The Nature of Awareness

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
- Anais Nin

In the training, teaching, mentoring and coaching circle, I have oftentimes heard people refer to Awareness as something that is essential and paramount to growth and self development. 

Yet, when I do ask individuals what awareness means to them, what I usually get is a rehash of the word itself. "You know, it's being aware", said one coaching client. I don't know about you, but even an apple means different things and draws out different senses and memories to you and me. I experienced that when I tried to described my thoughts and feelings on Jelly fish, and came to the conclusion that no two persons experience the same jelly fish the same way or in the same intensity.

I approached today's post in the same style as the way I tutor kids, and that's by inquiry in a coaching style. Let's broaden our paradigms and experience what comes.

From Wikipedia, "Awareness"  is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. Taking a step back and just digesting this description, when one is aware, what it seems to mean is that one taps into our human senses, and notice the experience. It is what Gurdjieff means when he talks about self remembering. It is not just sitting and meditating, feeling or thinking. It is realising that what we experience in our inner landscape is separate from the objective reality of others, and that it may be the same or it may not. It is in fact, a state that is separate from what we think is our personality. We are not what we think or feel, we are perhaps more.

What helps in the development of awareness? 

Now, this is what my student taught me about awareness through our really fun session on what was studying techniques. We learnt about what our maps of learning are, and through experiencing the differences... we learnt from it.

Awareness comes as a by product of the following:

1. Looking at Language
In coaching, one important aspect of rapport is to have a good understanding of our client's map of the world. I've found that many people have limited vocabulary in the area of development that they most sorely needed. 

A client who wants control over anger, has next to no words to describe it beside "angry", and my student's vocabulary for anger is just "angry". Asking what really being angry is yields a surprised and baffled  look.

What I discover is that if all we know is angry or sad, we experience, usually, either anger or sadness. We don't look at what the feeling is really telling us, and what the real deal behind the anger is.

Anger is a state of emotion that arises when things different from what we want or expect turns up, and we are angry for vastly different reasons.

I'd like to borrow just two examples from the Enneagram to illustrate what Anger means to different people:

Perfectionists experience anger that is tightly coiled, controlled and it often means that a important standard has been breached, and corrective action needs to be made

Individualists experience anger as a hot expressive force that spins out of control. It signifies that a strong emotional reason behind the anger, something of value is lost, and it cannot ever be recovered again. 

As you can see, when we enrich our vocabulary of what the anger means, we learn much more about ourselves.

2. Experiment
In developing awareness, it helps to be somewhat playful with ourselves. I ran this exercise with my student when she asked why people get angry or sad. We talked about a dog she used to play with many years ago. When we talked about the dog's death, I asked her what she thought of, and when we talked about the best moments with the dog, again what her memories are.

At the end of the session, through her own effort, she learns that what we feel is often related to what we thought about, and if that is the case, we have full control over what we choose to dwell on.

We are sometimes our worst enemies, we believe things that make us unhappy, angry, powerless, defensive, unlikable people, and we use it to describe how the world or others really hurt us, when all we have been doing is using our own energy, and the fury of our fears and emotions to hurt ourselves. 

Being aware doesn't necessarily mean you are happier, it does mean that you have a great more flexibility in your life.

3. Joy
In tuition, all too often, teachers forget that everyone learns better when they are in a positive state. I've found that my student is amazing when she finds the positive energy to work on herself, she recalls past learning better, is more creative, and makes no careless errors. 

So really, what my role is, is to create such an environment for her. 

In being aware, being blissful and happy are also a supportive states. I am not a fan of developmental practices that requires people to seek out their worst memories and rehash them in vivid detail. The past is exactly that, the past, and reliving them is like eating last year's new year goodies, stale and not too tasty. 

If we learn from our negative experiences, which we do even if we don't bring it to the conscious, then we move on. Staying with the past does really nothing for us today, that it has not already done.

So in conclusion, what we can do to create more awareness in our lives, is to simply: 
1. Enrich our use of language   
2. Be experimental 
3. Be a child of bliss

Drop me a line, tell me what you think. What is your path to awareness?

"Only internal bliss is perpetual, nothing else is created to last. 

That's why God lives within us and all storms pass."

- Carl Henegan 

The Art of Drinking

Until recent years, coffee was something that I drank so much of, that it has become a drink of habit.

When I am happy, I have my usual local potent brew with friends, when sad, it's irish coffee with a strong punch, when feeling cold, it's double shot flat white, at Starbucks it's triple tall Americano.

Last year, I made a conscious choice to limit my caffeine intake for health reasons, and in doing so, I found yet another perspective.

When there is a feeling of lack, or feeling of having to resist something, there is an equal and opposing need to satisfy the need, it's like having to scratch an itch. Your whole body is filled with the desire to fulfil the need, you imagine it, you feel it, you are moody, anxious, distracted and angry.

I like to believe that addictions are addictions of the mind and nothing more, and when I realise that my thoughts bred my feeling, and that I consciously expanded my feelings, magnified them, made them much more than what my true feelings were, this insight came to me like a jolt of surprise.

This obsession was just.... coffee.

I am Ennegram type 4 (SP/SX/SO for those who are interested in instinctual stack), and realising that this inward journey and introspective focus is natural to me was a liberating feeling, a weakness and a strength. Obsession is a feeling of satisfaction and joy, it lends depth, and creates immense pluses for my ego, but at the end of the day, my ego is not me. Some of us, whether we admit it or not, love the chains that bind us, simply because they form a defined area that we can say is what we are. It's a comfortable place, this familiar spot, even if it is a familiar hurt or a familiar achievement.

Allow me to share my version of mindfulness. In a moment of contemplation over coffee, I wrote the following:

Like a warm inviting breeze
Your scent comes softly to me
Lingering, you speak of exotic spaces and places
Sunny days, dusty sunsets and cool blue nights

I awake to great anticipation
To seek in a cup, a swirl of bliss
of nameless friends and sacred journeys
My ambrosia, my inspiration, my destiny


And that my friends, is my way of drinking coffee mindfully. Knowing that I take not more than 2 cups a day, I drink them slow, savouring how delightful the taste of coffee truly is, and how glad I am to be alive, well and able to enjoy the pleasures of life. To hear the chatter of people, clink of coffee cups, warm air from the opening door, a warm cup of joy in my hands and the even warmer smiling eyes of a friend across from me.

When you are present, everything is bliss. And peace is inside as it is on the outside, always.