Lessons In The Key Of Life: The Power Of Awareness

Last week, I gave an overview of the Cycle of Improvement, touching briefly on each of the elements. Over the next few articles we will explore the Cycle in increasing depth, focusing on how to use each element to create major impact on the quality of your life.

Awareness just might be the most important step in the entire cycle. When I first started working with these concepts in the late 1960's, I found awareness to be the most significant key in transforming my entire life experience!

Let's start with an awareness exercise or experiment. Wherever you find yourself right now, whether in a chair at home, at your desk in your office or any other place, just give this little experiment a whirl.

We are going to ask you to focus on your body and what you notice or feel as we go through the exercise. It works best if you can sit someplace, but you can even doing it standing up, walking, or lying down.

It goes something like this: keep repeating to yourself, "Right now I'm aware of," "Right now I'm aware of," "Right now I'm aware of" in rapid fire succession, keeping the focus on your body. If you can, say what you notice out loud.

Please allow me to demonstrate. I am going to write everything thing I notice as I am as sitting here at my computer.

 Right now I'm aware of: crossing my feet
 Right now I'm aware of: my hair falling on my forehead
 Right now I'm aware of: moving my legs and feet out in front of me
 Right now I'm aware of: a little knot in the middle of my back
 Right now I'm aware of: stretching my back and sitting more upright
 Right now I'm aware of: feeling the warmth of the sun on my shoulders
 Right now I'm aware of: moving my feet back under my chair
 Right now I'm aware of: my "cheeks" resting on the chair
 Right now I'm aware of: my wrists resting on the computer
 Right now I'm aware of: my fingers hitting the keyboard

This exercise works best when you simply repeat "Right now I'm aware of" as fast as you can, filling in the blanks without hesitation or thinking - just observing and saying out loud what you notice.

Okay, your turn - take a moment and try it. I'll wait.

What did you notice? Were you surprised at how easy or how hard it is to do this little exercise? For people who are not particularly attuned to their body, this can be really challenging.

Some people can go through an entire day and never really notice much of anything about their body and how it feels. A great example is the person who gets so absorbed in working at their computer that they don't even notice how tight their neck, shoulders and back have become until they stand up.

Or how about the person who gets so involved in their project that hours go by and they suddenly notice that they haven't eaten all day. And now they have a slight (or severe) headache.

Why is observing what is going on with your body so important, you might be asking? Well, how about the fact that your body is constantly sending you little signals about what it needs in order to remain or become healthy? Little pains could be telling you that you need to stretch; or drink some water; or have something to eat. Big pains often start as little pains that get ignored on a consistent basis.

Learning to become more aware of your body and what it is experiencing can pay huge dividends over time. Perhaps even more significant is that expanding awareness may allow you to perceive more choices at those forks in the road we noted in an earlier post.

In the awareness work that I have been doing with groups of people for the past 30+ years, I often start an exercise by asking people to get into a comfortable position.

Go ahead and do that yourself - get into a comfortable position.

Here's the kicker - did you have to move? Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people have moved their body around when I simply ask them to get into a comfortable position. Now isn't that curious?

If you had to move to get comfortable, the question arises: why were you sitting uncomfortably in the first place? Maybe it isn't so much that you were sitting uncomfortably on purpose; rather, it may be that you were focused on something else and therefore unaware of how your body was feeling.

If you stretch this idea past the body, you may discover similarities in other aspects of your life as well. What signs are showing up in your life right now that indicate something needs more attention, greater focus or a different set of choices? Are their indications about a relationship that needs attention, something with your finances, or perhaps something at work?

For now, let me leave you with this paraphrased thought, taken from Fritz Perls and his book, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. This is the key I mentioned earlier that has proven to be one of the single most important keys I have yet discovered: simple awareness can be curative.

What if the only thing you needed to make major improvement in your life were expanded awareness? The first step is simply becoming more aware of what is already present.

In future posts, we will look more closely at awareness, how you expand your awareness, how awareness gives you choices, and how the choices you make either produce more of what you don't really want or lead you to a truly fulfilling life.

You can find out more about Russell Bishop at www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com
Contact Russell at: [e-mail]

The author of Lessons in the Key of Life, Russell is a professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California. His intent is to assist you in becoming a more powerful creator of your own life experience, producing more of the results you truly want.

Comments

[henrydavidthrow]

The more aware I become, the better Ralph Nader looks for President.

[victoriajubilee]

spread the thought of love to all.

[Jonahson]

Pt.2 Do it gradually, if the pain is very intense do not go into it directly but stay at the vicinity of the pain. Stay with the pain without reacting to it. All things are impermanent, the pain will ease, when it does, move closer to the source of pain and stay with the pain. You can actually see or know the cause of your pain if you open up your mind window once in contact with the pain but I do not encourage this practice for the beginners. Be patient. Stay with the pain as long as you need. It will ease. It is important not to involve the mind in duality when in contact with pain or any phenomena. Warning! In case you need to break off your practice half way please do practice loving kindness before getting out of that state. In fact it is good to practice loving kindness before you close your practice. You need to practice every time the pain occurs. The pain will wear out eventually. The idea is to let the trapped energy run its course.

May all beings be free from sufferings.

[Jonahson]

Mr. Russell, here is a practical method to alternative treatment for migraine which I commented under :-Meditation: The New Psychotherapy
You may substitiute awareness with focus.

Pt. 1 I hope the following information will be useful to you:- There are many causes of migraine. It cold be trigger by allergy, stress, aneurysm, hypertension and even growth. I shall describe a treatment that I practice and proven useful for stress related migraine. Causes of stress:- Strong emotions and stored emotions. Strong emotions are what we create when we react to internal and external phenomenon. Stored emotions, commonly called memory, is the result of captured energy due to our strong emotional reactions( as to the 2nd part of the dependent origination karmic violation). Method:- What we put in must come out eventually 'every action equals a similar reaction". In case of trapped energy, the energy need to be dissipated, that is, let nature take its course. Energy cannot be destroyed but it can be converted . When migraine occurs find a quiet place free from disturbances. Free your mind from all activities including fear and thoughts. Put your mind into equanimity. Relax and focus on a point, you may focus on your breathing in and out from a point . Once you have focus move the focus to the point of pain gradually. The idea is to move to the most painful part and not fight or run away from the pain.

[Jonahson]

Very practical post. Most of the time our mind is either in the past or in the furtue seldom at the present..
Awareness will bring mindfulness and focus. Constant practice will help youi to improve your control of mind and body. Develop this practice until you are aware of your reactive thoughts when facing a situation until you can chose the correct way to deal with it.

[BRlongview]

Along with awareness goes acceptance... once you are aware of what your body/mind/environment is doing, then you can say "it's ok that my body is like this, it's ok that my foot hurts, it's ok that i'm stressed out." To me, it seems like a part of healing and balancing is admitting that somehow or another... regardless of what value judgements we might tend to place on it, this situation HAS BECOME TRUE. Not that stress is "good". Just that it exists as a part of life right now. Acceptance goes along with awareness, but it is different than awareness in that it opens up the possibility that the broader stresses and complications in life are out of your control. It's an ego buster and a stress reliever to recognize that certain things have occured and will occur that are out of our power. Accepting that degree of powerlessness is somehow empowering. :)

[Russell Bishop - Huffpost Blogger]

Hey there, Longview! You aren't reading my posts before I post them, are you! Oh - must be another one of those universal truths I wrote about earlier. In case you missed it, you might want to take a look at W Mtichell's website www.wmitchell.comm) and his book, "It's Not What Happens to You, It's What You Do About It." Here's a guy who was first burned over 65% of his body, disfigured, lost most of his hands, etc and then, just as he was recovering, wound up paralyzed due to a plane crash. His approach? Rather than complain about the 1,000 things he can no longer do, he celebrates the 9,000 still in his repertoire. Mitchell is indeed a story of acceptance and then some. I will certainly address acceptance and an even more powerful notion that I call "CPA." What if you Create, Promote or Allow everything that happens in your life. Now that's acceptance at a whole different level! Stay tuned - we're just getting started!

[communicatinghumanity]

"What if the only thing you needed to make major improvement in your life were expanded awareness?"

IMHO, being aware includes being mindful (paying full attention) and deliberately engaging in radically honest self-inquiry about the impact (in every moment) your thoughts, choices, actions and behaviors have upon others, the planet, and yourself - and not constantly defending, justifying and blaming - takes immense humility, courage and strength to accomplish. Expanding awareness to include (if they exist) difficult ego-challenging statements such as:

Right now I'm aware I'm lying to myself and everyone else about my personal transparency.
Right now I'm aware I feel threatened by people who don't enable me.
Right now I'm aware that I like the payoff of acting like a victim.
Right now I'm aware I don't like to admit I when I am wrong.
Right now I'm aware telling the truth scares me.

...and choosing to take actions to face and do the work to transcend those dark places within is, again IMHO, where it all gets REALLY interesting. :)

[Russell Bishop - Huffpost Blogger]

Love your thoughts, Humanity! I particularly like a made up word that goes along with your comments: Dexify. Kind of an amlagam of Defend, Explain and Justify. Way too much of that going around to my taste. Blame is right in there. Imagine suing because your coffee was actually hot! And winning! I will be writing shortly on the notion of Response-Abilty and how choices rather than decisions can be liberating, fulfilling, and balancing. Courage is a great word, especially considering that the root word comes from old Latin and French words for heart. I do think we could use more heart in our daily lives. Thanks for your comment!

[communicatinghumanity]

Thanks - I've been writing and teaching about this stuff for years. :) Add a .org to my name and you'll see. :)

[SamThornton]

I'm convinced. From now on, Power Point slides and navel gazing are going to rule my life. What could possibly go wrong?