict. Leaders being ousted. Communities turning on one another. All of these major challenges combine with our personal experience of the world to create a sense of things being energetically and emotionally charged. On a personal level, this can leave us with feelings of anxiety and a sense of disquiet, our nervous systems triggered into overstimulation, even if we don’t know quite why.

The word I’d use to describe the energy right now is potent. Potency is powerful because it has the potential to develop positively or negatively. It speaks of a sort of crescendo of momentum, waiting on a knife-edge to see which way it tips. While it feels inevitable that things will continue to spiral into yet more negativity, there is always a choice. There is always another option. But to choose a positive option when the default appears to be negative, requires a different way of thinking and behaving.

Navigating Complexity Without a Blueprint

There’s no previous blueprint for an effective response when the world is facing unprecedented and unusual challenges, particularly when those challenges seem to be stacking on top of one another like a child’s toy bricks. One more thing and the whole game will topple, it seems.

So when there are no default, tried-and-tested methods for us to enact, we need to go back to the drawing board. Or perhaps, we need to go beyond the drawing board, starting from a totally new premise, which requires a totally new way of thinking and perceiving the problems we’re facing. Instead of acting and reacting from our default positions, it’s time to envision solutions from a new perspective.

To find radical solutions, we need to first see our problems in a new light. We need to ‘turn the picture upside down’ as author Tom Bowman says, training our eyes to pick out features that we couldn’t acknowledge before.

In the case of our seemingly broken world, we need to not only turn the picture upside down, but observe it from an elevated level: not just a new perspective but a higher perspective. This requires us to shift from ego to consciousness – from the perception of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ to ‘us’ and ‘ours’. Why is this important? Because we’ve trained our minds to see the world through the lens of our own personality, driven by ego, which is shorthand for the mind’s identification with form and ideas about ourselves.

Our ego maintains our sense of self and personal identity, which is fine until we forget that we are more than that. Beneath the ego and temporary personality, we are formless, eternal beings. We have a soul, higher self, or creative self – whatever language you prefer to use to describe the true essence of who we are. The personality is akin to a role we chose to act, the human body the costume we chose to wear.

When we forget this deeper truth of who we are, we operate largely from ego, which pushes aside a call to serve the whole and instead focuses solely on the ‘I’. What do I need? What do I want? What can I get? This rampant focus on self has led to the problems we’re seeing made manifest all around us.

The ego drives separation and conflict, as it seeks to maintain and strengthen itself, hiding its wounds under the barriers created by the mind. These barriers include defensiveness, arrogance, low self-esteem and self-worth, jealousy, and the rest. Ultimately, anything rooted in fear is the work of the ego.

Introducing Conscious Intelligence

In contrast, when we observe the ego but don’t identify with it, we can operate from a higher perspective, one that is rooted in conscious awareness. At The Spark Movement we’ve described this as ‘conscious intelligence’.

The term conscious intelligence recognises that intelligence is multifaceted and multidimensional. There is the traditional measure of intelligence – IQ – and emotional intelligence – EQ – which speaks of a person’s ability to have wisdom on a social-emotional level. Conscious intelligence, or CQ, encompasses both and more. It is our experience of the universal intelligence that powers all of life, which is imbued in every tree, plant, rock, creature. At the quantum level, all of life is made up of the same energy, alive with conscious awareness.

For humans, conscious intelligence requires us to set aside the ego and to elevate our mental, emotional and spiritual perspective, on a continuum that exists from somewhere just above the ego, recognising that we have an ego (which creates a space for a greater awareness to be present), all the way to a complete connection with all that is, that mystics and yogis speak of (which is sadly unattainable for most of us!).

Cultivating conscious intelligence takes time and practice, as with any other form of wisdom. At The Spark Movement, we’ve defined six core attributes that contribute to and reflect the practice of conscious intelligence. They are:

• Higher self-awareness
• Inner alignment
• Interconnectedness
• Energy perception
• Compassion
• Presence

Practicing each aspect allows us to create space between the ego and our broader consciousness, and when combined and embedded as a way of being, creates a powerful and elevated sense of self that both recognises our individuality and our connection to the whole.

Higher self-awareness speaks of the ability to know ourselves as both soul and human. We observe our thoughts and behaviours without identifying with them completely. We can observe our patterns of behaviour, thoughts and emotions without becoming attached to them, which creates space to choose alternative ways of being.

Inner alignment is the practice of recognising our core vibration or energy signature – the energy we express and the person we are when we are completely authentic – and live as this person. It requires us to recognise when we are acting out of alignment with our true self, and to bring ourselves back into authenticity.

Interconnectedness is the recognition that we are all one. Rather than separate individuals, we are connected to every one and every thing, at the deepest level. Expressing interconnectedness as a way of living requires us to move beyond serving the ego, to serving the whole.

Cultivating energy perception involves us understanding that everything is energy, deepening our awareness of people’s energy fields and using this information as guidance to understand what people are expressing at a deeper level. This requires us to go beyond what someone merely says, to how we feel in their presence. This also applies to other facets of life – perceiving the energy of the food we eat, or the social media we consume, for example, and identifying whether it is in alignment with our own energy fields, or not.

Finally, conscious intelligence requires us to embody compassion and presence. Compassion goes beyond empathy, with an understanding that each person and circumstance of life is a reflection of us, and vice-versa. When we can have compassion for self and others, we exist at a higher frequency of love. Achieving that sense of compassion and every other aspect of conscious intelligence, can only be found through presence – centering our awareness in the present moment, rather than being stuck in the mental projection of past or future, which don’t exist.

The world desperately needs wise, intelligent humans, like you and I, who are willing to go deeper, to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behaviour, powered by higher expressions of human values, and committed to serving our planet as a whole, not just ourselves.

This is not a dress rehearsal; the stage has been set and the actors are in place. But there is just enough time to rewrite our personal scripts, or perhaps ditch them altogether. Instead of reading our lines and acting our roles as we’ve always done, there is another option. We can choose to step away from the stage, rip up the script and start again – watching the play unfold while working behind the scenes to dismantle the set.

Are you with us?

Want to learn more about how you can change the world, from a new perspective of conscious awareness? Check out the Spark Changemakers Podcast and be inspired by changemakers leading with love across the world.