Yesterday I was thinking about consciousness. I guess I think about consciousness quite regularly, but yesterday I was specifically considering consciousness in relation to my current pregnant state. I was pondering the fact that I have or am the same consciousness I always was, even during pregnancy. That this life altering period hasn’t altered that. There is a core identity there that hasn’t been changed. And once I give birth, and this entirely new consciousness is born into the world at large, I will still possess that same core.
A lot of things have happened in my life that I thought would change me. And they did change me. Often very radically. But I have always been me, and I will always be me. Even if I one day forget who that is. If everything was stripped away from me, including all my memories, knowledge, beliefs and thought patterns, I don’t think that core could ever change.
And there is something truly comforting about that. Often huge change can seem frightening. Terrifying, even. Paralysing, on occasion. When we don’t know how life will look on the other side, or how we will come out of the process, it takes a lot of courage to step into it.
But there is a thread running through our entire life, including the part we’ve yet to live. On every other side we will still be experiencing everything through this same consciousness. It is the only consciousness we’ve ever known, and the only consciousness we’ll ever know. No matter what, we will always have ourselves. Even if everything else is taken away, we will always have ourselves.
At least as humans. Either side of that, for sure things get tricky, and for sure that would be a topic for another post.