“Not to be able to stop thinking is a
dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is
suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise
prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable
from Being” - Eckhart Tolle
The Secret,
Deepak Chopra, and many other self-help experts are growing in popularity based
on the premise of “Awareness”. These
books have become THE answer to our inability to achieve happiness and peace in
our lives.
People use
the words “Awareness” and “Mindfulness” much like the way we through around the
word “Love”. Unfortunately, from this
perspective, an immature understanding is developed that clearly trivializes
and undervalues what it truly means to become “Aware”.
Awareness is
a real technique used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for making
fundamental discoveries about “who we are”, and “why we do what we do”. It’s a great tool in understanding the true
nature of the programed mind.
There is a thought
pattern that creates the way we understand “our world” and everyone in it. We perceive… we attach… an emotion arises… a
behavior is evoked… followed by a (good/bad) consequence.
We take our
“subjective view” (projection) as the “objective view” about the nature of
reality. We’re not aware of the fact
that our “truths” are based on our “subjective experiences”.
As Cuban
author Anais Nin once said, “We don’t see
things as they are; we see them as we are”.
This sense
of self is an illusion. Breaking through this illusion of self is more
important than stress reduction of the other traditionally viewed benefits
talked about by the authors above.
The enemy of
mindfulness is being lost in thought. To be thinking without knowing you’re
thinking. The problems are not the thoughts themselves, but the actual lack of
intentional conscious thought that occurs. (Most of us spend our entire lives thinking without knowing what we are thinking)
This autonomic thought process places a darkly colored veil over the present moment and distorts our lives with anxiety filled emotions which engineers our unhappiness and discontent.
Think about
it…most of what we think is quite unpleasant.
We’re judging ourselves, judging others… We create anticipatory anxiety
from future thought, and have depression from regrets of the past.
Awareness of
these unhealthy thoughts is a valuable tool for breaking through the deafening
sounds of society. It allows us to rise
above the illusionary sense of self by observing the repetitive internal
dialogue within ourselves. This, in and of itself, is extremely beneficial.
This type of
awareness brings forth a whole new understanding to our experiences that we
didn’t notice in the past.
Take anger
for instance. Instead of thinking about
our emotion anger, we spend most of our time thinking about why we should be
angry (he cut me off in traffic, I held
the door open and she didn’t say a word, he didn’t return my call).
We fail to
question our beliefs regarding our behavior, so the internal conversation keeps
this emotion in place much longer than needed.
If you’re mindful enough to interpret this conversation (he might be late for work, she's late for an
important meeting, his phone isn’t charged), and simply witness the feeling
of anger as it arises, you’ll find that you can’t be mad for more than a few
moments at a time.
This is a
matter of turning consciousness on itself.
Eckhart
Tolle had an interesting thought regarding this phenomenon…
"It is liberating to realize that the
'voice in my head' is not who I am.’
“Who am I, then? The one who sees
that.”If you are sick and tired of your life…If you are at a point of readiness to change…If you are seeking the type of enlightenment that comes from the awareness of “who we are”, and “why we do what we do”….remember…it’s not about the trivial “doing a plan” or “doing meditation”. It’s much, much more than that. It’s about USING these tools to quiet the noise long enough to hear the internal dialogue of doubt, negativity, and frustration that has clearly defined and created the person we’ve become to be… and the reasons we do what we do.
~ Socrates
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