Starting in the 1970’s and following the wave of the LSD Revolution of the 1960’s, there was a movement of people to become more aware, awake if you will. In the 70’s it was referred to as “New Consciousness.” In the 1980’s, it was referred to as “New Age,” but by the turn of the 21st century, the terminology, “New Age,” had grown easily mocked and the people associated with it were considered to be a bunch of liberal-minded freeloaders who were all spaced out on too much meditation and not enough being human. When the rise of the Indigo Children theory hit mass markets around mid-1990’s, being “New Age” became even more ridiculed. As writers and movie makers talked about the magic abilities of the children who began birthing into this world around 1995, those who did not believe merely rolled their eyes, held up their hand, and declared, “Talk to the hand.” It was too much.
What I have noticed, though, is words from that movement have hung on in the communities of people who are focused on spiritual practices that are designed to enlighten them. Words like “conscious” and “high vibrational” and “magic” and “awareness” and “thriving” and “oneness” and “manifesting” and “guru” are all words that have spawned in popularity because of this movement, becoming the buzzwords used far too often in marketing. But the word “conscious” is the one that has caught my eye this week, mostly because it jumped out at me from my own website a couple days ago.
I’m going through a revamping of my life and, therefore, business, so I’ve taken everything down to the barebones here on my website. On my “About Angie” page, there is a very short blurb that used to read, “Angie K. Millgate is a master of transformation through the healing arts and the graphic arts. She provides space where others can remember their divinity and live from that awareness. Choosing to be fully alive and supporting others in doing the same, she is creating a long-lasting legacy of Love. She is a Reiki Master Teacher, workshop facilitator, public speaker, graphic designer, and internationally recognized published author and conscious artist.”
The last two words of it stopped me in my tracks. Conscious artist? What in the hell does that even mean?
My snarky self quickly quipped that it meant that I, apparently, create art while I am awake and somehow that, in and of itself, makes me super special. Not.
I was bothered by those two words. Something felt… well… superior about it. It felt laced with an energy that was actually not in alignment with me now. Maybe it had never been.
So, I began digging. Being “conscious,” according to Google is:
I looked a little deeper into the definition of “conscious” and discovered these definitions on dictionary.com:
These definitions gave me pause. “Conscious” is something that is a very internal experience, it seemed. It was very solo-focused, which meant it was something that could easily become self-centered in negative ways. While I understood what I meant at the time (I was following the trends based on what I was experiencing in my personal world) when I chose the title “conscious artist,” looking at it now made me roll my eyes and hold up my hand.
I immediately edited the page and sat there staring at it, wondering what word was supposed to be there to describe the type of art I do. The word that came to me was “intuitive,” which makes sense, because everything I do is intuitive. However, that is another buzzword that may be growing overused. I feel sad that many things that I be in this world have become marketing buzzwords. Some could say that just means I’m really cool. For me, it’s like my gifts and abilities, which are super cool, are suddenly vanilla in a marketing world that is hellbent on wringing all the beauty out of what this all truly means.
I sense that part of what is happening in the entrepreneur world with the overuse of the word “conscious,” specifically, is because they are trying to capture the essence of “consciousness,” a very different word:
If you look at the synonyms of the two words, you can see even more how the energy of these words is very different, according to thesaurus.com:
While being “conscious” is a lot about being awake, consciousness is more about awareness and I think that is actually what the core of the Spiritual New Age is about. Now, the thing is, “being awake” is part of the New Age movement and it has a very esoteric definition. Movies like The Matrix talk about taking a pill, which drops the binders so you can see the truth of your surroundings as a metaphor for the metaphysical process of “waking up.” To wake up, according to the New Age movement, means to spiritually understand your connection to everyone and everything.
So what is happening is, entrepreneurs – especially life coaches (which is a phenomenon of the New Age) – are brainstorming with their coaches who are guiding them to use the buzziest of buzzwords to capture their target audience: “conscious.” So, now you see titles like, “Conscious Marketing Strategist,” or “Conscious Business Coach,” or “Conscious Leader.” What those titles are telling you is that person is awake and somehow that sets them apart from the others.
It means they’re not asleep, so they have awakened, which is important in the New Age world. However, what it really is saying, by the definition of that word is that, as a Conscious Marketing Strategist, they are aware of themselves in marketing strategies, they are aware of their own surroundings in relation to marketing, they are painfully aware of marketing strategies.
Mostly, it means they are not in a coma.
If I want to market beyond the New Agers, I have got to talk a language that those beyond the New Agers understand. While I am not in a coma as I do my art, being a “conscious artist” means diddly-squat to someone who knows nothing about the New Age movement. It’s not really a strong selling factor because everyone assumes that payment is for services rendered and ya gotta be in non-coma status to render said services.
While I am fully awake (metaphysically and physically) while I create art, that is not marketable to people who don’t care about what color of pill they need to take so they can see the truth (it’s red, by the way). And unless I only want to talk to the people who have taken the red pill, I need to use earthbound language.
If you have no idea what that means, contact me.
