5 ways to take back your awareness (video)

In my latest YouTube video, I talk about awareness and how to get it back if you’ve lost it.

In a bizarre instance of life imitating art (or is it art imitating life?), I woke up today and struggled keeping my awareness. I think it’s because I slept in; I was up late editing that video, and I think I kind of had a socializing hangover from filming it. I had a blast putting it together, but that’s something I’ll need to be aware of in the future. Learning new things is so exciting!

So I’ve used most of the techniques in this video today, and they def work, but there were two additional methods I’ve been using that are more related to writing. As such, I wanted to share them with you, dear reader. You don’t have to be a writer to use these, but as someone who writes, I know these help.

KEEP AN AWARENESS NOTEPAD NEARBY

An awareness notepad is a very special thing. They aren’t easy to come by, and the journey to finding one is fraught with great danger. First, you have to put your pants on and venture outside of your everyday hut (ugh, pants), take your chances coming into contact with people not wearing their safety masks (ugh, people), travel to the faraway land of Dollar General, walk the disorganized aisles until you find the stationary aisle (it’s probably also got candles and greeting cards in it). There, you will find the lil 3×5 notepads (they come in three-packs, which is a pretty sweet deal). Pay with a card, avoid lingering near the gossip rags and avoid the people with the masks secured under their noses already lingering there (double-ugh, more people). Rush home, sanitize your hands, take your pants off and thank the entity of your choice that you survived.

As you go about your day, whenever you have an unpleasant, unwelcome thought, write it down in the notebook. It can be as detailed as you want, or if it’s a recurring thought, you could just write something like, “I had that thought again about _________ .” Then, right beside it, write why you don’t want to be having that thought. This could be something as simple as “It takes me out of the present,” or “It’s unhelpful,” or it could be more specific to whatever the thought is. If it is a recurring one, you might write that you’re tired of having that thought and say, “No thank you, not for me anymore.”

One of the thoughts I had today that I didn’t want to have was a flash of regret that I didn’t have a better relationship with my dad when he was alive. I’ve come to terms with this, but sometimes it flares up when I’m emotionally spent. So I wrote that down and beside it I wrote that I wasn’t present, and that the feeling of regret doesn’t benefit anyone – not my dad or me. I wrote down that his love is available to me. Then I put the notepad to the side and got back to whatever it was I was doing.

Keep making notes of the unwanted thoughts, and at the end of the day, tear the page out and burn it.

Yes, set it on fire and let it go.

You can look over it again if you want, but you don’t need those thoughts anymore. They do not serve you.
_{^{(You can also just throw the page away or recycle it some other way, but I’m dramatic and what’s more dramatic than fire?}})

WRITE IT OUT!

I’ve mentioned before how writing can be a useful tool to get your awareness back. You just write down what you’re feeling, get it all out and then get back on with making quinoa crab cakes, or whatever it is you have planned for the day.

Here’s some of what I wrote in my state of malaise:

Feel the tension in my clavicle. I feel like I have nothing to offer. I hear my mother calling herself useless, a burden and me having to deny it from a young age. I wish her peace. I wish her happiness. I wish her to be filled with lovingkindness. If I can be this unsettled by nothing – literally nothing caused this feeling. […] Today is off because I slept in so I will have less hours. Tomorrow will be different. This discomfort means I am growing. Hello discomfort. I welcome you with love. Thinking about all the times my mom told me to straighten up, implying that the way I was behaving wasn’t right, but I am enough. What good is it doing to hold on to things that make me feel like I’m not enough? What is the benefit of thinking I’m not enjoying my discomfort? […] Perhaps I should meditate. The sadness is that I don’t know if I’d want to be friends with that person in that video, but I know there is a version of me who is a friendship magnet. I am a friendship magnet. I am desiring of the belief that I am enough. […] May the Divine manifest for me. May the Universe work thru me. I just am – wanted to write I just want a sign that I’m on the right path, but there is no right or wrong. There just is. I am desiring of the belief that I can handle this malaise. I can handle my experience. I can handle my experience. Thank you Universe for this discomfort. Thank you God for this discomfort. I know these are teachers. Thank you for this lesson.

After this, I worked out, had a bomb-ass turkey bacon chicken wrap with leftover riced cauliflower, cleaned my room and went for a lil bike ride. Then I came back and wrote this (after sanitizing myself, of course).

I started by getting into my body, feeling where the discomfort was. Sometimes it’s in my clavicle, sometimes it’s in my throat. A lot of the time it’s in my diaphragm and stomach area. Once I’d pinpointed it, I actually placed my hand on my clavicle and sent love and acceptance to the discomfort. I welcomed it, and more information came to light. This might happen to you. The feelings may be messengers of other, older feelings. Greet them with love and acceptance, too. If you do this, instead of resisting and pushing them away, the emotions will reveal themselves as teachers. This is something I know but I was reminded of it with this exercise.

I asked myself a very important question, and I encourage you to ask your unpleasant emotions the same question. Ask, what is the benefit of holding on to the unpleasantness? Any emotion that makes you feel anything but love is misaligned with your true nature. Those emotions are aspects of your shadow self that need love, that need integration. They are crying out because they’ve been abandoned by you. It’s not your fault; this happened when you were at a level of consciousness that’s less than you are now. These emotions may have served you previously, but you don’t need to hold on to anything that makes you feel less than the shining vibrant soul you are.

So, if you’ve made it through the video and this post, you’ve just been given seven ways to take back your awareness. I hope you found them useful, and while I wish you to never have an unpleasant thought again, I hope you remember these tricks the next time your mind gets away from you.

Remember, dear reader, you are enough.