Hello My Charmed Ones!
Did you know that reading is considered to be one of the most universally acknowledged success habits?
Statistics are thrown around all the time about how many books millionaires and CEOs read in a year. It’s always something crazy like 4+ dozen!
I know for some people, that number seems intimidating. They say the average American reads less than one book per year.
But personally, I don’t believe that it’s the exact number of books read that really makes someone successful. What I think is a more accurate predictor of success is that you are someone who values ongoing education and the way that is most commonly and easily practiced is by reading.
That is why as part of the Productivity + Planning Mastermind Membership that I host, we have a bookclub where each month the members who are interested are able to read along with a book chosen by me that addresses an important productivity or personal development topic.
(If you are interested in being part of our bookclub and getting ongoing support from me to help you live out your own personal vision for success, I would love to have you join the Mastermind and my inner circle, so please do click here to learn more!)
So, I decided that in order to share the love of books and truly, the success habit of continuing your education through the enjoyment and curiosity of reading, I am starting a series here on the blog where I will share one of the books we have read in the Mastermind and provide my summary/feedback on the book.
I am calling this series #BOSS Bookshelf!
Today’s book will challenge you to question everything you think about yourself and the way you interact with the world; Conscious by Annaka Harris.
In order to streamline this review, I have an outline of seven questions I’ll be using to frame my summary and key points of the book.
Q1: What was your overall experience of the book?
I really resonated with this book because it combines many beliefs about science, metaphysics and the nature of our experience as humans, and challenges some fundamental assumptions humans have about ourselves. I specifically chose this book for January because as it is the start of a new year and goal setting season, I wanted to challenge your assumptions about yourself in a way that perhaps helps you see that there is no need for us to be so controlling, perfectionistic or set high expectations for ourselves. In this book the author is making a scientific argument for why we as humans may not be in as much control over our lives and actions as we believe.
Q2: What was something new you learned from the book?
There was really no completely new information presented in this book- it was all studies and information I have already encountered in other places, but what I really love is how Harris arranges this information so simply to support her argument. This isn’t an argument freely discussed or accepted in the scientific community, and from history we know that doesn’t mean the information is wrong- it simply means the overall scientific community is not willing to accept this idea because it would mean having to discount centuries of work and understanding that have brought us to this point. So, the newness of this book comes from the perspective and courage it takes to present inconvenient truths in a way that people are willing to consider and perhaps dig deeper into.
Q3: Where did you find yourself in alignment with the information shared in the book?
Now, I’m personally in alignment with the idea that we as humans, need to stop being so hard on ourselves about what we can and cannot accomplish because we definitely have less control over ourselves than we’d like to believe. In her research, Harris explains some studies that show that the impulse for making decisions happens without human consciousness, even though to our experience, it seems like we are actively making the decision. The natural next question in my mind is then, who or what is controlling us? There are some philosophies that use this information to support the idea that human life is similar to a video game where we are characters being played by some other entities, however, I think the answer, which Harris doesn’t really dig into, is that from conception, our neural net is crafted from early childhood experience, and once that net is set, our resulting actions are controlled by those dominant pathways. Dr Bruce Lipton, a notable child psychologist has for years suggested that the experience of a person by the age of 7 will determine the fate of the rest of their life. None of this is included in this book, however, I mention it to support the information Harris shares with us that there is evidence that we, as adults, may not be fully in control of ourselves because default networks in our brains that control the way we think and act based on our past experience in life. Therefore, if we want to make changes, we have to take steps to adjust our neural net as much as possible, which can be done, but only if we are willing to do and think outside of our comfort zones. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr Joe Dispenza is a great book that explains strategies for this!
I am personally also a believer in Panpsychism. If you recall, this is the belief that consciousness is a fundamental principle of all matter. Actually, I believe specifically that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all energy because matter is energy. To be part of this reality we share means that anything here is conscious. Yes, that means I believe rocks are conscious, water is conscious, my chair is conscious. But as Harris lays out in this book, there is a difference between consciousness and intelligence. I don’t think my chair is having active thoughts (it doesn’t have a brain to think with, it doesn’t have nerve endings to feel with) but I do believe it has it’s own type of life on this planet because it’s made of the same particles and basic matter I am made up of. There are protons and neutrons and electrons swirling around deep inside the fabric of my chair that are the same as mine, what they are arranging is just a different structure. Now I mention this because piggy backing off what we learned from reading The Alchemist, I believe that the universe itself is a conscious system that we can interact and manifest with. “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” There is even another part of The Alchemist where the actual Alchemist is talking to Santiago and says something to the effect of “you may have noticed that even the glasses in the shop were conspiring for your success.” If it is accurate that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all matter and energy, then this could explain how manifestation works. Our conscious energy and desires are able to interact with the consciousness of every other thing in the world to work together to achieve our ends.
Q4: Where did you find yourself resisting the information shared in the book?
In her discussion of panpsychism, Harris seems to argue for panpsychism and yet against the idea that rocks are conscious. Perhaps I read it wrong but I felt like she was being too delicate in navigating the issue as to not upset people or take a strong stand on one argument. I can understand that maybe she doesn’t want to influence people or look foolish by arguing that a rock has consciousness, but this is one of those situations with science where we don’t have enough technology or information yet to test the theory practically.
Q5: What new action or inspiration are you taking away from what you learned in the book?
Reading this book really just makes me feel like other people on on board with some of the metaphysical beliefs I have. Although the book didn’t teach me anything new per se, it did strengthen my resolve to continue researching this path and executing on practices that stem from my metaphysical beliefs because there is clearly more going on than we understand.
Q6: Which quotes from the book that stood out to you as impactful?
I have some notes written down from listening to the book and I’m not sure if these are direct quotes or they were my summary but I still wanted to share.
“Consciousness is not controlling the system it is experiencing and witnessing the system.”
“The conscious mind lacks of a mode of expression.”
“Psychedelics suggest consciousness survives the disappearance of the self.”
Q7: What were some new or interesting terminology you learned from the book?
Most of these terms were not new to me but I wrote them down as key vocab:
Consciousness is experience itself. What it’s like to be a particular thing.
Intuition is a feeling associated with our unconscious queues from our environment.
Umwelt is the world as it is experienced by a specific organism.
Panpsychism is the belief that consciousness is a fundamental principle of reality.
Emergence in philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors which emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Quale is our experience of a phenomenon
If you’ve read Conscious by Annaka Harris, I would love to know what your big takeaways were from the book, so please leave a comment and share your thoughts!
xoxo,