09 Jan Life is better when you’re awakened
How do you define yourself? By gender, age, status, money, work, culture, education, success or pain? Or something more, something greater? First and foremost, we are a soul expressing in a physical form. The one thing we all have in common is our humanity.
Self-awareness is the first stepping stone to discovering the ‘best, true, version of you.’ Learning to focus and direct your attention inward is a discipline, but once established it gives you insightful learning and growth.
When I first begin coaching or counselling with clients, it becomes quite apparent how unaware most people are when it comes to their own thought process. Your thoughts have great power over you positively and negatively, making it more relevant you have an awareness of what your thoughts are saying and how they’re influencing your life.
Being able to self observe is to practice focused concentration and then examine those thoughts without any analysis, judgement, bias or attachment towards oneself. This can also me called practising mindfulness. By mastering this mental skill, can also be of value to you by observing others, adding great insight for building better and more meaningful relationships.
When you are able to step back from your thoughts and observe them you can edit any thoughts that maybe leading you into a negative place, by simply changing the thought. Using this skill allows you, the observer self to effectively report back any thoughts, emotions and behaviours in a detached and unbiased manner. It empowers you to make better choices and decisions, providing greater possibilities and opportunities and greater results.
The benefits of mastering self-awareness are many. By providing more clarity and objectivity this improves communication and removes the personalisation and self-criticism which will only encourage more destructive and negative outcomes. Because the process is emotionally neutral it provides a more anchored maturity, bringing an inner wisdom and open mindset.
To begin simply be the ‘watcher’ and ‘listener’ of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours without any attachment, like you’re watching a movie and you are the star. Be totally present and notice what you observe without labelling or attaching any meaning or judgement. Write down what your watcher of ‘You’ observes, bring it into full awareness. Challenge the thought/s by asking yourself if this is true for you. If not, change the thought.
Use self-awareness to remove yourself from your stressful thoughts and emotions and create a more calming space for yourself, simply by choosing a different thought. As you extend your awareness into your daily activities and work, become aware of what you focus on and where your attention goes. Often you will find that your mind is not focused on where it should be!“Your Greatest Challenge in Life is Discovering Who You Are
and Then Being Happy with What You Find”
Every single one of us began as a blank canvas, molded by family, teachers, religion, culture, friends, peers, media, society all have influenced and brainwashed us unconsciously since time began on who we are and who we have to be.
There has been a major shift happening on our planet for some time trying to awaken us all on a conscious level. It’s as if we have been in a deep sleep and everything globally is being shaken up to awaken us to a new level of being, understanding and living.
As we all have a conscious and a subconscious mind. Much of our behaviour is directed through our subconscious mind corresponding with our beliefs, values, experiences and habitual patterning’s. We’ve all been influenced positively and negatively by life’s experiences as well as by our positive and negative influencers.
It’s these influences that have shaped our thinking and beliefs. Most people are unaware the level that their unconscious beliefs strongly influence their lives by the choices and decisions they make. Ideally, we need to make conscious what is currently unconscious which can only happen through learning self-awareness.
We are governed by our ego (personality) and a higher mind or soul. Our Soul is the unique expression of the divine. It’s the bridge between our spiritual self and our individual physical/self and a higher power.
As humans, we all tend to have an understanding of our physical self and minimal awareness of our soul-self, the true self. The wisdom of the ages suggests that our challenge as human beings is to become conscious of what is unconscious in us.
Our life journey is to explore those parts of our nature that are presently hidden from us so we may express ourselves more genuinely. To become acquainted with our shadow side, the dark and unknown parts of our psyche that we have not yet owned, as well as know and own the soul side of our nature. Our ultimate aim is to embrace the opposing forces within us, the “bad” and the “good,” and bring them together creating the “Whole Self” or wholeness.
To do this we need to move through the things that block the awareness. These blocks are our challenges to unlock something greater that is within us all. These blocks function in the mental, emotional and physical aspects of our foundation of well-being. They block the natural flow of energy creating stress, pain and dysfunction in different areas of our life.
They indicate that something within us is out of alignment with the true nature of who we are. The blocks signal that we have unresolved issues that may be repetitive in nature and our unconscious and conscious programming is needing an upgrade.
Often this reflects the character shadows that reside in our subconscious mind. The blocks are related to our character in who we think we are. They hide our true nature, our true essence.
Our personality – ego, views these blocks as problems, challenges, limitations, difficulties and hurdles. These blocks limit our ability to enjoy life fully and completely usually leaving us with the feeling that something is missing.
From the spiritual perspective, these blocks are the gateway and path to growth and transformation.
Paradoxically, we can only get to the positive through the negative. Like it or not, pain gets our attention. Pain also challenges the ego’s perception that it has complete control of our life. If we want to be rid of the pain, we must do the work that leads us to a greater consciousness and a greater self.
In the university of life, the challenges come to us for good reasons to make the unconscious more conscious. If we deny and block the pain to avoid it, our problems continue to grow until our suffering becomes so great, it is forced upon us to learn the lessons it brings. The human journey is to evolve to greater level of consciousness and experience the opposing pulls of our world of duality and bring soul to help us learn, grow and evolve. The question now shifts from who are you, to who do you want to be?