How to Foster a New State of Being

We continue here with the fourth in our series of five simple, yet powerful, techniques we can use right now to reignite our lives: This technique is to foster expanded awareness.

What do I mean by Foster Expanded Awareness?

Awareness isn’t easy to define, and you can spend your life paying little attention to it.

But every day we have experiences . . .

and every experience requires an experiencer . . .

and every experiencer is using their awareness to confront life’s challenges.

No matter what is happening, awareness determines the outcome.

Let’s think again about how we may react to a circumstance in an automatic way without being conscious or aware that we are. When we do that, we aren’t actually experiencing expanded awareness.

Expanded awareness is that place in between the incident and the reaction. It is that one little moment when we have a choice before being taken over by our automatic way of being.

When we feel insecure and vulnerable, we draw back. Defensively, we contract our minds due to fear of the unknown or some type of perceived threat, real or imagined. We are averse to the unknown and the potential risks that await us there. These are all symptoms of constricted awareness.

pema-chodron-quote

Here’s what you can do:

  • Be conscious of when you feel these feelings of insecurity, fear or vulnerability.

  • Take a deep breath and relax.

  • Let your mind ease into the situation instead of contracting.

That’s all expanded awareness needs to be.

Meditation is an excellent way to foster this state of being. And if you want to kick start your own new meditation practice, learn more about the mediation courses available at Satsang House. Getting still and reconnecting in the silence has a beautiful way of returning you to your ground state of being.

Disconnecting from your cell phone, from the craziness of your daily life, from your “to do list,” from all of it, gives you an opportunity to just be still.

When you quiet the internal dialog, slow the thoughts, and reconnect to what’s really important, you see how you are best suited to use your gifts and talents to serve humanity.