Enlightening Moments (eBook)

Chapter 1
The Journey Begins with Awareness

Shining Light on Your Path

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

—Aristotle

The first step on any journey is always the most important. Without it, there is no forward movement. On this particular journey, self-reflection is essential; it is necessary for having meaningful and successful experiences in our interactions with one another, both personally and professionally. When we are unaware, we go through life enmeshed in situations, blaming people, things, and circumstances for our pain and misfortune and giving those same things credit for our joy and accomplishments. We are oblivious to what’s going on inside of us and lack the freedom to step back, observe the process, and adjust. When we are unaware, we experience gaps in our consciousness, and we fill those gaps with thoughts that try to make sense of things. We determine that we are at the mercy of the waves that push us around, and we hope for calmer waters ahead. We become frustrated when the waves seem to keep throwing us off balance.

When we become aware, we can see that the waves are merely obstacles in our path. We can ride them, dive below them, wait them out, jump them, or surf them. We can even calm those waves when we have the right tools at our disposal. Then, not even a powerful tsunami can throw us off course for very long.

So what is awareness? Is it something you achieve? How does it compare to thought? In this chapter, we’ll take a look at these and other questions to help you take that first step on your journey toward more satis­fying experiences and relationships with yourself, others, and the world around you.

Though we may not remember it, when we were toddlers we all experienced the awesome wonder of standing for the first time without falling—where suddenly a world of opportunities opened to us. Children live in the now. Their experience of life is strong and their curiosity is huge. In this process, we can be like children, looking at the world from a fresh perspective without distorting the events happening presently through the filters of our past experiences.

The Difference Between Awareness and Thought

At its most subtle level, awareness is consciousness. It is the spark that gives us the ability to perceive and experience the world in which we reside. At its purest, that perception is unencumbered by thought and preconceived notions, and the world is therefore experienced exactly as it is: perfect in its design and intention. There are many theories on the source of that spark, but in order to embark on this journey, it isn’t necessary for us to have a definitive answer to the question of its origin. Here, we simply need to accept that at the heart of the matter we are aware beings, and each of us has a certain amount of self-reflection; it can be vast, or small, or anywhere in between. Whatever the case may be, when we take steps to expand our awareness, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to experience a greater range of emotions, and this allows us to learn fully from, and grow with, the world of experiences and relationships around us. Awareness equals light. When you turn on the light, you see some of what is hidden by the darkness. When you turn up the light even brighter, you see even more. Turn up your light and see what happens.

Turning up the light.

It’s important to know that there are different levels of awareness. As we said previously, at its most subtle, awareness is unfettered consciousness. There are less subtle states of awareness as well. For example, we can be aware of our surroundings, other people, our body, the temperature, and so on. We can also be aware of our thoughts, beliefs, and concepts, as well as our emotions and their effect on our minds and bodies. We’ll take a look at the different types of awareness in just a moment. For now, let’s consider our thoughts. What are they?

Our thoughts are the labels we give to that which we perceive. I see something or I experience something, and my mind automatically labels it. I think about it. I judge it. I analyze it. I call it good. I call it bad. I connect and combine it with other thoughts. I compare it. I cherish it. I ponder it. I store it away for another time. I retrieve it from my memory banks. And so on. These labels, these thoughts, originate in the mind and are perfectly natural and useful. For example, we all know that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. In this case, our thoughts allow us to be aware of something we could not otherwise perceive. In this way, useful thoughts allow us to be more aware. Keep in mind, too, that thoughts aren’t merely just little movies in our minds. They contain emotional content. When we think of something, we are also experiencing an emotion associated with that thought. For every single thought we have, there is a cellular response in the physical body and an emotional response in the mental body.

The mind is a wonderful tool for helping us to navigate our world, and when the mind is in harmony with the body and in its relationship to the world, we are able to glide effortlessly through our experiences with an abundance of awareness, knowing the next right step to take or thing to do (or not do). This is what we call “enlightening moments.” However, what blocks us from living in that state all the time is that we are too quick to identify with our thoughts (and the emotions attached to them) and actually confuse thinking with awareness. Moreover, many of us spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about the daily drama of our lives and the secondhand drama we experience through television, movies, stories we hear from friends and family, news­papers, the Internet, books, and so on. These thoughts begin piling up in our minds, clouding our ability to clearly perceive situations and, in some cases, tainting our perception to the point of creating further unnecessary drama and turmoil. Clearly, thoughts are very powerful, and we must learn how to avoid allowing them to distort awareness. In this book and in our programs, we call thoughts “stories”; we’ll discuss this in Chapter 2.

Thought is a function of the mind. We use our thoughts to examine and consider a situation. This is very different from bringing awareness to a situation. Thinking is an analytical process, while awareness is a direct experience; it is shining a light on something and knowing it.

Let’s return to the subject of awareness. It’s important to understand this concept on an intellectual level, of course, which is why we are writing this book. But once you really absorb this information, we will help you to put it into practice in your daily life so that it becomes firsthand knowledge. Recognize and acknowledge what’s going on inside you and around you, not just on an intellectual level but from a more objective state, a knowing place.

Levels of Awareness

For our discussion here, it’s important for you to recognize that we can be aware on three different levels: the physical level, the mental level, and the emotional level. These are different experiences of awareness, perhaps, but they are all intricately connected, so it is virtually impossible to discuss one without mentioning another. On one level, physical awareness is very rudimentary: Your body and your environment provide you with sensory data that your mind then uses to interpret your condition, and then you respond accordingly. Your foot hurts, so you sit down. There’s a bear on the trail up ahead, so you back away slowly. You’re hot, so you open a window. Your stomach growls, so you go in search of food. Simple enough.

Awareness of one’s physical body may seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people are unaware of what they are feeling on a physical level, because they don’t take the time to pay attention, to apply awareness to it. (The light of awareness is too dim, so they cannot “feel” it.) Some people cannot identify when a muscle is being engaged or do not realize that they are tensing up in an uncomfortable situation. Other people end up overeating because they aren’t paying attention to the signals from their stomach. It’s important to be aware of the body’s physical sensations and signals. Start to increase your physical awareness by putting your attention on various parts of your body and focusing on the subtle sensations. For example, while you are reading this, feel your body. Do you have any aches or pains? Are you sitting in a comfortable position? Are you thirsty? Do you need to get up and stretch? Throughout the day, consciously place attention on your body to become more attune to what it is telling you.

As mentioned earlier, every thought we have is connected to an emotion with varying degrees of intensity. Because an emotion is a dynamic relationship between the mind and body, every thought we think has a direct effect on our bodies, some more noticeable than others. The moment-to-moment changes that take place in our bodies can reveal a tremendous amount of information if we know how to “feel for them.” Every single thought we have, no matter what it might be, as well as every emotion we experience, is immediately received by corresponding cells in our brain and amplified and transmitted throughout our bodies. Therefore, when we think something, our body feels it. It becomes a physical sensation. It’s...