Are you aware of awareness?
Awareness.
What is it exactly? Well, a google search reveals its a noun similar to consciousness, recognition, realization and perception. “Knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.” Wiki goes a but further “Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. More specifically, is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events.”
Ask some great thinking and you’ll find they speak of awareness as;
Eckhart Tolle, he says “That awareness is beyond thinking. It’s a space of consciousness where you can be the observer of your own mind—the awareness behind the thought processes.”
For me, becoming aware is the notion that I am a spiritual being having a human experience. As a person I have two beings, my external actions and my thoughts. Are they the same? Sometimes. However there are times when my mind has a mind of its own. It races, obsess, wants to clean, wants attention, wants to stuff my face, isn’t having a need met and can keep me up for hours and hours. Having the ability to watch these thoughts come and go…. That takes awareness of the thoughts.
In another aspect of my life, I see the presence of awareness in my body. Yes, I have been living in this skin for 39 years but in the last 5 I’ve gotten especially good a reading when she is happy or not. I feel when she is tired, when she wants to move, I know when she’s eaten something not right for her by the way she reacts…. I have an awareness of body.
Now I know you’re thinking, well, yeah Mar, I know when I’m tired too. But can you decipher a gas bloat from diary bloat? Do you know what causes you’re indigestion? Are you aware that some of the food you are consuming might be harming you? Or that when you use a lotion, your skin tells you it doesn’t like it?
We can even have an awareness for the external. For example, some people have an incredible sense of time. They know when their kitchen timer is going to go off before it starts buzzing…. That is awareness of time.
Step 1 - Connect to Breath
As simple as that sounds, it is more than just inhale and exhale. It’s knowing that you are forcing that inhale and exhale to happen. On purpose. We can go another step further and introduce different breathing techniques ; Diaphragmatic Breathing - you are engaging your diaphragm to breath vs. your chest to get a full trade of oxygen for carbon dioxide. The best way to see if you are doing it is to look at your chest when you breath. Does your chest puff out/up? Or does your tummy go out? Try breathing to push your belly out while you inhale. If you’ve even sang choir this is how you’ve learned to hold those long notes.
Now this exercise alone has so many positive health benefits:
helping to regulate stress hormone responses / effects of cortisol
Lowers heart rate
Lowers blood pressure
Reduces a acidic environment
There are other methods to look into all with varying ways to control your breath; 4-7-8 breathing technique, Alternate nostril breathing, puckered lips breathing, lions breath.... The key is find a technique that works for you and perform it for a period of time, 5 or so minutes, frequently, 3 or so-times a day until it becomes more second nature. Until you can gain control and breath deeply whenever your feel like it. I will say, the more you do it, the more you want to keep doing it because it feels good.
Step 3- Connect to your body
Your body has its own pulse, its own wants and needs and the sooner we can tap into it and start acknowledging and listening to it the more fulfilled and aware we also become. When I say, your body has wants and needs I think you might know that little pull you get when a sound comes on the radio and you want to start bopping around. That’s your body telling your mind it wants to move!! And there are lots of ways you can tap into your body;
Aerobic activities - Running, spinning, swimming - something that gets your heart pumping. When we feel our hearts we are connected to it! Just taking notice of your heartbeat is awareness.
Yoga - this one is my favorite actually because it incorporates the breath with the movements. It requires attention to do the poses, this attention brings awareness because you have to slow down and think. During this practice you can bring awareness to how your body moves with each pose
Moving slowly - When you do anything in life, take some attention to what you are doing. For instance, if you are drying your body after a shower, take some time and notice how the towel feels. This little bit of attention starts to flex a muscle that overtime will grow.
Walking around barefoot -Do it slowly, noticing each foot step. The feelings each movement makes when connected to the ground.
Body Scan - I prefer to do this as a guided meditation. Here is one to try or another one .
Step 2: Connect with your feelings
This step took me a quite a long time to muster. And even now I am still practicing with it often. Some people are born with a very strong sense for their emotions, I was not so fortunate. When something happens to me it takes time to process those emotions in order for them t be realized. And yeah there are the obvious times I feel them, like when someone steals something, or a friend hurts my feelings or when I’ve just accomplished something. But there are times when things happen and we don’t quite know HOW to feel about what happened. Maybe like now when it’s confusing and you’re frustrated and happy and discouraged all at once.
What to do:
1. Write it out / Journal - I find getting the thoughts out of your head and on to paper is very therapeutic. And as the thoughts are traveling down to your hands it has to pass by your heart so you can really express them.
2. Talk it out - instead of having those thoughts swirl around inside, get them out and say what is happening out loud. Talking is a form of pushing carbon dioxide out. The toxic waste of our breathing cycle. Why not also release the toxic waste of thoughts. Or maybe you can’t, but I find once you start trying, there is a snowball effect and thoughts and feeling just keep coming. Getting over that first bump can be a challenge, but the reward is greater than the pain.
3. Seek assistance - This is where a professional can assist you and help you realize the feeling you might be having. I’ve found this to be a useful reference too.
Step 4 - Connect to self “ego”
This is the hardest of the steps to master. Some people practice for a short time and can achieve great success in this area. Me, I’m still working on it for sure. I believe I have the awareness of self yet I still struggle to take the role of controlling my impulses. For instance, when I am not herd in my household I resort back to prior learned behaviors to deal with the frustration. I have that awareness that no one is listening but I am still gaining control of my self to not take the actions my ego has been trained to do.
The best way to tap into this awareness is thought Meditation and practice.
Since I’m not well versed in this area, I will refer you to some other resources. {1} (2) [3] {4}
I’ve been on this journey for quite some time now, 5 years actually. It was the summer of 2015 when I was first introduced to One Roof, a holistic health center in Saratoga Springs, NY. Taking their Stress Reduction Course really started me on this train to personal discovery and awareness and I am forever grateful. That is kinda why I do this, to pay the favor forward and help others silently struggling like I was.
Hope you enjoyed this little peak into a world of awareness. If you try any of the practices here please let me know! I’d love to be of more guidance for your journey.