Self-awareness changes your life!
Developing greater self-awareness has to be the most revolutionary thing you can do in your life, BUT it’s not easy.
A little about my journey…
I began mediating about 12 years ago, I started with 10 minutes a day for 10 days and it was hugely profound for me. I realised that underneath my spiralling thoughts I was simply ok. After doing the practice for around 4 years I struggled as I begin to see myself more clearly and didn’t always like what I saw. It can be difficult to see yourself! With great compassion and acceptance I moved past this and now look at every response and reaction I have with a sense of curiosity, an opportunity to see myself and create change.
When we meditate and do mindfulness practices we start to create more space between the stimulus and the response. We begin to see ourselves and with that we begin to gain greater control over our response, and empower ourselves with having a choice as to how we respond.
Our brain and bodies have deep rooted programming on so many levels; with greater self-awareness we begin to shift our internal world.
I love how Anodea Judith puts this below in her book ‘The Wheels of Life’.
‘The body is the hardware, our programming is the software, and the Self is the user. However, we did not write all of these programs, and some of their language is so archaic it is unintelligible. It is a heroic challenge, indeed, to identify our programs and rewrite them all while continuing to live our lives, yet this is the task of healing. It becomes even more difficult when we realise that each of our personal programs is part of a larger cultural system over which we have had little or no control’.
Cultivating greater self-awareness is the number 1 thing we need to do to create shifts in our life. We can’t change it if we can’t see it! So much is hidden in our unconscious programming. We need to bring things into the light for us to see more clearly and choose to do things differently.
Yes we are gaining greater control of our responses but what we are actually doing is becoming more fluid. Fluidity means that we are not always responding from our hardwired programming. We are freeing ourselves from ourselves and this journey starts with awareness.
What steps to take next ?
Take up a daily meditation / mindfulness practice.
Get curious about your reactions and responses.
Begin to notice the story you are telling yourself and start to see it for what it is.
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