You might have seen them on screen, shuffling along, rotten bodies, mindless minds, driven only by the need to consume: they are zombies, the walking dead. Yet, does the rise in zombie movies and TV shows have anything to do with us feeling like zombies in our own way of life?
Can you relate to shuffling along, dragging your feet, your body, through the day, looking at everything with dead, dark eyes? Do you ever feel heavy and bloated, a little bit rotten, ‘blah’, off, seedy or putrid? Have you found yourself forgetting where you put the keys or suddenly streets away from where you last registered being on a drive or a walk? Has your home, your fridge, your wardrobe, your TV, become jammed with contents and yet you find yourself looking for more, mindlessly cramming more into spaces already full, or behaving in ways you know are just not you? Where are we when we live this dull, dead and mindless zombie way of life?
Equally, can you relate to having a bounce and a flow in your step, a twinkle in your eye, a lightness in your body? Have you found yourself in tune and easily moving through the demands of the day with everything you need, right where you need it? Do you know what it is like to just consume only what is needed – no more, no less – be it food, clothing, TV, texting, social media, news and information, things for the home, work, the garden, your car, travel, hair products or recreational activities? On these days there is no feeling of being one of the walking dead, just the livingness of being awake, alive and joyfully aware, present in body and mind and getting on with life.
I can certainly relate to both ways of being and have learnt from experience that unlike the TV zombies, a zombie way of life isn’t a permanent, irreversible condition. It is always a source of absolute amazement that our bodies transform, become revitalised and de-bloated, lithe instead of creaky, alive instead of dead, once we start to lessen the load we put on them from the way we eat, sleep, move and treat ourselves throughout the day. It is like we stop burying ourselves in food, work, consumables, worries, distractions from screens through to over-complicating our lives with busyness and chemicals in the form of alcohol, drugs, painkillers or pharmaceuticals, and let ourselves be.
We can shift out of the zombie-ness of our habits and patterns like eating too much, overdoing it, dragging ourselves out of bed and through the day, binging on TV, buying the un-needed things, isolating ourselves, staying at work too long, delaying going to bed or being too busy to exercise or socialise, too exhausted to bother with anything other than collapsing in a heap at the end of the day or, at the other extreme, smashing ourselves with a ‘work hard, party harder’ mantra, or simply living for wine-o-clock or the chance to munch our cares away.
From zombie to an alive and vital being sometimes takes a wake-up call, something to jolt us out of the stupor, the deadness we can live in for years when we give up and check out of life –– a health scare, relationship break-up, a loss or circumstance that clears a break in the fog and fuzziness of zombie existence. It doesn’t have to be dramatic though, it can be a simple inkling that there is more to life than feeling dead, hanging out for the next episode or season in a series, the next drink, meal or gadget, or just getting through the day so we can go back to bed. Following an inkling is what begins every evolution in life, shedding old habits and ways of being for ones that unfold the life we feel is at hand in those inklings.
There is more to us, underneath the less-ness we can live in with a zombie way of life.
The more we know how deeply we matter,
The easier it is to understand our purpose for being here.
For all our advances, we appear to have lost touch with a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in life to the point where we measure success by our possessions, achievements, bank balances and fame, not our aliveness, the sparkle in the eyes and the spring in the step that has nothing to do with having the latest iPhone, a ticked off to do list or all our ducks being in a row. It comes from the joy inside us – an essence we resist or surrender to, that runs through every particle of our Universe, connecting all of us in a flow that comes from an intelligence beyond what we consider ‘intelligence’.
Connecting to this essence that runs through everything all the time, we get to feel the inkling that there is more to life, that there is a livingness beyond the things that dull, deaden, diminish and deplete us – a way of life that is in tune, in sync, in flow and in rhythm with the ‘All’ of life and the Universe we are part of, down to our last particle.
We are part of something fathomless and purposeful and anytime we wake up from our zombie way of life it is there waiting for us to pick up where we left off, to re-join and live in the awareness of the absolute inter-connectedness and flow of life, knowing without doubt what so many ancient ones before us have said: that we are forever an integral, precious and divine part of something much bigger than ourselves.
By Adrienne Hutchins, B.Ed., Funeral Director, Brisbane, Australia
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Words on Serge Benhayon 
Exposing the level of corruption that is going on will bring a different reality to our mind set, so we can walk with Joy in our hearts❤ and eliminate the zombie life style that is so prevalent today!
“The more we know how deeply we matter, The easier it is to understand our purpose for being here.” – This is Gold and a great reminder for me!
This blog reminds me of Groundhog Day (the movie) – and it as if the moment we go to being a zombie the day just keeps repeating itself, until such time that we embrace the day in all it has to offer to us….and when we work with the presence, the appreciation and the grace of each and every day, then only does the day allow itself to complete and a new day dawns, not new in terms of new things happening, but new in terms of the quality that we can bring to the day.
Henrietta interestingly I have the same feeling that we are all living in ‘ Groundhog Day’ until we change the way we are in life. If we resist the change that is on offer we will keep repeating the same mistakes until that part of us gives in and starts the return back to who we are in truth.
A ‘wake-up call’ is a common way for some of us to be roused out from the zombie way of life we may not have realised that we had adopted…For example finding out that we have cancer or a condition that indicates that we only have a short time to live, or nearly losing a loved one or a relationship – these can be ways that we suddenly revive, breath deeper and begin to appreciate, enjoy and open our eyes so much more…. But why is it that we wait for a crisis point before we act this way?
Reconnecting to the true purpose of life brings a vitality to every move we make.
‘The more we know how deeply we matter, The easier it is to understand our purpose for being here.’ True, when we don’t value ourselves we just keep going ‘doing good’ to get recognition, no purpose in sight. Only getting exhausted as day in day out we fight with what is natural to us, our true worth and uniqueness.
It pretty much sums up the lifelessness people are in, even little kids wander around now slumped and checked out. Our new God is the phone which we give all of our attention too and do everything for. We crave connection but connect to people behind the wall of texting and social media, or alcohol. The way life is can only be described as a mess, on the outside it might look ok, but inside there is lifelessness and disarray. We are definitely not living with an aliveness, vitality, exuberance, or joy.
I am feeling this more and more ‘We are part of something fathomless and purposeful’ and it is truly beautifull to feel.
It is very simple to live in one way or the other. However when you’re a zombie it seems that being alive is such a hard slog, and it can be, as we’ve little energy to function let alone anything else. But each little step to wake up fuels the next step and it is totally possible to come out of that lull.
“Following an inkling is what begins every evolution in life” We have been attached to the creaking revolutions of the escalator that takes us no where except around and around for so long but when we feel the inkling to find another way we know we are returning to the glory of where we came from.
Life as we know it comes in many flavours and when we understand that we can develop a True-relationship with our essences then we are seeing life in all it’s Joy.
This is such a great blog as I do wonder if we are aware just what a reduced life we are living to the point as you say we are just getting through the day by indulging in all the numbing ways we have devised so we can go back to bed and check out by sleeping. How many of us have taken the time to stop and wonder why we live this way and is there a way out of this existence? There is a seed in all of us that knows there is another way, deep within us we know there has to be more to our lives than the rot we are currently living in. We will live the same day every day until we say we have had enough and mean it. When that day comes then the changes can be made, as changes can only be made through free will.
Unfortunately when the majority of us question the way that we’re living we use the same source of energy as the source of energy that we were using to live the life that we’re now supposedly questioning. What this then means is that any changes that we subsequently make, however radical will come from exactly the same source of energy as our previous lifestyle choices and so although our life may appear very different, it’s energetic origins will be the same. What I have found is that I have been able to switch from being sourced by the pranic consciousness to the fiery consciousness by slowly making different choices, quite literally one more loving choice at a time. My migration has been slow and steady but my life has transformed forever as have my subsequent lives hereafter.
“Rotten bodies, mindless minds, driven only by the need to consume” – this is just such an accurate description of us in this modern world. ‘Consume’ doesn’t necessarily have to mean buying things, but to expend, to destroy, to use up. This does not have to be a permanent state, thank God, but then again, it is a choice, like any other, we all have to make for ourselves.
It’s as if we’re fuelled by an insatiable need to not feel the truth of what our bodies are showing us. It’s the same as when we don’t want to hear something and we stick our fingers in our ears and go ‘la, la, la, la’, the moment you stop then you hear what you’ve been avoiding hearing; same with us we can’t stop distracting ourselves because the moment that we do we’ll get to feel what we’ve been fervently trying to avoid. The ridiculous thing is that the pain of what we’ve been avoiding is nothing compared to the pain of how we’re living.
Buying the un-needed things. I can so relate to this one (although I can relate to others as well including having a bounce and a flow to my step), this last month I have really been looking at not buying un-needed things and it feels so much simpler, lighter and clearer and saves money!!! What we have or accumulate affects us energetically and I am really feeling this more and more.
Thank God that opting for the Zombie way of life is not a permanant and irreversible condition! We can make the choice at any point to discard the zombie approach and begin to truly live.
Love the humour in this blog Adrienne, and also the humour in the fact that you are writing about zombies and the living dead, and you are a funeral director – a very fitting story about life and death. Thank you!
We are a bit like the living dead when we walk around with no skip in our step and no sparkle in our eyes. But the great thing about this blog is that it showing us that what we think might be a ‘normal’ way to live due to so many people living like that (like zombies as we are so checked out), is actually not our norm. That is not to say that we should be living a fake facade with smiles pasted on our faces all the time – but that it is our ‘natural and normal’ to have vitality and a joy for life. Yet how many of us live this every day with consistency? I know I don’t do it as much as I could! Ok time to leave the zombie world behind and join the living.
I am becoming acutely aware of the check out moments. I joke about it being dementia or related to my hormones, but there is no question that it is a choice to not be present in my body and my life.
I see them daily; watching something on their screen, shuffling along, mindless of the people around them, driven by a need to consume; they are called commuters.
We seem to have created a consumerist way of life, focusing on everything outside of ourselves, technology, gadgets, achievements, products and goods, instead of ever present shining light within ourselves that comes from living the essence of who we are. The fact we say at times that life is ‘soul-less’ is very true, as the soul is where our true essence of joy and love comes from.
The old joke about if you want to see the dead come back to life just wait till quitting time, or is it an observation of the rut we have chosen to exist in?
Great point Steve! It is a classic one where when people choose to see work as a 4 letter word, the moment they are out of work, they feel like they ‘free’ and alive again!
Isn’t that a tragedy when we see work as 9-5, a way of getting by to pay the bills and have some form of security. Someone has just joined our team and they have that attitude, it feels as though they are only with us until they can find something else to do, as they give off this air of depression and not wanting to be at work. Which is such a huge shame as they are missing out on the fun to be at work and to be with a great bunch of people.
It can be very easy to get caught in this kind of ‘checked out’ state at any time. The key is to bring our focus to everything we do, at any one time. The difference between these two states is quite incredible.
Sometimes we are more likely to be concerned about our pet not having a sparkle in it’s eye than we are if we ourselves have lost that twinkle.
I have for a while felt a tension within me that there’s more to live. The next step is to listen to it.
I feel we have forgotten that we are part of the universe and have instead reduced ourselves to a zombie like way of life out of rhythm to the universe we are such an integral part of.
When I remind myself I am part of the universe and really feel that in my body, my eyes shift to see life so differently.
Consuming only what is needed, whether that be material goods or food and drink, is a very liberating way to live and definitely puts a spring into one’s step.
I had 100% chocolate yesterday and was bouncing off the walls. It made me realise that this type of energy was zombie food. To have enough ‘get up and go’ if in a zombie state. Also how the energy from my essence is not disturbing to the body and how much I rely on that more these days.
I couldn’t let this comment slip by Leigh because what you have shared is massive – that you ate chocolate and felt the disturbance in your body. Is it possible that this is why people eat it as the sugar content keeps them going and they derive comfort or pleasure from eating it? But if we live from our essence, which is not disturbing to our bodies and resides in all of us, there is a natural energy that the body produces that does not have us bouncing off the walls. The more we live from our essence the less we need or want sugar or caffeine as an artificial stimulation to keep us going. Has anyone stopped to consider what effects artificial stimulation has on our bodies?
Have you ever been in deep in thought when walking and someone replies to you, Don’t worry it may never happen! Or, the days you drive to work and don’t remember the journey? Our mind can become a maze that we can get lost in that leaves us on the outside looking like an empty vessel!
Great comment Steve and so true,”Our mind can become a maze that we can get lost in”, I’ve experienced this many times even walking in a beautiful place in nature like by the ocean and being unable to enjoy it because I’m stuck in the maze!
Separation is the deepest isolation we can choose, something we should have never done in the first place.
I know that feeling well – particularly when you are snapped out of the zombie like reverie because you missed doing something, did not follow up, was not concentrating in a conversation. A totally different feeling to being bright and engaged with the world and all around.
Yes, it’s an awful feeling to realise you have been on auto-pilot and don’t know what has been running you!
I can so relate to both ways! Dipping in and out of both. I now spend less time in the zombie zone as it’s pointlessness has become so obviously pointless! Life lived in this side of the tracks is so dead and the other side is so alive and vibrant it makes no sense to get stuck in zombie land.
Yes and we have opportunities to change the way our bodies move and how we nurture it to bring us out of the zombie way of life and step into the engaged connection that is always available to us and offers vibrancy and connection. It is a no-brainer really!
Lucy, this is key – the choice of movement in terms of the quality that can bring us back in an instant….or the hardness that we can move in that takes us away immediately too.
You are lost but you may not notice it because all your movements leading to that point prepared you to feel this is just a natural state of being. You aimed (perhaps unconsciously to some degree) at reducing life to a point where things are what they are and the dramas and dilemmas all fit within that point. This reduction may not be seen as such by many but reduction remains. When it is way too obvious you may stand out and people can see it. The art of reducing may be exercised in measures we decide upon. The ´good´ thing about this. Is that many of your observers also exercise it so you may remain part of the flock for a while. And that is the problem. There is no one pulling you up, saying anything to you that makes you stop because there is always someone who likes the game you are playing and tag along, bringing you the comfort you need to keep this otherwise utterly uncomfortable game going.
Definitely Eduardo, fitting into the crowd is worse when you are living life dialled down but perfectly acceptable to the crowd. The desire to fit in is so strong in me that I totally understand the desire for the protection it affords but the cost to you is enormous in real quality of being terms.
For many years there was no one to making us aware we were living a reduced life, no one pulling us up asking us to reconsider our actions or choices and the impact they have on our bodies and everyone around us. And when somebody does come along and suggest that there is another way to live; a life of expansion and joy they are ridiculed because we have got use to the comfort that a reduced way of life brings us we don’t want anyone to rock our comfortable boat.
Gosh so well said Eduardo “You are lost but you may not notice it because all your movements leading to that point prepared you to feel this is just a natural state of being. “It’s not until someone comes along and just asks a seemingly innocent question that starts the avalanche of realisation that the way we have been living is a total sham. Thank heaven literally that there are people who have the means to pull us up so that we can feel the rot we have allowed into our lives by going to sleep as it were.
As you say Adrienne a way of life is not a permanent way of living we can change it at any stage for the better or worse it’s just a choice away.
The morning commute, when driving requires some awareness if nothing less than spatial and the autopilot does the rest. But, what about public transportation that is full of zombies waiting to alight. Why are these both, moments in the day that are considered dead periods that allow us to check out?
It is actually frightening being on a bus or a tube when you don’t use them often, they have always seemed to be places to check out but now with everyone glued to their phones it is even worse and there is even less connection with each other.
The sad thing is there is hardly ever any conversation between people we don’t know any more. I have always spoken to people on the bus or at the bus stop but these days it’s getting harder because people are more interested in their phones. Just recently I was on the tube and a guy sat opposite me and he was glancing at his book and I asked him what the book was about and we started a conversation. The atmosphere in that section of the tube changed, everyone became engaged and was interested and others joined in.
I’ve even seen someone horse riding glued to their phone – I am glad the horse seemed to know where it was going!
Reducing life to be just three-dimensional, what we may call human, mundane, worldly, everyday routine, functioning means living in a zombie state; only with the spark of multidimensionality we lighten up to who we are, the divinely sparkling beings who make human life superhuman.
Also by feeling your purpose you feel the qualities you specific bring.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the casualty numbers have risen due to the number of people on their phones while walking. On my way to the tube in north London, there is this narrow bridge to cross with a very busy road and you can barely fit two people on the sidewalk, but some decide to walk and text and stumble along without realising that any stumble off the pavement could mean having a collision with a motor vehicle.
It really is true sometimes it feels like walking through a zombie movie… And so it behoves us all when we reconnect with that which inspires and enlightens us, to reflect this back out into the world.
Most of us are shuffling our way through life, living by rote, including those who see themselves as ‘go-getters, suped up athletes and champions of the future’. My reference to ‘shuffling’ applies to the energetic source that fuels us, not to our personal ‘output’. If we are fuelled by the pranic consciousness then we’re shuffling through life regardless of how quickly we seem to move or how much we’re seen to produce and if we’re connected to the fiery consciousness then we’re moving mountains even though we may not be seen to be doing very much.
I’ve felt like a zombie recently waking up with sinus pressure in the mornings. I have no energy or interest in life and yet mornings are my favourite part of the day. When I can I love waking up before the sun and starting my day. But which one I experience (sinus zombie or bright and alive) is dependant on my choices made throughout the day and how much I am willing to be sensitive and feel.