Regina Leffers, Ph.D.

Each one of us is living from within a facet of consciousness that has its own perspective, and just like looking through a specific pair of glasses, the facet determines how we see, experience, and interpret the world. Consciousness is experienced in the body; it is not just an intellectual concept.

We move into and through facets of consciousness as we respond to different life conditions, which have unique problems that need to be solved. Each facet is developmentally important in its own right. In order for us to be healthy human beings, each facet is essential for us to grow into, learn how to solve the problems we encounter, and take those skills and strengths with us into other areas of life.

Inside of each facet, and in every area of life we make a choice to live from love or to live from fear at any given moment in time. Because of that, each chapter on the individual facets in the book, “What Is Consciousness?” begins with a statement about what love is and what fear is when experienced from the inside of that facet. This may become a powerful rubric for you to use in your exploration of consciousness, especially if you develop the ability to feel love and fear in the body.

Imagine consciousness as an aspect of the unseen world that is formless and fills all existent space. We are born inside of this potentiality of consciousness and our movement in it is fluid, interactive, sometimes playful, and sometimes difficult. There are no hard lines between facets of consciousness. Even as we live and develop ourselves primarily in one facet, we will likely have flashes of insight, experience of, and access to knowledge from other facets of consciousness.

Here is a quick overview of love and fear from within each facet of consciousness. We move from least expanded, in which we include just a small part of existence in our conception of who we are, to most expanded, in which we include all of existence in our definition of who we are in every area of life. Think of us as elastic bands of consciousness that increases in dimensionality and elasticity as we grow. Even though I’m describing the facets of consciousness here as if they are distinct, keep in mind that it is just for ease of communication. Inside of our real experience, they are more like relatively identifiable clumps of growth in life that bump into each other in both fluid and chaotic ways.  Facets of consciousness intersect with life conditions and areas of life to create clusters of learning experiences.

Facets of Consciousness Quick Sheet

1. From within the Survive facet of consciousness, the life conditions presented require us to solve very basic problems: the need for food, shelter, clothing, safety, and security. Love is experienced as the feeling of having enough of what I need. Fear is of the unknown and feelings of scarcity in any area of basic need. Once we’ve experienced not having enough of something, fear is always present in the background. It is most often experienced as an unnamed feeling of anxiety in the gut.

2. The life conditions presented from within the Belong facet of consciousness require us to develop feelings of belonging to a group/family/religion/ culture. Love is experienced as feelings of belonging and loyalty. Fear is the possibility of being cast out or shunned by the group. Fear is present in the background of consciousness if we express disloyalty to the group, or if we observe another member of the group being cast out or shunned.

3. The life conditions presented from within the Individuate facet of consciousness require us to do the work of individuating, most commonly from our parents, or the people who have raised us. Love is the experience of feeling the freedom and independence we achieve by doing this individuation work. Fear is the experience of feeling dependent on and perhaps controlled by our parents. Fear is almost always present in the background and it looks like bravado.

4. The life conditions presented from within the Comply facet of consciousness require us to learn and adopt the rules of our family/culture/society/ religion/the road. The rules we adopt include our immediate culture’s moral and ethical guidelines for behavior. Love is the experience of loyalty and adapting ourselves to fit the rules of acceptable behavior we’ve learned—we want to be good. Fear is of the experience of losing acceptance and connection to our family/group/culture if we don’t comply with the rules.

5. The life conditions presented from within the Re-individuate & Risk facet of consciousness require us to think about the rules we adopted in the Comply facet, decide which of those rules no longer align with our core selves, and let go of them. In this facet, we become more self-referential. Love is the experience of feeling increasing empowerment, creativity, and willingness to take risks. Fear is of the possibility that I’ll lose whatever is important to me because I’m stepping away from what is acceptable to my family/group/culture.

6. Within the Care & Empathy facet of consciousness our core self expands in such a way that we come into a felt sense of relatedness to a larger community than we had previously identified as ours. We grow to care about all human beings as deeply as we care about those who belong to our family/group/etc. We grow to care about all biological creatures as deeply as we care about our own dogs or cats. And we grow to care about the living earth as deeply as we care about our own back yards. Love expands in to the experience of care and empathy. Fear is the experience of feelings of being overwhelmed and inadequate.

When we’re living from within the initial six facets of consciousness, we think there is only one correct way to see or do something, and that is the way in which we see or do it!And then, in some area of life, we move from Subsistence existence to Being. This move is from trying to be enough, have enough, care enough, work enough, to knowing that we are enough, that no matter how much we have, care, or work, it is enough. Being means that we have a relatively continuous felt sense of the connectivity of all that is and stay conscious in the present moment much more often than not.

7. When we’re functioning primarily from Integrate & Be Authentic, we have thought deeply about our own beliefs and values and have integrated and live from them. Living authentically, being true to our Core Self is most important to us. Our values are derived from the realization and felt sense of the profound connectivity of all things—from the Wholeness of Life itself. We see Life and consciousness as an interconnected Whole and appreciate the strengths and skills we develop in every facet of consciousness. Love is the experience of connectivity and authenticity. We understand with the heart and work with purpose. We never take action from fear. As soon as we recognize fear, we acknowledge, thank, and transmute it.

8. From within Be Oneness we experience our self and all of life as Oneness-of-Being, and the actions we take, the choices we make, even the thoughts we think, take this underlying connectivity of All-That-Is into consideration. Love is the felt sense experience of Oneness of Being, including the seen and the unseen world. Fear is felt as any disruption of this experience of Oneness. As soon as it is recognized, it is transmuted.

9. Within the Be Creation facet of consciousness we experience everything-that-is as Sacred. Everything. There is no difference between the seen and unseen world. Love and Fear are simply parts of the whole. Neither one is personal. They are part of creation and are not identified as separate.