The Trifecta of Self-Awareness (and why we want it!)
We’re all constantly in the process of creating our lives. This is the model of that creative process and what looks like from different perspectives. I’d like people to understand this as indicator of why self-awareness is so vitally important when you wish to change the quality of your life. Even if we look at manifestation without any belief in the energetic nature of reality and metaphysics we can see that we are all creating our own lives. It happens on many levels, but even at the most basic it’s pretty obvious.
Image credit: Chris Linnett
You go into the day with a sour face, people tend to be sour back. You enter the world feeling good and smiling at people, they tend to smile back and be more open. Even if they aren’t lovely to you, you don’t care as much.
You make the choice not to do a course in University but instead go on the road and travel. You're traveling to an exotic country and you meet somebody and you end up running a Seaside bed and breakfast with them and so you never get to University. Or conversely you decide that you're going to skip that year of travel and you're going to go right into a course that leads you into a corporate profession. You get so interested and excited that you decide you're not going to travel for a while and you're not going to marry either. So now you’ve made a decision around two key points in your life that are going to shape your future. And there will be others.
Maybe you have a corporate job, not intending to get married or have children but you get pregnant. What are you going to do then? You're going to make a choice: you're going to have the child keep it, have the child give it up for adoption or terminate the pregnancy. Maybe you get married and have the child, only to divorce because it was done out of fear. Any one of those choices is going to affect the trajectory of your life. So you can look at these simply as rational decisions that have now created the shape of your life. But how rational are they?
That line of analysis is very linear and very logical, but the reality of how we create our lives go way beyond that. Let’s look at why knowing ourselves is important. Was your choice to travel instead of going to school coming from a subconscious need to rebel against your parents? Conversely was your decision to go to school immediately and get funneled, perhaps prematurely, into the corporate world stemming from a fear that your parents instilled in you - either fear of survival or perhaps fear of their disapproval? Either way, these choices lead to a life path that’s coming from a reaction to something external rather than in internal nudge from your inner wisdom guiding you towards the life path that’s going to be the most fulfilling for YOU. That speaks to unconscious motivation that we can assess as simply psychological, but let’s take it to another level.
Science has proven what mystics have known since time immemorial. Nothing is simply the mind, or simply the body, or simply the soul. It’s a mishmash and every level affects every other level. How are all those parts connected? Energy. Well, actually, everything is energy. It’s not separate parts that are connected by energy, we are all one continuous field of energy existing in different frequencies that determine the density and quality of matter it shapes itself into. And WE are shaping it. The thing that takes us to the next level in understanding why self awareness is so vitally important is to also understand that it’s the knowing of what motivates us to make a choice that frees us to make different ones, ones that are in alignment with our inner values and not those taught to us by someone who might have a completely different view of what is valuable.
We shape our lives not just by the obvious trajectory set in motion by big life choices we make about school and travel and work and what kind of social relationships they spill us into. Every choice we make carries an emotional and therefore energetic component. These create chemical releases into our body. We shape our lives by the nature of our thoughts (energy) that create physiological changes in our nerves (energy) and affect the chemicals that run through us in ways that create balance or imbalance in our internal biology (health).
We create a field of energy that permeates and surrounds us and is magnetic in nature.
As such it attracts experiences of similar frequencies to those thoughts we most dwell on (consciously or unconsciously). Holy Moly! Imagine how many things are happening in your body and therefore all facets of your life, due to choices you made because you were unaware of what was motivating that choice. Your mental tendencies, your physical health, the thematic nature of recurring experiences and feeling powerless in relation to the forces outside of you!
We tend to think of the mind as something that controls us, rather than something we can work ‘with’ in order to know ourselves better and be able to bring more harmony and health into our emotional realm. We tend to relegate the body as something that is ‘other’, perhaps affected by the physical outcome of obvious choices; staying up too late, eating junk food, overworking, not exercising. We haven’t been taught to pay attention to how our mood causes us to FEEL things tighten (a chemical process that then tells the nerves to contract the muscles) or how not enough rest causes us to fuel ourselves with adrenaline rather than energy from good breathing and good food and a refreshing sleep (burnout ring a bell?). How did our natural sleep cycles become so topsy-turvy? Why was menopause so difficult? Why was menstruation painful? How was it that we needed digestive tablets and laxatives? What’s with the creaky knees and stiff muscles at such an early age? Is it genetic or is it learned emotion that creates the cascade of variables that bring these things on?
We aren't taught to honor the fact that the body is the housing to all of the energy and chemicals that the mind brings on board. Yes, OK, the body is the temple. We’ve all heard that, but what does that mean? What does that feel like? And of course we tend to imagine the soul as something so far removed from us that we have to pray UP somewhere into ‘the way beyond’ hoping that it’s at least close enough to help us out when we’re desperate.
Personally, I like to think of the soul/spirit as kind of like a kindly caterer at fancy party who sees all and hears all, silently and unobtrusively winding through the event, getting your attention long enough to offer you a glass of champagne, a canape, a towel to clean up a stain, or to take away your keys so you won’t drive..the point is this: The soul is unobtrusively present all the time, doing it’s darnedest to help us out! It is directly connected to our well being and will guide us by our ‘feels’. How do we stay aware of it and connect in a way that it can more easily lead us towards flow and not restriction; expansion and not contraction; safety and well being; to growth instead of stagnation? How? Ah, there it is again. That word. Awareness. Truly it’s in delving into the nature of our personality that we end up moving inward, towards the self-awareness that include the ongoing presence of our higher conscious mind. It looks different to different people. It's a deeply personal relationship. It can take awhile to know that deep a relationship with yourself.
In the meantime, what’s the point of all this?
The point is that self-awareness doesn’t just affect how we identify aspects of how we live in the world that aren’t working for us so that we can change beliefs and behaviors. The point is that changing those beliefs and behaviors changes our energy. That in turn changes our chemistry and therefore our physical health. It changes the energetic field that infuses and surrounds our bodies, changing what we’ll magnetize to us in terms of experience. The Reticular Activating System of the brain will filter out the extraneous information we’re exposed to and cause us to notice the things that are like the thoughts most predominant in our conscious brain. Being self aware gives us the opportunity to work with our minds, not against them. It allows us to feel what the body is asking for so that it can return to balance, by indicating very simply what feels good and right. There is a feeling to that. The caterer…well, the caterer is always serving us the best option for your highest good. By being self aware, we can take it or not, but we have the choice. Once we understand the subconscious beliefs that have been setting everything else in motion, we can reevaluate them and see if they really do speak to the deeper wiser part of us and change them if they don’t. But we can’t change them if we don’t know what they are. And how do we know? Awareness!
There you have it, the trifecta of self awareness and why we really do want it: it allows us to make conscious choices based on our internal values rather than those we’ve unconsciously taken from others; it affects the physical chemistry ergo health of the body/mind system and the magnetic energy that creates an attractor field for experiences and people who are drawn into our lives; it increasingly connects us to that inner wise self that links us to our soul and integrates the soul as a more active component our our personalities. Three all in one, where the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts because in its fullness, it exists united in all dimensions that are designed to support the ultimate wellness and experience all its components. Does it sometimes feel like work? Sometimes is does, but done with the right self loving attitude, quite delicious work that tends to make daily life feel a lot less like work. Worth it? That’s for you to decide. The cool thing is, it is your choice. And the good thing about choice is that there's always the next one after the last one. Keep in mind that there’s always a choice in play, it’s just a matter of whether or not it’s being made from a place of conscious awareness.