The Art of Living Consciously

One of my heroes died this week, Nathaniel Branden. He was 84.

A longtime psychotherapist and the man who turned Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy into a popular intellectual movement, Branden was a leading authority on self-esteem. He pioneered the field more than 40 years ago with his many books, including Honoring the Self and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.

Branden believed that self-realization – realizing the best within you – is the noblest goal of your existence. He called it "living consciously."

This is not pop psychology. Branden was a serious thinker who argued that true satisfaction and peace of mind are only found when our values, interests, goals and behavior are all in alignment.

A young father, for instance, may say that his relationship with his children is a high priority and watching TV is a low priority. But if he spends several hours a week in front of the tube and much less time interacting with his kids, his values and behavior are out of whack. The result – among other consequences – is a feeling of disharmony.

Living consciously requires taking a close look at your life and perceiving your situation clearly. It means opening yourself to the possibility of errors in your thinking. Indeed, it requires an eagerness to discover your mistakes, candor about admitting them and a willingness to correct them.

This isn’t always easy. By the time we reach adulthood, many of our thoughts and beliefs have crystallized. Having discovered and settled on "the truth," many of us aren’t interested in exposing ourselves to contradictory evidence or opposing points of view.

Yet living consciously means accepting that whatever is, is. Our desires don’t obliterate uncomfortable facts about the way things are. No matter how much we may wish things were different, reality is intransigent. Acknowledging this is part of growing up.

Conscious living also means being present to what you are doing while you are doing it. When you are in the office, you focus on your work, not the golf course. When you are playing golf, you concentrate on your game rather than fretting about business. When you are playing with your grandkids, you are not mulling over the real estate contract on your desk or reflecting on the last homeowner’s meeting. You are aware, open and receptive to the present moment. This is a challenge for all of us.

Conscious living also entails finding creative solutions to our problems. And Branden developed a fascinating way to uncover them: sentence completion exercises.

It’s a simple but powerful technique to expand personal effectiveness. The procedure requires you to take a sentence stem and write down six to 10 endings rapidly, without pausing to think. There is no censoring your thoughts or worrying about whether a particular ending is reasonable or significant. The objective is to generate insights by avoiding inhibitions and quickly jotting down whatever enters your mind.

For example, the sentence stem "If I bring 5% more consciousness to my work-" might generate responses like:

"I’d learn more about my business."
"I’d procrastinate less."
"I’d think more about my priorities."
"I’d spend less time on email."
"I’d stay focused on important issues."

The idea is to increase your awareness, change your behavior and improve your results. Imagine, for example, how your business might change if you gave six to 10 reflexive answers to these sentence stems:

"If I think about how I set my priorities-"
"If I want to have a more effective team-"
"If I look at how I spend my time-"
"If I want my employees to trust and admire the company-"
"If I want to keep a customer for life-"

Branden provided more examples and describes this practice in detail in his classic book The Art of Living Consciously. What most surprises me about these exercises is how quickly and efficiently they reveal exactly what you need to do. Nobody has to tell you. You already have the answers, right below the surface of your distracted mind.

The beautiful thing about Branden’s technique is how it works in virtually every area of life. For example, it’s hard to imagine someone who wouldn’t benefit from completing these stems:

"If I commit myself to raising my standard of living-"
"If I approach my work as an opportunity for self-development-"
"If I take full responsibility for my choices and actions-"
"If I am fully accountable for my relationships with others-"
"If I reflect on what it means to use everything I know-"
"If I bring 5% more consciousness to my daily activities-"

Branden called this technique "a shot of adrenaline to the psyche" and it’s tough to disagree.

He even used sentence completion exercises in relationship counseling. Branden typically asked each partner to tell him what might be hard about being married to him or her. He then has them face each other and complete such stems as:

"One of the ways I can be difficult is-"
"Sometimes I can be frustrating when I-"
"Sometimes I make you angry when-"
"Sometimes I hurt you when-"
"One of the things you want from me and don’t always get is-"

No one likes having someone else point out his or her personal shortcomings. But when you cough them up yourself, it can be pretty enlightening.

He also counseled that couples can increase their feeling of intimacy by completing these stems:

"One of the things we enjoy about each other is-"
"One of the things we have in common is-"
"I appreciate it when you-"
"I feel especially loved when you-"
"I feel most connected to you when-"

In his practice, Branden found that couples who remain deeply in love over many years operate at a high level of mindfulness. Instead of taking each other for granted, they communicate respect and caring, even in situations where they cannot accommodate.

Individuals who don’t live consciously, on the other hand, tend to be bored, conflicted, burned-out, anxious, unhappy in their careers and disappointed in their relationships. Unfortunately, they seek the causes outside themselves. This conveniently absolves them of responsibility – and prevents them from discovering the truth.

Branden even theorized that one of the reasons we fear death is our secret knowledge of how incompletely we have lived. The solution? Greater consciousness.

This means harmony between what we profess and what we do. It’s about living purposefully rather than just drifting through life. It means identifying what is important, recognizing your possibilities, honoring and fighting for your highest potential.

In Self-Esteem Every Day, Branden writes that conscious living "is a noble pursuit, even a heroic one… to strive for greater clarity of perception and understanding, to move always in the direction of heightened mindfulness, to revere truth above the avoidance of fear or pain is to commit ourselves to spiritual growth – the continuing development of our ability to see."

Carpe Diem,

Alex