SELF-AWARENESS
/Edition 2 Issue #13
April fool’s edition 2015, as the fool I am not, I differed publishing from Wednesday the 1st April, 2015 and changed to today April 2nd, 2015 for this formidable posting, you would think I could come up with a funny anecdote, something hilariously trivial, or a trick of some kind as it is also the 13th issue of the year.
But alas no! Addiction and dependency (be it chemical, or other such as food, sex, exercise…) are serious issues and I am writing to help those in pain and suffering, or for those maintaining, and wanting to know more on the desperation of addiction and how to move from lower levels of consciousness to freedom in Higher level consciousness, communing with the Universe or ‘SOURCE’ of all there is on a continual basis. I am writing for the explicit purpose to help those reading these words to achieve Enlightenment, and to lift up their consciousness to be, not only meaningful beings, but to live a purpose driven life where we can all be of immense service to mankind and the evolution of the human condition. The power is within each and every one of us to enable the Divine Spirit to live through us.
Remembering we have a “daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our Spiritual condition”. These are words taken form the book ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ and relate to the need for constant Prayer and Meditation, or conscious contact with a Power Greater than ourselves (however we perceive this power, Universal Mind, Source, Energy…).
TRANSFORMATION
Happiness will follow the transformative action of complete surrender to ‘a Power Greater than ourselves’. This transformation is the start and the first step to the road of Enlightenment; the Red Road if you will. The freedom to let go of the things we hold onto which stand in the path of our journey to the “Sunlight of the Spirit”. The things we live through and through and manifest in our daily lives, the bad habits we have acquired from our parents, caregivers, circle of friends, gangs and whomever inspires and influences us. The path to self-awareness is to first discover there are some bad habits we are holding on to. There are destructive thoughts and behaviors, which we are expressing, or thinking that stand in our way of the “Sunshine of the Spirit”. Or stand in the way of manifesting the life we want, the life we deserve. We know there is enough abundance in this world for everyone, yet we limit ourselves by our false beliefs, by our false limitations created by the conditioning or our childhood and adolescence.
It is through self-searching, and complete release, where we will achieve a level of self-awareness will release us from the conditioning we have accepted as real. We need to completely give ourselves to a new way of life, a new way of thinking where we accept the limitless abundance of the Universe, and know this is free for the taking for those who have released the limitations consciousness created though self-doubt, through the habit of belief in limitation. We need to re-program the database, which is our mind, to re-program the default settings to the truth. The opportunity is now, to manifest the higher purpose in Universal consciousness.
Becoming self-aware is a process; we can begin meditation and carefully look inside. In the 12 Step process we engage in inner-work which releases the bondage and damage of past beliefs through a process, including but not limited to, making amends to those we have harmed, making amends to our inner selves for the conditions of the past of which we had no control, forgiving ourselves, and others for the things happened in the past. Completely accepting the things and events of the past have no control on our present and on our future, completely releasing these past events and actions and releasing the pain body. This complete release, or inner-work, allows us the opening to be self-aware and as we develop and evolve we, in the 12 Step programme, retain a ‘Sponsor’ or mentor who will tell us honestly what we need to hear to develop a better self-awareness and hence come closer to Enlightenment and being a meaningful, purpose driven member of the human race, of society, if this is what we are searching for, or just being able to properly relate to others, without jugging and constantly evaluating others. When we are in judgement we are limiting our ability to listen, to properly relate to others.
RELEASE
In the above paragraph I spoke of forgiveness and releasing from the past beliefs: we achieve this release through self-awareness. “Yesterday’s gone! There is nothing you can do about yesterday!” I recall hearing this so often from my dear deceased friend Scott Swan. And how right he was, is: yesterday can only affect us if we live in it. LET GO OF YESTERDAY! Yesterday’s GONE! There is nothing we can do to change the facts, but there is so much we can do to change our awareness, become self-aware and be careful of our thoughts. When I am self-aware I can better pay attention on the way I feel, now, the way I think now, the way I compose myself in the present moment. In self-awareness I can control my emotions, I can understand to not take anything personally (read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom By Don Miguel Ruiz)
Developing positive mental attitude through self-awareness is like accepting, and receiving, freedom. It is building emotional intelligence, something on a scale of 1 to 10, I personally scored probably a big ‘0’ when I finally sobered up at the age of 47. Totally lacking social and behavioural skills, I was emotionally dead, emotional empty from almost 35 years of intense substance abuse and deprecating, demoralizing (mostly self-deprecating especially at the end of my using, as I constantly put myself down and believed I was useless, I was a piece of shit, I was to amount to nothing!!!) behavior. This type of behavior was a conditioning, first from m family of origin, then from gang affiliations as I lived by a code. Within this ‘Code’ of behavior and thinking, everyone who entered into my life was there to serve my purposes. I know today this is the first premise of abuse. Although I prided myself on treating my ladies well and never abusing them, I now know that words are dangerous and I was emotionally as well as mentally abusive to every single person who was in my life, because I used then. I used every relationship, whether I just met you informally, or you were a close friend: you entered my life to serve my purposes. And that was it!
Look for next week’s edition on “SENSITIVITY”. And be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive it directly you won’t miss a beat.