An Experiment

Sunrise, ​St. Augustine, October 10 2012

​I have heard that there is wisdom inside us all. Some little voice, a connection to a greater force that guides us and protects us and generally contributes to our growth and development. But to receive the benefits we have to listen to and participate with this voice everyday. We have to act on it. And before that we have to trust that it’s this voice of wisdom that we’re hearing in the first place, not some hermitic part of our imaginations. 

Now my left brain screams: "This is not scientific! You can't prove this!" I'm a trained scientist and spent years in research (neurology and music) wrinkling my nose at qualitative summaries and subjective studies. I appreciate the hard facts, the data, the numbers, because they're what truly quantify the effects of a study and yield predictable results. So what am I supposed to think when I know people who live by this voice and their lives are absolutely amazing? Everything they do, everyone they meet, everything they achieve, seems like magic. They are not living the "real life" as the rest of us know it. I've found myself on phone calls saying things like, “of course you received a call to go pursue your dream job on a tropical island. That’s what happens to people who are offered free accommodations on private yachts and asked out by their favorite celebrities”.  And then I’d realize what I just said - yet all of those things ARE realities in this person's iife. That is what I call magic. ​

Phone call after phone call with these friends would entail similar conversations. And it wasn't just the physical manifestations or the material pleasures they reaped, it was their overall energy and positivity towards life that seemed to me like the most magic of all.  Whenever I'd ask them how they got here or what was their life mantra, they'd answer that they live by being connected to this voice. Some called it inner wisdom or their connection to the life force, their intuition, the divine, the great spirit, the universal intelligence, God, Pussois. If it works for them, can it work for me? ​

After years of observing their experiences, and months of pondering this, I came to a conclusion. Whether it’s scientific or not, if living by this voice will improve my life then I want to live like that. 

​I am aware that I may not be able to suddenly start living by this voice, so I came up with a plan of a kind of bootcamp. For the next 3 days starting right now I will only operate from listening to and acting on the first thing that I "hear" or that comes to mind. I will meditate each morning for at least 20 minutes and set "hearing the voice" as my intention for each day. Throughout the 3 days I will program my phone to alarm me at 12 hour intervals so I can be reminded to listen for the voice and record my energy and happiness levels (some numbers to appease my inner scientist). I will rate my levels on a 1-10 scale self-assessment based on how energetic/happy I feel at that precise moment in time, with 10 being most energetic/happiest, and 1 being least energetic/unhappiest. To provide a comparison I took data the 2 days leading up to this experiment and found the averages for energy and happiness levels respectively were 2.1 and 2.6 on October 8th and 5.2 and 6.2 on October 9th.

I thought making this the debut of my blog would also help keep me accountable in this pretty major personal experiment. Stay tuned for tomorrow's findings.

​The very first LAB Light is: Hickory Ridge Organics Solid Body Butter

​The most amazing lotion I have ever put on my body.  (Men, they're not all heart-shaped.) It's a solid so it can travel anywhere with you in your carry-on! This lotion smells absolutely wonderful and hydrates better than any lotion I have ever…

​The most amazing lotion I have ever put on my body.  (Men, they're not all heart-shaped.) It's a solid so it can travel anywhere with you in your carry-on! This lotion smells absolutely wonderful and hydrates better than any lotion I have ever found.  And it feels amazing. This whole company is organic and absolutely brilliant. Best news is you can shop from them online. Too bad the internet can't display their mindblowing scents!

Luci Butler4 Comments