This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Way Of The Superior Man" by David Deida. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here .
What does it mean to awaken your consciousness? What steps can you take to reawaken your consciousness as a man?
In the book The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida says that there are five things men should do to awaken their consciousness. Without these practices, a man and his relationship will eventually stagnate and stop growing.
Keep reading for Deida’s five steps.
Regularly Rejuvenate and Reawaken Your Consciousness
The Superior Man pursues growth and encourages it in others, regardless of how uncomfortable the process may be for him.
In your daily lives, ensure you arrange for rejuvenating time, for yourself and your woman, to reawaken your consciousness. Without it, you’ll depolarize and rot in the stagnation of daily regularity.
What to Do:
1. Practice Austerity
Austerity is the practice of removing your comforts and embracing your suffering. Many of your pursuits are attempts to avoid suffering; watching TV, playing video games, eating sweets, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes. These activities are a blanket you wrap yourself in to avoid the suffering of boredom, loneliness, and fear. Your fear of death rests at the core of these pursuits; they distract you from the knowledge that you will eventually die. Your suffering arises from your attempt to resist that fear.
Instead, embrace that fear; participate in the sacrifice you were born to be; dissolve in the giving of your gift. Beyond your fear is a core of endless love; the knowledge of your unavoidable death, and the unavoidable deaths of others, is what motivates you to give, to love, and to fully live.
Challenge yourself with a commitment. For a week or two, give up your comforts. Remove everything around you that distracts you from all forms of suffering. Don’t watch movies, play games, or read while you sit on the toilet. Don’t disappear into daydreams and fantasies; remain fully present and conscious, and be aware of your discomfort. Sit on the floor and feel your boredom instead of avoiding it. Feel through your boredom to the core of fear that rests beyond it—fear that you’re wasting limited time. Feel through that fear to the core beyond—the boundless gift of love you yearn to share.
2. Face Your Fear
Challenge yourself by giving your gift in ways that are normally blocked by fear.
If you’ve always wanted to write a novel but have been blocked by fear, challenge yourself to write a chapter every week. Tell your friends that for every week you fail to meet your goal, you’ll give them $100.
Set up real consequences for avoiding your fear, so that you must surmount it. When your fear causes you to freeze in the middle of a mountain climb, it is the consequence of a death by falling that motivates you to push past it. Your consequences should be similarly dire—unless all you want is to cling to the comfortable safety net of your superficial pleasures.
3. Spend Time With Other Men
At least once a week, get together with other men and challenge each other. If you see that your friend is wasting his life, let him know. Accept the same level of criticism from him. Challenge each other in ways that will force you to improve, and set consequences for failure.
Alternate these kinds of get-togethers with celebrations. Include a challenge that keeps you all conscious and focused. Instead of indulging in shared comfort, make your celebrations a communion beyond fear. Challenge yourselves to swim together in ice-cold water, or to drink to the point of drunkenness and spend the rest of the night discussing the mysteries of existence without allowing anyone to drift away. Share your fullest gift with these men, and demand their fullest gift in return.
4. Encourage Your Woman to Spend Time With Other Women
In the same way you need masculine challenge and companionship, your woman needs feminine release and solidarity. She should spend time, every day, in open-hearted celebration with other women—dancing, singing, and laughing, fully releasing her mind from any obligation to be directed, controlled, or goal-oriented. In this way, she and her friends magnify each others’ feminine radiance. This is the balm that protects her feminine energy from depression, that rejuvenates her life energy, her sexual desire and enjoyment, and her upbeat disposition.
5. Allow Yourself to Be Utterly Released
The Superior Man understands that his core is love, that life is transient, and that nothing is so important that its loss is to be feared.
Allow yourself to be utterly released. In every moment, love through your woman and the world. Embrace every instant of your experience as a lover, and trust the direction in which love moves you. Give your gift so open-heartedly that you don’t even realize you’ve lost your need to be self-centered.
Fear is the final excuse that holds you back. Love through your fear, and let go of it.
———End of Preview———
Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of David Deida's "The Way Of The Superior Man" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full The Way Of The Superior Man summary :
- How to reclaim the passion in your relationship and enjoy true intimacy
- Why authenticity is the first key in becoming a superior man
- Why you should embrace your sexual polarity
