Ask yourself this:
Would you prefer to be aware of yourself or unaware of yourself?
Simple to answer, isn’t it?
People sometimes ask me why I talk so much about ‘awareness’ and what I actually mean by it. Awareness is purely having understanding of what you’re thinking, why you thinking it and what impact it is having on you, in every moment of every day. Put simply, it’s knowing exactly who you are, at all times. It’s not just being self-aware about aspects of your life, but it is knowing in each moment, what you are thinking, and how this is impacting on your emotions and subsequent behaviours.
Why is this so important? When you understand yourself this deeply, it gives you the power to choose how to feel and behave. No longer stuck in cycles of behaviour that you find unhelpful, or even destructive, you can choose your response to situations around you, in full clarity of why you have made this choice. It’s akin to switching off the autopilot and taking back control of the vehicle and direction in which you’re travelling. But to take back control of this vehicle, our minds, we need to know how to drive it! This is where it’s easy to get stuck.
So many of our emotions and behaviours are triggered by thought processes & ego. Learning what is false and what is real is vital. For example, take a pattern of low self-belief, formed in childhood as a response to situations in which we felt unable to cope. That child builds an image of him or herself as not good enough, lacking in some way, in order to help them survive the circumstances they were in. They feel that it gives them a get-out clause, a “well, I’m not good enough so I couldn’t ever be expected to cope with this” excuse. But long after that child has grown up and is no longer in that situation, they are still carrying these same images, which in turn may be preventing them from making the choices they want to make. Maybe they stay in jobs too long because they fear being rejected, or they choose relationships based only on their own feelings of not being worthy.
Now consider that these images we carry are totally false. We have created them to protect us, and they are trying their hardest to do just that, long after they are relevant. Can you think of any images you hold of yourself? Any patterns you carry around with you? Now think about how they are serving you in living your life happily, free from worry & stress.
So we come back to the original question. Would you prefer to be aware of yourself or unaware of yourself? Whilst it’s simple to answer that you’d prefer to be aware, the reality is most people stay in unawareness, going around and around the same unhelpful thought patterns and wondering why they can’t break out of their destructive behaviours (eating, smoking, drinking, arguing, moaning, obsessing about anything or everything)….It somehow feels easier.
Developing your self-awareness does take will and courage. But to change the way you think is absolutely worth it in the long run, and you may be surprised at how a relatively small shift can have magnificent results. To be in charge of your mind is the only way for you to choose happiness.
Hence our name ‘Aware Conscious Living’ – living life consciously, with full awareness. It’s right at the heart of what we do.
Love & light
Ruth