We have already started talking to you about awareness in this article. Today I want to cover this topic in detail and give practical steps to gain awareness.
Awareness is the ability to assess your state and the situation around you without “hot” emotions, and based on this, draw conclusions and plan further actions.
Why do we need mindfulness?
Thanks to her, we can observe our emotions and work on them accordingly. After all, until we understand what is happening, we cannot change anything.
IN difficult situations mindfulness helps us understand the lesson we have learned. After all, when we are captured different states, in particular, I’m talking about the state of the victim, then without awareness we go into deep depression and blame the whole world for our troubles. By consciously approaching this issue, we evaluate our condition, understand that this is what we are pulling out of us, we live and work through this condition, and after some time our lives begin to change.
Most importantly, don't confuse mindfulness with positivity. It sets us up to live through any situation and any state, rather than adjusting it to a “good” point of view.
Mindfulness expands our consciousness and focuses us inward, we are able to make discoveries. This is an amazing state.
It helps answer questions like these at any time:
- Who am I?
- Where am I going?
- How am I going?
- Why am I going?
After all, losing our guidelines in life, we are not able to answer them. And when we stop and analyze these questions, everything falls into place. And we continue our conscious movement.
How to develop awareness?
In fact, for me, mindfulness is like an adventure and a game. I like to observe myself and external reflections of myself. I love to analyze and feel myself and nature.
Breathing the whole world into yourself, you find pieces of yourself in it.
How to achieve this? I'll start by telling you my journey.
I’ve been interested in issues of psychology and self-development probably since I was 14. I read a lot, tried it on myself. But the movement towards oneself began best after practical exercises with Reiki energy, violet flame, various immersions in past lives and the daily inclusion of the “observer” did their job.
In fact, it all depends on your desire. Practice is a toolkit that leads you to your goal. You won't get far without it. As I say in my consultations: “What works is what we work with and don’t just think about. 10% theory, 90% practice.”
Mindfulness practices.
I want to give you some very simple practices that will bring you very close to yourself, and you will be able to look at the world differently.
1 practice. Turn off all your gadgets.
Choose one day a week when you do not use any means of communication (phones, laptops, tablets, TVs). Minimize contacts with the outside world.
Throughout the day, observe your reactions and emotions, observe what you are annoyed by, what you are happy about. Learn to hear yourself.
This practice gives amazing results.
2 practice. U-turn.
For a week, try to respond to internal irritation or resentment by sending pleasant thoughts or compliments to the person.
Monitor your critical thoughts towards people, even if they do something differently than you would like. Try to perceive rudeness and bad manners as the experience of that person, which does not concern you personally.
This exercise helps to change your attitude towards the world, to see the person first, and not the action, and trains understanding and patience.
3 practice. Experience.
Try to evaluate all important undertakings, as well as failures, as gaining experience. After all, any experience is important.
Don’t blame yourself or scold yourself, but simply analyze and move to another situation, gaining new experience.
4 practice. Observer.
This is probably the most important and most necessary practice for mindfulness. Without it it is impossible to move on.
You simply observe your emotions and feelings, reactions. Imagine a movie and watch the main character - yourself. Without getting involved in your emotions. A month of this practice completely changes your attitude towards yourself and people. Tested for myself.
5 practice. Meditation.
Daily meditation is very important and necessary. After all, thanks to her, you look inside yourself, you begin to hear yourself. Even in a terrible bustle, try to find one hour a day to immerse yourself in yourself. This helps restore your state of mind and be filled with energy.
I personally practice intuitive. I'm immersed in my favorite place and I go where my soul tells me. This is how many discoveries are made and filled with energy.
6 practice. Conscious breathing.
Breathing is a need of our body; without it we cannot exist. Conscious breathing immerses us very deeply into ourselves. This expands consciousness and trains maximum awareness. The perception of the world is amazingly transformed.
In conclusion, I would like to add that becoming mindful is a lifelong process. It can never be completed, but you can enjoy every day, just from your discoveries and expansion of consciousness.
I love you, Marina Danilova.
Hello, friends. I have already written about how, thanks to it, your life improves many times over, and you become healthy and happy people.
Today I will tell you exactly how to train mindfulness in everyday life, I will give effective exercises for awareness, in a word, I will teach you how to achieve it in order to receive all the bonuses of this state of consciousness.
We constantly worry about the future, we cannot forget the bad past, we are always afraid of something, angry, offended, and so on ad infinitum. All this leads not only to mental problems, but also to physical illnesses. As they say: “All diseases come from nerves.” We are ruled by thoughts and emotions stuck in our heads; they, and not we ourselves, decide what our life will be like.
If a person, for example, is very nervous during an interview, it means that emotions are clouding his head and preventing him from thinking rationally. He has no self-control and usually fails an important meeting. And many such examples can be given. We simply do not live consciously and do not know how to control our thoughts, feelings and emotions. Almost all of a person's problems are due to his unawareness.
Get out of this hell, wake up, improve your life, become healthy and happy man Only awareness will help us.
And you will learn how to achieve it from this article.
Awareness comes gradually
Mindfulness is special condition consciousness, in which we do not wander in the chaos of thoughts and emotions, but are in the current moment, here and now. We begin to clearly understand everything, but most importantly, we become aware of our real self. Or you can say, it awakens in us. As a result, we go beyond the psyche and can look at its manifestations from the outside. This immediately solves many problems. Uncontrollable negative emotions, which previously destroyed us from the inside, leading to illness, finally cease to rule over us and gradually dissolve.
It all seems clear and sounds beautiful. But it will not be possible to gain awareness right away, “at the behest of a pike, at my will.” This is a workout and the results will not be immediate. Our consciousness must get used to working more productively, development will be gradual. The habit of living unconsciously is deeply rooted in us and it takes time to change it. You cannot gain awareness right away. This is a process, and the growth of awareness can go on endlessly. You can’t say that a person has become as smart as possible and that’s all. You can develop your mind throughout your life. So it is with awareness. At first we are aware a little, then more, even more, and so on.
But don't be alarmed. You don't have to be super conscious to improve your life. Already your first efforts will bear fruit, negative emotions and uncontrolled internal dialogue will significantly decrease. And having felt all the charm of this state, you will be happy to increase the power of awareness. For you, such work on yourself will be easy and relaxed, you will like it. And someday your awareness will increase so much that you will simply be surprised how much your life has improved. “How did I live before without her,” you say to yourself.
But first you have to work hard. There is no way without this.
Where to begin?
And you need to start by removing the importance of your thoughts and emotions.
The fact is that we are very strongly linked to them. And such a thing as a sense of self-importance is to blame for everything.
A separate article will be devoted to it. Now the main thing is to understand that this feeling leads a person to pride, selfishness, stubbornness, disrespect for other people, and placing oneself at the center of the whole world. Feeling important actually has both pros and cons. Without it, we would not be able to interact normally with people or defend our opinions. But over-importance of oneself actually leads to big problems, generates a lot of negative emotions, obscures our true vision of the world. What we are interested in now is that due to a sense of self-importance, a person is strongly attached to his feelings, thoughts and emotions. He considers them unshakable, very important, unchanging, and not subject to criticism. “I said so, that’s it, it’s the law.” "My opinion is unshakable." “My thoughts and emotions are me, they are important and unchanging.” All this leads to the fact that a person considers his character, his reactions, his entire psyche as a very important part of himself that cannot be changed. Even if he is not happy with his character, he still believes that nothing can be done about it. This is also important.
The first step towards awareness is to reduce your sense of self-importance. To do this, you need to change your worldview and understand what I am about to say.
Our thoughts, feelings and emotions are actually not as important as they seem to us. This importance was invented by us, other people look at our character completely differently, they don’t care about us. But most importantly, all manifestations of the psyche are just a program that exists in our head and which can be erased and replaced with a new one. It is only a part of ourselves, but it is not us. We are actually something more than all these thoughts and emotions.
Learn to listen to other people's opinions. Not only your own, but also their thoughts deserve attention. Try to understand what the other person wants. Stop arguing, maybe your opponent is actually right.
Just stop, stop being proud and not seeing anyone around. Look at other people with understanding and respect.
Maybe you don’t want it, you’re not used to it, but try it. You want to become conscious and change your life. At first it will be difficult and you will have to change yourself.
Such a change in worldview leads to the fact that a person stops, calms down his pride a little, pauses the internal mental conversation and begins to notice at least something around him, stops being stubborn like a sheep. And here the so-called pause in response appears, the key to awareness.
To come to awareness, you need to find this pause in reaction within yourself. Or, you could say, you just need to stop the world.
A person is constantly in a hurry to somewhere, doing something, spinning through life like a squirrel in a wheel. Maybe this is all good, but it leads to the fact that his internal dialogue is constantly working, without stopping for a second. We are always thinking about something, making plans for the future, imagining what will happen next, remembering past events, reacting emotionally to events, and so on ad infinitum. This has become a habit and has led to the fact that we are constantly attached to our thoughts, emotions, and our ego. The real self is in a sleepy state.
A person's attention constantly jumps like a mad monkey from one object to another, unable to focus on one thing.
There is no talk of any awareness in such conditions.
All this led to an unconscious reaction to the surrounding reality. A person lives like a robot, obeying the programs programmed in his head.
The formula is: stimulus-response. All! And these reactions are already in our brain, and we always react the same way. Our life is the result of such programs and we are not able to change it. And the world that we observe is also the result of the work of the same programs. We look at the world through the prism of our ego. You can read more about this.
But we can stop the habitual reaction, which means we can change our lives. Changing your life starts with changing your thinking. Change your thoughts and your life will change. But the world around us will also change. If we stop, for example, being angry with people and seeing everyone as enemies, then we will come across more good people. To change the world, to rebuild it, you must first stop the old world, stop the old reaction to the situation. To do this, you need to insert one more link into the stimulus-response formula: a pause, leading to freedom of choice. A new formula emerges: stimulus - pause (freedom of choice, stop) - and only then a reaction, but it will be conscious, and not automatic. This is stopping the world, stopping the habitual reaction, stopping the internal dialogue, awareness.
That is, before the reaction occurs, and we react habitually, there is a pause. We stop, stop the internal dialogue, conscious attention turns on, which itself will decide how to react in the current situation. We are transforming from robots into conscious people.
The techniques and exercises described below will help you come to such a stop and better understand what it all is.
Exercises and techniques that lead to awareness
To make the task easier and quickly achieve awareness in everyday life, you need to insert one more value into the above formula. Remembering to be mindful. It turns out like this: stimulus-remembering-pause-reaction.
And for beginners even this scheme: remembering-stimulus-remembering-response.
That is, your path to awareness begins with the fact that you must, either on a schedule, or by a reminder on your phone or something else, remember that you must be aware and not drown in the routine of internal dialogue.
You must deliberately find time to practice throughout the day.
Practice at work
Set several alarms on your phone to remind you to be mindful work time. If possible, set aside 5 minutes every hour or 2 hours. Step away from the everyday hustle and bustle, take a break from work. Leave all problems, unresolved matters for a while, 5 minutes “will not do you any good.”
Look carefully at your palm, consider all the lines on your palm. Feel it, imagine that it is hot, then cold, play with the sensations. Mindfulness means that we can calmly direct our attention to some object without being distracted by extraneous thoughts.
Take a look at the objects around you, look out the window, what you see on the street. Scan your eyes with everything that surrounds you. The main thing is to look at everything without judgment, without thinking about objects, that is, not to include internal dialogue, the work of the mind, but simply observe.
At first you won't be able to do this. Despite the apparent simplicity of such mindfulness sessions, they provide very good results and lay the foundation by virtue of your awareness. But because of this simplicity, the practitioner does not attach importance to such practice, skips it, and considers it frivolous. Thoughts like this begin to creep into my head: “I’m doing nonsense, I’d rather get busy, I won’t waste time on mindfulness sessions.”
Therefore, overcome yourself and first practice through effort, be disciplined. You will enjoy these breaks from work later. They will give you rest and relieve your head well. After this, your productivity will only increase.
The next stage of practice at work will be the ability to observe those thoughts that will creep into your head and interfere with awareness. A person is not used to just observing without evaluation the world. As soon as you start doing this, your restless mind will try to return your attention to the usual course of life's bustle. He will want to think again current issues, will dissuade you from practicing, and so on. If you can step back from these thoughts and observe them, if you catch yourself again thinking about something rather than observing your palm or other objects, then the power of your awareness will increase many times over. As soon as you realize that you are thinking again, do not fight your thoughts, but simply move away from them, observing from the side and again, without being distracted by them, engage in practice. Be aware and observe everything that is happening around you.
After you start to succeed at something, you can add observation of your body. Walk your attention throughout your body. Look, you probably have some parts of your body that are tight due to the specifics of your work. Maybe you sit in one position at the computer a lot or strain your eyes a lot. Close your eyes, relax them, and also take a comfortable position and relax your whole body. Look consciously at the areas muscle tension and relax them. In a word, relax, take a break from work, but now do it more consciously, without being distracted by thoughts, but calmly observing parts of the body. Believe me, after such sessions, I repeat, your productivity at work will increase. If possible, relax while lying down, scanning your body with your attention, try doing or. You can read about these wonderful techniques by following the link; they also increase your awareness.
Mindfulness while eating
The more you organize such mindfulness sessions, the faster its power will grow. Mindfulness can be applied to any situation. For example, a person has such a bad habit as eating food quickly, while talking, watching TV and thinking about something all the time.
If we are mindful, then we do what we do without being distracted by extraneous internal dialogue. In fact, if we eat like this, we not only lose awareness, but also undermine our health. Be sure to read about this in the article about. Unconscious and rapid swallowing of food necessarily leads to diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. The worst thing is when you eat and at the same time experience negative emotions. This is a direct road to gastritis, and then stomach cancer.
Learn to eat mindfully.
Before swallowing food, smell it and feel how pleasant it smells. Place a piece of food in your mouth. Feel the taste, understand that you like it. Chew your food thoroughly, and don’t think about anything else. Swallow the food and feel how it enters your stomach. It tastes good and makes you feel good. If you do everything right, you will see how your restless mind prevents you from consciously eating. Extraneous thoughts will begin to creep into your head. This is our habit, an unconscious state. Catch yourself thinking and not practicing again. After this, calmly turn your attention to food and continue the practice. After consciously eating, you will feel the benefits of such a meal, a pleasant state in your stomach, and you will be surprised that you are full much faster.
Mindful shower
You can use such an interesting practice as a mindful shower.
After a working day, in order to wash away all the negativity, while taking a shower, do not dwell on the events of the past day in your head, but simply feel how the streams of water touch you, watch how the water flows over your body and you feel good about it. Monitor your bodily reaction, how your body reacts if you take and change the temperature of the water. The combination of a contrast shower and a mindful shower will only benefit you, improve your health and increase the power of awareness.
Unload your brain before bed
Internal dialogue prevents us from being conscious, and therefore, at the first opportunity, we need to reduce the power of its influence on us. The best time for this is going to bed. Before falling asleep, take a comfortable lying position and try to relax without thinking about anything. You can bring your attention to your body and relax areas of tension. This simple technique will make your sleep healthier and also increase your awareness. How to fall asleep correctly and find healthy sleep you can read it. You can also practice yoga nidra or relax in shavasana before bed.
Many people don't know how to truly listen to music. Basically, they turn it on as a background to avoid boredom and to fill the emptiness in their soul. But they don’t hear it, they don’t feel it, because there is no conscious listening to music. Put on headphones so that you are not distracted by extraneous sounds, turn on your favorite music, no matter what.
Completely immerse yourself in the music, listen to it without being distracted by extraneous thoughts. Select from general sound the sound of a hotel instrument, for example, listen to what rhythm the drums produce, how beautiful a guitar or other instrument sounds. Feel how beautiful music really is if you listen to it well and listen without distractions. You will find a lot of interesting things in this practice, you will definitely like it. Give it a try.
Concentration and deconcentration
There are special psychotechniques that significantly train attention and develop awareness. This is concentration and deconcentration.
Concentration is prolonged, one-pointed attention on one object. Deconcentration is when we disperse our attention and observe several objects at once. When we practiced the above techniques, for example, looking at the palm of our hand, we were essentially practicing concentration. You can simply enhance this technique by choosing an object and looking at it for a long time, concentrating all your attention on it. You've probably heard about the famous Eastern technique of looking at a candle. Now you understand that there is nothing mystical about it and that in fact it is needed to develop awareness and awaken the real Self. You yourself can choose any object and train your attention by trying to look at it for a while without being distracted by extraneous thoughts and other objects. Many people draw a dot on a white sheet of paper, place it in front of them and look at it.
And to apply deconcentration, try looking at an object to your left, to your right, and then at both objects at the same time. This will be deconcentrated attention. It is often used in life. For example, when we drive a car, to drive safely, we deconcentrate and immediately try to observe several objects on the road: signs, traffic lights, pedestrians, and so on. The special deconcentration technique differs from examples from life in that we do it more carefully, without being distracted by internal dialogue.
Why do such techniques lead to awareness? The thing is that in life the usual work of our attention is that it constantly jumps from one object to another, unable to concentrate. This is because it is linked to our restless internal dialogue, our psyche and mind. They command our attention where to direct our gaze. This is our constant bustle of life. Also, deconcentration in life is not clear and complete. If we further give an example about driving a car, we often do not notice the real situation on the road because we are distracted by extraneous thoughts.
When we specifically use concentration and deconcentration, we seem to pull attention out of the shackles of the mind and force it not to obey the internal dialogue. And what exactly draws attention. I said that We we pull it out. In fact, this is what the real Self, our awareness, does. By specifically directing our attention somewhere, we become disidentified with mental chatter, do not react as usual out of habit, and therefore awaken our will, our conscious, chosen perception. This is how we develop awareness.
You will see for yourself that you cannot focus your attention on one object for a long time. The internal dialogue strives to capture our attention again, and we again begin to think, losing concentration. If you are absorbed in the mind, you have lost awareness. Once you understand what you are thinking, you reawaken your awareness and calmly return your attention to the object. This is how awareness is trained. And the longer you can observe one object, that is, concentrate, the stronger the power of your awareness will be. Therefore, you train to concentrate for a long time at least once a day, the main thing is that this happens regularly without long, several-day breaks.
Mindfulness in stressful situations
All the above techniques are good, but as soon as you find yourself in a stressful situation, negative emotions come upon us so strongly that we immediately forget about practice, about a conscious state and give in under their onslaught. Emotions consume us. This is why we must train awareness specifically in difficult situations, only then will you be able to withstand any stress and not lose your head in any circumstances.
For example, you have important meeting and fear came over you. The most important thing here, until the moment when the fear is not yet very strong, is to remember that you need to be conscious, that is, apply the formula that I spoke about: stimulus (emotion) - memory - pause - conscious reaction. And to be aware means not to be consumed by fear, but to observe it. It is useless to fight with him; fight is a form of cooperation. By trying to get rid of fear, you will come to even greater tension and only intensify it. You need to try to relax and look at your fear from the outside. You are watching him. That is, when you come to a meeting, you understand that you are afraid, you see how your body is shaking, and you begin to look from the outside at your fear and bodily reactions associated with fear. If you can do this, fear will no longer cloud your head much, and you will behave adequately and will not fail the meeting. It is unlikely that you will be able to completely get rid of it, but sometimes a little awareness is enough to save the situation. Therefore, it’s okay if you are not good at observing emotions at first. The main thing in a stressful situation is not to lose your head, but to remember that you need to be aware. Over time, the power of your awareness will increase and you will be less nervous, gain confidence and stress resistance.
Take up meditation
No the best remedy to develop awareness than . Why is that?
What I talked about above is awareness in everyday life. This is what we need. What is the point of mindfulness if we don’t know how to apply it in real life conditions. Ideally, it should be always and everywhere, in any situation, at any time.
But meditation is actually also mindfulness, but applied in comfortable conditions when no one and nothing distracts you. Meditation is the training of conscious attention. When we sit down to meditate, we disidentify with our psyche and begin to observe thoughts, feelings and emotions from the outside. In meditation we awaken the real Self, true awareness. And the greater the distance between the psyche and the real Self, the stronger the power of your awareness. That is, the more and better you meditate, the better you will be able to be mindful in everyday life.
But, I repeat, it takes place in ideal conditions, and when you start applying mindfulness in your daily life, you fail. Therefore, meditation is needed to feel awareness, separate the real self from the psyche, calmly feel this state in silence, and increase the power of conscious attention. And then train attention always and everywhere in any situations. This is an interdependent process.
And only in this way will you become truly conscious people, which means healthy and happy.
Let's say, in order to learn to speak well foreign language, you need to live abroad or constantly communicate with someone who speaks this language. But first you need to learn the basics of speech, remember a lot of words. So it is with awareness. First, learn to look at your psyche in a calm environment, in silence, feel the basics of awareness, and only then, go out into everyday life.
Of course, you can learn to be mindful without meditation, but your progress will take a very long time, and many will never be able to truly experience a conscious state.
The techniques and exercises that I gave above are actually not that difficult. I have also already talked about many of them on the pages of this blog. For example, I already wrote, . Control over emotions lies in their awareness.
But the difficulty is that you need to believe in them and at first force yourself to practice constantly, every day. You'll have to use willpower and force yourself. But later, when you get the first results and the power of your awareness increases, you will like the techniques of mindfulness, everything will be easy and joyful for you. This soul of yours will demand rest from the everyday hustle and bustle and enjoy a conscious state.
These exercises and techniques will be enough for your life to begin to change in better side.
I will also say that you should not strive for constant awareness, to always be here and now. This is a more advanced practice performed by many spiritual seekers. In order for your life to change for the better, it is enough to include awareness in stressful situations or when you need to change something in your character, change your outlook on things. And also periodically arrange daily sessions of conscious observation, using the above exercises and techniques. Well, don’t forget to practice meditation. Over time, your awareness will become stronger, and it will gradually be introduced into other moments of your life, improving your life more and more.
What results should you expect? What I talked about in the first article about awareness will come. There are many bonuses that can be listed, and one article is unlikely to be enough for this.
Health will improve, many diseases of the body and mind will go away. Stress resistance will increase. All those negative emotions that prevented you from living fully and achieving your goals will cease to dominate you and will gradually disappear. You become free from uncontrollable manifestations of the psyche. Now you make your own choice about what your life will be like. Previously, this was done for you by emotions lodged inside you, programs instilled and hardwired into your brain, and painful memories from childhood.
But most importantly, personal strength or fortitude will gradually increase. It's an incredible feeling. Be sure to read about it by following the link.
The growth of personal power is associated with the fact that all Vital energy, previously consumed by negative emotions, now fuels the body and our soul. The soul, previously imprisoned, finally spreads its wings and flies to freedom. We feel this as an increase in spiritual strength. What could be more important? Intuition and self-confidence increase, you stop making mistakes. In a word, become healthy and happy people. Learn to be mindful in order to achieve this.
And that's all for today.
And in conclusion, a strong song for you, performed by strong people in a burst of fortitude. This is so that you understand what personal power is. But for this you need to listen to it consciously, without being distracted by your stupid annoying thoughts. Move away from them at least now. The song is worth it.
Mindfulness is the ability to be in full contact with yourself and the world around you, and to achieve your goals. life values, managing your attention, thinking and emotions.
Awareness is direct knowledge about oneself (as a Personality), obtained directly from the primary source - acquired experience - and not subject to mental interpretation and distortion by consciousness and mind. It is the process of understanding current experiences, i.e. everything that's happening. By becoming aware of himself and his life, a person becomes able not only to receive practical benefit from every moment he lives, but also to find connections between all the events that have happened and are ongoing.
To achieve awareness, you need to master the practice of developing an “inner observer.”A strong “inner observer” makes it possible to be aware of everything that happens in our inner world, to free ourselves from fears, other unconscious emotions and internal conflicts, opens up the ability to understand the cause-and-effect relationships of events, which will make it possible to break out of the “vicious circles” of long-term problems without repeat the same mistakes.
A person with an active and strong “internal observer” knows how to manage himself, his emotions, thoughts, internal state; he clearly perceives what is happening in the outside world, events and people - i.e. comes out of imaginary reality into objective reality; and also develops wisdom and spiritual abilities.
There is a basic level of awareness, the development of which is facilitated by any practical actions, by performing which you can learn to control your emotions, be in a state of presence, and be able to be in a serene state. If a person is able to realize only his momentary desires and needs - this is awareness low level. More high level manifests itself when a person sees more than just the instincts of his “I”, takes into account the interests of others, controls his thoughts and feelings, tries to expand the boundaries of his perception, tune in to the same frequency with the world around him, etc.
But first, it’s worth talking about those “forces” that oppose the development of awareness and the formation of an “inner observer.”
We are used to evaluating and criticizing, this is how the process of upbringing goes - parents evaluate (and also criticize, praise, condemn) children and the world around them, children learn this and, growing up, do the same. Therefore, we all have an inner critic, an inner judge, and also a defender. They criticize, make assessments and judgments, condemn and justify.
These subpersonalities serve the interests of our ego, but deprive us of objectivity and awareness. Everything that happens in reality is perceived by us through the “filters” of these subpersonalities. As a result, the assessment of external situations or surrounding people based on these “voices” is essentially our fantasy, which can greatly distort reality.
Therefore, you need to know and remember about them in order to learn to distinguish their voices, which will prevent you from “growing” your inner observer. When their voices become quieter, and your observer is strong and constantly active, awareness and objective perception of the world and people around you will grow.
For this to happen, the following basic conditions must be met:
- Accepting everything as it is - you simply notice, describe what is happening, or your thoughts, emotions, actions, but do not evaluate, interpret or explain them.
- Remove the desire to control or influence what is happening. This does not mean that you will now go with the flow, not managing anything in your life. As soon as the observer in you becomes stronger, you will be able to manage both yourself and events much more easily and effectively. But to train the practice of observation, you need to learn to turn off the functions of continuous control and influence so that the perception becomes “pure” and undistorted.
- Look at the events taking place, as well as at your emerging emotions and thoughts, as if from the outside, as if you are not participating in these situations, you are just watching a “movie”. This is how you switch yourself from the mode of “involvement” in the process to the mode of “pure perception”. When you experience everything as a participant or performer of some process or event, you are deprived of objectivity and cannot see the forest for the trees. The view of an outside observer, or the view “from above,” shows the whole picture objectively and impartially.
Benefits of Mindful Living
A person leading a conscious life is able to:
- Break out of the circle of problems and mistakes that always lead to the same result and take up precious time;
- Realize your fears and causes of troubles, overcome obstacles and change beliefs that have a destructive impact on life;
- Become wiser, increase your self-esteem and get rid of bad habits;
- Move away from the duality of thinking and actions and become a more holistic person;
- Gain confidence in yourself and your abilities, increase willpower and faith in success in any endeavor;
- Learn to work with your subconscious;
- Come to an understanding of your true purpose and find your Path;
- Learn to live in harmony with yourself and the world around you.
It is obvious that the development of awareness in everyday life is an extremely useful and effective skill, the beneficial impact of which is reflected not only in changing the quality of external life, but also in the development and enrichment of inner world. But what do you need to do to start leading a more conscious life? There are several effective strategies for this.
How to develop your awareness?
Any person who has come to the understanding that he needs to develop his awareness in life must first determine exactly where to start working on himself. You should not immediately try to comprehend all the basics of this process, because excessive load will most likely only discourage the desire to act. We need to approach this gradually. You can even compare the process of developing awareness with the process of developing physical qualities: there is a main direction - general physical training, and there are separate components - the development of special physical skills. The main focus here will be to increase awareness in general. And the following exercises contribute to this.
Practice distinguishing the essential from the unimportant. To begin with, it is enough to spend 5 minutes three times a day, contemplating your joys, sufferings, worries, actions in front of your inner gaze as if someone else was experiencing or doing them. If you look at your own experiences from the outside, from the outside, you lose internal connections with them, and only then can you distinguish the unimportant from the essential. When this is successful, all events and experiences will appear in a completely different light, and your inner vision will gradually open to everything around you.
Form a “non-judgmental observer” in situations and people around you and refrain from any assessment. This shouldn't be external rule life, but by a deep inner motivation, state. When this is successful, spiritual powers awaken in a person that would otherwise remain hidden.
Track your feelings, emotions and thoughts throughout the day. To control and manage something, in our case thoughts and emotions, the first thing you need is to learn to track and realize them. You can't manage what you don't know. Therefore, first we carefully observe, study all manifestations of our emotions, sensations, thoughts, all the nuances, features, mechanisms and causes of occurrence. Once this succeeds, you will be able to control them.
Mindfulness Practice
The first is breathing. Breathing is the basis of life and first you need to learn to track this process. Strive to constantly control your breathing: anywhere, at any time, with any people, while performing any action, pay attention to how you breathe.
The second is sensations. Feelings accompany us every moment. Make it a rule to be aware of them throughout the day: pay attention to the state of each muscle group in your body, what makes your body feel comfortable and what makes you uncomfortable, how this is interconnected with the events occurring during the day. Over time, you will see that any situation, any mood, negative or positive emotions - all this is reflected on the body in the form of sensations. Ask yourself: “What are the sensations in my body right now and what is causing them?”
Third is emotions . Emotions, like sensations, are constant companions of our lives. Mindfulness means controlling emotion, and control means monitoring. Whenever a particular emotion arises in you, simply observe it. Do not give her any assessments, trying to look at her as if from the outside. The more impartial you are to your emotions, the more stable your state will be, and the faster you will learn to neutralize negativity if it appears. Ask yourself: “What emotions are dominant in me now and why?”
The fourth is thoughts. Thoughts are the most difficult to observe, but they are the most effective part of the practice. The fact is that our mind is constantly absorbed in the internal dialogue that everyone conducts with himself. And even if you can track it for a few seconds, you will not notice how deeply you are already immersed in new thoughts. But the more often you remember your thoughts, the more they will be amenable to your observation and control. Ask yourself the question: “What am I thinking about right now?”
Fifth is meditation. Meditation can be called a mindfulness practice. Sitting in a secluded place, we breathe calmly through our nose and focus on breathing: inhaling and exhaling. We consciously move into this state and try to stay in it for as long as possible. In this state, concentration of attention is achieved, deep relaxation occurs, and perception expands. We begin to see all our internal processes. At the first stages during meditation, thoughts may distract, but our task is to try to relax as much as possible, distance ourselves from them, direct our attention to the breath, letting thoughts pass by, achieving non-thought. When a thought comes again, simply “label” it with the word “thought” and let it go, returning to focusing on your breathing.
Over time, you will discover that there is a part of you that thinks thoughts, experiences emotions, sensations, and there is a part that observes and realizes this. This is your constant “observer”, “controller” - your awakened awareness. It is not for nothing that in Eastern teachings a person without an internal observer is called “sleeping.” It is easier to be asleep, but without an internal observer, self-improvement and spiritual development of the individual are impossible.
Developing awareness develops the skill of tracking yourself, all your stereotypes, habits, reactions, emotions, thoughts, feelings, desires, actions, speech and everything that is directly related to you. Develop and train your inner observer. If you forget, remember, create “triggers” for yourself to remember your practice (an unusual object in your pocket, a cross on your hand, a sticker on the monitor, etc.). Don’t let yourself “fall asleep”, wake up from your waking sleep everyone possible ways and you won’t notice how your life will transform, and you yourself will be able to say with complete confidence: “Yes, I live my life for real and I am always here and now.”
MARK WILLIAMS, DANNY PENMAN
MINDFULNESS
A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world
Scientific editor Nadezhda Nikolskaya
Published with permission of Dr Danny Penman and Professor J. M. G. Williams c/o Curtis Brown Group Limited and Van Lear
© Professor Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman, 2001
Foreword by Jon Kaabt-Zinn, 2011
This edition is published by arrangement with Curtis Brown UK and The Van Lear Agency LLC.
© Translation into Russian, publication in Russian, design. Mann, Ivanov and Ferber LLC, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.
Legal support for the publishing house is provided by law firm"Vegas-Lex"
© The electronic version of the book was prepared by liters company (www.litres.ru)
This book is well complemented by:
How to remain calm and effective in any situation
Sharon Melnick
How to get rid of stress, internal conflicts and bad habits
Neil Fiore
Tal Ben-Shahar
Preface
IN Lately the whole world is talking about mindfulness practice. And this is wonderful, because now we especially lack some elusive, but important element our life. Sometimes we begin to realize that what we are missing is ourselves - our willingness or ability to be present in our own life and live it as if it really means something, in the only moment that we will ever have, that is, here and now - and that we are worthy and capable of living our lives this way. This is a very bold and extremely important idea, and it could change the world. At the very least, it will change the lives of those who decide to take a step in this direction and will help these people appreciate and experience the fullness of life.
At the same time, a conscious approach to life is not just another good idea: “Exactly, now I will live more consciously, judge people less, and everything will change for the better. Why didn’t I think of this before?” Unfortunately, such ideas are fleeting and almost never linger long in our minds. And although being more attentive to your actions and less judgmental of others is good in itself, such an idea alone will not get you far. Moreover, such thoughts can make you feel more inadequate or powerless. The practice of mindfulness requires the direct participation of someone who wants to achieve some benefits with it, only then will it be effective. In other words, mindfulness is truly a practice, as is the opinion of Mark Williams and Denny Penman. It is not simple good idea, smart technology or a newfangled hobby, but a way of life. In fact, this practice dates back several thousand years, and is often called the heart of Buddhist meditation, although its essence boils down to mindfulness and awareness and is therefore universal.
The practice of mindfulness has a profound impact on our health, well-being and happiness, and this book lays out the scientific and medical evidence for this in a very accessible way. Because mindfulness is a practice and not just an abstract idea, cultivating it is a process that deepens over time. When you begin to practice, you must first make a commitment to yourself, which will require persistence and discipline, but at the same time, flexibility and ease are required, in other words, showing kindness and compassion to yourself. It is the ease combined with unwavering and sincere involvement that distinguishes mindfulness training and further practice in all its diversity.
In addition, it is important to have good mentors in this business, since the stakes are quite high. Ultimately, it is about the quality of your life and relationships with others and with the world in which you live, not to mention your well-being, mental state, happiness and engagement in your own life. So if you trust the experienced professionals - Mark Williams and Denny Penman - and use their recommendations and program, you can be sure that you are in good hands. Their program provides a clear framework—an architecture, if you will—within which you can observe your own body, mind, and life, as well as a proven, systematic approach to dealing with any situation that arises. The architecture of this program is based solely on the facts and techniques of stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which are combined into a coherent, compelling, and common-sense eight-week course. It can be used by anyone who values own health And peace of mind, especially in our ever-accelerating or, as the authors say, crazy world. I especially like their simple but radical suggestions for breaking old habits called pattern breaks. They are designed to identify and neutralize thought processes and behavior patterns that we most often are not aware of, but they are the ones that drive us into narrow boundaries, depriving us of the opportunity to live life to the fullest. By starting a practice, you put yourself in the hands of not only the authors, but also yourself, and this is perhaps the most important thing. You promise yourself to follow their recommendations, formal and informal procedures, and pattern-breaking exercises. With their help, you will understand what happens when you focus on and show kindness and compassion to yourself and others, even if it does not seem entirely natural at first. Such a promise is a manifestation of self-confidence and self-belief. In combination with the program described in this book, this can be a chance to “make friends” with your own life and live it full power, minute by minute, day by day.
Mark Williams has been a colleague, co-author and friend of mine for many years. He is one of the largest researchers in the field of mindfulness practice throughout the world, he was at the origins of this trend and did a lot to popularize it. Like John Tisdale and Zindel Segal, he is one of the founders of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which, according to many studies, can have a profound impact on the lives of people suffering from clinical depression, significantly reducing the risk of relapse. Mark is also the founder of the Center for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University (North Wales) and the Oxford Center for Mindfulness Studies. Both centers provide leading research and clinical training based on mindfulness practices.
Book by Mark Williams and journalist Denny Penman - practical guide on awareness and its cultivation. I hope you will greatly benefit from participating in this program and learn how to have a wiser relationship with your own “free and precious life.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Boston, Massachusetts
December 2010
Like a squirrel in a wheel
Remember when you last time, lying in bed, trying to control their thoughts. You wanted your mind to calm down, calm down and you could finally fall asleep. But no matter what you tried, nothing helped. Every time you forced yourself not to think about anything, thoughts rushed in with new strength. You tried to convince yourself to calm down, but suddenly there were endless reasons to worry. You tried to fluff up your pillow and get comfortable, but your thoughts kept coming back. Time passed, your strength left you, and you felt vulnerable and broken.
Let everything arise from your awareness. And the miracle of mindfulness is that without saying anything, without doing anything, it simply dissolves everything that is ugly in you, turning it into beauty.
Bhagwan Rajneesh
A conversation about awareness is a conversation about you, because there is only awareness in the world, and it is at the center of the human being. The rest just obscures our visibility. Therefore, in order to return to the center, to understanding our true essence, some effort will be required in the form of exercises aimed at awakening consciousness.
Mindfulness, or awakening consciousness
Mindfulness, the awakening of consciousness by noticing minimal changes in the physical, emotional and mental planes, is practiced in psychology. But the very concept of mindfulness was not an invention of psychological science at all, but is a borrowed concept that originates from the practices of ancient philosophical teachings.
Psychology skillfully applies this concept to create positive changes in the psycho-emotional state of a person and, therefore, uses it as an applied method for correcting the psyche, forgetting that awareness can and in fact is valuable in itself. It is a thing in itself, but not in the sense of its unknowability, but in the fact that it is valuable in itself, regardless of whether we know about its existence or not. She is.
If we accept awareness as an integral fact of existence, then we let it into our lives, enlivening and filling the world around us with meaning. If we do not recognize the concept of awareness, it nevertheless does not cease to exist in reality, but at the same time our life flows in an unconscious way, by inertia. A person is more than a set of physiological and mental functions. He experiences the world through awareness. The more aware he is, the more everything becomes open to him. It’s good that people are increasingly thinking about this and developing their ability to understand through various methods and technician.
Mindfulness techniques and mindfulness practice
There is a whole sea of mindfulness techniques; The main thing is to choose those that suit you best. Most spiritual practices are aimed at developing awareness. We can say that one of the most important goals of practice is the development of maximum awareness, otherwise no further progress along the path of discipleship seems possible.
An adept of a particular school or teaching must learn to be self-aware. This means awareness of the physical, emotional and mental body, that is, the first 3 out of 7 human bodies, which form the physical-energetic essence of a person. Self-awareness implies the following:
- awareness of your body (movements, condition, temperature, bodily sensations, etc.),
- awareness of emotions (their source, color, development and attenuation, change, etc.),
- awareness of thoughts (origin, development, transformation, transition from one to another).
Yoga provides a wide field for the practice of mindfulness. You can start at any level to begin to develop awareness. One of simple ways for a beginner it will be the practice of yogic asanas. They form awareness not only of their physical body, but also of their psychological state. Every time you perform, your consciousness is focused on those parts of the body that are most occupied in one position or another.
This is essentially one of the mindfulness exercises that psychologists recommend. They say that you need to change your usual rhythm of life or choose other methods of performing those tasks and actions that you usually don’t even pay attention to. Let's say you are drawing right hand, since you are right-handed, you need to try to perform this action with your left hand. The direction of your consciousness will immediately change.
It's the same in yoga. You usually sit on a chair or armchair. You get used to it and don’t focus on it anymore. In order to become aware of the process, take the Vajrasana pose. It seems like nothing complicated, you sit on the floor and feel good, but it’s unusual. From this, consciousness becomes absorbed in this process. Attention is drawn to the posture itself, the position of the arms, legs, and sensations in the knees.
Awareness of the emotional sphere in yoga practice
Emotional awareness is also practiced most naturally in yoga. In the first stages of practice, you will notice your feelings emerging at the moment of performing asanas, without focusing on them. You simply let them be, arise and fade away just as naturally. Eventually you should come to the point where emotions stop playing great importance. These are just emotions - the psychological response of our body to external stimuli. Yes, these are not even emotional impulses, as people prone to romantic feelings usually characterize an influx of emotions. These are mental changes that are closely related to chemical reactions occurring in the body.
Golden and silver Age literature has taught us to treat emotional sphere with special reverence, but for our purposes of achieving awareness it is better to immediately put things in their places. Let us leave the description of wonderful or terrifying feelings for writers, and we ourselves will turn to their conscious observation. The mere fact that you begin to be aware of the emergence of your feelings and emotions will reduce their uncontrollable flow and stop uncontrollable reactions.
Yoga effectively works with the emotional body. As for the thought process, there is hardly any practice that can compete. They both focus on Special attention concentration of thought, direction of the thought flow in the right direction. First, they work to make thoughts fully conscious, clearing this process of the taint of internal criticism, and next stage move on to stopping the thought process through the practice of deep meditation.
How to Develop Mindfulness: Mindfulness Exercises
To give the reader the opportunity to experiment, let's look at a few exercises that can be used daily. They are not directly related to the practices of spiritual teachings, but will nevertheless prepare you for them if you want to do them in the future.
This list could be supplemented, but with practice you will learn to create exercises for developing awareness in real life. In the next section, we will move on to look in more detail at some of the techniques for developing mindfulness described above.
Exercises to Awaken Awareness Using Attention
The essence of mindfulness training is to devote all of yourself to what you are doing at a certain moment in time, to avoid switching attention. If it jumps to another object, return it back and calmly continue to study, observing your actions, the sensations and thoughts that arise in the process. This way you will be practicing conscious thinking at the same time.
Awareness can be directed to both thoughts and movements. This even leads to an expansion of awareness, bringing it to a higher level, while switching attention to another activity or object contradicts the practice of awareness, since attention is scattered, and the key to the practice of awareness lies precisely in the direction of attention. In fact, you are taking your first steps in the practice of meditation, perhaps without even knowing it.
Conscious attention when communicating with an interlocutor is expressed in the fact that you do not evaluate him, as we are usually used to doing, but turn off the critic inside and switch your attention to awareness of what your interlocutor is wearing, how he speaks, how he gestures, or what he is holding in his hand. hands, etc. You need to completely capture his image and at the same time become aware of your thoughts and feelings during the process of observing your interlocutor.
Concentration of attention directed at an object greatly develops awareness, but is perhaps difficult at the beginning of practice precisely because of the simplicity of its implementation. You need to pick up a small object - something that is familiar to you well. It could be keys, watches, mobile phone etc. After that, you begin to examine this object, noticing all its smallest details. Some may find this boring, but by being able to focus your attention on an ordinary thing, you will easily develop not only the ability for deep directed concentration, but also lay an excellent foundation for further practice of directed attention, known in the yogic tradition as dharana.
Conscious vision is very close to the technique described above, but the emphasis in this exercise is slightly shifted. You don't look at one object completely, you choose some aspect to focus on only. For example, while walking down the street, mentally set yourself the task of noticing and concentrating only on the faces of passing people for several minutes or noting and finding the shade of some a certain color. Try to notice and realize as many occurrences of this shade in the world around you as possible.
Developing mindfulness through the practice of mindful movement exercises
By conscious movement we mean such a process when your attention is completely focused on doing something. certain actions present. You can walk, fully concentrating on the rhythm of your steps, awareness of the contact of the soles of your shoes with the surface on which you are walking. It's very easy and exciting at the same time. We are usually not aware of this process, so when you direct your attention only to it, you will see how unusual it is.
You can also experiment with becoming aware of the sensations you get from touching objects: how they feel, whether they are warm or cold, how your hand feels; and at the same time observe yourself - how you react to sensations. This practice of training awareness through movement automatically eliminates combining tasks.
If you devote yourself to one thing, then you simply are not able to do one more thing at the same time. Theoretically and even practically this is possible in everyday life. People do this every now and then, but in awareness exercises this would be nonsense, since the very nature of awareness excludes internal rushing and combining things.
State of mindfulness in everyday life
A state of awareness can be cultivated through directing attention to certain aspects of life, as well as through exercises and spiritual practices. In your daily life, practicing mindfulness will help you see things differently and make your life more interesting, not to mention that you may suddenly have talents that you never knew you had.
Often the development of awareness is accompanied by a discovery in a person creativity, a craving for creative self-realization appears. This is nothing more than a manifestation of the highest spiritual principle of a person on the physical plane. How else can it manifest itself if we live in a three-dimensional reality. We cannot get by with figurative-mental creation alone; we need to transfer images, embody them in the physical world - through art, reading philosophical literature or engaging in spiritual practices.
The principle of awareness, embodied through the art of self-awareness
No matter how surprising it may seem, spiritual practices are very closely intertwined with creativity, since it is aimed at creating oneself: cleansing one’s self-image from everything unnecessary, disidentifying with some general stereotypes, finding and knowing one’s true essence and purpose.
Another way to express this is in the words of Oscar Wilde: “The purpose of life is self-expression. To manifest our essence in its entirety is what we live for. And in our age people have become afraid of themselves.”
We need to stop being afraid to explore the inner essence of ourselves, come as close as possible to it, become aware of ourselves and understand that we are awareness itself. We and awareness are one and the same. There is nothing in life except awareness. Everything that exists in the world is its manifestation. Since we are aware, it means that it exists for us. If we were not aware, then this would not have happened for us. On the one hand, this is an amazing conclusion, and yet many ancient spiritual teachings shared this idea. The identity of Brahman with Atman in Vedanta philosophy, the denial of the very existence of the “I” in Advaita, Buddhist dissolution in nirvana - these are concepts based on the principle of awareness.
Ancient thinkers long ago solved the riddle of the meaning of life - it lies in the awareness of everything and everyone, in the multifaceted, absolute comprehension and application of this concept of being. Therefore, we cannot even divide the concept of awareness into theoretical and practical. This is one of those phenomena where the theoretical component can only be understood through the practical aspect.
Be aware of yourself and the whole world will open up to you!