Learning to See the Curriculum 7/27/26

I have been thinking a lot lately about beliefs, and specifically about the way we are taught to sort them into categories of right and wrong. That is such a deeply Western way of thinking, isn’t it? We want to know which belief is correct, which one is incorrect, which person has the truth, and who is tragically misinformed. We are so accustomed to this duality, but I am beginning to wonder whether beliefs are not always best understood as right or wrong. Even using the terms helpful and harmful is still dualistic, of course, and I’m not replacing one set of opposites with another. But sometimes a little shift in language creates a little breathing room. Instead of asking, “Is this belief correct or right?” I can ask, “What is this belief creating in my life? Is it helping me move toward love, freedom, health, purpose, and connection? Or is it keeping me trapped in fear, shame, limitation, and repetition?” This question feels more valuable to me.

I recently heard someone describing human consciousness as a kind of dimensional evolution. He talked about moving from 3D consciousness into 4D and eventually 5D consciousness. I have no idea whether this is literally what is happening, and I am not trying to offer us a scientific diagram of the universe, but the concept resonates with me. It makes me curious, and sometimes curiosity is enough to open a door. In the framework he described, animal consciousness revolves largely around their immediate environment. They experience life directly, but they are not necessarily sitting around wondering about the meaning of life, analyzing their attachment styles, or developing a five-year growth plan. Humans developed another layer of consciousness: self-awareness, abstract thought, awareness of mortality, and the ability to reflect on our own experiences.

He suggested we may be moving into another stage: heart consciousness, where we begin to recognize our unity with everything. We become less convinced that we are completely separate beings competing for survival and more capable of sensing that we belong to something larger. What interested me most was the idea that when we are completely immersed in a level of experience, we cannot fully see it. We are inside the material, not looking at the pattern; we are living the pattern.

There is a psychological concept that relates to this: the movement from subject to object. When something is subject, it has us. It shapes the way we see the world, but we cannot yet see it clearly. When it becomes an object, we can observe it, question it, and relate to it differently. I love that idea. There are things we are living inside so completely that we do not even recognize them as things. They simply feel like our reality. They feel like us because we identify with them. Then, at some point, awareness begins to change our perspective.

I think of a child with a beloved stuffed animal or security blanket. When the child is small, it may feel completely enmeshed with this item, almost like sleep or safety is impossible without it. Then the child grows, and eventually the blanket becomes an object from the past rather than an essential part of their identity. It may still be loved, but it no longer holds the same power because the child has developed within themselves what the object once provided. A good example from my own life is food; it has been like that for me for a long time. I was using it for comfort, reward, relief, connection, or a break from the pressures of being human. My body has been giving me very clear feedback that I need to change the environment I have created. That has meant changing the way I eat, which is difficult because food is woven into nearly every form of celebration, family, hospitality, and connection. It is at the birthday party, the holiday, the airport, the road trip, and the dinner where someone says, “I made this especially for you.” Suddenly, you are not just making a nutritional decision; you are navigating love, gratitude, belonging, guilt, pleasure, and the desire not to become the difficult woman carrying a mushroom bun in her purse to the family dinner. Although sometimes you do become the woman carrying the mushroom bun. That is part of the curriculum. I am learning that growth requires more than intellectual understanding. First, you have to listen deeply, like a knock on the door to your inner knowing, and then become willing to see another way. I am learning to hold my focus and keep returning to what I am trying to create, even when the cookie has made an extremely compelling argument.

The obstacle is not separate from the process; the obstacle is the working material. The craving, the loneliness underneath it, the family dinner, and the belief that we cannot change are all part of this curriculum. I am not getting it right one hundred percent of the time, but I can feel myself ratcheting upward: moving forward, slipping, catching, and moving forward again. Practices like kundalini, yoga, qigong, therapeutic work, and spiritual reflection help me bring the insight into my body, where the pattern can begin to lose its grip. That is the deeper shift. Sugar may still be present, just as the old stuffed animal may still be loved, but it no longer has to define me, soothe me, or control me. It can become an object I relate to consciously, from a distance, instead of something I identify with.

When I can create distance between myself and a habit or belief, I can ask whether I want to keep carrying it. Does this belief serve me? Does it help me become more loving, courageous, generous, creative, and alive? Or does it keep me circling the same small territory? This doesn’t mean that I replace every difficult belief with a shiny affirmation. It means I become more conscious of the realities I am continually living. Because what we focus on expands, not necessarily because every thought manifests into physical form, but because our attention organizes our actions and our experience. What we rehearse becomes more available. What we repeatedly name becomes more central. What we continually identify with begins to feel like the whole truth.

The invitation is not to deny reality. This is where the idea of being “in the world but not of the world” makes sense for me. I do not think it means rejecting the physical world. We can love beauty, flavor, touch, celebration, laughter, and all the strange, magnificent sensations that come with being alive. But I do not want to become imprisoned by them. Everything in the material world is finite. Our bodies change. Beauty changes. Status disappears. Money fluctuates. Possessions break. Relationships transform. Roles end. The things that once made us feel powerful can lose meaning overnight. And the real crux of it is that we cannot take any of it with us in the end. This does not make life meaningless. It actually makes it more meaningful because we get to explore the way we relate to life.

Sometimes I think of Pinocchio on Pleasure Island. Everything looks like freedom to him upon arrival. There is endless stimulation, indulgence, entertainment, and escape. With the appearance of no rules, limits, or consequences. At first, it looks amazing, but he begins to lose himself. Pleasure Island is not evil because pleasure is evil. Pleasure Island is only dangerous because the stimulation there becomes a substitute for inner guidance, or it illuminates where inner guidance is lacking. The characters believe they are becoming free while they are actually becoming less conscious, less human, and less connected to their hearts. Our modern Pleasure Island is everywhere: endless scrolling opportunities, constant consumption, the approval of the masses or status quo, appearance, achievement, sex, entertainment, shopping, etc. The next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. The question becomes, “If I continue chasing this stimulation, will I eventually feel empty?” The pleasure fades, and then I’ll need another hit of something. Another dessert. Another purchase. Another achievement. Another person to reflect back the version of myself I am trying to believe exists.

And this is also a way to distinguish between ego and soul. When something is driven by ego, the satisfaction often does not last. The ego says, “Once you look good enough, then you will be enough. Or once you achieve this, then you will be safer. Once everyone understands you, then you can relax.” But the goal posts and the finish line keep moving. The important lesson is that the soul is not asking me to prove that I deserve to exist. It is asking me to express what I already am and the purpose I came here to live out: thus the term soul-searching. The soul creates. The ego consumes. The ego asks, “What can I get from this?” The soul asks, “What am I here to bring into this reality?” That is the shift I feel myself being invited into: from consumer to creator.

I can keep kicking the can down the road. I can keep clinging to the stuffed animals of my life, insisting they are the source of my safety. I can wait for some major event to strip away the illusion that I am in control. Sometimes life taps us on the shoulder. It gives us a persistent symptom, a gray season, a repeating relationship pattern, or a craving we can no longer pretend is only about food. If we receive the curriculum like this and recognize it’s a gift that could prevent a later, more tragic wake-up call, then we can work with it consciously.

I am in the lessons. I am not writing this from the other side, feeling polished and complete. I am writing from inside the classroom, but I can see the curriculum now. It’s an object that I am working with rather than something I am fatally identified with. And for some reason, that awareness has ignited a spark in me. It makes me feel that I am stepping into my next chapter. It makes me feel closer to a concept of god or the infinite. Like pure love, in the highest sense I can imagine. Maybe spiritual evolution is not about escaping this world. The world offers us an extraordinary space where we can become creators, bringing more of our essence and purpose into the world while we are here.