Awareness

Awareness involves bringing more unconscious motives and thoughts into the conscious mind. In order to accomplish this, one must first be genuine about how one feels, regardless of if the feelings make sense or are justified/fair.

Once genuine about instinctive feelings, awareness helps to set the stage for more informed decisions. As with genuineness, awareness starts with the self, then is expanded to include others. Examples of self awareness being used as a tool include learning one's own symptoms of stress or anger. Once one recognizes shoulder tension, for example, one is able to interrupt the process of becoming further stressed. By choosing to do something relaxing (no matter how small), the self-perpetuating cycle is gradually reversed.

Being aware of other people is NOT the same as predicting their behavior, or trying to be responsible for their feelings. It simply means to recognize, to the best of one's ability, other people's circumstances, and to realize that your perception may be inaccurate. For example, generally speaking, body language can be a fairly good indicator of a person's circumstances. Being aware that closed posture could indicate defensiveness, vulnerability, or discomfort, one can adjust their behavior to help the other individual feel more at ease; HOWEVER!! it should not be immediately assumed that all closed body language implies anything about one's intellectual/emotional circumstances. . .they may just be cold or lost in thought (in which case, your awareness could help you to offer to change the thermostat, or sit quietly while the person gains clarity).

Furthermore, being hyperaware of everything can easily turn into a hindrance. When this occurs, one may use their genuineness to help restore balance within your awareness.

Exercises to facilitate Awareness

 

Meditation

Find a quiet place, perhaps a special place that you tend to gravitate towards already. Make yourself comfortable, but in a position that you are not likely to fall asleep in; many people find that either sitting in a kitchen chair with a straight back, or sitting cross-legged on the floor works quite well if you maintain proper posture--sit up straight,shoulders held comfortable, but not slouched. Begin by taking 3 deep breaths, counting to 3 on the inhale, briefly pause at the 'top' of the inhale, then gently exhale, again counting to 3 (same pace as inhale), pause briefly at the 'bottom' of the exhale, then repeat. You can imagine inhaling empathy and compassion, and exhaling self-importance and intolerance, or you may decide to simply follow your breath in and out.

Once your breath is calmed, begin 'feel' your environment (continue paced breathing), just be aware of what surrounds you, what does it feel like? Do you hear certain sounds? Do you hear your own voice inside? What do you see with your eyes closed? Simply pay attention to your experience. Next, try to recall a recent event, possibly an interaction you recently had. . . now try to recall as much as you can about the situation: The physical surroundings, the overall 'vibe,' smells, sights, words spoken, etc. Pay close attention to both your experience, and to that of those around you. Finally, imagine how your awareness helped you in that situation, or how it could have improved something. Continue as long as the meditation is peaceful and helpful.

Visual

A wonderful visual exercise: go anyplace you like, an art gallery, for this example. Experiment with noticing things that most people do not attend to . . . instead of looking at the main focus of the art piece, intentionally look closely at the background images . . . what are they? What is the texture of the art--is it smooth, rough, etc. When looking at a tree, for example, examine what it looks like BETWEEN the pieces of bark, notice the little bugs running around, see the shapes that the bark makes, look up and rather than looking a the shapes that the leaves make against the sky, look at the shape the SKY makes between the leaves. When watching a movie, attend to the background details . . . sometimes, you'll find some amusing details (some put in there on purpose, some just accidental oversites of the editors). This exercise helps you to attend to things that you may not be used to noticing, but that are extremely important in communication, etc. A real-life example of an entire culture embracing this sort of awareness as 2nd nature: In the USA, if you ask a person to describe an aquarium, they will usually talk about the fish first, then perhaps about the background; whereas in the East, you will usually find that a person will first talk about the background, the colors, the arrangement of rocks, etc., THEN perhaps about the fish.