Many years ago, I did not realize this. Today I see many talking about it as if everyone understands, but in many ways, they do not. Awareness and consciousness are more than buzzwords we throw around. It is about so much more than our thoughts or actions or beliefs.
Without the mind and body, awareness and consciousness are only half-baked items in our life. It all sounds pleasant and helpful, but that’s about where it stops. We as a society think that our thoughts are what matters and we give lip service to the body, but we do not fully understand what we think we do.
Many times we want others to become aware of something so that they will line up with our belief system. While this may be good, awareness and consciousness that I am referring to go much deeper than that. It is not the same thing because awareness and consciousness are about what is going on deep inside of us.
Our thoughts and brains rule our lives. However, the body and our past experiences impact us in ways we do not see or fully realize. The power they hold is beyond what we perceive or understand.
Awareness is the process of beginning to understand all of this and realize that as the more you understand, the less you know. You recognize a deeper consciousness that you never knew existed. No longer is it tied to the beliefs of your life or human civilization. It transcends all of this into a realm beyond your current knowledge.
Allowing this awareness and consciousness is not a pre-programmed line of thought that says, “here is how you should think.” It is not about practicing mindfulness or positive thoughts. It is not just about one set of beliefs or seeing that we have limiting factors. All of these things may help and assist, but awareness and consciousness go beyond these points.
The best way to access this awareness and consciousness is by using the felt sense of the body (Eugene Gendlin). Through the felt sense, we become acquainted with the pure mind and body connection. Stopping to observe and feel is the doorway to the moment where discovery can take place. Once we discover what we feel in the body and connect to in our mind, the choice of something new shows up.
The choice of something new leads us to a state of higher awareness where we become more conscious. Seeing life in a new way is more than a thought process. It is a total mind and body concept where it originates in that connection between what we feel and what it aligns within the brain. When we reach this point, we are at the actual spark of something more.
Beginning to understand awareness and consciousness from this viewpoint are what will lead us to know ourselves more fully. We will acquaint ourselves with the deepest parts of who we are, and in that, we will find something spectacular. Out of this moment, we will discover more peace and joy and love than we knew existed.
Each one of us makes a choice each day about how far we allow ourselves to travel into awareness and consciousness. Sometimes we hold ourselves back and say, “no, I’m not going there.” Other times, we say, “I don’t believe all of this.” There are other moments where it is too painful to go in and dig deep past the experiences of our lives.
What matters is we begin to understand being human and healing our lives is about awareness and consciousness. When allowing ourselves to be open to this, we take significant steps in learning how to live in our human body. If we stand on the outside looking in, we only inhabit our bodies. Awareness and consciousness take us beyond that moment to provide us with so much more out of life, including greater peace and joy.
COMMENTS