Have you ever wondered what the problems in the world today would exist if we have deeper connection to ourselves, others, and the environment, and acted from that place? Welcome to the conscious action podcast with your hosts, Brian Berneman, who believed that connection is the key to taking conscious action as individuals and creating a better world. We are here to raise awareness and inspire meaningful action by sharing stories, knowledge, and conversations.
With thought leaders and change makers, from sustainability to wellbeing, and everything related to conscious living, our mission is to empower you to be the change that you wanna see in the world. Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Conscious Action Podcast. I am Brian Berneman, your host, and for this episode I wanted to talk about a topic that is really close to my own journey, my own path, and that is that. Separation is an illusion.
I grew up with an understanding that there is this me here, that I am separate from everything else that is around me. And this is what, you know, we mostly experience. We mostly experience that we are separate, and that there is a me, and then there's everything else outside.
And what I have learned, Through all of these years of my journey has been that not only we are not separate, I am not even an I, there's not even a fixed thing here that when I used to experience this, like, okay, I have this body, this vehicle that I'm using, as if that it is a fixed thing, and then that is relating to everything outside, and I realized that, and this is something that I have talked in some previous episodes, is that This, that I experience as a one thing,
as this Brian here, not only it keeps on changing all of the time, but it's not so fixed as I thought that it was. I learned that my body.
Isn't one thing, not only there's organs and there's the different parts of it, like my head, my hands, my arms, also, all of that is made up of a community of cells, of bacteria, of viruses, of all these different energy cells, all of these different beings that are made up They are, in a sense, alive, that they are all working together to form what this body I have, this vehicle I have, so it can actually function.
And when I started to relate a little bit that inner experience, that one, I'm not this fixed thing, and I'm working a lot with the I, with the Me, mind, all of that, that sometimes it's called the ego sometimes it's called just that reference of having a separate I, all of that working through it and at the same time working with understanding that actually I don't finish here where my body finishes.
There's. More than what I thought that there was in terms of my energy field, my awareness, and how I actually am interacting with the spaces that I'm in, with the people around me with the environment that I'm in, and also through years of working with energy healing as well. I learned that there was even no separation in terms of space.
I could be working with someone when, you know, in person or I could be working with someone remotely and I'm not talking remotely as on a, you know, a zoom call or FaceTime or something like that. I'm just saying like connecting with someone's energy field, connecting with someone's body.
On the other side of the planet, even if I am not connected to the internet, when I started to realize all of these different components and how, as well, what I do actually has an impact on the whole and how everybody else has an impact on me, this sense of separation started to dissipate a little bit.
And this, as well, led me to an understanding on not only how to change my framework from a separation, a competition, towards a collaboration, community connectedness, but as well an understanding that this isn't just everything that I do in my own life. It isn't just for me. It's for everyone else. I realized that if there's suffering around Then I am suffering. We are all in a sense one.
We are all actually having an impact on each other and this is one of the hardest things I think that to grapple with which is How do we allow others to behave differently to be different to to have different opinions different? perspectives different ways But understanding that at the end, we are all part of a whole, we are unique, yet we are part.
And this is such an interesting way of being able to, to live, holding those two seemingly opposing views and perspectives, to be able to live our lives, to be able to, to understand how am I going to behave with you, with that stranger that is walking down the street. How am I going to feel about something that is happening on the other side of the world?
And there's a balance, of course, on understanding how to not allow everything to affect us in a way that paralyzes us or that makes us super worried and afraid. With the knowing that Everything matters. Everything has a ripple effect. Everything actually has an impact on the whole. And when we understand this, then we can actually be more compassionate, be more kind towards everyone, because by doing that, we're also doing that for ourselves.
If my family or my community is struggling, my experience is going to be different than If everyone in my community and my family is having a more balanced, better life in terms of their own well being and their alignment, when we are surrounded by that, we can be different. We can actually show up differently. And this is that idea of, you know, like the, the tide rises all boats. We are all here together. We're all part of the whole. And if you're doing better, then I am doing better.
This is the thing that our system that creates this illusion of separation that each of us need to get to the mountaintop by ourselves without caring about, you know, what might happen about others. And that is not perhaps a conscious not caring. That might be just a I'm so focused on me. That I'm not caring about others. Well, you know, I, I grew up in, in, in Argentina in a country that there's.
A lot of people that are living in poverty and there's a lot of differences and what happens when someone is, you know, in situations like that is that they are going to do things for survival, which means that in my experience isn't going to actually be different based on the fact that I am living around. People that might need to steal something so that they can survive.
So my own experience when I was living back in Argentina as a teenager, I remember, you know, I was looking everywhere all of the time. I was, in a sense, a little bit paranoid and stressed because I thought, you know, like someone is going to rob me at any single moment. And that isn't something that I want to live with, and yes, I decided to move away and to remove myself from that situation physically, but that still is not solving that for everybody else that is living in that situation.
So, how can we live our lives in a way that is supportive of ourselves, as well as supportive of everybody else and our environment? Because if everything else is better, we are better. Our systems are not set up in that way, and this is where we need a shift and it starts, unfortunately, or fortunately, with each of us to take responsibility and to understand how can we actually be in relationship with the people in our communities first, because they are the people that are next to us.
And then with our environment, with our environment comes a lot of the realizations of how things are actually are being done, how our resources being. Taken from our mother earth, how are people exploited to do certain things when we understand our role sometimes in some of those situations, then there's something that we can do. And it comes for me from a place of understanding that we are not separate. And if you're suffering, there is something within me. That is part of that.
If someone on the other side of the world is suffering, then the whole is suffering. I might not individually have to experience fully that suffering, because if not life would be super challenging, but can I be compassionate? On the last episode, I talked about the compassion and unity, especially in divisive times. Well, we've been in divisive times since, I think, at the beginning of human history.
Like, because of this sense that we are separate and that we are this one unique thing that we need to, you know, survive and that is in competition with others. So, how can we move from that sense of separation to a sense of unity without losing our uniqueness, without getting completely stressed out or suffering because of what's going on around us? And this is where a lot of our work with ourselves supports us.
I know with me, it really supported me to get an understanding on my body, on how my mind. works, understanding how each part of my being is actually working together, as I mentioned before, that this is not one fixed thing. This is a community already working in collaboration so that I can function to the best of each moment that I can. When I have that understanding, how can I get a better understanding on how I relate to others? What It's the impact that others are having on me.
What's the impact when something is happening on the other side of the world with me? Being able to be curious and play and understand how to not allow everything to bring us down with being connected, with feeling connected to all of that. That is where this work actually comes into place. To be able to understand that space of uniqueness. Oneness.
Being able to feel or sense that we are separate, because that's part of this illusion that we're living in, will actually, that is an illusion, we're all one. Getting that space of understanding is key to then, how can we change everything? How can we change and elevate the consciousness of the collective together? Because we are the collective. There's no we and us and then the collective, there's the collective.
And when we start to experience this, things start to shift, our behavior starts to shift, the way that we think starts to shift, the way that we treat each other, the way that we treat our Mother Earth, the way that we treat our spaces changes. So I invite you to ponder on this, reflect on this. How do you experience This sense of separation. Have you even thought about that? Do you even realize or have you heard before the fact that you're not this one fixed thing?
That not only it's a host of different beings and cells, also, it keeps on changing. So I invite you to just reflect on this. And see how does this impact you? I would love to know as always leave us a comment, wherever it is that you're finding this episode in terms of the sense of being separate. The sense of your own journey to understand that there's uniqueness and there's oneness and that separation is an illusion. Thank you everyone for being here, for listening.
Hope that you're having a wonderful day and I will see you all on the next episode. Bye. What did you like the most about this episode? Take a moment to think about what change you can make in your life today. Share your conscious action on social media using hashtag conscious action and tagging at conscious action instead so we can celebrate your impact on the world and create a ripple effect.
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