Life Can Be a Game, but It’s Usually a Test. I don’t mean life in an objective sense, but rather our experience of it and how we interpret reality, behave, and make choices.
“Test consciousness” is the mindset we live in when, alongside the desire to fulfill our goals, passions, and dreams, we are driven by the need to feel worthy, desired, loved, accepted, valued, attractive, and wanted.
This consciousness can manifest in all areas of life – friendships, romantic relationships, sexuality, work, and even our relationship with our bodies. When things go as we want, we feel good, as if we’ve passed the test. When they don’t, we feel unworthy, unwanted, unloved, rejected, abandoned, not good enough, unattractive, and undesired – in other words, as though we’ve failed. What happens in our reality becomes a test of our self-worth, our right to exist, and our right to live as we choose.
In contrast, “play consciousness” is free from tests. We live in this state when we are driven by self-confidence, without needing to assess whether we are wanted, worthy, loved, attractive, or accepted. Play consciousness is the state we live in when we know our own value; when we are at peace with ourselves – our abilities and limitations; when we understand that not every desire or dream will come to fruition; and when a desire or dream isn’t fulfilled, we know it’s not because there’s something wrong with us.
Transitioning from test consciousness to play consciousness is the essence of personal development. The more we heal our wounds, fill the voids within us, and strengthen the internal validation we lack, the more we can live our lives without treating reality as a test. Fulfillment of desires and realization of dreams becomes easier, more intriguing, and surprising. As we heal ourselves, we have fewer fears, guilt, and inhibitions, and more determination, enthusiasm, curiosity, and creativity.
This perspective, which I am sharing here, emerged for me sometime in the past two weeks. During a session I received, in conversation, I suddenly understood things this way.
Since then, I’ve been looking at myself and the people I work with from this viewpoint: What feeling (unworthy, undesirable, unattractive, unloved, etc.) are we trying to change by altering our reality (body, money, work, relationships)?
When I attempt to change feelings through changing reality, I’m in test consciousness. Then, whatever happens or doesn’t happen confirms what I’ve always “known” about myself, or it helps me feel differently for a moment.
Sometimes, changing our behavior or reality can help shift our feelings. However, if we seek deep and stable change, we must recognize that altering reality alone isn’t enough. Even if we succeed in changing reality temporarily and thus our feelings, eventually, we will encounter those painful feelings we set aside.
Living in test consciousness, we invest a great deal of energy trying to both fulfill ourselves and prove ourselves – to ourselves and/or to others. In play consciousness, focused solely on self-fulfillment, we expend much less energy, reach our goals with greater ease, and most importantly, enjoy them far more.
