I will start by the most basic and (to my understanding) the most important awareness you need to develop, YOURS. How aware are you of your situation, of what you want or what you have? You aren't! You probably live a busy life and to stop to think of this is a waste of time you think. But I must tell you is not.
On this post and the next I want to share with you a self awareness path that I discovered by myself through a lot of my life experiences, so follow me, it's an easy journey that we seldom do but to make a habit of doing it will reward you for a life time!
Separate the you from the rest of the world. At first I thought I was being selfish by thinking of me and focusing in just my goals and interests but the truth is we should all help ourselves first in order to be able to help others ( I know this might bring different opinions but I'm more than happy to discuss them). Mentally and spiritually we are attached to no one but ourselves ( we also have spiritual attachments to our religion or beliefs but the first attachment is inside us). Your mind and spirit need space, if you don't find them room for thought once a day or tow or three times a week the familiar words of I'm too busy, I need vacations, I'm tired of working, I'm under a lot of stress, may take over as an excuse for not thinking clearly and go to the easy road of enjoying the moment either by having a few drinks or hanging out uncontrollably with friends, spending money unwisely and loosing sight of your situation. To use this space efficiently, we only need to be alone. So every time you need to have an encounter with yourself try to be alone. And don't be afraid to speak out loud for yourself, this actually helps. Here is an article I wrote in the form of an exercise that you might want to try: How to get to Know Yourself
As an example to this self help exercise I will use the following situation: Mr. Troubled has a job he don't like much and he lives check by check.... every day hoping to get a better job or a raise but he is almost certain that's not going to happen. Mr. Troubled has two problems here, he lives check by check and hates his job. Now if this where you, what would you do? Yo decide to have a meeting with yourself to get advice from the best advisor, YOU. Remember the definitions about awareness in the previous post, one of them said to be aware of your situation and who is better aware of your situation than you! Don't get me wrong, a good best friend who knows you well and listens is good to help you get in perspective if you can't picture your situation clearly due to all the troublesome thoughts but keep in mind that this is about you, not what other people may think of you or say.
Summing up this post.... uh? what? I haven't finished the exercise? Well I don't have much time to write the full post from one shot so I will cut it in parts but will post as soon as possible. I also think that giving you a huge post full of info will tire you and that's the least of my intentions.But I do want to highlight some points from this post. You have to create your space! This is very important. Life runs too fast and you need room for thinking. You also need to be positive about this awareness attitude. If you think is not going to work it won't work and not because you thought it but because you wont use it well or not at all and you have to respect whatever efforts you make for bettering yourself. Not having respect for what you do is not respecting yourself at all. So while I post the next part why don't you work on looking for periods of space in your daily life when you can have a reunion with you. I will be interested to hear what you found!
